From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: rec.skate
Subject: Re: US National Championship results!
Date: 25 Jan 1993 16:21:42 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: harmonic.eng.umd.edu
Originator: clin@harmonic.eng.umd.edu


In article <1993Jan25.141419.13891@bcrka451.bnr.ca>, mdm@bnr.ca (Diane MacMartin) writes:
[some of article deleted]
>
>Thirdly, as many posters have mentioned here, the program consists of
>much more than just jumps.  Some things just can't be seen on TV,
>including speed of the skater and how much ice the program covers.
>These things really demonstrate the maturity of the skater.
>
>Maybe a solution here is to do something like skiing does - many
>competitions with points being awarded for each finishing place,  and
>the National champ is the skater with the most total points ???  I just
>thought of this - what do you think?
>

    I don't know how pervasive the "inflated" scoring is to other sports,
though I do recall that in gymnastics, one of the Unified Team (former Soviets)
women gymnasts, Tatiani Gutsu, fell on some compulsory part, or something like
that, and this would have prevented her from going to the individual all-around.
Conveniently (too conveniently), the third person who would have gone to the
all-arounds got injured, and she, being fourth, went ahead and did very well
in the all-arounds.   

     Now, it could be that skating, in general, is pushing the limits of
difficulty, and that's why it's very rare, except for the very top skaters
--- and even them--- to skate a perfect routine.   I hope "inflated" scoring
is not causing people to back down, and not train with great diligence to make
their jumps perfect.   Diving also works out in a similar way, I feel, to 
gymnastics where good divers, can, time and again, hit the dives they need
to win.

     As I mentioned, not being an experienced watcher, there are little things
that I may be missing, such as speed, grace, etc.   This is why I was hoping
that those who are more experienced might be able to pass judgement on what
they saw.   I'm starting to be able to tell the number of spins, though I
haven't really caught on to the foot movement well enough to decide which
kind of spin is being done, nor can I appreciate the relative difficulties
between the kinds of spin.

     As far as having lots of skating events, that does seem like a good idea.
It takes off some pressure by not having to nail every performance, and yet
it does require that one perform consistently.  It would weed out those who
have a lucky performance, and produce several practices for the same routine.
The only danger might be injury, if this were done, say over five or six
weeks, every week, but it may provide the kind of rigor that will give
skaters the tenacity to skate to important events.

     Finally, has skating peaked?   Are we at the stage where the difficulty
level has peaked off, or are there chances where more women will throw in
triple axels?   Not that difficulty is everything, as I would personally like
to see new moves thrown in.   Some of the more interesting ideas seem to be
coming out of professional ranks (Gary Beacon, mainly, though his ideas may
be a little too bizarre for the skating community).   I think some of ice
dancing is slipping into pairs (with the last Russian Olympic pairs champs
whose names escape me), so that is a nice feature to see.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu