# Olympic Figure Skating
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 12, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105 "2006-02-12T13:00:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/61 "2006-02-17T05:33:42Z")
Does anyone know of a place you can watch some of the men’s programs online? I won’t be able to watch them on TV, and I couldn’t find any on NBC’s website (though I may have overlooked them).
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### Author:  [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/62 "2006-02-17T06:16:55Z")
> [@Arien](#):
>
> I really don’t understand the new scoring system. How much does your placement in the short program affect your final score? It seems like they were just looking at long program scores to see who would win, but that can’t be right. Also is it better to fall doing a quadruple as long as you make 4 revolutions than it is to make a clean triple axle? I guess I could look all this up, but I don’t care that much.
>
> Weir choked. Nice to see the Canadian kid win a medal, though. He dressed like a mountie, what’s not to like? Or at least that’s what I think he was dressed as. Better than Lambiel’s Tony the Tiger at the Ice Capades thing anyway. There should be a website that chronicles the terrible outfits of figure skating.
Yep, they add the total from the short to the total from the long to get the final result. I’ve been flipping back and forth between CBC and NBC, and one area where CBC’s coverage clearly wins is that rather than just giving the score from the long program, they’ve been giving both the score from the long and the overall total.
Obviously I was glad to see Jeffrey Buttle move up to get the bronze. However, just because he’s Canadian and wearing a red top doesn’t mean he’s dressed up as a Mountie. After all, his music was Samson and Delilah. It’s too bad that Emmanuel Sandhu had such a serious meltdown - he has such incredible talent, he just can’t seem to put it together when it counts. CBC had a brief interview with him after his skate, and hoo boy is he bitter about having been left off the Olympic squad back in 1998. He basically blamed all his subsequent problems on that, which, ok I’ve often wondered how his career would have gone if he’d been sent to Nagano, but he has to take some responsibility for his performance or lack thereof.
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### Author:  [@Arien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arien)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/63 "2006-02-17T06:25:22Z")
> [@Ms Macphisto](#):
>
> Obviously I was glad to see Jeffrey Buttle move up to get the bronze. However, just because he’s Canadian and wearing a red top doesn’t mean he’s dressed up as a Mountie.
Yeah, I know that now, sorry. 😉 Thanks to you and **Q.N. Jones** for the scoring information, though.
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### Author:  [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/64 "2006-02-17T06:38:14Z")
No problem. I think that all of the stupid “patriotic” commercials they’re airing during the Olympics have irritated me to the point where I’m having a bit of a kneejerk reaction to Canadian stereotypes.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/65 "2006-02-17T13:05:30Z")
> [@Q.N. Jones](#):
>
> Plushenko is so disappointing to me. He’s got amazing jumps, but he doesn’t try to do anything else. To my mind, if there’s no footwork, the skating just isn’t worth watching. The Japanese skater (can’t remember his name) had great footwork and was a pleasure to watch.
I don’t like him, I never have liked him, and I never will like him. He’s a smug son-of-a-bitch. He lost in '02 to Yagudin, who has _gorgeous_ (Kurt-Browing-level) footwork), and while he was competing against Yagudin, he’d make some half-hearted effort to do some footwork, but in the last couple years – nada.
I have nightmares of Plushenko and Sasha Cohen breeding and creating a race of icy-hearted skating assassins.
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### Author:  [@Southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southpaw)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/66 "2006-02-17T14:42:22Z")
Why do the judges have such a hard-on for Plushy? Yes, the man can jump, but he has no program. Just arm-flailing. I thought his Program Component scores were way too high.
Too bad Evan Lysacek didn’t medal, but what a comeback! I think that one more triple jump would’ve had him on the podium. Really nice program with good jumps, spins, footwork, choreography, and no arm-flailing (can you tell I hate Plushy’s “choreography”?). One of my favorites (along with Takahashi and the wee Buttle).
I also liked Matt Savoie’s program and thought he was scored a little too low. I’m going to watch both him and Evan from now on. I think they both have a lot of potential.
Now, bring on the Ice Dancing!
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### Author:  [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/67 "2006-02-17T15:09:07Z")
Yes! I want a website for horrid skating costumes–we have a competition at our house every skating event. A website would be wonderful!
And I am sorry about Weir–but he will be back, I hope. What was with that Canadian, (Sandhru?)–he looked like he was rode hard and put away wet BEFORE he even started his long program. Too bad.
Didn’t get a chance to watch much of men’s–I thought Plushenko skated cleanly, but there was no real program there. I don’t mind him.
He wont’ be breeding with Cohen-Plushenko married “a sociology student he met while she was in a convertible last year.” Thanks for the info, Dick. (can’t stand Button and I’m glad that Hamilton has taken to just cutting him off).
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### Author:  [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/68 "2006-02-17T22:05:41Z")
Funny–I love Dick Button. He’s informative. I hate Scott Hamilton. His commentary is worthless. 90% of the time, he’s saying things viewers can’t understand or could figure out for themselves. If he’s not doing that, he’s grunting and groaning to the instant replays. Dick Button at least discusses program content intelligently.
I personally think that most judges are prejudiced to think that Russian skaters = artistic, regardless of the actual performances they turn in.
I miss Kurt Browning. The men’s event hasn’t been worth watching since 1994. It seems that there are three types of competitors now:
1. Amazing jumpers who can’t do anything else (Plushenko),
2. Beautiful skaters who just can’t do the big jumps (Weir), and
3. Skaters who could potentially have big jumps and artistry, but who fall apart in competition (Sandhu, Buttle, the Japanese skater, myriad others).
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### Author:  [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/69 "2006-02-17T22:51:57Z")
> [@Southpaw](#):
>
> Why do the judges have such a hard-on for Plushy? Yes, the man can jump, but he has no program. Just arm-flailing. I thought his Program Component scores were way too high.
Say what? Were you watching his feet? His footwork was excellent, miles ahead of any of the other skaters I saw.
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### Author:  [@ladybug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladybug)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/70 "2006-02-17T23:28:12Z")
> [@twickster](#):
>
> He lost in '02 to Yagudin, who has _gorgeous_ (Kurt-Browing-level) footwork), and while he was competing against Yagudin, he’d make some half-hearted effort to do some footwork, but in the last couple years – nada.
I miss Alexei Yagudin. He had the best footwork sequences out of all the competitors.
My prediction is that a few years from now, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan will be the skater everyone’s watching.
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### Author:  [@YaWanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaWanna)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/71 "2006-02-17T23:35:24Z")
> [@Rysto](#):
>
> Say what? Were you watching his feet? His footwork was excellent, miles ahead of any of the other skaters I saw.
Yes, well, such completely ignorant commentators as Dick Button and Scott Hamilton, who have no idea what figure skating is all about, apparently missed that. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2006, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/72 "2006-02-18T01:52:23Z")
> [@Rysto](#):
>
> Say what? Were you watching his feet? His footwork was excellent, miles ahead of any of the other skaters I saw.
This is just flat-out wrong. You are fooled by his arm movements, I think. Watch the blade on the ice. It’s not doing anything difficult.
The Japanese skater’s program (damn, gotta look up his name) featured quite a bit of complicated footwork.
I don’t know if you can look up the various components of the different programs on the web or not. However, footwork is a scoreable component, with more points for more difficult footwork sequences. The commentators made a big point of saying that Plushenko does not do complicated footwork as a component of his program. If he did, it would be on the list of scored items. It wasn’t.
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### Author:  [@Balduran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balduran)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/73 "2006-02-18T02:16:16Z")
> [@Ms Macphisto](#):
>
> It’s too bad that Emmanuel Sandhu had such a serious meltdown - he has such incredible talent, he just can’t seem to put it together when it counts. CBC had a brief interview with him after his skate, and hoo boy is he bitter about having been left off the Olympic squad back in 1998. He basically blamed all his subsequent problems on that, which, ok I’ve often wondered how his career would have gone if he’d been sent to Nagano, but he has to take some responsibility for his performance or lack thereof.
I remember when Elvis Stojko was at the end of his career. Sandhu was pretty much labelled the heir apparent. For the most part it doesn’t seem like he has lived up to his promise. Last week I caught the end of a retrospective on him. It sounds like he has some pretty serious problems with depression and alchohol (ties into a difficult relationship with his father) and blows off practice too much.
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### Author:  [@Southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southpaw)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/74 "2006-02-18T05:23:14Z")
> [@Rysto](#):
>
> Say what? Were you watching his feet? His footwork was excellent, miles ahead of any of the other skaters I saw.
Yes I was and I was bored silly by it. Compared to other skaters (i.e., Takahashi) Plushy’s footwork ain’t all that.
Here’s hoping the ladies will bring some artistry to the ice. In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to settle for the big-haired Ice Dancers and their flamboyant costumes. 😃
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/75 "2006-02-20T04:20:02Z")
I’ve been watching figure-skating for 20 years, and I’ve seen more ice-dancers fall tonight than I had during the rest of that period combined. What the hell is going on?
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/76 "2006-02-20T04:26:15Z")
_honk_ Make that four hard-boiled eggs, er, falls. WTF?
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### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/77 "2006-02-20T05:04:00Z")
I think the Canadian woman is pretty seriously hurt. She wouldn’t be hauled off to the hospital if she weren’t - this is a sport (shut up, it is so!) where you learn to just shake it off.
And can I just say, god DAMN do the Ice Dancers have ugly-ass costumes.
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### Author:  [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/78 "2006-02-20T08:11:31Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#):
>
> And can I just say, god DAMN do the Ice Dancers have ugly-ass costumes.
You have to love ice dancing if for no other reason, no where else would someone put on leopard print with cut outs and then decide that’s not enough and add a peacock tail on their ass.
Intentionally.
In front of the whole world.
And I think we still have the free skate to go - and that’s really fun!
I only tune in for ice dancing these days, so how does this new scoring system work? it looks like 30ish technical, 30ish artistic is the max, but I can’t quite tell what’s going on there.
A lot of falls (and not the “die on the ice” falls, but real ones) that was very, very strange.
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### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/79 "2006-02-20T12:47:48Z")
The male figure skaters, are they actually all gay?
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### Author:  [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2006, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-figure-skating/344105/80 "2006-02-20T12:48:56Z")
> [@mr. jp](#):
>
> The male figure skaters, are they actually all gay?
Well, they mentioned that Plushenko recently got married (to a woman).
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