Finally!

Finally, an article that gets to the heart of what we've been saying all along.

source: national post

Highlights:

The fix is in.

L’Equipe, the French sports magazine, quoted on Friday an anonymous senior Russian coach who says Russia and the United States have set up a “proposed barter” to help each other at the Sochi Olympic figure skating events.
...
White sometimes gathers speed by “wide-stepping” like a hockey player, one expert said.

Davis gains speed with hops and jumps, not edges.

Valentin Nikolaev, famed coach of Oksana Baiul, Viktor Petrenko, and Viachaslav Zagorodniuk did an interview addressing this exact issue:

What many people nowadays call difficult steps often are just running on the ice on the toepicks - much like with the ice-dancers. Once upon a time, Christopher Dean very well answered the question what was the difference between their skating and the Soviet one.

Q: And what was it?

A: He and Jane Torvill always skated on the edges and not on the straight line.

Q: Tatiana Tarasova semi-jokingly said in the last European Championships that she considers the peak of her coaching career the work with Maurizio Margaglio, who couldn't skate on the edges at all.

A: I fully agree with Tarasova in that. It's a special coaching ability - to find the instruments so that a sportsman who has rather mediocre abilities started winning over much more talented rivals. A figure skater, for whom skating on edges is a problem, has to "run" on the ice to create the impression of gliding. That's what Oleg Protopopov did once, mixing different running steps on the ice. And I myself noticed an interesting rule: the same way a person walks, that way he skates. All the great gliders walk like hunters. Those who hit the floor with their heels so hard that the entire house shakes, won't glide no matter how much you work with them. I suppose "the huters" are different in some small motorics. And when they're on the ice, they instinctively find any opportunity to go faster.

How D/W runs on the ice

slow motion

Neither Davis nor White extend their free legs .Davis skates often with a bent knee, and they bend forward from the waist, more like free skaters and less like dancers. Virtue and Moir straighten their knees and point their toes, always in alignment. ‘Meryl tends to be clunky with her feet,” one expert said.

What Meryl and Charlie tried to emulate

you be the judge

All we can say is Hallelujah!

But wait...!!!



Meryl: It's a power shift from Russia to skating being rewarded for good skating.
Charlie: If you don't do your job, then you're not gonna get rewarded, and you don't deserve to be. We want it to be a real sport like that.

Except when Virtue & Moir win, right Charlie?
http://daviswhite2014.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-saints-marching-down-ice.html

Nice way to honor the country where you won that world title, by the way, and shit on decades of history. I guess the Russian political machine is not all bad when it guarantees your title, right?


Oh, and let's not forget:
web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130316&content_id=42839970&vkey=ice_news

According to Dore, the ISU considered holding the team event at the end of the Games, after figure skating had concluded. NBC, the U.S. television rights holder, wanted to stick with tradition and broadcast the ladies discipline as the final event.

"You're fighting television contracts, and ladies is the big thing," Dore said. "U.S. television is the biggest monetary contributor to the IOC."

and this:

m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2013/10/21/Olympics/Figure-skating.aspx

The tour marks the first time U.S. Figure Skating and IMG have collaborated on a tour. IMG created its Stars on Ice in 1986 to promote its client, Scott Hamilton, and has run the tour independently since then. But the success of last year’s USA Gymnastics tour, which generated $15 million in revenue after the London Games, and the addition of a team figure skating competition to the Sochi Games made USFS and IMG representatives believe that working together would benefit both companies.

“The team event changes the game a bit,” said USFS chief marketer Ramsey Baker. “The American public gets excited about something new and something new that the U.S. has a chance to win. You can only capitalize on that type of momentum once, and we wanted to be sure we worked in unison to do that.”

No wonder Meryl was so pressed about this:

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