How about this as a criterion? If it’s done to music, it’s a dance, not a sport.
10 thoughts on “Figure Skating Follow Up”
I think the insistence on calling figure skating a sport really hurts the performances. The routines seem to be forced to incorporate certain jumps (it appeared they needed to be in a specific order, with specific timings) in order to provide a more objective criterion by which judges can score. Of course they immediately follow up the objective criterion with subjective ones, making a mess of it all.
I think forcing all the routines to incorporate certain jumps at certain times in order to score well really takes away from the integrity of the performances. Sometimes a quad axle doesn’t really fit the soul of the performance.
I agree with Ryan. No one tries to impose a creative standard for sports (“Hey, Kobe’s choice of Celine Dion while making those free-throws was off-the-chain, knowwhatImsayin?”), so why a rigorous standard on creative ice dancing? Sure it relies on subjective judging for scoring purposes, but so what? That’s how it’s done. No one should get bent out of shape about it. Judges are actually quite good at noticing all the little technicalities of a performance, moresoe than the mundanes at home bitching about how so-n-so was “robbed.”
How about this as a criterion? If it’s done to music, it’s a dance, not a sport.
I don’t really care very much about figure skating one way or the other. However, if we use that criterion for one activity, would it also apply to other activities. If being set to music means it’s a dance, then the performer isn’t an athlete but a dancer, right? Women’s gymnastics sets their floor exercises to music (the men don’t), but I find it rather a stretch to say those young women are not athletes. I suggest music doesn’t make for a very good criterion for determining whether an activity is or is not a sport.
1) If figure skating is a sport, then so is ballet.
2) Some of the downhill timed events’ participants are running their own personal soundtrack through headphones.
I think it’s not a sport if:
(1) The scoring rules result in degeneration of the quality of performances, or
(2) People outside a very select community have no idea who won
If you don’t think figure skaters are athletes, you’ve never tried doing it yourself. It’s a lot harder than it looks. As far as the judging goes, I agree it’s still a subjective mess, and the corruption is likely still there, just harder to spot.
Full disclosure – my wife is an ex-figure skater. Great legs.
In the threads here I haven’t seen anyone claim they aren’t highly skilled, quite athletic, or worthy of observation and admiration.
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Just semantic wrangling over the word “sport.”
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There’s quite a few other Winter Olympic things that rely heavily on judgment calls as well.
I like to watch the ice skating. I also like to watch the gymnastics. Hockey and basketball, eh, not so much watch as like to participate. Is the Olympics for watching or participating? I can’t participate with the big boys, so I think I’ll watch. @Eric, figure skaters have the best legs.
Sorry, should have edited that comment a bit better. My point is that if the participants are athletes, and the event is competitive, the the event can be defined as a sport. This lets us avoid calling ballet (athleticism without competition) or chess (competition without athleticism) as sports.
Back to the Rand’s original theme, how do you measure competitiveness subjectively? Many of the new skiing and snowboarding events, where style is so important, could be lumped in the same category as figure skating, but so far they seem to be pretty fair. Note the Australian team protested the scores in the men’s mogul where a Canadian beat the Aussie – based on a judged score. Nobody complains about the style judging of ski-jumping.
Figure skating judging seems pretty out of touch with spectator’s reactions, which makes it hard to get rid of the stigma of favoritism. Maybe we just need the figure skating rules simplified or better explained?
I think the insistence on calling figure skating a sport really hurts the performances. The routines seem to be forced to incorporate certain jumps (it appeared they needed to be in a specific order, with specific timings) in order to provide a more objective criterion by which judges can score. Of course they immediately follow up the objective criterion with subjective ones, making a mess of it all.
I think forcing all the routines to incorporate certain jumps at certain times in order to score well really takes away from the integrity of the performances. Sometimes a quad axle doesn’t really fit the soul of the performance.
I agree with Ryan. No one tries to impose a creative standard for sports (“Hey, Kobe’s choice of Celine Dion while making those free-throws was off-the-chain, knowwhatImsayin?”), so why a rigorous standard on creative ice dancing? Sure it relies on subjective judging for scoring purposes, but so what? That’s how it’s done. No one should get bent out of shape about it. Judges are actually quite good at noticing all the little technicalities of a performance, moresoe than the mundanes at home bitching about how so-n-so was “robbed.”
How about this as a criterion? If it’s done to music, it’s a dance, not a sport.
I don’t really care very much about figure skating one way or the other. However, if we use that criterion for one activity, would it also apply to other activities. If being set to music means it’s a dance, then the performer isn’t an athlete but a dancer, right? Women’s gymnastics sets their floor exercises to music (the men don’t), but I find it rather a stretch to say those young women are not athletes. I suggest music doesn’t make for a very good criterion for determining whether an activity is or is not a sport.
1) If figure skating is a sport, then so is ballet.
2) Some of the downhill timed events’ participants are running their own personal soundtrack through headphones.
I think it’s not a sport if:
(1) The scoring rules result in degeneration of the quality of performances, or
(2) People outside a very select community have no idea who won
If you don’t think figure skaters are athletes, you’ve never tried doing it yourself. It’s a lot harder than it looks. As far as the judging goes, I agree it’s still a subjective mess, and the corruption is likely still there, just harder to spot.
Full disclosure – my wife is an ex-figure skater. Great legs.
In the threads here I haven’t seen anyone claim they aren’t highly skilled, quite athletic, or worthy of observation and admiration.
.
Just semantic wrangling over the word “sport.”
.
There’s quite a few other Winter Olympic things that rely heavily on judgment calls as well.
I like to watch the ice skating. I also like to watch the gymnastics. Hockey and basketball, eh, not so much watch as like to participate. Is the Olympics for watching or participating? I can’t participate with the big boys, so I think I’ll watch. @Eric, figure skaters have the best legs.
If ballet is a sport, so is classical music.
Sorry, should have edited that comment a bit better. My point is that if the participants are athletes, and the event is competitive, the the event can be defined as a sport. This lets us avoid calling ballet (athleticism without competition) or chess (competition without athleticism) as sports.
Back to the Rand’s original theme, how do you measure competitiveness subjectively? Many of the new skiing and snowboarding events, where style is so important, could be lumped in the same category as figure skating, but so far they seem to be pretty fair. Note the Australian team protested the scores in the men’s mogul where a Canadian beat the Aussie – based on a judged score. Nobody complains about the style judging of ski-jumping.
Figure skating judging seems pretty out of touch with spectator’s reactions, which makes it hard to get rid of the stigma of favoritism. Maybe we just need the figure skating rules simplified or better explained?