Though I love Olympic figure skating, ice dancing generally leaves me cold. I keep waiting for jumps and throws, but they never come. Furthermore, ice dancers seem to choose the worst music to skate to. Not so Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir from Canada. They won last night by skating to the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
Filed under: Current Events, Music, Sports on February 23rd, 2010 | No Comments »
At school today, the professor showed us a video about so-called “killer bees” near Tucson. A man in the video described calling a bee keeper to his home to remove a hive on his porch. The bee keeper’s tampering with the hive prompted the bees to swarm around him, sending him running to his vehicle and injuring him. The homeowner’s wife arrived home, and she was chased away by the bees. Then the bees killed a neighbor’s dog.
That is all very sad, but the video panned across the cover of a local newspaper describing the story, and the headline made me laugh out loud in the middle of the classroom:
Town Abuzz Over BeesSwarm causes concern, puns
Filed under: School on February 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »
The men’s figure skating competition concluded last night, and, of course, I was pleased to see the American Evan Lysacek win gold. I was nervous because the Russian skater, Yevgeny Plushenko, skated so well, and at the conclusion of the short program Tuesday night he was ahead of Lysacek. Both Plushenko and Lysacek skated extremely well (I don’t think either fell down at all), and it really could have gone either way. I actually like Plushenko, so I wouldn’t have been heartbroken had the result been reversed.
But it was fascinating to read an interactive feature in the New York Times today that explains the diminishing returns skaters receive by attempting quadruple jumps. Plushenko had a quadruple jump in his program, Lysacek didn’t. But Plushenko’s quad only increased his score by a point or less over these Olympics. Recognizing that a failed quad jump would cost him up to three points, Lysacek avoided it, and concentrated on other moves that brought more points.
The data seem to show that quad jumps only get you a little if you succeed, but cost you a lot if you fail.
UPDATE: Lysacek was just on NBC talking to Bob Costas, and he seems like a class act. Costas asked for his reaction to statements made by Plushenko about the quad jump. Plushenko–understandably, in my opinion–believes that the quadruple jump has an important place in figure skating – that it is, in effect, the future of figure skating, and not doing it is looking backward. Plushenko’s point is that the old scoring system made the quad more profitable. Lysacek’s attitude is that the quad is just one element of many. Still, both of these guys seem like nice guys who are serious about their sport, and either of them is worthy of the gold medal.
Filed under: Current Events, Sports on February 19th, 2010 | No Comments »
I confess that I do not know very much about the technical aspects of figure skating. I cannot distinguish an axel from a salchow, or a toe loop from a lutz. But I know what falling down looks like when I see it, and almost every pair skating in the finals last night fell down at some point, either in a jump or a throw. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t do better. But I’m not in the Olympics; they are.
I suppose that advances in the sport make every skater feel like he or she needs to do the hardest trick. I admit is is impressive to watch when it’s done well. But when it isn’t done well it looks like a disaster. Yet, teams that fall or only double jumps that ought to be triples still win medals and teams that appear to do everything right wind up way down the score card. That’s the part I really do not understand.
I don’t dispute that the gold- and silver-winning teams from last night’s pair skate skated exceedingly well. But the third-place German team–who looked great the night before–fell all over themselves. On the other hand, the team I liked, who didn’t fall at all, weren’t even in the top five.
I suppose someone who knows a lot about figure skating will say that it comes down to artistic presentation, or complex technical elements. Again, I may be missing some fancy foot movements, or not realizing that a backwards lift is much more difficult than a forwards lift. But no one can miss the falling down.
That said, there was some good music last night. My favorite pair, Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett, skated to Scheherazade, which was a fine complement to the Firebird they chose the night before. But, later in the program, another team skated to Scheherazade, and not as well, I thought. Another team skated to Rachmaninoff. I was most pleased last night, though, that someone chose to skate to Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite. That’s one of my favorite pieces of American music.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the figure skating.
Filed under: Current Events, Music, Sports on February 16th, 2010 | No Comments »