I think I'm done with watching ice skating (except for speed)

[lauradi7dw]

The web seems to agree that Cha Junhwan got unreasonably low marks from the judges. I am willing to agree - I thought it was very good and since I saw it not live, I already knew that there was no falling. I hate seeing falls. Snippets here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/ArtNPV4OD_M?si=bcm-y8XS8BtDAf68

The French pair that won gold for ice dancing are only a pair because of sex abuse by a previous partner.
https://people.com/all-about-french-ice-dancers-controversy-11903770
Also, I think their costumes are ugly, but I have no idea how many points that gets.

NBC is all in on Ilia Malinin, to the point of erasure of other good skaters. He seems nice enough, I don't think it's his fault, but it makes me not want to see anything he does.

As far as NBC's coverage goes, we were being shown live half-pipe when I checked in this afternoon. The commentator suddenly said, very honestly: "We're switching to luge, because a US team might get a medal."
As it happened, the US teams ended up in 6th and 8th place, not in 1 or 2 or 3, but of the guys who came close, one is from Massachusetts, so yay. I remember in days of old when the local post office of the home address of athletes had a banner on it saying so. Paul Wylie won a skating medal in 1992. IIRC, he was living in Somerville at the time, and the 02144 PO had a banner.

Comments

[sovay]

NBC is all in on Ilia Malinin, to the point of erasure of other good skaters. He seems nice enough, I don't think it's his fault, but it makes me not want to see anything he does.

My mother has been DVR'ing the skating, thank God, so I got to see Mexico's Donovan Carrillo, who NBC doesn't care about because he's not American and even if he does another Olympics may not medal and I do not care, I love watching him move. He missed a jump and got right back into the sync of his music. He is a springy dancer.

I remember in days of old when the local post office of the home address of athletes had a banner on it saying so. Paul Wylie won a skating medal in 1992. IIRC, he was living in Somerville at the time, and the 02144 PO had a banner.

I didn't know that! I remember him.

(I was just tonight talking to my mother about how it is difficult to remember in what year anything happened in my childhood, because for example I remember the Sarajevo Olympics and therefore assume they were held when I was six or eight or something and in fact I was two and a half, because they were the Winter Games of 1984. I have vivid memories of the figure skating every Olympiad through 1998, after which they become much patchier and at some point I kind of tapped out until 2022.)

[landofnowhere]

I think the French costumes are all right but the least interesting on the podium; and I felt the same way about their program. The Canadian program with "Starry Starry Night" was fantastic.

I'm watching this through YouTube videos rather than the channel's coverage but agree about the push for Ilia turning me off, though he is very good. I have been converted to team Adam Siao Him Fa after learning that he was the one who brought the backflip back into competition; personally I like that he tries ambitious things, doesn't always pull them off, but keeps on going; but I can see that this would be less appealing if you don't like watching falls.