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Blood on the Ice

I had a trying and absurd week, and one way I coped was to scrutinize--really scrutinize--facts about women’s figure skating. And here’s some info.

-Tara Lipinski really, really likes the current women’s Gold Medal winner. In praising this winner, Tara is pretty clearly praising herself. “I can’t believe she’s just a high-school junior!” (Of course, Tara herself was around that age when she won her gold. This--Lipinski’s own win--was a controversial moment in American history. It was controversial because many people felt that Michelle Kwan deserved the prize. Michelle had been around for a trillion--or maybe eight--years and she had exquisite “artistry.” She was elegant and thoughtful, or something like that. I guess I have a poverty mentality. I like my entertainment loud, fast, and less-than-subtle. Sure, Tara Lipinski fell short of, like, Nureyev, I guess. Sure--when she wasn’t jumping--she just sort of flailed her arms around and smiled a lot. But, to me, she seemed more joyous and engaging than Kwan. It’s part of the legend: Lipinski was running around the Olympic Village, determined to live life to the fullest, while Kwan was brooding in her bat cave, flaying and flaying and flaying herself. Who knows to what extent this last part is true? It’s a fun story.) Lipinski said, of the current winner, “She had the jumps and you just had a sense, when she stepped onto the ice, that she was the greatest female skater in the world and she *knew* it." Was Tara really talking about this Russian girl? Or was she talking about her former self?)

-If you apply today’s scoring conventions to past performances, you see a pretty subtle but definite advancement in the way women are performing. (Thank you, NYTimes!) Katarina Witt would not hold a candle--at least in the athletic sense--to Yuna Kim. That said, there was one outlier in the Times’s analysis. And that’s Kristi Yamaguchi. Ms. Yamaguchi kicked ass. I think she schooled even Oksana Baiul--though Baiul skated years afterward. Technically (apparently), Ms. Baiul’s performance was not all that impressive. But it was enough for the gold. And she had that tragic backstory. And then she ran off and found herself in a life-threatening DWI situation. Once, I was in Mohonk, and I was at the big old Mountain House for a massage, and placards announced that the rehabilitated, resuscitated Baiul was giving a talk at some point. (What kind of talk? “Grinning through Pain”--an address for, say, the Convention of Copy Editors and Book Publicists within the Tri-State Area? The sign was short on details, or I wasn’t paying attention.) I waited and waited to catch a glimpse of Ms. Baiul, but to no avail.

-It’s all about the triple axel. This is something Tonya Harding did really well--though never at the Olympics. Midori Ito and Mao Asada did it, though they never won gold prizes. Mirai Nagasu did it this year--the first American woman triple axel-gamine in an Olympics performance--but apparently she fucked up in other moments. This was a historically bad year for female American skaters. Lipinski says we need to learn from the Russians. Those Russians start young. They save their triple jumps, their triple combinations, for the second half of the performance--when the points are weightier. The Times says many of these Russian women cope--or struggle to cope--with mental health issues and eating disorders. Lipinski doesn’t get into that; Lipinski seems to be a sunny and resilient thinker. Elsewhere: a report indicates that there are various young (YOUNG) women scattered throughout Russia like bread crumbs, and these women are perfecting their quadruple jumps. They are landing “quads” AS I TYPE. They will take over the skating world, and America will fall far, far behind. A Russian won at Sochi, as well, but many people felt Yuna Kim should have taken that prize, Katarina-Witt-style (two golds in a row). Yuna Kim is my North Star, my goddess, my pre-assassination Julius Caesar. In times of stress, I think: What would Yuna Kim do? I am Team Yuna Kim. In my view, she deserves ALL the gold medals.

OK. That’s all. It’s important to focus on important things. Here’s hoping America gets its act together. And feel free to chime in, here, if you are Team Kwan!



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