Toughen Up Figure Skating!!!

So, I really made a mistake today. I read a note written by Sarah Palin on Facebook about how she thinks global warming is bullshit.



I was going to write a post about it and get all political and shit, but then I decide to get drunk and watch the Olympics (The Palin post will come soon). I love the Olympics. No one would ever watch the biathlon (which I will compete in one day) if it wasn't for the Olympics. No one would give two shits about Apolo Ono if it wasn't for the Olympics and who would really care who was the best at sliding face first down an tube filled with ice was??

The truth is most of these people compete nearly every weekend in some internatinol competition or some championship because they're that fucking good. For many of them, the Olympics are nothing more htan another internatniosal event.

Part of the reason I relly really love the Olympics is the motto..."Citius, Altius, Fortius"; which means, "Faster, Higher, Stronger". The idea is that every day we strive to be better. Whether it's beign a better salesman, father to my dog, or person in general, I should always fight to be a better individual. That's what it means to the average dude, to the guy like me it means that I thoroughly expect each and every moment to be better than the last. Now...I am not condoning this behovior, in fact I to some those words don't mean as much.

This week, Shaun White, for the second time in his young career revolutionised his sport. 4 years ago in Torino he debuted a trick called the double cork 1080. He pushed half-pipe to a new level, he forced his competition out of their comfort zone and changed the game. This shows in the fact that everyone (except Shaun) used the double cork in their half-pipe runs. Shaun, however, beat all of them with a very standard, yet perfect, run. He went higher than any other competitor. And then, having already clinched the gold AND dropping an f-bomb on live tv, he pushed the sport to new limits by landing a double mctwist 1260. I don't like the person, but he optimizes "Citius, Altius, Fortius".

In the exact oposite of this, (yes I spell really poorly when I'm drunk) we have figure skating. The battle for gold came down to a very close fight between the young American (fuck yeah) Evan Lysacek and the veteran Russian Evgeni Plushenko. Lysacek won gold by 1.31 points. Neither man was flawless, neither man executed without a few bumps. But Plushenko lost.

The major difference was the difficulty of Plushenko's routine. He sucessfully pulled off a quad jump while Lysacek didn't even attempt one. Call me a traitor, call me un-American (previous posts prove I'm not), but Plushenko, in my mind, deserved the win. He pushed, he stretched, he moved the sport forward. The International Skating Union, by their own admission, does not consider difficulty of routine in their judging...

The ISU not only omits difficulty, something every other judged event uses, but they no longer identify the judges. They hide behind anonymity while scoring the competition. I'm calling shenanigans, I'm going to stand beside Plushenko in his dissatification. The sport will never advance, it will never push the limits, it will never live up to the Olympic motto if they don't consider the real difficulty of the individual's routine.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I don't watch enough figure skating (even though they cover it like it's the only winter Olympic event), but until they pull the veil off their scoring methods I cannot respect it as a pure competition by the meaning of the Olympic games.

Citius, Altius, Fortius.

-JB