Figure Skating - Part G - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

Tenley Albright – America’s Gold Medal Icebreaker:

Days before she was to take the ice at the Cortina d’Ampezzo Olympics of 1956, Tenley Albright was practicing outdoors when one of her skates hit a rut in the ice.  She stumbled, with one skate striking the other – and slashing clean through, slicing her ankle to the bone.

Her father, a surgeon, rushed to Italy to sew her up.  But she feared that she would not be able to compete.  Somehow, when the time arrived, she decided the foot was stable enough to skate.  And, she performed flawlessly, holding a small lead over teammate Carol Heiss entering the final skate.

When she took the ice that day, a magical thing happened:  As she skated to “The Barcarolle”, a waltz from the opera The Tales of Hoffman, the large crowd began singing the words to the orchestral theme – an international sing-along, right there in a little mountain village.  “It was wonderful,” she said of the massive chorus at the outdoor ice rink in the shadow of the Dolomites.  “It made me forget about my injury.”

When the scores were tallied, she had won the gold medal handily – the first by an American female skater.

Fifty years later, Albright, who went on to become a distinguished surgeon and cancer researcher in Boston, said that gold medal skate still seemed like only yesterday.

“This enormous feeling just sort of welled up in me,” she said.  “There was the most wonderful feeling of camaraderie.  It made me feel like the sport was an international language.”

It was the end of an era.  The next Winter Games, at Squaw Valley in 1960, were the last to stage figure skating outdoors – and the first to be televised.  Everything changed after that, with skaters facing increased pressure from fans and the media.

Not that first-time gold medalists ever got a pass on press scrutiny.

“We thought there was plenty at that time,” Albright said.  “We did have Movietone News, you know!”

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Figure Skating - Part F - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

A 6.0 for Deceit from the French Judge:

The sport’s second-biggest international scandal (let’s face it:  you’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to make bigger figure skating headlines than Tonya Harding’s kneecapping campaign) unfolded at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, creating ripples that continue to come ashore today.

Skating watchers had long suspected that certain competitions were essentially rigged, creating the classic something’s-fishy retort:  “He still got a 6.0 from the Ukrainian judge “, after a particularly dreadful performance.  But not until Canada’s pairs skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier crashed head-on with skating destiny at Salt Lake’s Delta Center did anyone come up with the goods to prove it.

Sale and Pelletier skated a memorable, near-perfect free skate that had most of the world believing they had won the gold medal – which was awarded, instead, to Russia’s comparatively shaky Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.

After much booing, second-guessing, and later, finger-pointing, French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne finally cracked under pressure, admitting she’d traded the first-place votes to the Russians for first-place votes for a French ice dancer, and a bottle of Stolichnaya.  (Okay, we made up the last part.)  The resulting scandal led to the rare awarding of two sets of gold medals – and a complete overhaul of skating’s traditional 6.0 scoring system.

The Battle of the Brians:

Canada’s Brian Orser became famous in his early career for notable second-place finishes, including one at the Sarajevo Games, where he outscored American Scott Hamilton in both the short and long program, but was edged out by Hamilton’s superior scores in compulsory figures.

Orser’s most famous “second”, however, came in the 1988 Calgary Games, where he battled with America’s Brian Boitano in a memorable “Battle of the Brians”.

Orser, before ever taking the ice as home-nation favourite, had added even more second-place finishes – at the 1984, 1985, and 1986 world championships.  But, he finally won that event in 1987, swapping his familiar second run on the podium with Boitano, who had won in 1986.

Entering the Calgary Games, each was at his competitive peak – Orser was undefeated in major competitions that year – and the much-awaited clash was considered a toss-up.  Boitano led after compulsory figures; Orser won the short program by a nose.  In the long program, Boitano, in a costume with epaulets and skating to “Napolean”, went first and delivered a near-perfect routine that will long be remembered as the climax of his distinguished career.

Orser remained with striking distance, but the pressure – he had been chosen his nation’s flag bearer in the opening ceremonies – got to him.  He two-footed the landing on an early triple jump and subbed a double Axel for a triple near the end of the skate.

The outcome, however, still wasn’t clear.  Two judges rated the contest a tie, with four giving the nod to Orser and three to Boitano.  Under the rules of the day, judges used the technical merit score to break the deadlock; both gave the edge to Boitano.  Orser, once again, stood second, this time on the medal platform in his home country in a contest that will be remembered as one of the greatest in figure skating history.

The two Brians, revisiting the Calgary Saddledome in 2008 for a documentary on the 20^th anniversary of the event, said they’ll always share a bond from the experience. “There’s this brotherhood or camaraderie we have to this day because no one, except each other, can understand what we went through that night,” Boitano told Slam Sports.  “I consider Brian a friend.”

Orser agreed.  “We played it out perfectly for the fans of the sport, “ he said.  “Not just figure skating, but Olympic sport.  We lived up to the billing.”

Orser remains a force in the competitive skating world.  He’s a Toronto-based coach whose most recent star pupil is South Korean Kim Yu-Na, who holds the record for short- and free-skate points under the ISU’s new scoring system and could be a medal threat in the 2010 Vancouver Games.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Figure Skating - Part E - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

HISTORY’S HITS AND MISSES:

Figure skating rates as the oldest Winter Olympics competition because, as a medal sport, it actually predates the Winter Olympics themselves.  The sport was included in the Summer Games of 1908 and 1920 before settling into its wintry confines at Chamonix, France, in 1924.

In the early years, skating, like all other ice sports, was done outside.  That made weather conditions – soft spots caused by sun exposure, a sheen of snow on the ice, and ever-present wind conditions – a major player in competitions.  Early U.S. medalists Dick Button and Tenley Albright tell of the constant fear of having a meticulously trained-for program dashed by Mother Nature at the last second.  It added an extra element to competition that modern skaters don’t have to worry about.  On the other hand, Olympic figure skating will never again have that charming feel you can get skating outside in the fresh air in the shadow of snow-capped mountains in some quaint Bavarian village.  Now, it’s all mega-arena, all the time.

Skating’s First Superstar:

Sonya Henie’s Olympic debut – as a precocious 11-year-old at Chamonix in 1924 – was only the first stride in an Olympic skating career that has yet to be equaled.  Norway’s Henie (1912-1969) went on to become the only woman to win the ladies’ title three consecutive times:  St. Moritz in 1928, Lake Placid in 1932, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936.

Along the way, figure skating’s first international starlet also won an unequaled ten straight world titles and later became a Hollywood star in the United States, memorably appearing in Thin Ice (1937) and Sun Valley Serenade (1941) while starring in popular ice shows.

To date, no other woman has claimed three medals in ladies’ singles, let along three golds.  You can see one of her skating costumes – and marvel at the sheer "dinkiness" of it – at the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Notable First Leaps:

The Axel jump separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls.  It’s tough to master and difficult to land in competition.  The first Axel jump was performed by – surprise – a man named Axel Paulsen, who first completed it, oddly enough, wearing long-bladed speed skates, not figure skates.

Dick Button was credited with the first double Axel in competition, at the 1948 Winter Games in St. Moritz.  Five years later, U.S. teammate Carol Heiss became the first woman to land a double Axel in competition.  The triple Axel came 30 years down the road:  Canada’s Vern Taylor landed the first one in competition at the 1978 World Championships.

The women’s triple Axel has remained highly elusive.  Japan’s Midori Ito landed the first, in 1988, and repeated the feat at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville.   America’s Tonya Harding landed one at the U.S. championships in 1991 and remained the only U.S. woman to do so until young Kimmie Meissner completed the feat at the 2005 U.S. championships in Portland, Oregon.  The same year, one of Meissner’s expected chief competitors in Vancouver, Japan’s Mao Asada, landed two in a single program at the Japanese championships.

In pairs skating, America’s Rena Inoue and John Baldwin landed a throw triple Axel at the 2006 U.S. championships.  They repeated the feat at the Turin Winter Games, becoming the first pair to land one in Olympic competition.

Tonya, Triple Axels, and Tire Irons:

Nobody did less for the image, but more for the notoriety of figure skating than Tonya Harding, the unlikely Olympian from suburban Portland, Oregon, who became the first U.S. woman to land a triple Axel in competition.

In her heyday, Harding was locked in a heated rivalry with fellow skater Nancy Kerrigan – who had to withdraw from the 1994 U.S. championships after she was whacked across the knee with a metal rod wielded by an assailant.  Harding went on to win the Nationals – just as planned as it turned out, when the plot unraveled and Harding was accused of conspiring with her husband, Jeff Gillooly, to arrange the hit on Kerrigan.

Harding was allowed to compete at the Winter Games in Lillehammer, but self-destructed on the ice.  Kerrigan, who was granted the second U.S. spot, memorably rose to the occasion for a silver medal.  Both were outskated by Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine.

Harding had waiting for her at home a ban for life from U.S. figure skating and went on to a career as a professional boxer.  Ironically, the long-running scandal did for U.S. figure skating what no amount of athletic prowess had ever been able to do:  make it dinner-table conversation, causing TV ratings to soar for years.  Only recently has the soap-opera quality injected into the sport’s image by Tonya Harding begun to fade.  Doesn’t she have a younger sister?

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Figure Skating - Part D - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

Pairs and Ice Dancing Scoring:

Symmetry of movement is key for pairs, but the scoring is otherwise similar to that for singles skaters.  The main difference is that pairs obviously work from a different list of essential elements for their short program. 

Ice dancing is all about flow.  The sport emphasizes the grace of skating pairs, who essentially ballroom-dance their way around the ice rink.

Thus, scoring centres on how well the pairs move to music, how they execute their footwork, and how well they work together (not, as you might suspect, how little they are wearing while out on the ice).

The primary difference in ice dancing comes in the competition format, which includes three rounds.  The compulsory round, in which skaters complete a set of required maneuvers, is worth 20 percent of the final score.  Next is an “original dance” round, in which all skaters get the same rhythm to dance to, but can create their own routine to it.  This round is worth 30 percent.  The final round, worth 50 percent, is the free dance, with routines customized by each dance pair.

Judges apply the same scoring standards, with a technical score and program component score, as are applied to singles and pairs skaters.

If you fail to understand a word of the new scoring system, don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  Just wait for TV commentators Dick Button and Scott Hamilton to figure it out and explain it.

The Jumps:

Jumps provide the most bang-for-the-buck in figure skating.  With a little – okay, a lot – of practice, you can learn to identify them.  Here’s a list of the most common ones.  Note that most of these jumps can be – and most often are – done with two or three revolutions before landing.

Jumps with a Toe takeoff:

Lutzes:  Launched by the right toe pick, with takeoff from the back outside edge of the left foot (in short form, it is LBO takeoff).

Flips:  Launched by the right toe pick, with takeoff from the back inside edge of the left foot (in short form, it is LBI takeoff).

Toe Loops:  Launched by the left toe pick, with takeoff from the back outside edge of the right foot (in short form, it is RBO takeoff).

Jumps with an Edge takeoff:

Axels:  Because the jump is launched from a forward edge (the left outside edge), is has an extra half revolution and thus, it’s considered the most difficult jump.  It’s landed on the back outside edge of the free foot (short form is LBO takeoff).

Loops:  Launched from a right back outside edge and landed on the same edge (short form is RBO takeoff).

Salchows:  Launched from a left back inside edge.  Watch for the swinging opposite leg during launch (short form is LBI takeoff).

Training and Equipment:

Figure skaters, not surprisingly, spend the vast majority of their time on the ice, practicing jumps, body positioning, spins, transitions, and footwork, often to the point of exhaustion.  But, this is a total-body sport, and the same types of training techniques – running, resistance and weight training, and reflex drills – used by other athletes have made their way into the modern figure skater’s training quiver.  Some top skaters also devote many hours to formal dance training and other pursuits bordering more on art than athleticism; it is necessary, they say, to become a complete skater, balancing fluidity with power.

Equipment has changed only modestly over the decades.  Figure skates are boots with high ankles for support.  Their blades are made of steel, which are not flat on the bottom, but concave, providing skaters with a sharp inside and outside edge from which to launch jumps and carve turns.  (The blades are so sharp that they are actually melting the ice for an instant, allowing forward motion on a thin layer of water.)  Figure skates also have a blunt, serrated tip, called a toe pick, used to launch certain jumps, and stop abruptly.

Skating uniforms aren’t really uniforms at all, but costumes that become part of the show.  They’re all made of stretchy, breathable fabric – in every conceivable colour and style combination, particularly in ice dancing, known for its avant-garde ensembles.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved. 

Figure Skating - Part C - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

Format, Rules and Strategy:

The term “figure skating” has become something of a misnomer.  Compulsory figures, that slow, tedious, meticulous tracing of set patterns on the ice by competitors, were axed from international competition in 1990.  The move came largely as a result of greater TV coverage of skating, which focused on the athletic aspects of the sport at the expense of the compulsory figures, which, for TV purposes, are like watching paint dry.

Today’s singles and pairs skaters simply skate two programs:  a short program, about two and a half minutes long, and a free skate, about four minutes long for women, and closer to four and a half for men.

Beginning with the 2006 Turin Olympics, skaters have been forced to adapt to a new international scoring system installed in the wake of the 2002 Salt Lake judging scandal.  It throws out the old 6.0 mark of perfection and replaces it with a complicated, much more detailed, computer-driven system that, frankly, is clearly understood by only a handful of badly-in-need-of-a-life figure skating wonks.

“Do you understand the new scoring system?” skating legend and ABC commentator Dick Button asked during an interview at the 2007 U.S. Nationals.  “Because I don’t.”

Here’s an oversimplified way to explain it:  Under the old system, you essentially started with perfect 6.0 marks for required elements and had points chipped away for things you either flubbed or failed to attempt.  The new system is zero-based, awarding you points – in great detail – for things you attempt and even more points for moves you successfully complete.  Skaters know what point values are assigned to certain moves before they begin.  That’s how they now shape their programs to be competitive.

You still get two scores – one for technical elements, one for program components (the latter sub-divided into five other categories) – and the highest score (thank God!) still wins.

Further complicating matters, the International Skating Union, which brainstormed the new system, has added an entirely new layer of “management” if you will:  a panel of three “technical specialists” all equipped with TV replay monitors, who initially determine what kind of move was executed – like whether a jump was a double or triple Axel, for example.

The judges then decide how well the move was performed, using a scale ranging from -3 to +3, which is then added to a predetermined point value for the jump (example:  a triple Axel has a base point value of 7.5; it can earn 10.5 if perfectly executed, but drops to 4.5 if it’s shaky).

So, has the new system changed the way actual competitions play out?  Absolutely.  The old judging system, in addition to its simplistic 6.0 scale, also placed a higher value on a skater’s placement than on his or her actual scores.  In other words, if one judge ranked a skater in first place with a score of 5.5 and another judge ranked a different skater in first place with a score of 5.9, those two marks were, for the purposes of the scoring system, the same.

Not anymore.  The upshot is that under the old system, skaters who were anywhere below third or fourth place after the short program had, because of the placement, or ordinal, system, little or no hope of winning a competition, even with a sterling free skate. Today, skaters can leap ahead from much further back in the pack because their scores, theoretically, are based purely on what they do, not on how they did compared to someone else in the field.

Make sense?

Well, sort of.

Many skaters say they like the new system, largely because it provides them with clear-cut feedback about what they’ve done wrong, thus giving them a roadmap to improvement the next time around.  Some skating purists, however, complain that today’s skaters are sacrificing overall artistry and program flow in a mad dash to pile up points by completing or, in some cases, simply attempting, difficult or ugly moves that have high point values.

Beyond that, as the public is forced through what’s likely to be a long learning curve, there’s no clear recognition of what a score actually means.  Everybody used to know what it meant when Michelle Kwan drew a row 6.0s.   They don’t really know what to think when she posts a short program score of 68.  They ask:  Out of what?  A thousand?  It’s a fair question.

This change in scoring has had a downer effect on the sport’s fan base, some skating insiders insist.

“We’ve thrown away our icons,” two-time gold medalist and longtime skating commentator Dick Button said of the new system and its ditching of the old 6.0 perfect score.  “How would you feel if you went to a baseball game and you couldn’t yell at the umpires anymore (for making a bad call)?”

Nevertheless, the new system appears to be here to stay – whether anyone outside the inner skating world understands it or not.

Curiously, the new system may do little to prevent the very sort of corruption, exposed at the Salt Lake City Games that spawned it in the first place.  The new system has twelve judges, compared to nine under the old system.  But, unlike the previous system, where each judge’s score was posted publicly, the new system’s scoring scheme is kept anonymous.

Skating officials note, however, that scores are not anonymous to International Skating Union principals, who know who voted for which skater.  And the technical scores are derived by choosing nine of the twelve judges’ marks at random and then discarding the highest and lowest of those remaining.

Translation:  It’s still possible to bribe a judge, but it’s not as easy to bribe the right judge – one who can provide a guaranteed result.  These days, you might have to bribe more of them to cover your bets.

If you remember nothing else, keep this in mind:  The one with the highest point total wins.  You get more points for trying more difficult jumps, even more if you’re successful.  And, you still get mandatory deductions when you fall.  So, there’s that.

And here’s where the points will be applied:  A typical ladies’ free skate or long program today will have six to eight triple jumps, many in combinations; several combination spins; and a tricky straight-line step sequence.  A typical men’s free skate program will have as many or more triple jumps and now, for top-level skaters, at least one or even two quadruple jumps thrown in for good measure.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Figure Skating - Part B - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

Later, at subsequent national championships and Winter Games, I found myself drawn, more and more, to the ice arenas for what we in the press box refer to as “the figs”.  Each trip provided a highlight that marked my reluctant education as a figure skating watcher and – I’ve finally been forced to admit – figure skating fan:

Like watching Michelle Kwan, in 2005, capture her eighth-straight U.S. championship, her ninth overall, tying the legendary Maribel Vinson Owen for the most titles, with a flawless performance in Portland, Oregon.  Watching her soar with that timeless spiral, you couldn’t help wondering about – and lamenting – the fact that the greatest female ever to strap on skates never put it all together when it counted the most, with all the world watching.

Or sitting in the press box as graceful, powerful American skater Sasha Cohen brought an Olympic crowd to its feet at the Palavela in the 2006 Turin Winter Games, only to stumble in the free skate and be surpassed, once more, for the gold medal – this time by Japan’s graceful Shizuka Arakawa.

Like witnessing firsthand the power and agility of the endless squadrons of great Russian skaters, from pairs Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin to the incomparable Evgeni Plushenko, who nearly stole the Turin Games with his all-but-perfect gold medal performances.

Or watching the next generation of junior skaters – they look like grade-schoolers – some of whom will be medal contenders or even medalists at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver – rise through the ranks, completing multiple-jump combinations that would have been unthinkable at this level even a decade ago.

Each of those moments stands as a bookmark in my personal skating trial by fire.  Sometimes you have to get up close and personal to appreciate a sport already appreciated by millions of fans from afar – especially by women, who consistently rank figure skating at the top of sports preference polls.

If you’re one of the doubters, a little boning up here might be all that’s required to have you hooting with appreciation for a properly executed triple salchow.  You might wind up confronting, as I did, an inescapable truth:

Beneath all the glitter and mascara and corny music – sometimes way beneath them – true athletic beauty resides.  Learning to recognize it, and fully appreciating it when it appears, is learning to relish the greatest show on ice.

SPECTATOR’S GUIDE:

It looks like a sport where you can just strap on skates, get going fast, and do something crazy.  But every second and every motion of a skater’s routine is carefully choreographed, and practiced ad nauseum.  Because the sport is now ruled by a new and extremely complicated scoring system, a bit of background on the ins and outs can help spectators better appreciate what’s going on – or, often, horribly wrong – on the ice.

Field of Play:

Olympic ice rinks for figure skating are 30 metres (99 feet) wide and 60 metres (198 feet) long – a few feet short of an Olympic-sized hockey rink.  Some international competitions, and often major events such as the U.S. Olympic trials, are conducted on smaller, professional hockey-rink-sized ice.  In either case, skaters wind up using every inch of it.  Modern skaters have the advantage of skating on ice that’s reconditioned after every half-dozen performances.  In the old days, this wasn’t the case.  In earlier Olympics, figure skating took place on outdoor rinks, where wind, weather and ice conditions were major factors.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Figure Skating - Part A - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

Olympic figure skating is not, thank goodness, what it often appears on the surface.

At first, second, or even tenth glance, the casual observer is probably caught up in, and distracted by, the sheer sequin-and-mousse frivolity of it all.

Seriously:  What other sport in the world has a designated “kiss-and-cry” area for competitors?  For what other competition do hard-as-nails athletes spend hours donning makeup and linked-doily gowns designed by the likes of Vera Wang?  What other sport makes and breaks careers – and in some cases, even lives – with competitions decided not by measurable results, but the by the fly-by-night opinions of anonymous judges, some of whom may or may not have been paid to look the other way?

And – let’s cut right to the chase here – what other sports puts up what it calls a “ladies” competition and still invites a notorious figure skater like Tonya Harding?

The point:  It’s easy to look at figure skating’s sequined fringe and consider the entire affair a joke.  And some parts of it are.  But when you see it enough times live, up close, and witness the grimaces and feel the pain and bask in the joy of the athletes on and off the ice, the TV channel in your brain changes from Looney Tunes to True Grit.

Then, you spend a lot of time watching it and you learn.  You talk to people who know and love the sport, and you learn more.  You sit down for coffee with someone like Dick Button, a master skater before becoming king of the commentators, and you soak up even more.

Figure skating, you eventually decide, for its foibles, is the showcase event of any Winter Olympics for good reason.  At its highest level, artistic skating is perhaps the greatest melding of power and grace in all of competitive sport.  Top skaters have ballet liquidity and distance-runner stamina.  They can make a quadruple-triple-triple combination look as effortless as a wink, then literally turn around and strike a spiral pose so profound it appears to have been sketched by Picasso.  And then fall flat on their butts.

No other sport provides that eye-popping symmetry, that impossible contradiction, that she’s-this-close-to-the-gold-medal-and-OH!-that’s-a-shame fragility.  And no other stage for this play is as dramatic and fitting as the ice arena at a Winter Olympic Games.

This is a high-wire act with no nets.  You’re out there by yourself, with an entire world watching, banking your future on a four-minute free-skate program in which a jump launched a fraction of a second too soon or too late will send you crashing to the ice – and prompt some guy at a bar in Iowa to wince at the TV screen and wisecrack, “Wow, that’s gonna leave a mark!”

It is not for the meek.  Watching America’s Michelle Kwan skate a near-perfect short program in Nagano, my first up-close experience with the sport, I was struck between the eyes by the cool precision and gritty eloquence of what could only be called high art on ice.

Later, at subsequent national championships and Winter Games, I found myself drawn, more and more, to the ice arenas for what we in the press box refer to as “the figs”.  Each trip provided a highlight that marked my reluctant education as a figure skating watcher and – I’ve finally been forced to admit – figure skating fan:

Like the drama of watching America’s Tara Lipinski – at age 15, one of the youngest Winter Games competitors ever – leap over the field to steal a gold medal from the favoured Kwan in Nagano.  Something about her bugged me.  Still does.  But, you couldn’t help appreciating the grit.

Or watching the dramatic ladies’ final “redux” in Salt Lake City in 2002, when unheralded 16-year-old Sara Hughes claimed gold over the stunned also-rans:  Irina Slutskaya, who took silver, and the apparently Olympic-cursed Kwan, the five-time world champion, who settled for bronze.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

A Brief Guide to the Guide - Part II - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE GUIDE – PART II

From Mr. Judd:

Sport by Sport:

This book is organized by sporting event, grouped into ice sports and snow sports.  Individual chapters describe individual pursuits by athletes – hockey , speedskating, cross-country skiing, and the like.  Each chapter begins with an overview of the sport, often including an anecdote from my personal experience at the Olympics or compelling stories from Games past that illustrate the character of each given sport.

Spectator’s Guide:

The “Spectator’s Guide” sections are a simple introduction to the sport:  how it’s competed, on what field of play, with what equipment, how one wins, and so on.  Few people really know all the rules of the events they see so infrequently.  And even those of us who do witness them more often usually benefit from a refresher course.

HISTORY’S HITS AND MISSES:

Each Spectator’s Guide is followed by a “History’s Hits and Misses” section, a grab bag of great exploits, notable flops, unforgettable moments, and trivia from the annals of the sport in question.  It’s short of the “Cliffs Notes” on the subject, the basic boilerplate history any educated Olympic fan needs to know.

Record Book:

Each chapter also features the “Record Book”, a section describing prominent medalists in the sport.  Note that I make no attempt here to include all the medalists in a sport.  Other published works, most notably David Wallechinsky’s indispensable The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, do that and more, listing the top finishers in each event for the entirety of the Games’ history.  Instead I have attempted here to summarize, listing interesting trends (such as the Soviet Union’s decades-long lock on the gold medal in pairs figure skating, or Canada’s early dominance in ice hockey).  I have also endeavoured to single out prominent medalists, especially those with long Olympic careers and noteworthy medal hauls.  Lastly, I’ve attempted to list all of the North American medalists for each sport.  This is not intended as a slight on other deserving medalists; it’s simply a reflection of the primary audience for this book:  North Americans.

Next Stop:

Each chapter concludes with the section “Next Stop”, describing the venue where that sport will take place for the Vancouver 2010 Games.  In some cases, these sections include detailed reviews of the actual field of play from athletes who have participated in test events at the venues (most of which are new).  When appropriate, I’ve also included information on how to use the venue – for your own figure skating turns or weekend mogul attempts, as the case may be – when and if it’s open and available for public use after the Games are over.

Legends of the Sport and Olympic Flashbacks:

Interspersed throughout the book are two other features:  “Legend of the Sport” pieces highlight an athlete whose Olympic Games performance truly qualifies him or her as legendary.  The title is not bestowed lightly; you have to have done something remarkable to earn the label.  Note that several of the newer sports don’t include a “legend” because, frankly, I don’t believe they’ve been around long enough for any athlete to have earned the title.  “Olympic Flashbacks” are moment-in-time glimpses of my reporting of the Games.  Each is a column filed from the Winter Olympics and published in the following day’s Seattle Times as part of my general Olympic beat reporting.  I reproduce them here because they say, in a manner more fresh and of-the-moment, more about an event than I could ever hope to say by re-creating it from memory.  They are some of my favourite pieces filed from the Winter Olympics.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

My Introduction to the Winter Olympic Games - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

From Ms. Shier:

I’ve always been a fervent sports fan, which started when I was a little girl:  first, doing ballet, tap dancing and gymnastics; then, cheerleading, track and field and more gymnastics; then, jazz and rhythmic gymnastics.  This happened all the way up till the time I was a young adult, when I became very busy judging gymnastics for 10 years at many different competitions in Ontario and Alberta.  I always loved the winter sports too – specifically, the figure skating and skiing events – I was an active downhill skier at one time and I always loved to skate, though I wasn’t an expert by any means.   I’ve had personal contact with several Olympians.  These were people I knew and liked, and one of them was my cousin, Jamie Kallio, who was a biathlete at the Calgary Winter Games in 1988.  I have nothing but admiration for these dedicated athletes because of the total commitment they’ve made to their particular sport.

The aim of my new book is to compile interesting information and stories about acrobatic and artistic sports in particular, both summer and winter.  By doing so, I hope to capture the attention of both athletes and non-athletes with the inclusion of  the human-interest component as well as the technical and athletic components.  To this end, I’ve taken such material about figure skating, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding from Mr. Judd’s book and am learning more about these particular sports as I go.

There is beauty and magnificence in the human body performing sport at the elite level.  These athletes have worked diligently at perfecting their particular sport and are greatly motivated to show what they can do.  The Olympic stage is the biggest stage in the world.  I know this because I was present at the Calgary Winter Games in Canmore, Alberta to watch Jamie compete in the biathlon.  There is no stage that can equal that of the Olympic Games and that one reason alone is what the best athletes in the world will remember long after the Games are over:  that they were there participating and showing the world their wonderful talents.  The medals they win, well, that’s just gravy.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE GUIDE

From Mr. Judd:

This book began with a simple goal:  Assemble a compendium of knowledge about the Winter Olympics to help the average person better understand the Games.  Whether you’ll be watching in person or via broadcast, or just discussing the topic with friends, the information and stories compiled here will help you become conversant in any Winter Olympic sport.  It’s designed to give the casual fan of the Winter Games a broader context of the event throughout history, and fill in those knowledge gaps – like, how many jumps does a ski jumper take during the Nordic Combined event? – that we all have, particularly for sports most of us see only once every four years.

The material is also, I hope, interesting enough on its face – given all the lore, mystery, and fascinating backdrops of the Games – to be a worthwhile read, even for the person who is, shall we say, not very Olympics-oriented.

Either way, this guide is organized in a way that makes it easy to skip around to find something that piques your interest.

Here is a quote (from the Introduction):  “…The truth is that covering the Olympics is any good journalist’s dream assignment.  The palette of possible stories laid out before you every day is broad, diverse, and occasionally, even magical.  Good journalism, for all its acknowledged faults, is little more than good storytelling.  And good stories are rife with drama.  Few other assignments, short of war, perhaps, afford a dramatic stage as brightly lit as an Olympic Games….”.

Ms. Shier’s addendum:  Of course, this introduction is, no doubt, a very simplistic view of a complex event like the Olympic Games from a journalistic point of view, but you get the picture, right?

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.

Snowboarding - Part E - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

HISTORY’S HITS AND MISSES:

Unlike most Winter Games sports, whose roots stretch back centuries, snowboarding is a relatively recent phenomenon – less than 40 years old at the dawn of the 2010 Games.

Several people lay claim to having produced the first snowboard, as it were – a single board with dual foot mountings designed to mimic the motion of surfing on snow.  The first crude board to be mass-manufactured, the Smurfer, was based on a 1960s design by Sherman Poppen, a Michigan engineer who built the device for his daughter.

An early adopter and experimenter with the product was Vermont’s Jake Burton Carpenter, who refined the idea into something more closely resembling a modern snowboard, launching in 1977 a company that would dominate the industry up to the present day.  Other experimenters were developing competing products around the same time, notably Dimitrije Milovich’s Swallowtail, the precursor of the Winterstick line, debuting in 1976.  Another early pioneer, California’s Tom Sims, was making snowboards in his garage the same year Burton’s company got off the ground, teaming with collaborator Bob Weber to develop the Skiboard.  Burton and Sims became competitors in a gear race that continues to this day.

With that gear in hand, early riders began to make tentative first tracks at U.S. ski areas in the early 1980s.  At first, they were banned from most ski resorts, so they had to seek refuge in more far-flung corners.  Stowe in Vermont and Mount Baker Ski Area in northwest Washington were the first traditional ski resorts to develop active - and skilled – snowboard communities.  They spread like wildfire.

By 1990, resort operators, recognizing snowboarding as a key to their survival, allowed the sport at most ski resorts.  Today, only a couple of holdouts remain.

Boarders, Meet Your Bureaucracy:

Snowboarding got its own World Cup competition in 1987, and its future as an international, perhaps even an Olympic medal, sport became clear.  A long and often counterproductive argument ensued within the snowboard community.  Should a free-form, maverick sport such as snowboarding be subject to the rules of an international federation?  If so, which one?

By 1998, the debate was over.  Snowboarding, the International Olympic Committee decided, would fall under the auspices of the International Ski Federation, or FIS.  It was quickly added as a medal event, with halfpipe and giant slalom, for the 1998 Nagano Games.

The decision was not without controversy, which has faded but still burns in the heart of some snowboard pioneers.  Placing the sport within the structure of the International Ski Federation put it in the hands of the chief proponents of skiing, the very sport snowboarders had revolted against.  And it was a snub to the International Snowboarding Federation, a snowboarders’ group that had been sanctioning international competitions since the early 1990s.

One result of that rift had a substantial impact on the Nagano Games.  Norwegian snowboard legend Terje Haakonsen announced that he would never attend an Olympics, a vow he has kept.

Since that time, most snowboarders have accepted the FIS oversight, under which the sport has thrived, particularly after its popularity at the Salt Lake Olympics of 2002.

Home Snow Advantage:

American snowboard fans had waited through two Olympic cycles for the expected dominance in a sport invented in the United States.  At the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, they finally saw it in Park City.  With a raucous crowd of more than 16,000 looking on, Ross Powers, Danny Kass, and J.J. Thomas stole the show, winning gold, bronze and silver.  It was the first time any nation had swept a snowboard event and was America’s first Winter Games sweep since figure skating in 1956.

Powers, a Vermont native who had turned 23 the day before, popped the most memorable halfpipe run in Olympic history, catching huge, hospital air and pulling off seven textbook twists and grabs.  Coming a day after teammate Kelly Clark grabbed the gold medal in the women’s contest, the sweep put America firmly in the halfpipe driver’s seat – a precedent that would be upheld four years later in Turin, where newcomers Shaun White and Hannah Teter claimed gold, while Kass and Gretchen Bleiler won silver.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.