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.