Ten of My Favorite...Okay Seven of My Favorite...Olympic Figure Skating Performances

A few days ago I started to have some random thoughts about the best figure skating performances from the Olympics.  'Best' is often a matter of opinion, though some performances seem to transcend mere 'opinion'.  Then I started to think about 'favorite' as opposed to 'best', as in what I like personally.  I decided I would come up with ten, and I quickly started a list.  I easily came up with seven and then slowed down a little at that point; therefore I decided to post seven of my 'favorites' and then give out a few honorable mentions.

I love figure skating, and I have been a fan of the sport for a number of years.  There are a number of skaters I like, some I love, and there have been a number of wonderful performances over the years, some of them quite unexpected.  Some skaters may have given an overall good performance but not had that one great performance that sticks in the fan's mind even a number of years later.  Some skaters may have won a medal, even a gold, but not given anything even close to their best performance while doing it.  For example, Scott Hamilton has been more than candid over the years since his 1984 Olympic Gold Medal in Sarajevo about the fact he had not given his best performance in the long program (video). 

Other skaters, such as Canadian pair Christine Hough and Doug Ladret, though they finished only ninth overall, gave a performance in the short program (video) at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France that caught the imagination of the audience and helped to earn the pair a contract with 'Stars On Ice'. 

Though there are more performances I could name, honorable mentions also go to:

1) 1988 Calgary Olympic pairs bronze medalists Americans Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard (Oppegard was Brian Boitano's roommate in Calgary, is married to Michelle Kwan's older sister Karen, and recently signed on to coach 2010 Vancouver Olympic gold medalist Yu Na Kim) for their long program (video)

2) 1988 pairs gold medalists Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov for their long program (video)

3) Finland's Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko with their free dance (video) from the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics (Susanna and Petri were such true originals every program they skated was memorable)

4) Philippe Candeloro for his 'D'Artagnan' long program (video) from the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan (Candeloro won his second consecutive bronze medal in Nagano; witness the wonderful footwork/fencing sequence)

Here are seven of my favorites in no particular order (a link attached to the name of the program is a second source for the video):

Brian Boitano 1988 Calgary Olympic Long Program to 'Napoleon and Josephine' posted by 3Axel1996

Even though over twenty three years have passed since this performance it is STILL my all time favorite, hands down!  Even Johnny Weir's stunningly beautiful performance in Vancouver could not eclipse Brian Boitano's gold medal winning free skate for me.  Boitano did what so few skaters have been able to do; he gave the performance of a lifetime on the night he needed it the most and won the gold medal in the best way possible.  There have been some who have claimed over the years he only won due to Sandra Bezic's choreography; however that simply is not true.  It does not matter who your coach or choreographer is, if you do not have it in you to give the performance you are truly capable of giving then you never will give it no matter who is helping you prepare.

Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko 1992 Olympic Free Dance 'A Man and A Woman' posted by tomolszt

Klimova and Ponomarenko are the only skaters with a full set of medals at the Olympics. The pair won a bronze in 1984, a silver in 1988 and became Olympic champions in 1992 At Albertville, France.  Due to the politics of how ice dancing used to be judged they knew going in they would almost certainly win the gold medal.  However they did not rest on their laurels and performed a beautiful and breathtaking free dance that left little doubt they deserved the gold medal.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean 1984 Olympic Free Dance 'Bolero' posted by tigrelis

To many fans it almost seems like Torvill and Dean practically invented ice dancing. Of course that is not the case, however when you watch this gold medal winning piece of perfection you understand why and how they were able to help popularize dance so much with so many people.

Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Olympic long program posted by TripleAxel1991

I know some people don't care for Nancy and don't think she deserved the gold in Lillehammer. I, however, disagree.  Nancy won the silver but I believe she deserved the gold. She skated beautifully in Norway and no one can ever take that away from her.

Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto 2006 Olympic Free Dance from Torino, Italy posted by SergR75

When Tanith and Ben skated out on to the ice in Torino the arena was basically dead with the audience lacking energy.  There had been an accident with one dance pair and the eventual gold medalists had skated a lackluster free dance that included mistakes.  Tanith and Ben skated a clean, energetic and beautifully choreographed program that won them a silver medal, though I believe they should have won the gold.  As a commentator later said regarding Tanith and Ben's performance, "They brought the energy back into the building."

Johnny Weir 2010 Olympic Free Skate from Vancouver, British Columbia
'Fallen Angel' video link Source One posted by jejel

'Fallen Angel' video link Source Two posted by tarrelond

I don't think I even have to comment on why this program is included amongst my favorites other than it is here.  Enough said. The fact Weir did not win a medal is, well, it is just plain WRONG!

Philippe Candeloro 1994 Long Program 'The Godfather' from Lillehammer, Norway posted by sk8rtr

Few skaters ever had more fun out on the ice than Candeloro did.  This program was not flawless, but it was clever and well choreographed and it earned Candeloro his first of two consecutive Olympic bronze medals. 

So what do you all think of my choices?  Please feel free to comment below!

Of Johnny Weir and PR and Long-Windedness

I created my blog here at BlogSpot a few days ago partly because I so enjoy reading Misfit Mimes blogs; and also because I am almost daily seeing or thinking of something related to Johnny Weir that is worthy of being talked about. I did write at least three JW related blogs through my Live Spaces account; however, I am nowhere near as funny as Binky/MM is. Truthfully my intent in my previous Johnny Weir musings has not necessarily been to come across as funny; frankly at least a couple of them came out of my mind and through my keyboard on to my computer screen because I was really pissed off at the time.

I can also be fairly long-winded; for example, my irritation with a comment on Facebook comparing this time in the USA's history with that of Nazi Germany around the time Adolf Hitler came to power led to President Obama is Not Adolf Hitler being posted. Granted, I definitely could have created a better title, but I believe I genuinely surprised the person I was responding to with the fact I know a lot about that particular historical period and could adequately respond to what she had to say. Another good example of my long-windedness (is that a word?) is Chicago Loses It's 2016 Olympic Bid, which grew out of the absolute glee I saw some of President Obama's detractors displaying over Chicago not getting the Olympics simply because the President is the former Senator from Illinois.

I started to respond to a blog originally posted by Misfit Mimes on May 4th, but I discovered my response was going to be too long-winded to be contained in a response. Therefore I decided to neglect the update to 'Weird, Alaska' one of my 'Criminal Minds' FanFics, and post my response here as my first blog instead.

I'm not going to summarize her blog, or quote it here, anyone can go read it, and if you don't read her already, I really recommend that you do. One of the things (among others) she was definitely right about here is that Johnny never should have been put in the position he was put in when he was forced to respond to Wendy Williams asking for a response to Evan Lysacek's comments.

Here is my response:

First, there is NO way Johnny could ever be protected completely from being ambushed, no matter who his PR team was. Maybe he could have been or should have been this time, but there's always going to be something or someone who might ask him a question he could be uncomfortable with, or be surprised about, and his answer is going to have to be on the fly and may not be as good as it would be if he had advance notice of the question. While I can't swear Wendy Williams enjoyed 'ambushing' Johnny Weir with her reading of Evan Lysacek's moronic comments, or that she normally does that sort of thing (I don't watch her often enough to say one way or the other!); it is definitely worth noting that there are hosts, reporters, television shows, etc. that do enjoy ambushing celebrities with questions they didn't expect, quotes they haven't heard or pictures they have not yet seen. I have seen numerous celebrities of all types and levels of popularity ambushed with things they should never have have been ambushed with. (Hello TMZ!) Many of these people have full time agents, manager and PR experts working with and for them, and it still happens!

Second, male figure skaters, no matter who they are, are never going to be the ideal client for any sponsor or agent. It doesn't matter who the skater is, or how good they are, what place they finished in at the Olympics, or how 'politically correct' they are or are not. Unfortunately for male figure skaters, this is simply a fact of life. It might seem to be idiotic to not jump at the chance to sponsor someone who is enormously popular with the fans, and would thus generate interest just by their name being associated with a project, but at the end of the day he's still a male figure skater, and some people are kind of funny about that. There's just not enough money floating around these days for sponsors/advertisers to spend, and frankly one of the things they do worry about is public perception. People may love Johnny's skating, or appreciate how candid he is, etc.; but at the end of the day, will your sponsorship of him cause any negative response from the public? Okay, in light of the trouble some sports figures have gotten into recently, this argument may seem pretty dumb, but public perception does play a role in all of this, whether it makes any sense or not.

Let me give you an example: Brian Boitano. Now, anyone who knows anything about Brian Boitano might instantly say 'hunh'? After all, even a casual fan knows BB has had a number of shows over the years (the 'Skating' tours; Skating Romance I, II, II; Three Masters of the Ice; Skating Kicks Back; Skate Against Hate; his annual holiday show among others), and every one of them had some sort of corporate sponsorship. However, it wasn't easy. When BB won his Olympic Gold Medal in Calgary in 1988, he was on top of the world. Sure there were some rumors about him, as there are about nearly every male figure skater; however he signed with a high powered sports agent (one of the top agents in the business at the time) and was well on his way. It should have been a no-brainer; BB is intelligent, talented, good-looking, a genuinely nice guy, and he won his gold medal in the best way possible-by giving the performance of a lifetime on the night he needed it the most. He was even genuinely friends with his biggest rival. However, despite his huge success with shows and in professional competitions, he was dropped by his original 'high-powered' agent. This was at least partly because he was, well, a male figure skater, and that fact just didn't mesh well with Mister High Powered Sports Agent's usual clients. Brian later admitted to being confused and depressed at the time, but as well as things worked out for him after that it turned out he didn't really need the guy. However, we know that isn't always the case for an athlete. And even BB was ambushed a time or two by reporters or interviewers.

One of the reasons we all find Johnny Weir so charming is because of his little quirks and his complete dedication to being himself. It's one of the things we love about him. And because we, his fans, know Johnny has a heart and a soul and genuinely cares about his family, his friends, his fans; it pains us to see him hurt, or made fun of, or to think that he might be embarrassed about something. We can try to protect him from that as much as we can, we can worry about whether he is getting the best advice he can, whether he is making the best career moves he could, and whether the people he is hanging around with are only interested in exploiting him or not.

What we can't do is protect JW from life's hard knocks. He already knows an awful lot about life's hard knocks because of how the figure skating establishment has messed with him over the years; and we've seen him really hurt by that, and we have seen him bounce back even stronger. We can talk about how he's an adult and he knows what he's doing, he has to make his own mistakes and so on. However, that doesn't and can't stop us from caring and from worrying. If it could we wouldn't really be his fans, would we? We can worry about how the 'war' between he and Evan is being perceived in the press, because it certainly did seem a little skewed in Evan's direction after the incident with Wendy Williams show and Evan's comments. Fans of Evan and Johnny jumped on articles at People.com, but I personally was surprised by the claims of some Evan fans who tried to say Johnny has attacked Evan for years unprovoked and Evan never responded until now. Evans claims about Johnny 'whining' regarding not being picked for 'Stars On Ice' are easily refutable by anyone who cares to check on what was actually said, but how many people actually check? Frankly I think this is going to mostly blow over, and partly already has, and JW may also be one of those people who can get away in some fans minds with some of the things he says simply because some people think he says things like that all the time and it's not a big deal. Of course, we know he doesn't 'say things like that all the time', and we don't want people thinking he does. Another skater who could do that was Katarina Witt. She could get away with almost anything because she was Katarina and people expected her to say things and do things no one else said or did. However, as much as I came to respect Miss Witt over the years, and I admit I did not always like her; I'm not sure that's how I want Johnny Weir to be perceived...

Anyway, even though I went on and on and said very little that was really useful, I'm done now.

Please keep voting for Johnny as 'Most Addictive Reality Star' by adding #realityWEIR to all your tweets, or by going to NewNowNext Awards site and scrolling down to where he is the last one listed in the fifth category. We have until June 4th to vote on this one. Also, please vote for Johnny as 2010 Readers' Choice Skater(s) of the Year Award (Michelle Kwan Trophy). We have until July 15th on this one, and the winner will be announced in the August/September issue of SKATING, on the U.S. Figure Skating web site and on icenetwork.com. The trophy will be presented to the winner next season. Please be careful about clicking on the right name on this one please, because Evan Lysacek is listed directly above Johnny Weir!