After all, "gay" simply means you're attracted to the same gender. It doesn't mean you're graceful on skates. If it did, the NHL should consider some rebranding.

Being gay can't mean you're overly dramatic, because Brett Favre is the biggest drama queen in all of sports, and besides, after nearly 20 years in the NFL, he's probably slapped more man booty than all the gay men in San Francisco combined. Do we question his sexuality?

Am playing devil's advocate? Of course I am. But it's not just for the sake of being a contrarian. I'm suggesting a slight paradigm shift with regard to our views of what it means to be masculine. Society adopts terms like "metrosexual" so men can clip their nose hairs in peace. Talking heads coin phrases like "bromance" so men can have real friendships. There's so much posturing and projection happening on a daily basis that sometimes I wonder if straight men suffer from the effects of homophobia more than gay men do.

Look, I know a lot of guys who love women in the Eros sense of the word but who don't follow sports and couldn't pick Kobe Bryant out of a lineup of dwarfs.

Conversely, I have a friend who once had to be physically restrained from beating the snot out of a ref during a league basketball game, and he's been with his boyfriend for more than 10 years.

These are not examples of anomalies. These are examples within the kaleidoscope of life, and if some of us would take off our black-and-white blinders long enough -- and perhaps stop acting the way we think we're supposed to act -- we might actually begin to see and appreciate the diversity within the lexicon of manhood. This philosophy isn't just about creating an environment in which it's comfortable for gay men to compete in sports. It's also about creating a space in which it's OK for straight men not to.

Labels: figure skating, homophobia, sports

GLAAD has learned from a source that wishes to remain anonymous that sponsors of the Stars on Ice Tour, which include Smuckers and IMG Entertainment, have refused to allow 3-time US National Champion and 2-time Olympian Johnny Weir to participate because they claim that he is “not family friendly.”

To say that Weir is “not family friendly” would be a clear jab at his perceived sexual orientation. Weir is extremely involved with his family. He is putting his younger brother through college, and supports the family financially because his father’s disability prohibits him from working. Weir’s dedication to his family can be clearly documented in the Sundance series, Be Good Johnny Weir, which follows him and his family and friends through his life and career as a championship skater.

Weir’s performance and costume style is sometimes considered flashier than those of other skaters, leading to questions about his perceived sexual orientation. While Weir has not officially announced his sexual orientation, he has garnered a significant amount of LGBT fans. He remains one of the most outspoken skaters today, and won an online poll asking fans “Who would you like to see guest star on Stars on Ice?”

Weir recently announced that he is taking a break from skating in order to “rework his technique.” This news does not release the Stars on Ice sponsors from asking him to participate. The door should be opened to him as one of the most influential skaters in the field today.

Labels: figure skating, homophobia, wingnuttia

Labels: a real mensch, figure skating

Labels: 2010 Olympics, figure skating

Check the statistics on the OD videos that have been posted on YouTube, and most of the views are by people in India. The program is mentioned on several Web sites celebrating Indian culture. Some of Rajendra's own friends even got e-mails from people in India, telling them they had to check out these American ice dancers.

Like most winter sports, skating isn't very big in India. But people there were impressed — and proud — that American skaters were showcasing their culture.

"This is the new world......of globalization! I am so proud of my heritage! way to go!!," one person who watched the video on YouTube wrote.

"It makes me feel good that something Indian is being shown," said Dr. Shekar Pushpala, a doctor in Indianapolis who was sent the video by a friend in India.

By the end of October, eight or nine people had sent Usman Ahmed links to the video, urging him to post it on his "My Life is Desi" Web site, which is devoted to South Asian culture.

Labels: 2010 Olympics, figure skating

Labels: Bollywood, figure skating

U.S. figure skater Evan Lysacek just wanted to enjoy the Olympic gold medal he never expected -- but always wanted -- hours after his upset victory over Russian Evgeni Plushenko in the Olympic men's figure skating competition Thursday.

Instead, Lysacek spent Friday enduring attacks on the legitimacy of his title from Russians and others upset both with his tactical approach and the judges' decision to give him a narrow victory over the 2006 gold medal winner.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent Plushenko, who claimed the silver medal, a telegram telling him his "silver was as good as gold" and he "performed the most accomplished program on the Vancouver ice." Russian commentators decried the result, and two-time Olympic silver medal winner Elvis Stojko said in a column for Yahoo that Lysacek's skate wasn't "Olympic champion material" and "the judges made a mockery" of the event by rewarding Lysacek.

The debate centered solely around the fact Plushenko executed a quadruple jump and Lysacek did not. Bronze medal winner Daisuke Takahashi tried one, but fell attempting it and fell out of contention for the gold.

Lysacek contends that his nearly perfect program featuring eight triple jumps and complex spins, footwork and transitions topped Plushenko's more-wobbly effort with the quad and seven triples.

Plushenko fueled the controversy by wagging his index fingers in the air when he finished Thursday, then complaining about the judges' decision to put him 1.31 points behind Lysacek.

"You can't be considered a true men's champion without a quad," Plushenko told Russian state television, according to Reuters.

"For someone to stand on top of the podium with the gold medal around his neck by just doing triple jumps, to me it's not progress; it's a regress because we've done triples 10 or even 20 years ago," Plushenko said, according to Reuters. "Just doing nice transitions and being artistic is not enough because figure skating is a sport, not a show."

Plushenko freely admits this flaw in the transitional moves — footwork, choreography and musicality — that link his soaring triple axels and quadruple toe loops. At a news conference last month, referring to himself and Brian Joubert of France, Plushenko said, “We don’t have any transitions, because we focus on our jumps.”

He also suggested that judges could prop up skaters under the new scoring system, just as in the old 6-point system, by inflating their “component” scores, the equivalent of the old artistic marks. This added to the suspicion by some that exaggerated artistic marks were given to Plushenko at the recent Russian and European championships.

Joe Inman, an influential American judge who helped write the rules for component scores, passed along Plushenko’s remarks in an e-mail message to friends, including some fellow judges. The e-mails were detailed in The Globe and Mail of Toronto. In them, Inman wrote that despite Plushenko’s admission of weakness in transitions, “The judges seem to miss what he is saying.”

Inman also wrote, “We as judges should think about what we saw before putting that mark down.”

In a telephone interview Thursday, Inman, who is not a judge at these Games, said he was not trying to influence the outcome of the men’s competition at the Vancouver Olympics.

“It was innocuous,” he said. “I wasn’t telling people how to judge.”

Except that is not how his remarks were interpreted by the Russians and the French, who detected a full-blown North American conspiracy against European skaters.

Perhaps Inman should have known better. If there is a chance to twist words in this sport, they will be contorted like a skater’s body during a Biellmann spin.

Didier Gailhaguet, the president of the French figure skating federation, told the sports newspaper L’Equipe, “This proves the North American lobby is under way.”

Labels: figure skating

and...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/olympics_blog/2010/02/for-lysacek-celebrity-whirlwind-starts-fast.html

For Plushenko, though, the performance was not a complete disappointment. He had landed the quadruple jump, which requires four full rotations and is the hardest jump in the sport. He had added a third Olympic medal to his booty.

“I said I would be happy with second, third or even fifth place after not skating for three and a half years before this,” he said. “So this is not bad, not bad at all.”

Still, he and his coach, Aleksei Mishin, continued to say that male skaters who did not try the quad were basically wimps. Their theory is that no-quad performances are setting the sport back at least a decade. Mishin said “a real champion should execute quadruple jumps.” Plushenko hinted that Lysacek’s performance was subpar.

“If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump a quad, I don’t know,” Plushenko said. “Now it’s not men’s figure skating. It’s dancing. Maybe figure skating needs a new name.”

Labels: 2010 Olympics, figure skating

China won its first Olympic figure skating gold medal on Monday when Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo took the pairs title at the Vancouver Games. Their countrymen, Pang Qing and Tong Jian, took the silver medal. A German pair, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, won the bronze.

“My belief is, records are set to be broken,” Zhao said. “I think this is the embodiment of the Olympic spirit and the attraction of the Olympic Games.”

The best the Russian pair of Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov could manage was a distant fourth after a shattering performance in the free skate.

“We were prepared for this sad moment,” Oleg Vasiliev, a 1984 Olympic pairs champion with his partner, Elena Valova, and now a coach, said after Sunday’s short program. “Still, it hurts the heart.”

The breakup of the Soviet Union essentially cost Russia a generation of pairs skaters, Vasiliev and other coaches said. The pipeline of government funding — free flowing in the sports-as-propaganda time of communism — began to dry up. Rinks closed to be transformed into other business, like car dealerships and shopping malls. Some top coaches left to work in the United States, where they could be assured of teaching private lessons and getting paid.

As the social safety net became frayed with the unraveling of the Soviet Union, “Many people had so little money, they had a choice — buy bread or put their kids in activities like skating or other sports,” Vasiliev said. “We went through a messy situation. Unfortunately, we now have a gap.”

Vulnerability became apparent when dual golds were awarded to a Canadian pair at the 2002 Winter Games during the judging scandal in Salt Lake City. The gap began to show dramatically in pairs skating after the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy. It has now reached the point that the top Russian women’s pairs skater, Kavaguti, is a native of Japan. She modified her family name of Kawaguchi after gaining Russian citizenship.

“This is the kind of leftovers from what we had,” said Tamara Moskvina, Kavaguti’s coach, who has tutored four previous Soviet/Russian pairs to Olympic gold medals. “It is a weak generation.”

[snip]

The Chinese victory was seen by many as a democratizing milestone. Debi Thomas, who won a bronze medal in women’s skating at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary and is now an orthopedic surgeon, said, “Given that I’m a Chicago Cubs fan, there’s hope.”

Ingo Steuer, coach of the German bronze medalists and the winner of a similar medal competing in pairs at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, said, “It’s good for the sport to see someone else on the list.”

Vasiliev agreed that it was healthy that “other countries can see it is possible to win; it adds geography to the sport.” Yet Russia is not conceding anything.

It will host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi and plans to return to the top of the podium. Public and private funding are on the rise, rinks are opening regularly, parents can increasingly afford lessons and some top coaches have moved back home.

“Unfortunately, we only have a few pairs who are competitive internationally,” Vasiliev said. “The rest are still young with not much experience. But we hope by the next Olympics we can get our gold medal back.”

Labels: 2010 Olympics, figure skating

The cold war ended two decades ago, except somebody forgot to tell the people involved in figure skating. The East German judges are long gone, the Soviet bloc has been dismantled, but obsession, paranoia and conspiracy still rule. If skating didn’t exist, Robert Ludlum would have invented it.

“This sport is so political, nobody trusts anybody,” said George Rossano, an American expert on the arcane and controversial points-based scoring system.

The latest controversy centers on Yevgeny Plushenko, the defending Olympic men’s champion from Russia. He retired, then made a comeback for Vancouver, where he is favored to win a second gold medal. There is no better leaper in the world. Plushenko jumps like a teenager at a horror movie.

He is also fast and calm under pressure. And in the words of Dick Button, the 1948 and 1952 Olympic champion, “He has enough chutzpah to fill the Grand Canyon.”

Still, there are drawbacks to Plushenko’s skating: footwork and artistry. This is a guy who could use a few lessons at Arthur Murray. It was the same problem that Tom DeLay had on “Dancing With the Stars.” Both men have terrific charisma, but would be well advised in the future to avoid rhinestones, bolero jackets and the cha-cha.

Plushenko freely admits this flaw in the transitional moves — footwork, choreography and musicality — that link his soaring triple axels and quadruple toe loops. At a news conference last month, referring to himself and Brian Joubert of France, Plushenko said, “We don’t have any transitions, because we focus on our jumps.”

He also suggested that judges could prop up skaters under the new scoring system, just as in the old 6-point system, by inflating their “component” scores, the equivalent of the old artistic marks. This added to the suspicion by some that exaggerated artistic marks were given to Plushenko at the recent Russian and European championships

Many relish his ornate, unapologetic style, while others believe the glitz has overwhelmed the skating, making his chances for an Olympic medal as slippery as the ice itself. Underlying every move of Weir, a three-time national champion, is this question: What are the obligations of a skater who must play to the crowd and the judges?

That tension is evident in the way Weir, 25, skates and talks. He is enamored of the classic Russian style, yet sometimes he can appear more burlesque than Bolshoi. He wants to be “an athlete my country can be proud of.” At the same time, he said: “You’re putting on a show; you’re putting on a performance. I feel like that every day when I walk out of my house.”

When he walks into the rink each day, Weir wants his coach, Galina Zmievskaya, to say, “Look at you.” She has taught him to walk “like you’re the king,” head up, shoulders back, not seeing anyone, only the objective ahead — “the end of the carpet that’s been rolled out for you.”

Weir said: “My obligation has always been to bring the artistic side of my sport out. Jumps are jumps, and everybody can do those jumps. But not everybody can show something wonderful and special and unique and different.”

He is not particularly interested in making skating more mainstream or masculine, Weir said. No need to grab the average N.F.L. fan. “I wear pink,” he said. “I have no problem where my sport is as far as our fan base.”

Labels: figure skating, sports

Labels: figure skating, mus

"He just passed away in his sleep," Bowman's mother, Joyce, told the Detroit Free Press, which first reported details of his death, according to The Associated Press. "His friend told me that he was fine. He just went to bed and didn't wake up."

The cause of death was under investigation, said Lt. Joe Bale, adding that a full examination should take place this weekend. However, signs pointed to a "possible overdose," Bale said.

"Either lead this sport, follow this sport, or get out of the way."


"It's not what you can afford to have but what you can afford to lose."

"The skater whose effort is going nowhere, generally gets there."

"Be nice to other skaters on the way up, for you may see them on the way down."

"Beware of the skater who has nothing to lose."

Labels: figure skating, pop culture