Sunday, March 31, 2019

Imposter Syndrome

Wonder if they ever have it?
They'll have six World Championships
and an Olympic gold medal when they're
done, and that's assuming they won't follow-up
the Olympics with Worlds in 2022.
I suspect Charlie White knows he and Meryl weren't the best skaters and never defeated Virtue Moir on the ice, but bought into the idea that perceived off-ice merit was a valid element in competitive outcomes. Hard work, sacrifice, good sportsmanship, waiting their turn.

Papadakis & Cizeron at the moment look like figure skating didn't think long term. The most any competitor can hope for is a Grand Prix title when P&C routinely come down with an injury during the series. Otherwise, the top spot is locked in and the sport has left itself no exit strategy.

Missed this until now:

Ilyushechkina Bilodeau:



We'll see. They look good together. Glad she's still an enthusiastic Canadian.

I did some surfing to see what fresh sham was out there, almost forgetting speculation as to why the whole sham process may have been revived (pregnancy). Tessa's social media output is so stylized


it could be pregnancy or just aesthetic.

In Pyeongchang, Scott's personal aesthetic was almost on par with an instagram model's - his crow's feet, which once extended across his cheekbones, were then just faint lines at the corners of his eyeballs. I guessed they felt they had to leave nothing to chance after the way "fat" had been weaponized in the 2014 narrative against VM. Only in figure skating would a supernaturally beautiful pair like VM be made to feel on the defensive in the beauty stakes. I'm not a fan of the hyper polished, erase everything standard and especially not a fan of a body and self-positivity message coupled with extreme filtering.


Ok.
Well, SHE's presenting as excited.

But the medium is still the message and I'm not a fan of this medium.




20 comments:

  1. The British commentators said that P/C that V/M wouldn't be able to beat P/C now because they've improved so much. The Russian commentators said that P/C wasn't better than H/D and that they're skating to a different instrument now and it's the only thing that has changed since last year.

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  2. I agree that Charlie White probably does know that he and Meryl never defeated V/M on ice.

    Someone else and I were talking about D/W and P/C the other night. D/W were terrible, but they did work hard to do whatever it was they were doing out there... ice scampering... P/C don't even put in that much work. They take a million vacations a year and it appears that Gabi is no fan of the gym. Granted, only one season of this quad has wrapped up, but for my money, Hubbell/Donohue, Sinitsina/Katsalapov, and Stepanova/Bukin are looking like the three strongest teams this quad. As evidenced by worlds, those three teams are destined to play duck, duck, goose for the silver and bronze spots on the podium, one of the three always left out, because that top spot is being filled by the impostors.

    One thing that the pushes for D/W and P/C have taught me is to spot a narrative push from 25 miles away. In this season that just wrapped up, someone spent much of it trying to pull in pairs what has been pulled in ice dance for so long. There was a huge push for the French team James/Cipres. They had a short program choreographed by Cizeron and a free skate by Charlie White! The commentary coming from those at NBC was OTT to the point of nauseating. J/C are certainly more capable as a pair then P/C (or D/W) in dance, but there are still a lot of short comings there. The ended up with undeserved GPF and Euros titles--it was the classic overlooked small errors that should have added up and inflated PCS (pro-tip: if J/C are being given a higher skating skills score than Tarasova/Morozov, something is very fishy). T/M had some jump woes at Euros, but the quality of everything else they executed and skating skills should have been enough to give them the win. I thought worlds was going to be a coronation for J/C, but they took themselves out of it in the short by doubling a jump and falling on the throw, ending up 13 points behind T/M who lead after the short and 11 points behind Sui/Han from China. J/C were third in the FS, but couldn't make up the points to even make it to bronze medal position. Still, this was the heist that almost happened over two far superior teams who should be the two fighting it out this quad all the way to Beijing. J/C are coming back next season, so I guess we get to see this play out again.

    As much as I enjoyed Lubov with Dylan, I'm having a hard time mustering up any support for this new team with Charlie Bilodeau. Charlie dumped his former partner, Julianne Seguin, in what can only be described as the most horrific and damaging way possible.

    https://ici.radio-canada.ca/sports/podium/59/julianne-seguin-patinage-artistique-couple-charlie-bilodeau-separation-olympiques-pyeongchang-podium?fbclid=IwAR2Lba6sVvFpztAOgqY3EGeXJURUpfrPFGXrQawIi4MlVa1KD4l51chz0U4

    The article is in French, so it will have to be google translated to read. It's heartbreaking.

    Then when they announced the partnership, Charlie B. was very ME ME ME ME ME about the whole thing:

    “Teaming up with Lubov allows me to finally return to competition which makes me excited. I truly believe in our potential and our chemistry on the ice. Our partnership is exactly what I needed to motivate me to pursue my dreams and to keep working hard until the 2022 Olympics Games in Beijing. It’s a new start that fuels my ambitions,” explained Bilodeau."

    As an added bonus, Marie-France Dubreil and Cizeron will be choreographing their programs. Hard pass on that.

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  3. 12:15 am again.

    Speaking of P/C and D/W, these are some things that come out of the ice dance technical committee meeting at worlds.

    "Rhythm Dance

    Musical/Operetta confirmed as theme
    Musics should be recognized as one of the following Rhythms: Quickstep, Blues, March, Polka, Foxtrot, Swing, Charleston, Waltz
    Juke box musicals are allowed

    Seniors:
    One section of Finnstep, steps 1-33. Pattern must be skated on Quickstep, Charleston or Swing
    4 additional required elements: short lift, sequential twizzles, pattern dance type step sequence (style b), step sequence in hold or not touching or combination or both (style b)
    Pattern dance type step sequence (style b) should be staked on the same rhythm chosen for Finnstep. It should start immediately after the slide and stop of Step#33 of the Finnstep
    Step sequence in hold or not touching or combination or both (style b) must be staked on a different rhythm than Finnstep.

    Juniors:
    As previously announced, Tea Time Foxtrot is the pattern.
    Margaglio says it is very challenging for Juniors.

    They admit that the +/-5 is not working very well in Ice Dance. It doesn't differentiate too much. They would need more +s. Halina Gordon Poltorak suggests a range from -3 to 7. Some little revisions of the chart of GOEs will be published in 2 weeks based on reports got from referees to make it easier to read the votes of the judges."

    Yes. Exactly what P/C need is +7 GOE.

    On the other hand, look at what they've finally proposed now that D/W are good and 5 years retired--the final two bullet points:

    "- They want teams to submit the name of the musicals with the rhythm they use. That way they make sure it fits the theme. They gave the example of a Star Wars polka not being eligible (since Star Wars is not a musical).
    - They want teams to have different set of twizzles in the RD and FD. They want more features to be used for the twizzles.
    - They don't want the "hop and twizzle" feature in the exit of the lift to be used as an "intricate" feature. They want "unique/interesting" features."

    RIP, Magical Wizard All-Purpose Twizzles

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    1. Could not care less anymore on what they decided to do with the scoring system. All I know is this - ISU judges use this as a perfect cover to justify whoever they deem worthy (in their mind and eyes) of those scoreséwinsétitles, even when the performance or real skills does not reflect or justify any or all the components in the scoring sheet. And we are merely stupid folks who do not know any better even if we can see it with our eyes or use our barin to see what is truth. RIP Ice Dance! Good riddance ...

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  4. Do you really think that a young, independent, accomplished woman only thinks about getting pregnant and having babies one after another? It's ridiculous.

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    1. Guess you haven't ventured here long enough to know that this (i.e pregnancy stories) is pretty much consistent with this blogger's assertion of claims for years that all those times Tessa has been absent from the competitive circuit, she's been "hiding" her delicate state? Never mind that she's been posted all this year (or even Post Sochi 2014) pretty much have her bared for all to see and thus proving that this notion of her (again) being pregnant is just pure fantasy?

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  5. oycanada why do fanforums love P/C and D/W while people who like Figure skating on tumblr and twitter hate them?

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  6. how many babies is tessa supposed to have by now...lmao

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  7. OC, if you are reading this, I hope you'll make a new post about P&C's comments (the whole interview is worth a read with auto translate).

    https://ici.radio-canada.ca/sports/podium/107/guillaume-cizeron-gabriella-papadakis-patinage-artistique-danse-jeux-olympiques-pyeongchang-tessa-virtue-scott-moir-medaille-robe

    And our notes, wow! It was really a lot of points! 123.35 for the free program. A world record. You do the maths. If Tessa and Scott had made the same score as the team competition (118.10), they would have been beaten, by far in fact. You repeat yourself: "It's not over! It is very possible in fact! "

    He: We were sitting in a kind of tent. We watched the performance of Tessa and Scott on screen.

    It's hard to go back in there. We had not really redesigned it in the details.

    She: I remember that I looked at their elements one by one. And each element, we wanted them to fall, and they never fell. It was: "Shit, they did not get stuck on that one, shit. Shit. Shit. They never fell, eventually. It was good war to hope. We did not want them wrong, but we thought about us.

    He: And there we waited for the score. This is not the best memory. Rarely, in my life, have there been moments too, how to say ... It appears in one second. There is no process. You wait for the banner with the score, then the little 1 or 2 in the corner, which determines whether you win, or not. And I'm bad at maths. So, I still have to wait to see that little number before I know. And there are all these cameras pointed at you.

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    1. Interesting (translated) interview. Did you read the debate going on with the translation on this piece though? Guess Scott is more deserving of the backlash and hate of what he allegedly said Post Sochi but not precious Gabby with her words. Conspiracy, she says? How about v/m swallowing the fact of an actual (killed off) investigation by the sports journal about a possible fixing? But noooo, we are not supposed to take her words out of context and even if she said it, it was just honest or human. On the other hand when Scott said about what happened in Sochi, (and they were still respectful of Marina and completely twisted his words with what happened, of course) they are the ones being told to shut up. God, it irritated me most that fans of both p/c and v/m are upholding the performances of p/c justifiable of EQUAL technical skills capabilities to that of v/m. Really??? I don’t see it. At all ... and have been watching them in seasons without v/m and with v/m. Now it’s like they’re talking like p/c is the untouchables ones and legend status. You kn ow what, I can say that p/c can bring that flowy movements in their bodies but skating skills & technique? Come on, they can be better and more respected if only they understood and try to see how important it is to skate well too. V/M worked their asses off for years to prove that they deserved to be on top and they proved it in their skating SKILLS and TECHNIQUE. I do not get the hate that v/m gets by trying something new in their performances. I feel like the anti v/m ppl are just annoyed that v/m come up stuff to annoy or think they are showing off to ppl or something. That, and that they have passion and can dance on ice at that. They say, it is a sport but actually deep inside these anti fans prove they dont. It is all about how a performance just looks or makes feels to them on ice. Also this P/C craze is just a slap to the faces of other more qualified (i.e. skilled on skates) skaters in the field right now. I just can’t stand it anymore

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    2. The Russian one is even more clarifying https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/darling/2429795.html

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    3. This whole intereviw reeked of sour grapes, of self entitlement and self importance. Just when I say to myself to give the new season a chance with this team, they give me this ...

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    4. What is more annoying is when commentators say that even VM wouldn't be able to compete with PC this season.

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    5. Tell me about it...I am annoyed of the fact that V/M still have it in them to outskate many in the field but are forced into thinking to go into retirement (i.e. they still have not announced officially yet, of course). All because (i see and feel) ISU thinks it is time. This narrative is helped pushed by some well-known commentators, panel of judging/judges as well as the fans or anti fans. Somewhere along the years after 2012, I dont hear commentators commenting as much on technicals of the skating skills in ice dance, like the difficulty of lifts, the closeness of the blades, closeholds or unison, etc. One I recall briefly was when Charlie W. commented on V/M SD during the PyeongChang games. That is it ...

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  8. You wish P/C fanbase was as big as V/M 's you old bitter european hag

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  9. V/M two pretentious dick heads heavy on ice vulgar and cheesy..not two dancers just two old skaters...

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  10. TV looks like a RDA swimmer and SM has a ski jumping nose....and they both skate like trucker...LOL Thank you god thi two purges are retired....

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    1. Yes i agree and this two Canandian heads to slap have never had class....To vulgar for that....

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  11. V/M so vulgar !!!!

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