Farce as an Olympic sport

farce
färs/
noun
noun: farce; plural noun: farces
1.
a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
synonyms: slapstick comedy, slapstick, burlesque, vaudeville, buffoonery

These two improved seven points in a week. Just amazing. Better scores than Virtue Moir got when competing Carmen and most of this season.

I want to know why it's okay to criticize the hell out of the ladies competition, but nobody can criticize ice dance (Yes, I know - because Russian).  And why it's okay to insinuate (or immediately uncover and publicize) iffy shit about the judges on the ladies panel (including names and history) but turn a blind eye to the judges on the dance panel. It's amazing how, when there's the correct agenda in place, some of the otherwise obtuse members of the media immediately get hold of useful information.

When it's not convenient, nobody knows anything.

Nobody, meaning, nobody in skating, except Beverly Smith (and she has her lips zipped about the judges on the dance panel). Virtue and Moir's various dramaturgs in the media have attempted to state the case, but these feeble efforts carry no weight, because they they can't back up their complaints with relevant specifics, because they undermine their case (by saying DW are a great team, because they're unable to see for themselves what DW are and aren't doing on the ice), because don't know what the relevant specifics are, and that's because in all of their years covering skating, they've never set out to learn - for themselves - about what constitutes skating technique, which means recognizing what is and isn't going on at blade level, which means recognizing that what the media pretends is "style" (carriage, extension, detail) is, at the highest level, actually a form follows function attribute that further establishes superior technique. So, not knowing what they're talking about means even VM partisans enable the destructive narrative at the root of all of this, which is that DW are great but VM are merely better.

No, Davis and White are NOT great. It's not that Virtue and Moir are simply on an even higher plane of great. Davis and White are NOT great. They're not good for ice dancing. Their innovation as regards this sport is that they've bastardized skating and dance, and thereby officially defeated real dancers and skaters. Through Davis White, the sport has stripped skating and ice dancing of their actual meaning, and turned established, objective criteria for superior skating inside out. In fact, they've dispensed with real criteria completely, and used the protocols as cooked books.

It's only cheating if they're Russian, and looking at figure skating journalism

Christine Brennan, who after two decades still doesn't know all that much about figure skating at blade level, who looked away when Virtue and Moir won the ice dance competition on the ice, but the judges gave the gold to Davis and White instead, has no problem with that outcome.

She's mad because, in ladies, the judges gave ladies gold to the Russian instead of the Korean.

There is actually a case to be made for Adelina Slotnikova versus Yuna Kim (she has a triple loop, for one), and there is none for Davis White versus Virtue Moir.

So of course North America is taking up the Yuna's cause, because blaming Russia never gets old. All of North America will never get over the butt hurt that Russian skaters were the better skaters for a number of decades. Being better at an expensive sport that one must begin in early childhood tends to happen when the sport is underwritten by the state and the state proactively seeks out talent all over the country, and nurtures that talent, giving it every opportunity to succeed. That's how it tends to work everywhere with any sport. It's not something that should keep you up at night for Christ's sake. In those days Russia prioritized skating. N.A. did not.

What IS North America's issue with Russia in skating, an issue they don't seem to have with skaters from other countries?

The media has managed to unearth all kinds of things about the tech controller and the judges in the ladies free, but nobody thinks to explore the scoring patterns of competitions where VM lose to DW despite outskating DW. It's all a freaking mystery.

When Americans win, deals and cheating is okay.

But she WILL celebrate Meryl and Charlie

As we all know, and as is being discussed in the comments section in the post below this, Skate Canada has this fixation on Paul Poirier that went nuclear when he dumped Vanessa Crone and teamed up with a rich, spotlight hungry American girl.

The blog also discussed this girl's campaign to become a Canadian citizen based upon her "special services" to Canada. Services like this, during the ice dance team competition in Sochi.

Keep it up Meryl and Charlie, from a loyal Canadian, Piper Gilles.

Piper's loyalty to anything but Piper seems a bit suspect, it will surprise nobody to hear. During the opening ceremonies she had this tweet:

Seriously, she had to SHARE. Texting wouldn't do. She had to let the world know that the Canadian team's entrance had no meaning without Piper. At least, no meaning to her.

THIS is the girl up whose ass Skate Canada has been living for two years. Cheering on Meryl and Charlie in freaking SOCHI. Days later, she gave Tessa and Scott lip service (wonder what prompted that) but this is the first thing out of her twitter. Not just you give me goosebumps, but KEEP IT UP. Keep winning, Meryl and Charlie.

Yes, the blog and others were so so bad, so so mean, to object to fast tracking Piper Gilles to Canadian citizenship, leap frogging her over the backs of would-be citizens who were logging their second year of wait time (or more). The blog pointed out that any justification for accelerating her application was exceedingly thin - Canada was and is lousy with talented, competitive, already Canadian ice dance talent, and adding one more hardly merited categorizing her as providing a "special service." When Piper spoke to the merits of her application, she argued that she also loved Canada very very very very much. She doesn't even celebrate American holidays anymore! But she will publicly celebrate the American ice dance team being set up to rob her erstwhile teammates, Canadians Tessa and Scott.

We'll keep this in mind, Piper.

Piper Gilles taking her oath of citizenship.

You can still smell it from here/roller coaster derailed

The sport has always been political, but in elevating D/W to the top the way it did, it took the only pure thing the sport had going for it - the actual skating - and bastardized it. In the past, some skaters/teams certainly won on account of political wrangling, but NEVER were attempts made to redefine or obliterate the definitions of every aspect of the skating in order to justify the elevation of one skater/team over another. Until now. Comments section, February 19, 9:08 p.m.

  *****

It's more athletically demanding to be artistic and to have the proper components. We've packed that program full of technically hard elements with extremely demanding transitions....

You have to be more of an athlete to be able to execute that.

I still love this free dance. It is a really difficult program to perform and the last minute is really demanding and to finish like that it was special.
Scott Moir.

The bolded sentences in both quotes, especially.

Listening to Virtue and Moir's press conference, it almost seems as if everybody thinks they're being daring by discussing the actual skating. But not too much. Even while emphasizing the difficulty of being "artistic" and having proper components, making it implicit that this is what their competition does NOT do, Scott shrunk from being explicit. Must not discuss the skating of their opponents. Where else does this happen in freaking SPORT? Where you have to act like it's a pageant - or at least the Canadian side does. The U.S. side can have it both ways.

Also, that's some very emphatic stuff from Scott. How come in the reality show we had to hear how subpar, underperforming, uncertain and up against it they were? Wouldn't it have been helpful if, in the reality show, the fact that it was more athletically demanding to be artistic and do the proper components had been emphasized so this fact would reach a wider audience? They just spent episode after episode acting like they sucked, didn't trust themselves, had no faith in themselves, and were worried about beating freaking Weaver & Poje. Throughout their reality show we heard NONE of this (well, the Marina stuff, not the stuff about how strong they knew their programs were, and that they fully understood what it demonstrated about their athleticism and their skating skills, and why it then deserved to be rewarded. It was a CANADIAN FREAKING NETWORK, but no. We had to hear that they thought they were BAD and DW were perfect.)

The Marina stuff feels like reality show to me. She can't split herself in two. She had three teams, two of them American. That appears to me to have been the deciding factor in the opening ceremonies. It also is contradictory to say "Needs to bring her A game" in one breath and the next say she pours her heart into your choreography, every note in the free is handcrafted, and you still love it.

THEN WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

It was unbelieveable to me, however, the yay Skate Canada. On its face, in public, Skate Canada has enabled the selling out of Virtue and Moir to Davis & White. I say don't crawl into their heads with Marina, so I won't crawl into their heads with Skate Canada and assume they don't know what's going on, but their Federation has done them no favors, and their Federation is not a neutral, let the chips fall where they may entity. The Federation is supposed to advocate for them, and only them. Not the Americans. It didn't.

Can any ice dancers even pretend to believe their protocols after this? Look at the pcs up there (and review the KP calls in the short). It's fiction.

Although we've known this was coming pretty much since last season, and particularly after the Letter of Inquiry following the interruption in Carmen, and we knew definitively after the Grand Prix Final that there was nothing Scott and Tessa could do, or DW NOT do, to win, this thing still leaves a stench that's not going away.

What this sport did was spit on itself. It made a DECISION to do so. It's more than awarding a dumbed down, tricked out, politically enabled dance team. In order to do that the sport had to turn around and intentionally repress every single standard of the sport, everything it tells the world ice dance ought to be, everything it has said figure skating is meant to be, down to what is stroking, what are edges, what is speed, what is rhythm  - down to every fundamental, this sport repressed the team that fulfills/executes the defined standards of this sport better than anybody before and likely, better than anybody since, in order to reward a team that faked it. It's not just that DW were given a gold medal (they certainly did not win it). It's what the sport did to itself - pretty much shat itself - sorry - to get it done.

Some people complain about - isn't there going to be an investigation?

This was happening in plain sight for almost two years. Not just the elevation of Davis White, but the suppression of Virtue Moir. Everybody saw it coming. If anybody was interested in investigating/stopping, they'd have done it a long time ago.

But as soon as Skate Canada gave the green light, why would anybody bother? Skate Canada left the doors unlocked, the lights on and the safe open.

It looks to me as if Virtue and Moir had resolved to be at peace with the results, but it's turning out to be a little more of a task than they expected.

As usual, everybody is focusing on coaching (and Virtue and Moir re-affirmed their faith in Marina after going overly-reality show in post-competition remarks), and not focusing on Federations.

One timeline as I remember it is Marina mentioned in a Vancouver-era interview that the USFSA gave her the third degree about Phantom - wanting to know why Virtue Moir got Mahler and Davis White got seemingly overused, second hand goods.

In 2011-2012, the USFSA kicked Le Strada to the curb and Marina had to set the program to new music with different timing. The USFSA knew what it was doing with Davis White. The USFSA knew what it was aiming to pull off with Davis White.

Meantime, in 2009-2010, Skate Canada assured us that the judging was going to be pristine in Vancouver.

In 2010-2011 Skate Canada proactively pushed Scott and Tessa's lies at us.

And after that, VM were somehow dumped.

Tessa and Scott have never played ball in the same way Davis White have played ball; this is a very petty, obviously 100% political-is-personal and vice versa sport, and maybe some people thought Virtue and Moir were uppity - even in their own Federation.

In 2011-2012 Skate Canada threw Tessa and Scott under the bus at Canadians (Funny Face), and had nothing to say about Funny Face versus Die Fleudermaus - it was all about promoting Gilles & Poirier.

In 2012-2013 Skate Canada threw Scott and Tessa under the bus at Canadians and then backed it up and ran it over them a few times and played "me too" with the ISU by downgrading a key element, forcing VM to rework it and use another. That's the ISU's game - suddenly Skate Canada was playing.

It had nothing to say when mud was slung at Virtue and Moir after the 4CC's interruption. Nor after the Letter of Inquiry from the ISU.

IOW, Skate Canada said to the ISU and the judges at large - do what you want with them. We won't protest. We'll help when we can.

It let Virtue and Moir swing in the wind.

The USFSA, meantime, to say the LEAST, was busy protecting Davis White, from awarding them monstrously inflated scores at every Nationals to dumping the team (Shibutanis) that had been nipping at their heels in 2011.

Skate Canada had nothing to say after the Grand Prix Final 2014 when the ISU hijacked VM's scores, gave them to Davis White and added a bonus so Davis White could win, even though Virtue and Moir had resoundingly defeated Davis White on the ice.

There's more - the U.S. had no problem whatsoever taking potshots at Virtue and Moir (go back and read ice network), while Skate Canada fell over itself promoting the notion that Davis White versus Virtue Moir was "apples and oranges" or a matter of preference, or too close to call because Davis White were superb.

Skate Canada has no conflict of interest. Skate Canada isn't supposed to promote U.S. skaters. Skate Canada spent as much time promoting Meryl and Charlie as being on par with Virtue Moir as it did promoting Virtue Moir - actually much more time, because it didn't promote Virtue Moir at all.

Did the USFSA show respect in turn, acknowledge Virtue Moir as incredible skaters and dangerous rivals?

Virtue Moir who?

It's fine if people want to spit and hiss at Marina Zoueva, who gave Virtue Moir much better programs than the dumbed down reheated material she gave Davis White every year, but I find it outright bizarre that the one entity that is meant to promote Virtue Moir and ONLY Virtue Moir - did worse nothing. Washed their hands. Touted the American rivals. Didn't utter a peep after Virtue and Moir were ripped off at the Grand Prix Final.

What did Mike Slipchuck say after the Sochi free dance? He sounded like freaking Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: "For those who find the results questionable, those will be questionable results."

But never mind, these things happen. (Paraphrasing)


And that was ONLY after the free dance. He couldn't bring himself to question the seven point differential in the team event. After all, Virtue and Moir made a visible wobble and we all know Davis and White made no mistakes, except they did, as they do every single time.

Thanks Mike. I can't wait to hear the fuming from SC next time RUSSIA does something. Since the L'Equipe article came out, again, it was Canada blaming RUSSIA and running interference for the U.S., because it looks to me as if Skate Canada loves Meryl and Charlie as much as the USFSA does.

Yes, you should have, Bev

Something is rotten in the state of sochi

She says she should have written this a long time ago. Well, YES.

But here are excepts:

Virtue and Moir skated the performance of their lives, easy to see in Moir’s reaction when he did a joyful, spontaneous dance when they finished. When the marks came up, I knew it was over. They weren’t going to win this one. And of course, they were dinged in the Finnstep, receiving a level three, rather than four, although Tracy Wilson on NBC had said they were clean. Of course, they were called for making a mistake. They always are.  It’s always something.

*****

And what about Davis and White’s levels in Sochi? They received level four for all of their elements, wrapped up in huge execution and component marks. It seems that every time they set foot on the ice, they set a world record – and they did again in the short dance.

*****

And the Americans set a world record? During the team event, a television camera clearly caught Davis and White out of unison going into twizzles. But did those sharp-eyed callers catch it? Apparently not. Are skaters being judged by the same standards?

She also goes into DW more and asks if the Emporer is wearing new clothes, that the narrative has overpowered the judging. Well, DUH.

But who listens to fans?

Meantime, Lynn Rutherford at ice network is busy tweeting that past unfair scores justify yesterday's unfair scores, and scores can't possibly be unfair. If she has to diss the inventor of the Finn Step to make that point, she will:

I'd also like to know how come the fans aren't shown a close-up in slo mo of the supposed missed level?

Robbery in Progress

This excerpt from Rosie DiManno's new article (thanks 5:02, below):

Said Moir: “We sat in the kiss ’n’ cry and looked at each other and said, it doesn’t matter, because that was the moment we wanted to have.”

He was asked: Do you feel like you can win gold?

“Who knows?”

I think everybody knows.

Why was the lift changed?

Lynn Rutherford (and others) appear to be confirming that Scott and Tessa have changed the first lift so that Scott remains in a spread eagle. Rutherford understands this will help them get Level 4 on steps WHICH MAKES NO SENSE.

What make sense to me is this is the third or fourth time the judges or the isu have given last minute feedback to Virtue and Moir to ditch or amend the most spectacular, accessible element in their program. The public and the press might not be able to tell sloppy feet from clean feet, two feet from one foot, closed hold from open hold, lifts with many points of contact from lifts with no redundancy at all, but the public can tell a spectacular move from a pedestrian-looking move, no matter if the spectacular looking move takes extraordinary skating skills (Scott and Tessa's original straight line) or has nothing to do with skating skills whatsoever (DW' sling the backpack lift).

Now DW have what APPEARS to the casual viewers to be a "spectacular" move where Charlie slings her up onto his back in a counter-motion, while Scott has Tessa in what looks to be a simple pose while she's in arabesque. That should make the silver medal go down easier to both media and public.