PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – The women’s figure skating competition hasn’t begun at these Olympic Games, yet we already know who is going to come in first and second, barring epic collapses on the ice, which could happen, but probably won’t.
An Olympic Athlete from Russia will win, and another Olympic Athlete from Russia will come in second in the competition that begins Wednesday with the short program and ends Friday with the long.
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It wouldn’t be a top international women’s figure skating competition without its share of controversy, however. This one involves one of the Russians. (Of course it does.) It’s the way Zagitova has laid out her long program, specifically her jumps. They’re all in the last two minutes of her program, every single one of them. She doesn’t do any jumps in the first half of her program, then jumps like mad in the final two minutes – all to get the 10% bonus in points for jumps in the second half of a program.
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Talk about gaming the system. The idea behind the bonus is that skaters will have already tried several jumps in the first two minutes, so their legs will be getting tired, hence awarding the 10% extra for jumps tried in the final two minutes.
But Zagitova gets the bonus without having put in the exertion. Nagasu, for instance, has a well-balanced long program: eight triple jumps in all, five in the first two minutes, three in the last two minutes. Zagitova has seven triple jumps, all in the final two minutes.
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One of those wondering what the judges are doing is one of the world’s top judges. “When everything in the second half of the program is jump, jump, jump, you tell me if that’s a balanced program,” said Joe Inman, a highly regarded U.S. international figure skating judge.
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Audrey Weisiger, who coached two-time U.S. Olympian and three-time national champion Michael Weiss, agreed.
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2014 U.S. Olympic team bronze medalist and three-time U.S. national champion Ashley Wagner tweeted a strong critique of the program:
“I respect the competitive approach. But ... cannot do this set up. It’s not a program."
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A day later
Drug test disrupts training of OAR Olympic gold medal contender
Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) figure skater Alina Zagitova was unable to conduct a full training session yesterday after being ordered to take a drugs test, it has been revealed.
The 15-year-old, one of the favourites for the women's singles gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games here, began her practice session at the Gangneung Ice Arena before the drug testers arrived.
According to state-run television network RT, Zagitova was on the ice for "several minutes" but was unable to continue after taking the test.
Reports claim Zagitova was "nervous" and the test took over four hours.
Officials later said she would resume her scheduled training today before the competition is due to start tomorrow with the medals awarded on Friday (February 23).
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#1: Tooconservative To: A Pole (#0)
Maybe.
Recall that a Russian competing for another country won the curling. Then failed a drug test and forfeited his curling medal.
The Russkies are dirty, dirty, dirty with doping. They keep losing medals from past Olympic competitions because they save the blood samples for years until it can be determined chemically how they were cheating.
The question arises as to whether Russians can actually win without steroids or faking some she-male lady-boy into the women's competitions. Their track record is awful.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-20 15:08:09 Reply Private Reply
#2: A Pole To: Tooconservative (#1)
A Pole posted on 2018-02-20 17:58:40 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: A Pole (#2)
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-20 18:41:49 Reply Private Reply