The entertainment thread was more appropriate...skating is hardly sports anymore and Wagner was more a kardashian than an olympic athlete.

Anonymous wrote:BTW, whatever happened to Gracie Gold?

Out for depression and eating disorder. Sitting in the stands and winning Twitter at Nationals!

BTW, whatever happened to Gracie Gold?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

+1

This is exactly the reason why none of my children, and I have 4, participate in ice skating, basketball, baseball, football or any extra activities that involve a coach or panel that will decide who can and can not make the team. This is especially so true at the high school level and lot of politics and favors with parents. The outcome is often rigged.

Two of my kids play tennis and the other two play golf. In those two sports, team members and seeding is solely based on head to head competition via match play. At the end of the day, those that have the most wins make the team. Those that have the least, good luck next season.

Devil's advocate here but playing sports with a judging element prepared me a lot for the workplace, where bosses already have favorites, promotions are rigged, there are tons of politics/nepotism/favors, and you may not agree with someone else's assessment of you.

Anonymous wrote:If there were enough kids playing golf and tennis, there are statistical and subjective elements in those two sports too that would determine who makes a team.

The variable with figure skating is the artistic element.

here is how it works at high school tennis tryouts in the spring for 12 or 14 spots on the team in NoVa because I watched it last year. Usually 60 kids showed up for the 5 days tryouts. After the first day, about 30 kids got cut because they are just bad. On the 2nd and 3rd day of tryout, match play among the 30 kids, and lowest 10 kids got cut from the group, down to 20 kids. On the 4th and 5 day, match play among the remaining 20 kids and the 14 kids with the most win will make the team. Now that there is a 14 players on the team, they will play each again to determine the seeding on the team. The #1 player on the team will have the most wins, #2 with 2nd most win, etc... The top 6 players will be the starters on the team. The coach has no decision on who will be on the team. He has flexibility to re-arrange the starting lineup if any of of the top six is not available for any reasons but what he can not do is to have the #2 players sit down play #7 player unless the opponent is so weak and #2 does not want to play. If the #2 wants to play, the coach has no choice but to let him play. Same with golf.

There are no statistical and subjective elements in golf or tennis. You're what the score say you are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

+1

This is exactly the reason why none of my children, and I have 4, participate in ice skating, basketball, baseball, football or any extra activities that involve a coach or panel that will decide who can and can not make the team. This is especially so true at the high school level and lot of politics and favors with parents. The outcome is often rigged.

Two of my kids play tennis and the other two play golf. In those two sports, team members and seeding is solely based on head to head competition via match play. At the end of the day, those that have the most wins make the team. Those that have the least, good luck next season.

Huh?

Figure skating has an artistic element to it that PP was talking about.

Baseball, basketball, football, etc all have actual statistics that generally determine who makes a team, particularly at the high school level.

If there were enough kids playing golf and tennis, there are statistical and subjective elements in those two sports too that would determine who makes a team.

The variable with figure skating is the artistic element.

Anonymous wrote:I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

+1

This is exactly the reason why none of my children, and I have 4, participate in ice skating, basketball, baseball, football or any extra activities that involve a coach or panel that will decide who can and can not make the team. This is especially so true at the high school level and lot of politics and favors with parents. The outcome is often rigged.

Two of my kids play tennis and the other two play golf. In those two sports, team members and seeding is solely based on head to head competition via match play. At the end of the day, those that have the most wins make the team. Those that have the least, good luck next season.

More training, less Tweeting, Ash.

Anonymous wrote:I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

No, it really isn't that subjective. There are requirements and skills that have to be performed. Two-footing a landing that someone else does perfectly costs you a set number of points.

The judges are doing more watching for mistakes than subjectively judging.

I am so glad that the selection committee did the right thing, and that I don’t have to listen to Wagner anymore. She has been nothing but an excuse machine for the last year and a half. She managed to self-promote herself into a lot of endorsements at the exact time she was losing ground on the ice, so yay for her pocketbook, I guess, but I think her ridiculous display of bad sportsmanship yesterday was related to the imminent disappearance of the dollar signs. Oh, well. She didn’t do her job, but expected to be handed an Olympic spot for the second time. Thank God it didn’t happen.

Anonymous wrote:I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

Ask Michelle Kwan.

Ask Paul Wylie.

Ask Todd Eldredge.

Ask Mirai, for that matter. She handled it in 12 with complete grace.

I have a lot of sympathy for these judging-type sports b/c it is all so subjective. Imagine how tough it would be to be gracious after working your whole life and just missing it.

She really thought she could phone in a recycled short program and switch to an untested long program in an Olympic year. The silver at World's in 16 really went to her head.

I was rooting for her, but she was unsportsmanlike in the extreme.

You want to go to the Olympics, Ashley? Don't do a piss-poor rendition of a played-out short program, then laugh it off. Don't two-foot your landings and single a triple in combo. You can't seriously think you deserve to be an Olympian again when you can't clinch a bronze, decidedly, at Nationals.

So over her!

I just watched her interview after the skating competition last night, and wow. Could she not have shown a little graciousness? At 26, she's an old-timer in figure skating and lucky to still be able to compete at all. Sorry for her that she chose to go out on such a sour, selfish note.