From The Realm of Things I Do Not Understand: Figure Skating
I'm not a sporty girl. I'll give you that. I'm even less of a winter sports girl. I don't ski. I used to, but guess what? It's cold, requires too many layers of clothing, and the shoes hurt my feet. Not to mention that I have a reasonable fear of hitting a tree with my head. As a result, I don't watch much of the Winter Olympics. Some of these sports I just do not get. Curling? The Luge? No. Be serious.
Feathers? Fur? Rhinestones? Really? Is this necessary? Is this a requirement to enable you to do a triple Lutz? In his article in the Montreal Gazette this morning, Ken Herman speaks my mind. "Figure skating is not a sport. Nothing done to music while wearing sequins should be classified as a sport." Amen brother!
I like to watch figure skating. The sheer physical ability to launch one's self into the air, spin around, and land on a pair of over-sized nail files without severing a finger or breaking your neck is impressive. Doing it in time to music is a bonus. When the pairs skate and they throw each other around and catch each other and stay in synch it beats synchronized swimming hands down.
However, I do not, at all, get the need for the costumes. Particularly not at the Olympics. This is when we're supposed to be showing our national pride, and stepping up our game to school the rest of the world. As far as I can tell, from a brief survey, every other sport that is played, the members of each nation's team are wearing uniforms. I'll give you the Norwegian Curling team's pants were an interesting choice, but at least they were in a uniform. What is it about figure skaters that makes them exempt?
Now, of course, it's not just the men. Women figure skaters are just as bad, and always have been. Tonya Harding anyone? Heck, felonies were committed to make sure she had the chance to wear some pretty tacky outfits while she cried on the ice.
Why is this the way we, and all the other nations, choose to represent ourselves in the most watched portion of the Olympics? Why aren't these athletes required to wear their country's colors or a standard uniform like the rest of the athletes? Or did I miss something and Bob Mackie is now designing athletic wear? 'Splain me please.
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crazypants
Boanerges1
Amy A
Mike Hunt
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Comments
As for figure skating, the only reason it exists is for this.
@Ash - Oh! I missed that. That's not right.
You know how in track, they say, "On your mark, get set, go?" In figure skating, they say, "On your mark, get set, go figure!"
And while we take great pride in FL on how many superior athletes we put into the great world of sport, the guy pushing the pot-looking thingy in the curl is from right where I live ... Cape Coral(how'd that happen?) If they somehow win, I guess we'll have to give him a parade, ala the N.O. Saints and the super bowl. Maybe we can borrow their floats.
R
Most skating designers have no training in design and they get their ideas from other skating costumes, so the horror is perpetuated.
i had to give up curling the alcohol was killing my liver.
But not in Weir's case.
As for the skating costumes, that is another tradition which was started by the god Bedazzle, god of ice skating and sparkly things, a distant cousin of Thor. Bedazzle was ticked off because he didn't get a day of the week named after him or anything cool like thunder or lightning, so Thor and Freya gave him ice skating.
come to think of it, the US men's snowboard moguls uniforms look like kids' pajamas, too. what's up with that?
I'm sure it would increase the TV ratings.
As long as the skating is done to music, which is usually theme music, it's perfectly appropriate to complement the presentation with costuming. If the costumes don't get in the way of the skaters, why should you be such an old grouch?
I think you would look particularly smashing in that pink and black outfit.
I don't think the women should be wearing them any more than the men should in the Olympics. Nationals, Smuckers on Ice, whatever that's another story.
It looks like Tim Burton designed them this years crop of costumes. They are interesting, but definitely over the top effeminate in nature.
tina jacobson
As for the skaters, no idea why the spartan, maoist look has yet to catch on.
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Would you be so kind as to clarify this statement for me?
"Gurl, you can write 'gay friendly' posts until you are BLUE in the face.... I am a gay man....I live the life and you don't: it's really rich of you to come back with that. It's like a white woman saying..."I just LOVE black people"... right."
I am unclear how you got from my dislike of Bedazzler abuse and my premise that I would like to see skaters in a national uniform for the Olympics rather than fancy costumes to homophobia. Further, I am confused by your quoted comment. Are you saying that because one is not gay that they are by default a homophobe? That if one is white and has black friends they are a racist? That those who support the gay movement, gay rights, and are "gay friendly" are just closeted bigots dabbling like dilettantes in an au currant trend?
Disliking campy flamboyant costuming doesn't mean you are homophobic. That's the same as saying you're racist if you don't like rap music.
You can dislike something for reasons of personal style or taste without having any judgment of the person, much less of an entire sexual orientation (or race).
Not to mention the problem with automatically equating campy or flamboyant with being gay. I know plenty of gay men who find that equation quite offensive and tiresome...including when it comes from other gay men.
Funny thing about gay people - just like straight people, they all have different opinions and feelings, so that one person can't speak for all of them.
Is that a man in the first photo?
{wonders about the mullets}
Mrs. Michaels-But I don't have a snuggie!!!
Deven--the mullets bother me but I am determined to look the other way because, holy cats, if we pay attention to it, it might catch on!!!
No, it's not just you. Or they could be clowns in golf drag.