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Post by Admin on Mar 10, 2014 23:26:40 GMT
Yuna Kim (left) and Adelina Sotnikova greet each other after the 2014 Olympic figure skating final. (Adrian Dennis / AFP/ Getty Images / February 20, 2014) In a story published late last week on the International Olympic Committee’s web site about how the Youth Olympic Games inspired Olympic success in Sochi, an unidentified student reporter apparently quoted figure skating champion Yuna Kim inaccurately. Kim’s management company, All That Sports, asked the IOC to remove the quote. The IOC did that it in a way guaranteed to raise questions. And there is also the question of why All That Sports felt compelled to make an issue of the quote. After all, as the story originally and accurately said, the quote definitely “made Kim look magnanimous in defeat.” The story said 2010 Olympic champion Kim had given 2014 Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova "invaluable" advice about preparing for the future while watching the Russian at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. No one seems to be disputing that. The original version of the story also quoted Kim this way, praising Sotnikova for her performance at the Sochi Olympics: “She put on a great show,” said the Korean of her young Russian rival. “She’s a highly technical skater and was very difficult to beat tonight. I saw her in Innsbruck as part of my role as Games ambassador. We both battled for gold tonight, but she managed to come out on top.” That quote no longer appears in the story currently on the IOC’s web site. No reason for the omission or reference to it is given. The quote’s inclusion could be seen as an IOC effort to tamp down the ongoing controversy about Sotnikova’s winning the Olympic gold medal in a much-debated decision over Kim, one of the IOC’s Youth Olympic Games ambassadors. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said in an email it was his understanding the change was made after Kim’s agent “contacted us to say she felt that the quote was not accurate. We felt it better to remove it since this was not integral to the story.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 14, 2014 14:09:42 GMT
American freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy accomplished his main mission from the Sochi Olympics when he brought home the silver medal. Now, his other mission can be checked off the list -- the group of Sochi stray dogs he pledged to adopt and bring home have made it to America! The group of three puppies, their mother and a fourth stray have reportedly safely arrived in New York City Wednesday night and were reunited with Kenworthy on Thursday before they all make their way to Colorado. While it took some time to get the puppy paperwork in order, apparently all the paws have been dotted and the tails crossed, and now Kenworthy's adorably furry pals are en route to Denver. @robindmacdonald: One last family nap before the big move to a new life. Bye @sochi2014! @guskenworthy puppy love is real to puppies.
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2014 6:35:07 GMT
Meryl Davis and Charlie White were back on the ice on Saturday night, performing in the gala exhibition at the Iceberg Palace with all of the top figure skaters in the world. And when it was done, when they closed the show with one last group performance and waved good-bye to the crowd, Davis and White were locked arm-in-arm with a pair of old Canadian rivals, their training mates at the Canton's Arctic Edge, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who finished with the silver medal. "The last couple of days have been a whirlwind," Davis said. Since winning the gold medal in ice dance Monday, Davis and White have done an endless string of interviews and photos and videos and meet-and-greets and more interviews and more photos and more interviews. "It's certainly been busy and tiring, but in the best of ways," Davis said. "We are enjoying everything we are doing. We are trying to take advantage of the moment. Not jump into the future, and just really be in the present." Next up? Davis, from West Bloomfield, Mich., and White, from Bloomfield Hills, are headed to Moscow to do a television show. "Then, we are going to New York for a little bit of media," Davis said. "And then, we will sit down, when we get back to Detroit, and figure out if we are going to do worlds or what our plan might be."
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Post by Admin on Mar 21, 2014 23:34:16 GMT
Meryl Davis and Charlie White are gifted with some blue dancing shoes (with skates on the bottom) during the appearance on Ellen, airing Monday, March 17th. The Olympic ice dance champs sat down to chat about mingling at Oscar parties and taking on Dancing With The Stars, just weeks after winning gold.
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Post by Admin on Apr 1, 2014 23:12:58 GMT
Nowhere are foxes put in charge of the henhouse—nowhere, that is, except in skating. For more than a decade, the International Skating Union (ISU) has been presiding over the decline of figure skating: television ratings, television coverage and overall popularity are all down. How does the ISU respond? For almost 40 years, it has been run by speed skaters. The current president frankly admits, “I am a speed skater. I know nothing about figure skating.” He can’t even whistle as the ship sinks. Indignation has erupted at the Winter Olympic Games that just concluded in Sochi. Many found it unbelievable: Adelina Sotnikova, a 17-year-old with athletic ability but questionable artistry, took the gold over the South Korean Olympic champion of 2010, a skating icon. The Korean Olympic Committee and the Korean Skating Union filed a joint complaint with the ISU decision, already clouded by the fact that one of the judges had previously been suspended for trying to fix an event in 1998, and another was the wife of the president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation. An online protest petition has garnered almost 2 million signatures. But whatever the merits of the dispute, the issue should not be limited to this one event. The question is bigger! What we need to ask is: Why are speed skaters running the world of figure skating? Speed skating is a sport judged by metrics; figure skating is judged by both metrics and subjective judgment. You can’t have artistry without technique, but neither can you have technique without artistry. The judging system for figure skating needed to be changed; no one is arguing otherwise. But the system imposed in 2004 by the speed skater in charge of the ISU—in hopes of preventing scandals like those at the 1998, and particularly the 2002, Games in Salt Lake City or at the 2013 World Championships at London, Ontario—has only made the problems crystal clear. Giving points for technique but slighting artistry is turning the sport into a monotonous series of cookie-cutter routines. But when a judging system rewards a fall over creativity and flair, what else do you expect? And with the identity of the judges and their scores kept secret, where is the accountability? Meanwhile, the fox guards the henhouse. It is time for figure skaters to take back their sport. It is time for the ISU to split into separate federations, one for speed skaters, one for figure skaters. It’s going to take a fight. Figure skating still is what brings in the money. Speed skaters get the cash but care little about the rules for figure skating. They happily support Ottavio Cinquanta, the foxy force behind the disastrous changes in judging—both the system and the secret selection of judges—and even went along with his violation of the ISU constitution and gave him an extra, and illegal, two more years in office. At a time when new thinking and new leadership are most needed, speed skaters continue to vote their interests, not those of figure skating. It will take a fight. But the events at Sochi have shown that the skating public is getting more and more outraged. The current World Championships in Japan won’t even be televised live in prime time by a network! This has to stop. The ISU needs to change: It should return respect to judges, stop rewarding failure, educate more judges, create real and effective controls and return figure skating to popularity. And we can find allies in associations from Australia, Japan, South Korea and (hopefully) others. Figure skaters of the world, The opportunity is now. Take back your sport. Get the foxes out of the henhouse.
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