Ice Skating Really a Sport?
Monday, February 20th, 2006So I know almost nothing about sports. I don’t follow anyone in particular and basically judge them on their perceived difficulty - basically, if I can’t do what the athletes I watch are doing, then I respect them, from afar. I’m a some-time fan, like being from Indianapolis, I was a fan of the Colts at the beginning of this past Football season because they were undefeated, but then when they started losing, I couldn’t care less about them.
That said, I really love the Olympics. It’s pretty easy to be a fan of your own country, and even other countries, at least when it’s just a bunch of kids competing in ridiculously difficult, obscure, and discipline-requiring feats of skill, or some just ridiculous (i.e curling), and no one is really very warlike (save for the events portrayed in Munich) Like in 2002, Simon Amman, the Swiss Ski-jumper that looked like Harry Potter, it was really fun to watch him soar around the slopes. There are always these little darlings, like Mary Lou Retton, or Michelle Kwan, right? Apolo Ohno - people we just like to root for. Yeah, I like the whole spectacle.
The Winter Olympics are a little weird, especially now that they are a separate entity from the Summer Olympics, which rightfully garner most of the attention. Cool Runnings stories aside, most Winter Olympics programs are either very Euro-American (i.e White) or very Asian (Korea is crazy about the Winter Olympics, or so I’ve heard). And most of the events are either done on skis or skates - with sleds and now snowboards rounding out the mix. But one event, or series of events stands out to me particularly - Figure Skating.
Icedancing is dreadfully boring, so I’m really not a fan of that - if they don’t jump I don’t like it. But there is something alluring about figure skating. But something has always bugged me about it, and I realized two things about it today. One - I don’t think it’s really a sport.
It still fulfills the requirement for my respect - I see the things they do, or attempt to do (more of this on my second realization), and I know I can’t do those things. But when I see the competition in figure skating, it just seems ridiculous. I find that I respect it more as an art form than a sport. What they do is more like ballet than hockey or speed skating. They have technical aspects they get points for, but I just never get it.
This bring me to my second point - the competition of it detracts from the aesthetics of it, at least to me, and the supposed sport becomes a disaster. I like to see difficult-looking things executed well, and artfully done, but I think the competition, the emphasis on sport makes the skaters, well, just suck.
Check the Drudge Report and USA Today, it’s one of those artistic endeavors, like a high school play where you just hope they don’t mess up so you don’t have to feel bad or be embarrassed for them. I mean I watched this WB 11 Sunday Afternoon movie, The Cutting Edge, and it totally proves my point - the drama between the characters makes them so nervous that they can’t compete, rather than embrace their endeavors as art. Maybe it’s not all nerves, and they really do just suck at what they’re doing, I’m not sure. So either they are bad sport skaters, bad artists, or good artists trying to be good sports and failing.
Ice Capades - enough said.
That’s what awaits retired Olympic skaters.
High Art.
This has been Andy D.
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