Everyone’s An Expert on Figure Skating When It’s the Olympics
EEEEEEE! Tonight’s the men’s long program! I got so amped up for this event that I thought it was yesterday.
I wager that NBC is going to broadcast the final 8-10 skaters of the night; this is the planned skating order: Denis Ten (Kazakhstan), Kevin Van Der Perren (Germany), Florent Amadio (France), Patrick Chan (Canada), Michal Brezina (Czech Republic), Evan Lysacek (US), Nobunari Oda (Japan), Stephane Lambiel (Switzerland), Daisuke Takahashi (Japan), Johnny Weir (US), and Evgeni Plushenko (Russia).
This means we’re missing Brian Joubert, who stunk up the joint during the short and chalked it up to personal problems, and Japan’s Takahiko Kozuka, who chose a Jimi Hendrix rarity as his short program music. Kozuka also skated it brilliantly, but like I’ve said numerous times before, it was outside the realm of what judges expect and received lower marks. Such a shame, but I look forward to seeing more of him in the future! Reigning US National champion Jeremy Abbott should be thrilled that he’s skating ninth — perhaps the lack of media attention will ease tensions that caused his disastrous short program performance.
Current World champion Evan Lysacek skates in the middle of the broadcast bunch, which could be good or bad. It depends on how the skaters before him perform, and the subsequent ones do. Should Nobunari Oda or Stephane Lambiel screw things up big time, he’s easily a medalist.
It’s anyone’s guess as to how Johnny Weir will fare; the judges significantly underscored his inspired performance enough that it elicited booing from the in-house crowd. It’s hard to say whether they thought his performance wasn’t artistic enough, or if this is the outcome of US judge Joe Inman’s unethical and disturbing meddling. Seriously, how has this whole nonsense gone undiscussed by the networks? I’d say this is just as bad as the Salt Lake City scandal. Johnny Weir is right; Inman deserves to be — as we’d say at WPRB — BANNED FOR LIFE.
Evan Lysacek is a solid, consistent skater. I’ve seen very little from him artistically speaking, however — but that may be enough to take a medal. And judges, who aren’t objective, may decide it’s time to award him the medal and effectively bypass the Weir Media Circus (which I love, and happily consume).
I don’t think I could be happy about Evgeni Plushenko gold medal. Not because I don’t think he’s great, but largely because watching him on ice is like watching someone get hatefucked. There’s nothing sentimental or passionate about his desire to win — it is simply a win. However, he’s one of the best skaters in the world, and the judges clearly favor him, so it could entirely happen.
I’ll be covering the event live on Twitter, so be sure to mosey on over there.
