Sombreuil

I keep saying it - the system isn’t the problem it’s the bias inherent in the method of appointing judges which then causes bias in the way they judge. The tinkering they’ve done with the system just makes the ‘definitions’ of the various components fuzzier and easier for the judges to manipulate in whatever direction they want. Then you get the politicking - Rusfed flexing its muscles over ‘marking their skaters down’ and erasure of certain athletes/playing down of others ( too old for the tech, too inexperienced to be sufficiently ‘ artistic’, too inconsistent ) by USfed to sway the casual viewer into thinking there are valid reasons for the judging. I suppose we should be grateful that Kostornaia isn’t american- she’d be the perfect princess they’ve been waiting for.

More French child athlete abuse in the Times today - this time a runner, Ophelie Claude - Boxburger, who says that her coach abused her as a young teenager and has admitted to secretly doping her. The man on this occasion is involved with her mother, who seems to be part of the hush up.

Boitano and Hamilton - pair of shrivelled old sour grapes.

The thing that irritated me was Boitanos disingenuous attitude towards 4A - he doesn’t know what Yuzuru Hanyus 3A looks like ...... reeeaaallly - so how is he qualified to comment on the likelihood of 4A being jumped if he hasn’t seen the top 3 performances from the last 10 years worth of OG and WC and GPF, most of which YH featured in ? And he thinks 4A will become widespread in the near future , when most women and a lot of men can’t jump 3A consistently? 🤔🧐

One can only hope that the minister is sufficiently fired up to refuse to accept business as usual with a new figurehead and insists on a root and branch reform - or kicks the existing body into touch and puts it in the hands of a new organisation. This will solve nothing.

There is no point in getting rid of DG if you leave the rest of his rotten clique in place to carry on as before.

i bet they don’t get any charges to stick to the slippery b*****d

wrongthread

Not necessarily- he might reuse the move if not the programme.

That’s why it annoys me when people make assumptions about his motivation, some because they are just haters for whatever reason, some because they are too lazy to look for translations of his interviews and make western style judgements about his attitude to competition and the challenges he sets himself, without listening to what he says or noting the demeanour with which he says it. I’ve been looking around over the French scandal lately and seen the sort of annoying knee jerk reactions that drove me away from social media in the first place. There are some seriously irritating people out there.

‘There was no protection network’. Art of stating the b****ing obvious - well why not put one in place then M. President? Perhaps the inconvenience it would cause those who were keeping him in place all these years.

Difficult to see how DG and his slippery allies can wriggle out of this now....

Any activity/ organisation which involves an imbalance of power between adult figures and children and teenagers has to be rigorously policed. Surely the church/school/care home etc scandals of the last few decades have taught us that. It’s a pity sporting bodies don’t take as much notice of this as they do of doping. Ten years ago a friend and I withdrew from an organisation involving children’s activities because the organiser couldn’t be made to see the need for proper safeguarding protocols. They were regarded as ‘heavy handed’ and ‘unnecessary’. I bet some of these children would have been grateful for some clear guidelines and information on who to turn to when the adults around them stepped over the line. The story has reached the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51383835#share-tools

Maybe it’s shades of what is being talked about regarding language in the posts above. Japanese is a nuanced language which by the sound if it ( and please correct me if I’m wrong) freights its words and phrases with a lot of unspecified meaning which only a native speaker can truly understand. Good English uses a lot of words to nail down meaning, so there’s potential to leave no room for doubt, though sloppy users still manage to do it, and operators like politicians do it deliberately. Perhaps there’s a similar disconnect between cultures. I’ve thought several times that Otonal and Origin carried a lot more weight in Yuzuru's mind than they ever did in Weir or Pluschenko’s. I know they’re his heros but neither has ever struck me as particularly deep thinkers - W probably picked music he liked and did his best to make it beautiful, P was paying tribute to an icon in his own culture but it was basically a Plushy programme with a few extra arm movements - he may have truly intended to give tribute to Nijinsky but given the absence of any film of his (N’s) movement P was free to use him as a peg on which to hang whatever he wanted. Maybe Japanese culture is too far removed from American or Russian for a proper connection to be made, and Yuzuru is reading a lot more into those performances than ever crossed the minds of those who created them.

Joubert should tread carefully and be very thoughtful about what he says - in the past various people have got away with a whole lot of behaviour that just won’t be tolerated these days. DG has always slithered out from this sort of thing in the past but I can’t see it happening now.

I think some of these people have been getting away with terrible things for such a long time that they can’t believe that this time no one is going to sweep it under the carpet.

Shocker - hopefully she’ll pull the plug on his funding and he’ll have to go.

There has been a bit of a sea change in French attitudes towards these issues - in December there was an article in the Times about the writer Gabriel Matzneff who was openly and unapologetically preying on teenagers of both sexes since the 60s and writing about it - as recently as 1990 he was feted on French tv while some who had questioned his behaviour were ridiculed. Now one of his victims has written a book and French literary circles are having to come to terms with what they were complicit in for decades. This is perhaps another facet of that attitude in sports which is finally being addressed.

Brezina pointed out that one jumping pass doesn’t equal 30s in the press conference for Helsinki GP 2018 but ISU dont care

Not saying I could recognise it from any angle but my favourite finish of all time has to be murderface Chopin - the contrast between the serenity of the face during the programme and of the music and that expression - loved it.

None of the top tier use very interesting music tbh. He could rework Matticks pumpkin king or Ivett Toths heavy metal programme, or Kazukis Hardest button to button

I badly wanted Satoko to reuse the Planets and Sui/Han Blues for Klook - sometimes think media has the attention span of a two year old.

Lots of repetition angst/disappointment/criticism- as far as I’m concerned he owes us nothing (and I mean the entire FS world by that) - he should do what feels right to him at this stage of his career. I also am getting the feeling I got when the Nessie practice began, in which case, if he’s going for broke Fred and Seimei will be good to him.

Maybe if it is true he’ll do origin at the gala and you’ll get to see it anyway

I’m just grateful she’s trying new things and not talking about retiring as she was not so long ago. Must be hard to do a quad where you’re used to doing a triple- muscle memory and all that.