Programs we remember

[yuzupon]

Such a tragedy, but what a performance! That delayed-1A, and SE-2A-SE sandwich!

p.s. and I am very impressed with how she skated with that hair.

[Yatagarasu]

3 hours ago, yuzupon said:

Such a tragedy, but what a performance! That delayed-1A, and SE-2A-SE sandwich!

p.s. and I am very impressed with how she skated with that hair.

 

This was 49 years ago! It boggles the mind, when you think about it. And it was done with the equipment from those days. Of course, the psychological pressure, considering everything must have been enormous too! 

 

p.s. so was I

[gladi]

5 hours ago, Yatagarasu said:

The program, and Fleming, were truly special too. Keep in mind, she is skating there with the old equipment that is not nearly as adapted to jumps as we have now, and yet her athleticism was incredible (2A, 49 years ago!); her jumps and spins were more like those of the male skaters of that time. It was also pure Fassi, in a way that broke apart from their predecessors. It was jazzy, elegant and modern and her technique showed influences of ballet, jazz and modern dance. Peggy Fleming thus won the 1968 Olympic gold medal that challenged the conventions of those day, in both power and style and we could say, revolutionised the sport.

 

Alternate Link 2 - English commentary, by Carlo and Christa Fassi 

 

So many ooh's and aah's. For Peggy Fleming's performance but also @Yatagarasu thanks for the lovely writing!   

Outside eagle - 2A - outside eagle - inside eagle

And like you said, 49 years ago! Stylistically it doesn't look aged at all.

 

I haven't watched the second link yet, but I love that she's commentated by her own coaches XD I guess this is taped and then recorded after the fact? Since, uh, she's sitting with them at kiss cry. ^_^ 

 

Look forward to more

 

 

 

[Yatagarasu]

1 hour ago, gladi said:

 

So many ooh's and aah's. For Peggy Fleming's performance but also @Yatagarasu thanks for the lovely writing!   

Outside eagle - 2A - outside eagle - inside eagle

And like you said, 49 years ago! Stylistically it doesn't look aged at all.

 

Wasn't she something?? 

 

And yes, well the style, that is Fassi. She was a true Fassi skater, and he was something all right. Actually, he was a skater himself, before he turned coach. 10-time Italian national champion, twice a European champion and a bronze from Worlds! Peggy wasn't the only skater who is well known that he coached, in fact we'll be visiting several of his during our little trip, and not just from the US but all over. He was actually fabulous at politicking for his skaters!
Oh, he died some years ago, from a heart-attack during the World Championships of 1997 in Lausanne, he was just 67 (it's really strange how some of these events echo!). Oh and that reminds me, talk about how skating can be 'incestuous' almost. 

 

Maribel Vinson-Owen who was killed in '61 coached Frank Carroll (yes, that Frank Carroll). Carlo Fassi coached Robin Cousins. When Carlo died, Frank and his pupil Linda Fratianne, accused Fassi of conspiring with the East European bloc to get Robin Cousins the gold medal by swapping votes for him, for votes for the East German champion Anett Poetzsch. Though often repeated as true, it's actually nonsense, there were only two judges from the then Eastern bloc on the panel but there you go. 

Anyway, Carlo's wife Christa Fossi coached too (among others Nicole Bobek, who they were accompanying when he passed away), and she's still around, am positive I spotted her during the Europeans this season. She's also in the Figure Skating Coaches Hall of Fame. 

[heartsdesire456]

Spoiler

Sorry about that guys!

 

[yuzupon]

10 hours ago, Yatagarasu said:

 

This was 49 years ago! It boggles the mind, when you think about it. And it was done with the equipment from those days. Of course, the psychological pressure, considering everything must have been enormous too! 

 

p.s. so was I

Right?! I mean, she basically had the entire 'US comeback' on her shoulder. And she was very musical, too. So, not only were the jumps impressive, but she skated it well. As @gladi said, it doesn't look aged indeed.

 

p.s. still amazed how she could move without the hair just completely stir her into other directions. I am too focused on the hair, it seems. 

[xeyra]

She was really impressive with that deep, deep SE sandwich.

 

Back then what was the format of a free skate, though? Because I saw a great amount of jump passes (didn't count but they seemed a lot more than the 7-8 of now), some spins but I suspect there wasn't anything resembling step sequences back then. At this time, they also had the compulsory figures portion, yes?

[Yatagarasu]

3 hours ago, xeyra said:

She was really impressive with that deep, deep SE sandwich.

 

Back then what was the format of a free skate, though? Because I saw a great amount of jump passes (didn't count but they seemed a lot more than the 7-8 of now), some spins but I suspect there wasn't anything resembling step sequences back then. At this time, they also had the compulsory figures portion, yes?

 

There wasn't any 

 

Until 1984 when the ISU changed the rules and brought in requirements for a balanced program (well, 1982 for pairs), free was indeed free. You could perform whatever combinations of elements that suited you best. But since the skating was moving too much towards jumps, they brought the rules into play that would require a minimum of all elements. Even then though you had things like a minimum number of spins, so you could up that. It was even with the new rules more relaxed compared to what we have now.

 

And yes, at the time they had the compulsory figures portion. Actually the 6.0 system went through changes too, so what Peggy Fleming skated to changed in 1980 in terms of how it was all computed together. Anyway, yes, she placed first in the compulsory which is actually what ended up giving her the gold medal, when it was all factored in. 

[kaeryth]

11 hours ago, Yatagarasu said:

And yes, well the style, that is Fassi. She was a true Fassi skater, and he was something all right. Actually, he was a skater himself, before he turned coach. 10-time Italian national champion, twice a European champion and a bronze from Worlds! Peggy wasn't the only skater who is well known that he coached, in fact we'll be visiting several of his during our little trip, and not just from the US but all over. He was actually fabulous at politicking for his skaters!

 

I'm a bit excited because I cheated and looked at his wikipedia page and was amazed at who some of his students were! Looking forward to upcoming memorable programs you'll be introducing!

[xeyra]

52 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

 

There wasn't any 

 

Until 1984 when the ISU changed the rules and brought in requirements for a balanced program (well, 1982 for pairs), free was indeed free. You could perform whatever combinations of elements that suited you best. But since the skating was moving too much towards jumps, they brought the rules into play that would require a minimum of all elements. Even then though you had things like a minimum number of spins, so you could up that. It was even with the new rules more relaxed compared to what we have now.

 

And yes, at the time they had the compulsory figures portion. Actually the 6.0 system went through changes too, so what Peggy Fleming skated to changed in 1980 in terms of how it was all computed together. Anyway, yes, she placed first in the compulsory which is actually what ended up giving her the gold medal, when it was all factored in. 

 

Was there different weighing to the final score for each part of the competitions? Wasn't compulsory figures worth a lot of the final score back then? It seems to me that if the free skate was so completely free, it wouldn't have been allowed to weigh as much on the final scoring due to the nature of how different the elements could be from skater to skater. 

[Yatagarasu]

3 hours ago, xeyra said:

 

Was there different weighing to the final score for each part of the competitions? Wasn't compulsory figures worth a lot of the final score back then? It seems to me that if the free skate was so completely free, it wouldn't have been allowed to weigh as much on the final scoring due to the nature of how different the elements could be from skater to skater. 

 

Yes, the compulsory figures were scored using a wider range of marks so the system allowed for that as each judges' scores from each phase of the competition were added together before computing ordinals. That got changed in 1980 and ordinals were computed for each competition segment separately and factors applied to the relative placements. Then in 1998, changed again, where they went from best of majority to comparing  between the ordinals of all the skaters. Basically 

[Yatagarasu]

And now we've bounced back up in time!

• Aleksei Yagudin of Russia skating to Winter by Bond at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, UT, United States

I don't think we need to say much about Yagudin. 2002 Olympic Champion, a four-time World champion (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002), a three-time European champion (1998, 1999, 2002), a two-time Grand Prix Final champion (1998–1999, 2001–2002) and the 1996 World Junior Champion.
As a curiosity - he has never won Russian Nationals!

 

It could be said that the 2002 was the pinnacle of his career, this was Yagudin at this best. Both the short and the long programs from the Olympics entered history. At the time he was coached by Tatiana Tarasova with Nikolai Morozov as the choreographer. If there was one thing in particular that is so memorable, it is the footwork and yet today, thanks to the new rules, this is not something we can see any longer. These old programs, and especially this one, are luckily here for us to enjoy.

 

Yagudin left skating early, thanks to a congenital hip problem and has ultimately had a hip replacement, so when you watch him skate (link) this for Tarasova's anniversary show, keep that in mind. 

 

Alternate Link 1 - HD

[kaeryth]

I'm amused at the lack of comments but really... what is there left to say? This performance was absolutely iconic and the stars just aligned perfectly for him.

[yuzupon]

I usually commented - cz I find the flashbacks to great skates before I become a fan to be really interesting - but what indeed do you say to THAT?

 

p.s. is anyone willing to make some mockup score of how this would potentially be scored with the new scoring system?

[Yatagarasu]

@kaeryth @yuzupon

 

Well yes, that's pretty much it. What do you say about this? It's so iconic that one can just look on and enjoy! At some point I even wondered if we should include it because really, everyone has seen it but you cannot not include it at the same time! 

 

Ooh, well we could ask @meoima to give it a go when she has some time for the fun of it! Tbh, on the other hand, I almost fear what the result would be considering some recent scores!