What it is can be valued for what it is, a competition, a performance, a wonder and certainly the centerpiece of a festival where real sports are sideshows. The rest really don't matter.
The ski jumpers and the downhillers and the speedskaters. Mere bubble wrap. Not included in this comparison would be the lugers who come at us crotch first proving nothing more than gravity works. It makes little difference if figure skating is a sport or a spectacle because there could be no Winter Olympics without it. Everything else is just spin class. Watching figure skating is like going to a Cubs game for the seventh-inning stretch, watching the Super Bowl for the commercials, although there is a culture where such things are much valued.
Turning in the air is highly regarded in figure skating circles. Appreciation of this all has happened faster than you can say quadruple toe loop, quadruple salchow.
Figure skating is to sports what pro wrestling is to debate, not to say there isn't athleticism required, not to say there isn't competition. The competition is between rehearsal and performance, not one skater against another. A figure skater puts together five minutes of business, does it over and over, and then is judged on whether she did it better this time than the last time.
Not unlike relief pitchers and punters in that respect, I guess. Or comedians. Figure skating is Amy Schumer. Is a good friend with one of the skaters? Thinks one of the skaters is hot? Or even recently enjoyed a night with the skater? There are too many grey areas for such judging to ever be done evenhandedly, something that further damages what little credibility figure skating ever had as a sport. In short, figure skating is simply not a sport.
It does require skill, and I have no doubt that it is a captivating hobby in places where the winters are long and cold. As an athletic pursuit, however, it is laughable, and will hopefully be off the Olympic bill sooner than later.
Of course, the one bright spot for figure skating is that it is not the worst sport in the Winter Olympics. That dis honor goes to ice dancing, which I considered lampooning, before realizing no one would ever believe me if I told them it was in the Olympics.
Enjoy our content? Join our newsletter to get the latest in sports news delivered straight to your inbox! There is nothing absolutely quantifiable. Yes, the number of revolutions in a jump counts, but in the end if two people do the same jump, a human has to decide which one he or she likes better. Figure skaters wear elaborate costumes in an attempt to appear more appealing, more flowing, more beautiful. The women and even some men wear makeup, they get their hair done, they wear jewelry, they play stirring music.
An ugly person would stand at a considerable, if not insurmountable, disadvantage in skating. Sasha Cohen would whip them every time. As absurd as the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan drama that propelled skating into stratosphere was, it was based partially on the fact that it is a competition, not a sport. Harding was a powerful skater, possibly better at all aspects of skating than Kerrigan. But she was shorter, stockier and less feminine.
Although Harding had defeated Kerrigan on occasion, she knew she was at a disadvantage against the taller, prettier, more graceful Kerrigan. In a real sport, this wouldn't have been necessary.
Ugly people can win in track, in skiing, in the NFL, in soccer. Some will argue that referees are essentially judges, determining who scores and who doesn't. But a referee is merely there to assure order and make the competitors follow the rules. Yes, in most sports, the referee has the freedom to determine right and wrong by what he sees — a false start, an illegal advantage — but he is not determining the final victor.
His assignment is to simply ensure fair play. The refs can't just say that while one team scored more points, they thought the other one was better anyway. This creates a bizarre paradox where something like curling is a sport and figure skating isn't, even though to compare the level of necessary athletic ability is comical. But it is what it is.
There is one exception to this no-judges rule: boxing or kickboxing, or other fighting sports. This is fine because a clear victor can be achieved with a knockout no judge needed. The judges are only used when the fight has gone on so long that it has to be stopped for the safety of the competitors.
If they keep beating on each other, someone could die. Other than that, no judge should ever determine a winner in a true sport. When you have that, whether it is ice skating, gymnastics or diving, you have a competition.
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