Should "ice dancing" be an Olympic sport?

Because it's been around for decades.

And this is why

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98

mushroom based viewpoint, and all.
So I vote yes.

I'm uncertain if ballroom dancing is on the schedule for the Summer Olympics, but it will be a travesty if the IOC allows it.

Might as well tune into "Dancing With The Stars".

Oh, and "athletic guards" for the men.

and a Seplatura, Slip knot, Slayer, etc theme music and yeah... now we're talking ratings!

Dead Kennedys and Black Flag and make it Ice Slamdancing. But watch out for the blades during the compulsory stage diving part. To make it more interesting, the judges and randomly-chosen audience members would be the designated catchers for that particular bit. This would give the audience a chance to actively participate in an Olympic event while at the same time making the scoring more interesting as slicing open the forehead of a judge with your skate blade would be an automatic 2 point deduction. The chance for this event to cause a horrendous disfiguring injury to someone would probably greatly increase viewership. I mean, hell, just look how popular hockey is. :evilgrin:

--imm

And I'm pulling for US Champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White. They are AWESOME!


Bollywood meets Ice Dancing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaMaCevuZn8

what's the problem? :shrug:

a sport, I say bring it on. It's all bullshit anyway.

Almost as useless as Baseball where folks get paid millions to play with their balls. Fucking ridiculous!

It takes a lot of physical ability, discipline and training to do. It's more athletic than a few other Olympic sport I can think of. Like javelin throwing, curling and discus throwing.

more ATHLETIC than javelin throwing or discus throwing?

sure, as long as you don't understand either. which you clearly don't

one could rationally argue ice dancing is more ARTISTIC but it is not more ATHLETIC.

throwing the implements (i'm pretty good at the hammer and the shotput) is actually very complex movement.

the amount of explosive strength, speed strength, proprioreception required is enormous.

you show me a guy who can throw the javelin well, for example, and that's the type of athlete that will excel in any sport that tests explosive strength, coordination, etc. which is most of them.

you clearly are opining on something you know NOTHING about.

i've seen some discus throwers unless some massive snatches and cleans, also.

these are highly explosive, and coordinated athletes.

are you unclear about what the term "athletic" means?

Sorry for throwing that back at you (I don't mean to be so antagonistic, I just couldn't resist the irony) but perhaps you should look up the actual definition of "athletic" and reevaluate your position. Figure skating is analogous to the track events as it requires endurance and the field events for its sudden bursts of strength, as well as coordination to pull it all off. I don't particularly like figure skating, but I respect it as an actual sport and its earning the right to be called as such. Hansel's post was ill-informed, but your post wasn't any better. And yes, I did track events for three years and even tried my er... "hand" at long- and high-jump, so I know what it can take and what it can take out of you. I dare say figure skating may be more athletic than track-and-field events because it requires BOTH sustained endurance and repeated bursts of strength over the course of a single several-minute routine. Have you seen the thighs on some of these figure skaters? Not exactly dainty, more like "pop your head like a zit"-sized.

Like a beauty contest or baking contest or, I don't know, pig judging at the county fair.

And of course they have to change the whole competition every few years because that judging is so corruptible.

ALL sporting events (regardless if an individual THINKS they are a sport or not) are subject to possible corruption from whoever is keeping official score. Determining that figure skating, or any sport for that matter, isn't a sport BECAUSE OF HOW IT IS SCORED is astoundingly asinine.

you ask most coaches in most sports what are the ultimate things that define "that's an athlete" and they will be things like explosiveness, proprioreception, kinesthetic awareness, speed-strength, etc.

athletes that have that quality can excel at most sports, since most sports require these things - javelin, pole vault, discus, linebacker, hammer, even gymnastics.

for example, we have one athlete on my team (actually a few ) who are former gymnasts. as soon as they started training, their athleticism was instantly apparent. you can look at that person the first time they do a movement in another sport and go "now THAT's an athlete"

that's the kind of people that excel at discus and javelin.

to say that figure skaters are more athletic is ridiculous.

figure skating has a lot of highly refined skills and obviously requires great flexibility, balance, timing, and thousands of grueling hours to develop the artistry and coordination .

it's a subjective sport that does not place the kind of absolute athletic physical demands on an athlete that javelin or discus throwing does.

ice dancing certainly requires a lot less athleticism than classic figure skating, i will give you that.

let me put it this way. take a world class ice dancer and a world class discus thrower.

which athlete would you choose to (for example) be a decathlete (often viewed as the ultimate test of an athlete), or a weightlifter (viewed as the ultimate test of power and strength)?

or heck, to hit a major league fastball?

i know who i'd choose.

I imagine you'd place well. ;) I kid, I kid. Calm down.

***NOTE: I'm going to concede something here: I didn't realize that "ice dancing" was a branched-off event from "figure skating." I had to look it up a moment ago. Here I already thought figure skating was silly, but this ice dancing blows my mind. What follows below was typed out before it occurred to me to Google ice dancing as up until I did I thought it was just a derogatory name for figure skating. My point still mostly stands, though reading over the description of the pared-down moves of ice dancing makes me wonder. Athleticism is still there, but good God they are limited in what they're allowed to do. What's the reasoning? Are officials worried they'll ruin their costumes if they twirl through the air too much? "Half" jumps are allowed; is that like one leg? I think I'm getting the debate over it, but they still need the endurance same as any track athlete so yes, as obnoxiously silly as the event is, I still maintain that it is a sport. I do however now think that figure skating is more deserving of being an Olympic-recognized sport than ice dancing since apparently they are separate events. It honestly strikes me now that ice dancing is what figure skaters do when they're NOT training. And again, the scoring of a sport is irrelevant to its being a sport. Also, please don't take any of this personal. We're talking about costumed people on ice jumping through the air (well... "half" jumping as the case may be with ice dancing) so I'm not willing to knock a few minutes off my lifespan because I've stressed over THIS and you shouldn't either. I'm posting what I had already typed below anyway because, well, damn it... I already typed it and it takes endurance to type this much.



Let's see, if I were to ask Coke cans to score apples to oranges in a jackalope swimming slalom, I'd choose Helen Keller to battle against Squirtle because Ann Coulter wore an itty-bitty teeny-weeny yellow polka dot mankini. Points awarded based on the color of the skidmarks in Glenn Beck's underwear. Bloody Hell, if one is going to argue that the SCORING of a sport determines whether it IS a sport or not, then there's no sport in arguing over it. (Again sorry, had to go for the pun this time.)

As I already said, I did track and field for three years. I don't need anyone telling me what those events take physically. I saw them firsthand, I DID some of them firsthand (some for three years), and I see the exact same type of athleticism in figure skating. (***Again note: all of this paragraph was typed BEFORE I learned "ice dancing" is different from "figure skating") The skills are applied differently, but the same athleticism is there. You don't just will yourself into the air like a pretty flower petal on the breeze to do multiple triple whatever-those-are-calleds, your legs have to have the power to do that like any pole vaulter, long jumper, or hurdle racer. In couples skating, are YOU or I going to gracefully lift and hold a (I'm trying to be respectful to women here, I haven't the foggiest clue how much the female skaters weigh) 100lb woman in the air for several seconds while NOT shuddering like a cold chihuahua under the weight and strain of holding your female partner up there without dropping her? Fuck no, that takes a lot of upper body strength, like any pole vaulter again, javelin or discuss thrower, or shot putter. There's also that spin-your-partner-do-se-do move they do flinging the woman about, again upper body strength to hold her and lower body strength to keep both skaters from crashing down. And to do all of this, with or without a partner, takes endurance like any of the track events, though some like the 100m are short bursts and the hurdle races, well... fucking sucked. Tried it once and that was enough. If a figure skater has the endurance for a whole routine and the strength for multiple leaps into the air like a hurdler, they damn well have respect from this former (It's been over 10 years, I'm older and over that willing physical self-abuse. It's more fun for me to watch other people do it now. ;) ) athlete's perspective.

i am glad you now understand that ice dancing =/= classic figure skating.

don't get me wrong. i have massive respect for figure skaters. i just think that discus throwers are MORE athletic, and certainly moreso than ice dancers.

i will admit something. i am a strength athlete, so i am BIASED (ok, i admit it) towards short burst strength/power athletes.

...seeing as they were always off and running somewhere else for long stretches of time... ba-dump-bump. ;)

"the last time i saw legs like that, they were hanging out of a nest"

:)

...nah, I'm joking, they were there on time for their photo. They did have to have theirs taken first though because they had to get started on their long daily training, which was already longer than any other group's to begin with, often still going when everyone else packed it in. Ce la marathon.

also, as an aside, t&f wimmins are hella sexy.

especially pole vaulters.

http://bumpshack.com/2008/02/08/sexy-pole-vaulter-allison-stokke-photos/
http://www.moejackson.com/category/sexy-pole-vaulters

this is proof that pole vaulting is superior to marathon running.

god rewards pole vaulters with supreme hawtness

100m dash and some 4-by relays were what I focused on. I wasn't the best, not by a long shot, but damn it I had fun and enjoyed the Hell out of it.

And the States' Dan O'Brien has that sexy goofy hotness down pat. I was introduced to his visage during the '96 Games. *swoon* I'm afraid this is a subject that we're going to part ways on, unless you swing both ways... ;) :P

but even a confirmed hetero like me can appreciate that dan is a good looking guy.
or
dimitry klokov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZsjibL3A8Y&feature=related

or dimitry lapikov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJNs6f6MBIY&feature=related
(interview)

:P

before you pass judgment on the athleticism necessary for the sport.

If you that figure skating is "a lot of highly refined skills" you simply could not be more wrong.

From someone who's done it and seen the best up close and personal on the practice ice.

you ask most coaches in most sports what are the ultimate things that define "that's an athlete" and they will be things like explosiveness, proprioreception, kinesthetic awareness, speed-strength, etc.

athletes that have that quality can excel at most sports, since most sports require these things - javelin, pole vault, discus, linebacker, hammer, even gymnastics.

for example, we have one athlete on my team (actually a few ) who are former gymnasts. as soon as they started training, their athleticism was instantly apparent. you can look at that person the first time they do a movement in another sport and go "now THAT's an athlete"

that's the kind of people that excel at discus and javelin.

to say that figure skaters are more athletic is ridiculous.

figure skating has a lot of highly refined skills and obviously requires great flexibility, balance, timing, and thousands of grueling hours to develop the artistry and coordination .

it's a subjective sport that does not place the kind of absolute athletic physical demands on an athlete that javelin or discus throwing does.

ice dancing certainly requires a lot less athleticism than classic figure skating, i will give you that.

let me put it this way. take a world class ice dancer and a world class discus thrower.

which athlete would you choose to (for example) be a decathlete (often viewed as the ultimate test of an athlete), or a weightlifter (viewed as the ultimate test of power and strength)?

or heck, to hit a major league fastball?

i know who i'd choose.

"pocket pool on ice" as a replacement.

That's what I hear...

Ice dancing certainly takes more skill an athletic fitness than curling.

given that the criteria for judging gymnastics are less subjective than ice dancing, although still with a fair element of subjectivity.

i've always preferred the events that "don't get points for pretty" and have pure objective measures.
however, there is a place in the olympics for sports that have a subjective element a la gymnastics.

i personally think ice dancing sucks. i don't think it adds enough value so to speak as to be a seperate sport from figure skating

has brought up a hornet's nest already.

Though that's the Summer Olympics... x(

I don't know. I kind of thought maybe the Olympics was too Euro-centric and events like ribbon twirling are in there to expand the cultural reach. I don't know why people care. Turn it off if you don't like it. That's what I do with weight lifting.

And this was just once, several Olympics ago. They were complaining that the air conditioning was interfering with the ribbons... It's done by very young girls, about 12-years-old. They also twirl hoops. Haven't seen it before, or since, but it's apparently still an event. :shrug:

This is one of my all time favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98

here...

Question: What Is the Difference Between Ice Dancing and Pair Skating?

Ice dancing and pair skating look similar to ice skating fans, but the two figure skating disciplines are very different. This short article explains those differences.

Answer:
Ice Dancing is ballroom dancing on the ice. In pair skating the man lifts the lady above his head and the pair does difficult acrobatic moves. Spins are done together in both disciplines, but in pair skating difficult solo jumps and spins are also done in unison.

Ice Dancing Can Be Done Alone:
Ice dancers do intricate footwork sequences to music and must skate to a certain beat. Ice dancing can be practiced and performed by solo skaters, but pair skating requires a team of both a man and a lady.

Doing Compulsory Ice Dances is Not Always Fun:
There are several compulsory ice dances, which include set patterns and set steps, that figure skaters can learn and master. Compulsory ice dances can be done with or without a partner.

Ice dancing can look easier than single or pair skating, but actually, can be more difficult. For that reason, some ice skaters don't like ice dancing.


more at link...
http://figureskating.about.com/od/icedancingandpairs/f/pairsdance.htm

I thought Torvill and Dean were pairs skaters. My mistake.

:)

:hi:

Also, that half pipe stuff is a joke in my opinion. It looks like guys/gals doing tricks like 12 year olds boys on their bikes or something.

To each his own. Though Shawn White is very narly dude and I am hold enough to be his mom.

Homophobia seems to be alive and well at the Olympics. Pity.

And it happened to Weir twice in Vancouver. It was heartening, however, to hear the crowd loudly jeer the judges on both occasions.

That's what I noticed when I was watching anyways. I had never seen him skate until now and was looking forward to it. I was disappointed though because it just didn't seem interesting to me like the better skaters did. He's trying to hard to be gimmicky and you can tell by his interviews that he actually thrives on being the low scoring "artistic" skater.

...without the quad. Yet Weir performs an equally beautiful and "artistic" routine and moves down in the standings, rather than up. Why the double standard?

on being different, few people would be surprised that most people aren't going to "get" and appreciate that person's artistry, whether the person is gay or straight.

It's hardly homophobia. It's doing art that the art judges don't like. True artists rarely win popularity contests.

...but for some reason the skating community can't seem to handle him expressing who he is. Why? Figure skating has always been about self-expression and delivering emotionally-charged performances. Why is Weir penalized rather than rewarded for his ability to do this?

he and Plushenko got the same scores for artistry. Lysacek skated clearner and he didn't front load his jumps.

And should not have. The discussion of how Lysacek beat Plushenko is irrelevant.

From the CSM:



http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Olympics/Olympics-blog/2010/0219/How-Evan-Lysacek-won-and-why-judges-don-t-like-Johnny-Weir

They cheated him on his short program score, and then cheated him again last night. I was disgusted. I just love him and he put his entire being into that. I have never seen him more focused or skate better.

I thought that summed up the situation nicely.

underscored. My daughter put it best, "Mom, I think the judges didn't like him and scored him lower because they're afraid he's gay? That's not fair!"

How very sad of a sport that is supposed to value creativity and artistic expression.

I loved Weir's performance - IMO, and it seems many others, he was cheated out of the Bronze Medal.

participating, but how very typical that to defend their reputation they penalize those who refuse to tow the line.

Weir's performances were stunning. He is a unique talent.

And home viewers should get to vote.

a big one - like huge


okay, that is too small, but anyway

I think an equally engaging winter olympic sport would be " Sumo Ice Wrestling ' visualize this picture of two 300 lb + Sumo wrestlers in their stndard circle , in their bare feet on the ice, I leave the rest to your imagination

That right it doesnt Suck. It SUXXXx

It may seem a silly sport to us non-figure skaters, but like it or not figure skating IS an appropriate sport for the Winter Olympics. I'd like to see one of our fat asses in this thread pull off the moves figure skaters do.

I love watching Meryl and Charlie...
they've been skating together as a pair since 1997...
and are incredable athletes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAQwyAzi5dY&feature=related

absolutely....my favorite Olympic event.

They were doing that long-winded compulsory dance. After the monotony of the third couple seemingly doing the same "trek" I wanted to reach over and gouge my eyes out with a mechanical pencil.

One or the other, not both: Dance or Skate? Make up your minds!?! :silly:

If you're old enough to remember them.

But seriously, I don't care.

Stick to sports where you race a clock or meet a finish line, or a finite measurement of some kind..

Anytime people sit in judgment of other people, there are always "problems", and unfairness reigns..

:shrug:

Makes for a pretty bare Winter Olympics, no?

And no gymnastics or diving in the Summer games? :(

as paid entertainment/exhibition type events.. I know there are people who DO those activities, and they need the competition-events to ramp up exposure so they can someday make some money from their "obsessions", but I don't really see them as "sports"..

but then I don't like sports much either:)

Should all boxing matches be called a draw if both boxers are still standing? No scored victories?

Unless they had those things you can slip over your shoes to dig into icy surfaces - or boots with good treads. Those would be pretty heavy for dancing though.

That Scottish brother-sister pair really rocked. I stayed tuned, hoping to hear they won, but now it's back to curling. *sigh* :shrug:

competition is fierce. why would anyone think its not a sport.

I know full well, the fear of those assumed gay. I had to tell the baseball coach, in front of the whole little league team, that I couldnt attend the champion game, cuz I had figure skating lesson. He jeered, along with the whole team. Those are the scars that dont heal.