Figure Skating: Hot or Not?

There are many signs of the decreasing importance of the Winter Olympics. The quadrennial event is getting crushed in the ratings by American Idol, viewers who are watching probably couldn't pick U.S. medal winners out of a lineup and America's most marketable stars are either jerks or have withdrawn for the Games altogether. For me, though, the worst mark on the Olympics was who the Washington Post sent to cover the games. Of the newspaper's lineup of five sports columnists, the two worst were shipped to Torino.
My enmity for Mike Wise is well documented. But only slightly less well-known is this: I hate Sally Jenkins just as much.
Unlike Wise, Jenkins is quite good for the words; it's just her opinions that are terrible. (Normally I'd go on a rant here about Jenkins father, Dan (hello nepitizz!) and how she lives in New York (which makes as much sense as the Post assigning the New York City mayoral office beat to a D.C. resident) but time is of the essence, so I'll cut to chase.)
Today, Jenkins is off the mark once again, writing that figure skating is, indeed, a sport. Below I'm pasting some excerpts from Jenkins' column and writing my rebuttal beneath. It's a cheap and easy way to go about this, but that's OK. If cheap and easy were bad, my buddy Frank wouldn't have gotten any last Saturday night. (Rimshot!)

It's time for our quadrennial Olympic debate: Can anything involving so much costume jewelry really be called an athletic pursuit? Let's get straight to the answer. Figure skating is definitely a sport. It requires more practice than golf. It's more strenuous than tennis. How many athletes have to do a quadruple jump and land on one butcher knife?

Chess requires more practice than golf and working in a coal mine is more strenuous than tennis, but I don't see Wilbon and Kornheiser arguing over whether Garry Kasparov is an athlete. As for the knife comment, my butcher Franco can jump off his cutting board, do a double back-flip over a triple-looped sausage link and land on his butcher knife all while humming the song from the tournament montage in Karate Kid. And that guy gets tired just watching that Chuck Norris/Christie Brinkley infomercial on TV, so don't tell me what he does is a sport. And he's quite aloof.

The blade of a figure skate is a quarter inch of steel, with sharpened edges.
There. That's a quarter inch. Now let's see LeBron James land on it.

Let's see Johnny Weir go to the hole with two guys in his face. Wait... Bad example.

On Thursday night, Evgeni Plushenko and Johnny Weir will skate for the gold medal in the men's long program. As you watch them, keep in mind that quarter inch. They will zip along a glaring sheet of ice at 30 mph, jump several feet in the air, spin four times and land in time for a tight turn to avoid the boards. And if they weren't wearing spangly suits made of mauve taffeta, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Jenkins is completely missing the point. Nobody says figure skating isn't a sport because skaters are dressed up like extras from Starlight Express. They're saying it's not a sport because figure skating competitions are determined by judges and any activity where a winner is decided upon by a panel of people is not a sport.

This doesn't mean figure skating isn't an intense athletic activity, it is. But so is running up the staircase of a 75-story hotel.

The skate is the toughest competitive shoe in sports. You can't find a more precarious piece of equipment...

If footwear is a determining factor in what should be a sport, I guess women walking down the sidewalk in high heels while drunk should be a medal sport at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Have you ever walked with a chick (or been a chick) in that situation? It's like going through one of those obstacle courses on Survivor. I'm amazed anybody can walk in those things, let alone while wasted and trying to cross over subway grates.

Furthermore, skaters push athletic boundaries in their sport as hard as athletes in any Olympic endeavor.

OK, just because it's called a death spiral doesn't mean people actually die while doing it. Plus, everyone's been ice skating, it's not that hard. No non-Olympians have been hurtling down an ice chute at 90 mph wearing just lycra and a helmet except Al Roker and Matt Lauer.

There is another possible answer to this question, one that will drive Wilbon crazy: Maybe figure skating is part art. If the most powerful moments in skating are the blends of skill, strength and beauty in interpreting a piece of music, then at it's best, perhaps it's not sport but ballet.

This the most sensible line in the whole column. Ballet, like figure skating, is tremendously difficult. Ballerinas, like figure skaters, work extraordinarily hard to become the best in their field. In both activities athleticism, strength, artistic ability and precision are absolutely necessary in order to succeed. Neither are sports.

The trouble with this explanation is that it doesn't take into account that quarter inch. The skate. Or the consequences of falling.

I suppose jumping without a parachute from the space shuttle then becomes the ultimate extreme sport.

As my friend Christine Brennan says, no other sport has a more non-negotiable moment of decision. A water shot in the final round at Augusta is nothing compared with what a figure skater faces when he or she attempts a triple axel in the Olympics. There's no next tee. No third strike. No fourth down. You either land cleanly on that quarter inch, or you lose it all -- and you don't get to try again for four more years.

This is all very true (and it's not surprising Christine Brennan wrote that. She, unlike Jenkins, is a fantastic sportswriter - Although I'd venture a guess Brennan would agree about the sportiness of figure skating) however, there are many "non-negotiable moments of decision" in various other occupations. You think the wire cutter on a bomb squad doesn't deal with pressure? Or a policeman trying to decide whether to shoot a suspect? There's no do overs in those, and there's no second chances either. Pressure makes not a sport.

Those of you who don't think it's a sport should visit the rink during a practice session and check out how much tape, Icy Hot and ibuprofen is involved. See the crunches and the hours on the elliptical trainers.

I could keep making counter-examples (just ask a kindergarten teacher how much ibuprofen is involved in their job), but I've made my point. None of Jenkins' examples address the true problem with figure skating: The judges.
They're corrupt, they play favorites and the point-system is completely arbitrary. Do I have to remind you of what happened four years ago in Salt Lake?
This year, there haven't been any similar scandals, but there have been the usual baffling decisions by the judges. In the pairs figure skating long program, the woman on one of the Chinese teams fell on a difficult throw maneuver and landed hard on the ground. Her partner quickly skated over to her and led her to the wall on the opposite side where they talked to their coach. For about 45 seconds the Chinese team didn't skate. Their program appeared finished. But courageously, the team began their routine over after their break and completed it without another mistake. They were awarded the silver medal for their effort.
Let me reiterate: THEY STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR PROGRAM, TALKED TO THEIR COACHES, RETURNED TO THE ICE AND GOT A SILVER MEDAL! How is this possible? The chick fell. They stopped. They were done. But apparently they weren't.
Amazingly, the announcers didn't seem to mind this. They made no mention of the absurdity of a team stopping mid-routine and then re-starting and not receiving any sort of penalty. I suppose after years of covering figure skating, even the ridiculous becomes mundane.

Finally, let's do a little thought experiment: Suppose there was a rule that figure skaters had to wear nondescript national team uniforms, just as gymnasts do (instead of their little costumes) and had to skate a timed program without music, in which certain jumps, spins and other displays of controlled agility had to be included.
Suppose that, instead of some crackling rendition of "Bolero," what you heard were the sounds of their takeoffs and landings, that quarter inch impacting and carving through the ice, punctuated by incredible physical exertion.
Strip skating of the camp, and what's left is the strength, the speed and the daring. Everyone would instantly recognize it for what it is. A sport.

Don't even get me started on gymnastics, Sally.