Emily's Misery?

Skate America 2007

What is it with the press, anyway?

I recognize that’s a silly question. My friend Mark Shea, who runs a highly successful blog on Catholicism and politics, says that anytime the media reports about religion, you have to deduct ten IQ points. I’ve come to the conclusion that you can say the same thing about figure skating.

For example, I was a bit disappointed in The Baltimore Sun’s Candis Thomson and her reports on Skate America, since figure skating is her regular beat. The only explanation I have for her sub par writing was an over-enthusiastic editor. For example, in the middle of her article, seemingly out of nowhere, she writes:

Emily Hughes’ misery continued. After scoring the second-worst technical marks in the short program, the U.S. silver medalist had a gruesome practice marked by frequent looks of disgust and resignation. Just before the start of her long program, Hughes, 18, missed a high-five with her coach and then missed scoring points with the judges in subpar program skated to “Carmina Burana.” Even after all that, she finished fourth.

Thomson makes the assertion that Hughes had missed points right after quoting Pam Gregory, Kimmie Meissner’s coach, regarding the judges’ “crack-down” on the scores skaters earned. All skaters suffered from this, which Gregory stated was something the ISU had warned them about since last summer. All eleven women who competed at this competition were downgraded for “cheating on their jumps” (i.e., taking off on the wrong skate edge or under-rotating).

It seems that Thomson longs for the horrible days of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal. For example, when comparing Hughes’ and Meissner’s coaching and educational choices in her pre-Skate America article, she tries to conjure up a “rivalry” between Hughes and Meissner: “Not the intensity of Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding or Tara Lipinski-Michelle Kwan, but a rivalry that has included near-collisions in practice and small program tweaks that indicate each athlete is thinking about the other. Not that they'll discuss it.”

I’m sure it makes Emily wish for the days when she was compared to her Olympic gold-winning sister Sarah. While it’s true that Hughes has struggled a great deal since becoming a senior, much of her difficulty is bad timing. Both Hughes and Meissner represent that last vestiges of the old scoring system, and Hughes’ success has been hampered a great deal because of it.

Thomson has a point: it must have been difficult for Hughes, losing the U.S. Championships last year by such a slim margin (.82 of a point). And their scores have been so close between the two in other competitions that Hughes falls behind Meissner consistently, often making a bronze or even fourth place, as she did at Skate America. All Meissner has to be is a hair better than Hughes, and because she is, she wins more often than Hughes.

References:
Thomson, Candis. (October 28, 2007). It’s Emily Hughes vs. Meissner at Skate America. http://www.amny.com/sports/olympics/ny-spemily1028,0,2672184.story?track=rss Baltimore Sun.

Thomson, Candis. (October 28, 2007). Meissner wins gold at Skate America: Bel Air native picks up first Grand Prix win http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/olympics/bal-skating1028,0,4178310.story Baltimore Sun.

Shea, Mark. Catholic and Enjoying It! http://markshea.blogspot.com/