A commenter asked where I'm getting my information. Considering that a thousand people showed up to read my reports yesterday, I thought an answer was in order.
I am watching the Russian Sports channel RTR on webcast. In Russia, skating is a popular sport, just like here. Except unlike the US, skating gets some respect in Russia. They treat it like a "real sport." RTR runs most skating events live, often in their entirety. A subscription is $9/month, payable via Paypal, and this was the best $9 I ever spent on skating.
Though the announcers yammer on—some things don't change form American TV—it's all in Russian, which I know very little of. It's easy to tune out. During pairs, I got to listing to the dulcet tones of the incomparable Anton Sihkuralidze... one wishes he might shut up occasionally. God that man loves to hear himself talk! During ice dance, we got Ilia Averbuhk, who turned out to be kind of quiet. It was nice just watching the dance without stupid announcers ruining my appreciation by never shutting up.
Most interesting, perhaps, is the post skating mike-in-the-face interviews. Of course, they only seem to interview the Russians, but that's okay. Russian TV is even MORE "homer" and Russophile than US TV is Ameri-centric. It's nice to see though, that skaters who stumble or are stiff and nervous when speaking English, actually smile and are very personable when speaking their own language. I think it's the first time I ever saw Tatiana Totmianina smile! And what a LOVELY smile she has. Wish we saw it on the ice more. Turns out, she's the lively one and Maxim Marinin comes off as bit more shy and retiring.
The other thing I LOVE about Russian TV is that they don't think the viewer is too stupid to understand figure skating. When Marinin did that scary axel lasso lift in the long program, they did a replay and you could hear Anton talking, probably about the ice spray flying and the insecurity of Marinin's footwork in the lift. The showed Marinin's FEET, which in ALL the times ABC and NBC have showed that horrific accident when Totmianina fell out of the lasso lift, NONE of them have showed WHY she fell... Marinin's feet. And it goes on. Russian TV does replays of landings, close up so we can see if they are two footed. They name the jumps, accurately, without fanfare and discussion. And when they do get a skate that they like—like Evan Lysacek—they don't stint in the praise... or at least such seems to be the tone.
As for who I am... long ago and far away, I was a roller figure skater. YES, you CAN do that on wheels. I quit about 20 years ago. I can identify jumps and I know technique because I was a skater and because I've been watching and learning the sport for 30 years. Over the last 8 years, I've been writing novels about figure skating and publishing other people's figure skating fiction at my web site Private Ice. My first print book comes out in the fall for the new skating season. I hope that some of the people who are enjoying these reports will pony up for a copy. The book's name is On the Edge. You can read the old serial version at my web site, but they're like a Tim Lizzie next to a modern Porsche.
1 comment:
Thanks for the information. I've never had the opportunity to watch Olympic coverage from another country, so I appreciate the information regarding how other countries cover it. It's expected that any national network is going to root for the home team, but I'm glad to hear that Russian TV has more complete coverage of the sport.
A couple of nights ago I had the opportunity to meet high school exchange students from Germany, Finland, and Japan. I had an opportunity to ask them what they thought of Olympic coverage, and the German student (the most vocal of three) expressed clear displeasure at the paucity and quality of coverage here in the U.S.
Post a Comment