If only he could compete head-to-head with Johnny Weir...sigh.
I have had this argument with friends for many years now and I still hold to my original position that Figure Skating isn’t a sport. Before you spew hate like Maggie Gallagher at Pride, let me at least detail my position.
1. Figure Skating Judging Involves a Large Subjective Component; Sports are largely Objective.
To quote from the Wikipedia article on ISU Judging, ” The factors are set so that the total score from the artistic marks will be about equal to the total score from technical marks.” Any athletic competition where artistic and technical ability are equal to determine a winner, then that is NOT a sport.
I don’t care how pretty it is when my Badgers get the football into the endzone–I just care that they do. I similarly don’t care if Badger Hockey shoots a one-hitter to get a goal or if it someone accidentally falls between the goalies legs. It’s STILL a goal. If my players have to worry about how they look playing and then THAT determines part of their individual or overall score, then that competition is not a sport.
2. Figure Skaters Are Playing to Judges
These judges are highly trained, highly skilled individuals but they are still human. They have their personal preferences or beliefs. And those can, as stated above, determine up to half the points that a skater receives. When someone else is determining up to half the score you receive, than that is not a sport.
Sure, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer….do have referees. But they REFEREE. They don’t award JUDGE and award points based on skill. Points are determined solely by the athletes.
3. Figure Skating Is Not Directly Adversarial
Sports are directly adversarial. You are competing against an opponent directly, not via a judge. You don’t have to look your opponent in the eye as your skate…though I imagine this part is largely due to safety reasons.
Finally, I do not say these things to diminish figure skating, gymnastics, snowboarding, etc. Merely that they are not what I consider sports….they are athletic competitions. The people who compete are athletes who train incredibly hard and do things that are incredibly difficult. But, because the competitions are at least half based on style, not substance; judges are human; and that sports require an adversarial component, all of these athletic events are simply not sports.
Badgering DC 