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Why Terry Gannon is great for gymnastics and Verne Lundquist was great for figure skating

A brief historical look of the best – and worst – of figure skating and gymnastics TV hosts

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The Gymternet (gymnastics fans on the Internet) might not be able to agree about much, but they can agree that Terry Gannon is one of the best TV hosts the sport has ever had. The reason why Gannon stands out as such a solid host is similar to how Verne Lundquist stood out for figure skating fans in the 1990s: he doesn’t act too good for the sport. 

While Gannon has spoken little on his work on gymnastics (which only started last year), one needs to look at his long-time work on figure skating to see how he might approach gymnastics – and why he is so good at it. 

“He never makes a mistake. He’s got a photographic memory; he just looks at something and talks to himself for about 20 seconds … then they’ll do a take, live, and he’s perfect every time. That kind of delivery demands that you are on your ‘A’ game, too. Plus, he has a profound understanding of what goes into being an elite skater. He’s a quick study of sport.” –Peter Carruthers, one of Gannon’s skating analysts, in Kelli Lawrence’s Skating on Air

Lundquist, who covered figure skating from 1989 – 1998, received similar praise to Gannon’s. It’s hosting based on respecting the sport, putting in the necessary work to cover it right, and developing a rapport with his analysts. Also from Lawrence’s book:

“Verne isn’t a play-by-play guy who steps over the line,’  says Rick Gentile (CBS Sports). ‘He’s not a guy who needs to show the audience how much he knows about the sport. He gets the basic strategy of deferring to the analyst: ‘What’s good about that … why they are doing this…’ set up the skaters, let Scott (Hamilton) analyze, then give them the scores.’”

Contrast those views with those of former NBC Sports gymnastics host Al Trautwig, who struggled with showcasing his analysts and treating gymnastics as a true sport. 

“’I don’t spend any time at all learning what an Amanar is,’ Al Trautwig, NBC’s longtime gymnastics play-by-play man said in a recent interview. This willful ignorance has affected viewers.” – Reeves Wiedeman, Women’s Gymnastics Deserves Better TV Coverage , The New Yorker, August 2016

Trautwig admitted that he was not interested in studying the details of gymnastics, and that he preferred relying on telling personal stories of the athletes. He gave in a bit to the popular producing view of either wanting to make it a soap opera or this rare activity that no one has ever seen before, ever. He, and some of his fellow hosts, didn’t want to compliment his analysts, but talk over them and assume that their analysis was completely foreign. His point-of-view was never well-liked, and took an awful turn in recent times when he decided to insist both on air and on social media that Simone Biles’ adoptive parents were not her parents. Biles doesn’t hide that her biological parents have not been a part of her life, and that she refers to her grandparents as her parents. Any media member who would take time to review their prep material would know that, and to either not review that, or decide that that “correction” would be the hill he died on was Trautwig’s gymnastics undoing. 

There are times that an educated fan of a sport may find the announcing poor, but it is the best that can be expected given the situation. An example of this in these sports was the late Jim Simpson, who was paired with Olympic silver medalist Peter Carruthers during TNT’s 1992 Winter Olympics figure skating coverage. The first ever radio announcer of a Super Bowl had a difficult task in Albertville: he had to cover the entire event, last place finisher to gold medalist. He had done his preparation, but still struggled to commentate when women were struggling to get double jumps around in the long program. Simpson’s commentary struggled, but at some point, what can you say? He did what he could. He wasn’t the best, but nothing came from a place of dislike or disinterest, like some other announcers have done over the years.

It is well-noted that Jim McKay downright disliked his skating assignments, and it is seen in his recycling of phrases from Olympics to Olympics — most notably, “This is the loneliest sport in the world,” a phrase used in both John Curry’s and Robin Cousins’ gold medal winning free skates in 1976 and 1980. Luckily for McKay, he was bolstered by skating’s most famous commentator, Dick Button, who has no filter, but a Harvard vocabulary to make the lack of restraint sound authoritative. 

As a gymnastics commentator, John Tesh (who covered multiple Olympics in the 1990s and 2000s) showed interest and treated the sport with gravitas, but was befallen with the presentation (either from him or his production team) that the sport was a soap opera. He had to set every single routine as a do-or-die event, even if it wasn’t. (If he did that in Atlanta, with a seven gymnast team, what would he do with the four gymnast team format being used in Tokyo next year?!) Part of this could be Tesh’s background – toggling from entertainment to sports to back learn to his style and how he was used. For a production team, it’s easy to assume that the guy well-known for covering fluff should be the guy who hosts what they perceive as the fluff sports. 

Gannon – and the best host prior to him, Lundquist – treat gymnastics and skating as something not beneath them, not as fluff, but something they genuinely want to learn more about. They like what they are doing. They don’t want to deduce it to a drama (despite some of their analysts trying to do so, cough cough Tara and Johnny), but showcase them as difficult and fantastic athletic events. That’s why Gannon is so refreshing to gymnastics fans – getting true athletic commentary for a sport that rarely gets it is exactly what fans have wanted for decades. 

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(Please note that links to any books in this article may be affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase from that link.)

2018 US Figure Skating Championships: Who to follow and who will win

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This week’s US Figure Skating Championships are taking place in what might be the only warm place in the lower 48 at the moment: San Jose, California. Oh, the irony: an event focused on ice taking place in the only state where it’s not blistering cold.

I was blessed to cover two US Championships (2014 and 2015) and wish I could be there in San Jose this week. However, since having my son, I’ve had to cut back on my writing travel, so I’m watching this week’s action from afar. If you’re looking for a great writer reporting from the event, follow my neighbor Claire Cloutier (@clairecloutier), who will be covering the event for Figure Skaters Online (@fsonline.) You also can’t go wrong reading Christine Brennan’s work for USA Today, Jackie Wong’s work for Rocker Skating and IceNetwork, and Lynn Rutherford also of IceNetwork (who I wish I got to know better when I did cover Nationals – she’s a skating writing machine.)

If I were a betting woman in Vegas, I’d feel safest betting on the men’s, ice dance and pairs events this week. I would stay away from the ladies because….well, read through my predictions and notes to see why.

Senior Men

  1. Nathan Chen
  2. Adam Rippon
  3. Vincent Zhou
  4. Jason Brown
  5. Alex Krasnozhon

To watch: I am stepping out on a limb placing Alex Krasnozhon (Junior Grand Prix champion) so high. I feel like he is going to make a huge splash here. I think the highest judges will possibly put him is fifth, but he will skate better than at least one of the skaters above him. When he is on, he is quite impressive. Starting this fall, he will be one of the nation’s top men on the international scene…Boston’s Ross Miner competes in what he is calling his final National Championships. He tends to do very well in the short program at Nationals, and I expect that again this week. He will not make the Olympic team, but if he can skate to his full potential in the long program, he’ll make the Four Continents team.

Senior Ice Dance

  1. Shibutani/Shibutani
  2. Hubbell/Donahue
  3. Chock/Bates
  4. McNamara/Carpenter
  5. Hawayek/Baker

To watch: The two and three spots will be interesting to watch. To be honest, I like Chock/Bates’ free dance more than Hubbell/Donahue’s, and I think it will be very close between the two. Chock and Bates may not have the most difficult elements, and Hubbell and Donahue are the entire package, but can make poorly timed mistakes…Do you follow the absolutely hysterical @JoeJohnsonIce on Twitter? He competes in this event, and should finish in the top ten. He has one of the best Twitter accounts of 2017…I am expecting a good week for Hawayek and Baker, namely because 2018 is apparently the Year of the Buffaloian (Hawayek is from East Aurora.) BUFFALO’S HAPPENING NOW, WE’RE ON THE MOVE NOW.

Senior Pairs

  1. Scimeca Knierim/Knierim
  2. Cain/LeDuc
  3. Catelli/Tran
  4. Denney/Frazier
  5. Liu/Johnson

To watch: The only lock is Scimeca Knierim/Knierim, who on a great day are a complete joy to watch. She has an incredible story, undergoing a few serious abdominal surgeries in 2016 and making it back to compete late last season at Four Continents and the World Championships. (From experience, I can tell you that once those muscles are cut through, it takes a while to get back to the point where you don’t feel like you’ve been sawed in half. Kudos to her for returning as fast as she did.) … As usual, there is a strong New England contingent in the pairs event, with Rhode Island’s Marissa Castelli hoping to land another national medal with Mervin Tran, and Allison Timlen/Justin Highgate-Brutman, who train in Boxborough, MA. Their side-by-side jumps are looking magnificent on social media.

Senior Ladies

  1. Mirai Nagasu
  2. Ashley Wagner
  3. Bradie Tennell
  4. Karen Chen
  5. Angela Wang
  6. Emmy Ma

To watch: This event is totally up in the air. Many of these skaters have been inconsistent through the fall international season. Nagasu, who was controversially left off the Olympic team in a decision made in the back rooms of the TD Garden four years ago, is the current buzz of practices in San Jose. She has a triple Axel and a lot of crowd support …. Tennell had one of the best performances of a US woman in years at November’s Skate America, and also is skating well in official practices. I do fear that the hype could get to Tennell, who has struggled with injuries in previous years….Wagner seems a lock to make the Olympic team – she secured that spot with a silver medal at the 2016 World Championships in Boston. She won’t win here, though, due to pesky underrotation calls….Defending national champion Chen is so inconsistent. She could win the whole thing, or she could place fifth. She could skate lights out, or fall on two or three jumps. Seeking confidence, Chen has switched back to the programs that landed her last year’s title….My dark horse is Newton, MA’s Emmy Ma. If former ABC commentators Dick Button and Peggy Fleming were still in the announcing booth, I am sure Button would proclaim Ma, “Very nice” and Fleming would say, “She skates with an ethereal quality.” Ma, along with Tennell and Starr Andrews (another skater who could be a huge surprise this week), will make up many future US squads.

The YouTube Vault: Peggy Fleming Meets the Los Angeles Kings

Sometimes the videos YouTube suggests for you hold great surprises.

That’s exactly what happened late one evening while I was catching up on work, and had YouTube streaming on the television. I let a suggested video pop up, and it turned out to be Here’s Peggy Fleming, the Olympic gold medalist’s 1968 award-winning NBC special.

I had never seen the special – it aired 14 years before I was born and had no way to see it before it was uploaded to YouTube. I wish this wasn’t my first introduction to it, because it includes a fun mash-up of two of my favorite sports – hockey and figure skating.

Filmed at The Forum in Inglewood, California, the segment includes the Southern California-bred Fleming having to share the ice with the then very new Los Angeles Kings, and the chaos it creates. The embedded video below goes exactly to the segment’s starting point.

 

It’s beautifully shot and impeccably directed. The whole special ended up winning a bunch of awards, and this quick scene shows why. Anyone who likes retro hockey or figure skating will find this a treat.

Train Thoughts: Three Skating Programs You Must Watch

It’s been a while since I wrote anything about figure skating. (Since April, to be exact.) That’s a shame, because this has been a really wonderful season of figure skating so far.  So here are some trademark Train Thoughts (things I have written on my phone during my daily commuter rail commute) on my three favorite skating programs of the season so far.

Maia and Alex Shibutani – “That’s Life” short dance

One of the last nights my little sister was staying with me before she moved back to California, we were hanging out in the living room.

“Hey, I know you don’t like skating, but just watch this.” I said, pulling up the Shibutanis short dance from Skate America.

This program is set to a mashup of Frank Sinatra’s and Jay Z’s “That’s Life.” This year’s requirements have ice dancers performing blues, swing and hip-hop in their version of a short program, and I thought the Shibutanis had the best attempt at hitting the hip hop part of that equation.

My sister was drinking a beer when I started the video. Not a sip was taken, nor did she move, or say a word for the entire program. She’s really giving this a chance, I thought. My, things have changed since we were kids, when she just tolerated my endless skating watching.

Once the program ended, she turned to me. “That was the most f—- amazing skating anything I’ve ever seen.”

I almost wish there had been some way to save this program for an Olympic season (short dance requirements change by the season, so there is not.) No matter what skating fans think about it, this is something that would pull in the non-fan. Has it fully realized its potential yet? No, but no program or skater wants to be peaking in November. This program is on target for its best performance at Nationals, and is one of the reasons I keep trying to figure out exactly I could make it to Kansas City in January.

Mariah Bell – “East of Eden” long program

The other program that has me visiting every airlines’ website desperately trying to find ways to get to Kansas City for Nationals is Bell’s long program.

I had goosebumps watching a video of it from the early season U.S. International Classic. Despite costume issues and bobbles, it was a well composed long program that she had the talent to deliver beautifully.

Just a few weeks later, Bell performed it to near its full potential at Skate America in Hoffman Estates, Illinois (better known to college hockey fans as home of the Shillelagh Tournament, which is a tournament name I love to say over and over.) She won the long program and the overall silver medal for the effort.

She may double a toe loop on the end of a double Axel combo and the Salchow on a triple flip-half-loop-triple Salchow. Otherwise, it is some good, old-fashioned, captivating figure skating. In an era of no spirals, there are two solid, although brief, ones (one into the double Axel combo and one at the end) and no movements are thrown away. When a teacher, coach or choreographer implores a student to feel movement to their fingertips, this is what they mean. Is it the most artistic program ever? No. But none of this is filler movement, none of this represents a hummingbird fluttering around, and it never gets dull. Bell genuinely enjoys being on the ice, and this program showcases that.

On that note, I must digress. Longtime skating journalist Phil Hersh wrote this week about the “sad” state of U.S. skating, quipping, “Please don’t tell me that Rafael Arutunian will do a silk purse makeover on Mariah Bell.” I don’t believe anyone is saying that Bell’s coaching change (from the Kori Ade camp in Colorado Springs to the Arutunian camp in Southern California) is automatically going to elevate her past every other ladies skater in the U.S. But Hersh’s statement ignores the potential Bell has demonstrated in the past. She has always gone into Nationals with the goods that could have placed her in that bronze medal spot on the podium. All a coaching change needed to do for Bell is get her jumps more consistent and her confidence up. Bell is a contender, has been a contender, and will continue to be a contender, and shame on anyone who is just now realizing this and/or discounts the effort. 

 

Yuzuru Hanyu – “Let’s Go Crazy” short program

Prince’s untimely April death gave way to a few tribute programs this season, and this short program by the defending Olympic champion is my favorite. Technically, it has the difficulty to set it above the rest (opens with a quad loop, which Hanyu is the first to land, and the triple Axel comes out of an odd, but awesome, edge.) Artistically, it feels like going to a school dance and finding out that kid who seems like he would have no rhythm can actually break it down better than anyone. It starts off a little geeky, but by the ending slide across center ice that hits the song’s famous guitar riff, every girl is lining up to dance with him. (Gosh, I hope this comparison makes sense.) It’s as much fun as one can have in a short program these days, and I hope he finally hits it all at this weekend’s Grand Prix Final.

2016 Worlds Watch: Hockey player turned figure skater is the future for the U.S.

We are 205 days out from the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships coming to Boston. In the lead up, I’ll point out some figure skaters to keep an eye on leading up to the event.

The Boston Bruins will take a brief hiatus from the TD Garden this March when the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships come to town, but a hockey player may still take the ice.

One of the most promising men’s skaters the United States has produced in some time, hockey forward and figure skater Nathan Chen delivered a phenomenal short program Thursday at the Junior Grand Prix stop in Colorado Springs. His 77.13 score put him in first after the first leg of competition, a total that U.S. Figure Skating reported as being the highest ever at a Junior Grand Prix event.

If you haven’t been watching figure skating in a few years (and I know there are quite a few of you out there), U.S. men have been struggling. Quad jumps, once revolutionary, are now commonplace, but the U.S. doesn’t boast much power in that department. The reigning national champion, Jason Brown, is known more for the overall composition of his programs and precise skating skills (which deserve kudos, don’t get me wrong), than his jumping ability. A quad jump isn’t currently in Brown’s repertoire.

Nathan Chen, on the other hand, can jump. When he lifts up for his opening triple Axel, it is as secure as the dominant U.S. men in days of old. He has enough confidence and strength to place the rest of his short program jump requirements in the second half of his program, which gives him a score boost. (While watching Chen’s program on YouTube, I may have physically slapped my desk in excitement when he landed the triple Lutz-triple toe loop in the second half of his program.)

While Chen doesn’t have the program composition of reigning national champion Brown, he still can sell a program, as he does with his Michael Jackson short program medley. He can hold his own artistry-wise among the top U.S. men at the moment, an important point in a quadrennium where U.S. judging panels have shown they might hold it in higher importance than those internationally.

Chen’s first senior performances for those particular judges were less than ideal. After winning the novice and junior men’s titles twice each, his first year on the senior men’s level at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships was marred by a heel injury. He finished eighth. Given reports of his blistering performances at summer competitions and as shown in Thursday’s short program, Chen probably won’t see himself in eighth place nationally again.

Given his age, Chen could compete on the junior or senior level internationally. To the dismay and confusion of some skating fans, he was placed on the junior circuit this fall, but has the goods to compete — and do well — on the Senior Grand Prix. If he shows up in Minneapolis in January for the U.S. Championships and places in the top three there, he could represent the United States at the TD Garden, the venue where he won his second junior national title in 2014.

His last junior title was won while he was spending his evenings playing hockey for a Midget A team in California. A forward, Chen detailed his dual career for Icenetwork’s Amy Rosewater last winter, and how his family talked him out of tending the net:

“At first, I wanted to be a goalie,” said Chen, who got interested in hockey because his two older brothers played. “I thought being a goalie would be the most fun. I really liked the goalie gear. I thought it was cool. But my family said being a goalie would be boring, just standing there in front of the net, not skating. So I decided to play up [at forward] instead.”

So while the Bruins may be on the road for an extended road trip next March, it’s quite possible that a forward might still take the ice.

Bostonians have a chance to see Chen for themselves at Harvard’s Evening With Champions, September 18th and 19th.

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