All the olympics stuff

[moongirlk]

Re: short-track skating:

Speed skating and figure skating have the same governing body.  I 
hear there used to be a way to contest the rulings on short-track, 
but the ISU got rid of that, so now Ohno and the others have no 
recourse.  I guess for Ohno it's not so bad - a silver medal's 
nothing to sneeze at and he's got three other races to win gold in, 
but the concept just gives me one more reason to think that maybe the 
whole ISU (and not just the figure skating judging system) ought to 
be reworked.  

Back to figure skating, I said:

> >So while we're at it, could we penalize 
> > excess makeup, sparkly things on people's faces, women's costumes 
> > that ride up, unitards (or anything that's more like tights than 
> > pants) for men, and any costume that either has random whispy 
bits hanging off of it or cannot be easily explained by the theme of 
the music?  Yes - a taste requirement! 

Cindy replied enthusiastically, among other things...

> We will have a special 3-day clinic to straighten out Surya 
>Bonaly. 

Ah - how cunning you are!  You saw through my attempt at being subtle 
and knew that the first 3 of my requests all referred to the same 
person!
That girl's got some serious taste issues.  Now, don't get me wrong, 
I admire her strenght and athleticism and downright boldness (and 
think she should be allowed to do the back-flip in eligible 
competition, since she *can* land it on one foot), but... if anybody 
ever needed a personal shopper or an image consultant or something, 
it's Surya.

Cindy would also like to take my rule a step further, saying:

>We will have an equal opportunity ban on unitards, as 
> Debbie Thomas wore won in the Olympics for reasons that cannot be 
> explained.

I can go with that if we make a special dispensation allowing that 
cute black costume of Sarah Hughes' that I would wear myself if I 
were built like her, and could skate, and somehow got entered into a 
competition in front of people (which would have to happen against my 
will).  It's all one piece, but it's *cute*, so I don't think it 
should count as a unitard, which are almost by definition *not cute*, 
or at least embarrassing.

I am in agreement on the ucky flesh-toned pretend-naked fabric, and 
would like to add that if a costume requires such fabric to avoid 
falling down, it should be considered off-limits, and the skater in 
question submitted to intense scrutiny by the taste judges for the 
next several competitions.  I would also submit that the base-score 
should start higher for skaters who wear clothing that resembles 
something that a sane person (for my purposes I exclude those who, 
while otherwise functional members of society, believe themselves to 
be Napoleon, a matador, or a butterfly) might on some occasion wear 
in public.

kimberly
who really will shut up about skating, at least for the rest of the 
evening.