The Plainsman Press - South Plains College

Amanda Weatherford, ad/graphic designer

Whoever says that figure skating is not a sport needs to think again.

Hours and hours of practice go into training for a single skating event. Some figure skaters generally train up to five times a week and up to an hour or more at a time. All seriously competitive skaters begin at a young age.

Sasha Cohen took up gymnastics at a young age, and switched to figure skating at age 7. She skated competitively throughout her school years, and Cohen is now a two-time Olympic Silver medalist, as well as the 2006 U.S. Champion.

So how can anyone say that it isn’t a sport? These figure skaters are in better physical condition than most baseball and football players. Figure skaters care for their bodies and their health more than people know. Cohen keeps to a very strict diet of fish, vegetables and fruit to keep her body in prime competitive shape on top of the time spent practicing at the rink, stretching, and jogging. She also keeps a hearty supply of vitamins around at all times.

So where do the comments originate from? It’s obvious that figure skaters have to work tediously at their craft to perfect it, even though sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Skaters have to be observant, to keep an eye out so that they know where they are going to land and still not pull out of their jumps at the wrong moment or two-foot their landings. They have to skate fast enough to build up the speed and momentum to carry out the full three and four rotations, depending on the jump they are trying to do. Does anyone out there even want to try landing a single? I’d be willing to bet no one out there, save those few who have actually had the training to accomplish the feat, could do it. Even I can’t pull it off on solid ground.

Figure skaters cannot afford to be lazy, unlike most of us average college students. They wake up early, run, practice and then they attack the day. Some skaters, after taking on the day’s tasks, return to the rink to train even more. Skaters also have to learn how to fall.

It is a given that at one point or another, figure skaters will fall during their jumps. It’s all a matter of balance. If the skater comes down at the wrong angle or in the middle of a rotation, they will most likely fall. It takes a true athlete to rebound from an off-kilter landing.

No, all of the men who compete are NOT gay. I don’t know how many times I have heard this…and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Yevgeny Plushenko, the Russian skater who came away from Torino with the Gold medal, was married in June 2005 to his longtime girlfriend Maria Yermak. Look everyone: we found one who isn’t gay! (Insert huge gasp.) Also, David Pelletier, one half of the 2002 Canadian Olympic Gold medal-Winning pairs team, married his partner, Jamie Sale, on Dec. 31, 2005. (Gasp! Another!)

I know that the very few males reading this article are sitting there saying, “Yeah, right,” to themselves, along with, “How could any of them be straight?” My reply to that is, how are there gay players in football? It really doesn’t make a hill of beans’ difference who prefers what gender in the world of sports – obviously. All that matters is that the athletes perform the job that they are assigned to do on the team.

So…do the job that is asked of you, and I don’t care if you’re gay, straight or whatever is in between. How hard is it to see figure skating as a sport? The Olympics is a sports showcase, so why would the IOC include anything that didn’t require even a little bit of sports skill? If weightlifting can be a sport, so can figure skating!