#the whole doping scandal

[my5hiningstars]

dude. aussies in the 5sos fandom on tumblr? i can count us on my hand, you're one too? a melbourne afl fan as well?

haha, yeah i have noticed there are surprisingly few of us around here 🥺

not so much an afl fan tho, as much as a person who was born in a part of the country that likes afl,, so seeing luke picking the correct sport gave me weird state pride that i don't generally have ^^;

[uniteds]

stuff that happened in the 2022/2023 football season that should send us into a coma but we’re too desensitized:

1. the whole ass world cup in the middle of the season. what was that

2. manchester united sacking ronaldo and announcing a sale of the club in the middle of the world cup

3. ronaldo getting dropped at the world cup and his replacement scoring a hattrick immediately after

4. keeping up with the belgians (world cup edition)

5. keeping up with the belgians (courtois saying he doesn’t respect kdb after stealing his missus)

6. ronaldo stans beefing with a little moroccan girl

7. the kingdom of saudi arabia buying newcastle united and then telling the premier league that they didn’t and the premier league going “oh okay if you say so”

8. megan thee stallion being romelu lukaku’s date to lautaro martinez’s wedding

9. pique cheating on shakira and then shakira releasing a diss track about it

10. shakira figuring out pique cheated on her because someone ate her strawberry jam and pique doesn’t eat strawberry jam

11. apparently the girl pique cheated on shakira with (clara) cheating on pique with pep

12. wagatha christie libel case

13. real madrid dropping a video accusing barcelona of fascism and the government of cataluyna getting involved

14. the pope coming out as a manchester united fan

15. the one napoli fan that basically made zielinski strip on the pitch

16. mount vesuvius park shutting down because napoli fans wanted to fake an eruption as a celebration

17. frank lampard taking everton into a relegation battle, getting sacked, and then taking chelsea into a relegation battle

18. on that note: chelsea were in a relegation scrap and finished 12th

19. mourinho lost his first ever european final to sevilla europa league black magic

20. whatever the fuck borussia dortmund did on the last day of the bundesliga season

21. anthony martial’s ex wife chasing his first wife down a french motorway with a baby in the passenger seat

22. psg suspending messi because he took an unsanctioned trip to saudi arabia and then unsuspending him two days later because they didn’t want people talking about geopolitics

23. the absolutely bizarre messi apology video released by psg

24. spurs refunding their fans’ tickets after being embarrassing

25. pep’s heartbreak over the fact julia roberts is a manchester united fan

26. chelsea scored one goal in the month of april

27. chelsea and spurs had six managers between them and won one match combined between march and april

28. mourinho fighting anthony taylor after the europa league final

29. milan derby in the ucl for the first time since 2005

30. luis enrique saying he’s cool with the spanish players having sex during the world cup as long as they’re not having orgies

31. luis enrique saying he doesn’t have sex anymore unless his wife wants to

32. man city charged with 115 counts of financial doping and trying to get the barrister in charge disqualified because he’s an arsenal fan

33. mourinho wire-taping himself to catch referees being corrupt

34. ryan reynolds and mac from it’s always sunny in philadelphia buying a football club and that football club getting promoted

35. pele died rip

36. women football awards sponsored by shein and klarna having a category for “male football ally of the year” and it’s just random men that went to one (1) women’s game

37. barcelona negreia case (how do you say calciopoli in catalan?)

38. infantino saying he feels gay, african, like a migrant worker, disabled, arab, and qatari

39. infantino saying he was oppressed as a child because he was ginger and italy is not safe for gingers

40. david alaba’s father in law getting arrested for being one the leaders of a far right group plotting to overthrow the german government

41. richarlison being tumblr’s it girl for a month and then not scoring a goal for the next four

42. juventus being in the middle of another corruption scandal and being docked points because of it

43. two teams getting investigated by the british government for playing football the weekend the queen died

44. gavi getting a yellow card in the first minute of a football match

45. pogba’s brother was arrested by french authorities for being part of a group-organized extortion attempt against pogba

46. richarlison getting a tattoo of neymar’s face and neymar paying him 30k to get it removed

47. iker casillas coming out, puyol implying they had a thing, and both of them retracting it in the most misha collins way possible.

48. sane and mane fight

49. zlatan retired from football

50. barca withholding about 50 million in wages from their players and somehow frenkie still didn’t want to join manchester united

[ravensofskyhold]

Ruoska 2nd verse analysis

Aka why there's a reference to a 20+ year-old sports scandal in this song that on the surface is about BDSM.

(Fuck you Kä for making me write a 1500+ word analysis on a reference in one verse of a song and also for forcing me to learn more about Lahti 2001 than I've ever wanted. /j)

Okay, I was already having thoughts about the second verse of Ruoska, which has lots of references to the doping controversy of FIS Nordic World Ski Championships held in Lahti in 2001 aka the biggest sports doping scandal in Finland. The MV gave new context for that part and made the use of the whole reference make a lot more sense to me, enough to develop those thoughts into a semi-coherent analysis (I'm not kidding about this being semi-coherent, I've spent most of the day writing this. You've been warned.).

This analysis does require me to talk about The Lahti 2001 doping scandal a lot. I’ve decided to focus on what I remember from the aftermath of it, especially the Finnish public opinion and reaction, as it is the most relevant part of it for this analysis. So if you’re not familiar with the topic, I recommend reading a short summary of the facts which can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIS_Nordic_World_Ski_Championships_2001#Doping_controversy

In the MV, there’s this about 20s pause between the first chorus and the second verse, where the song just stops and people looking at their phones form a circle at the edges of the spotlight (where Käärijä and Erika are) and hate comments aimed at both of them are shown on screen.

After the pause, we get the second verse:

“Lunta on tullut tupaan niin paljon et tarvii sukset / Gotten so much snow in the house that I need skis

On luokkaa Kari-Pekka nää ahdistukset / At level with Kari-Pekka with these anxieties

Et taloyhtiössä on kosteudenmittaukset/ That the housing cooperative takes humidity measurements

Kun rappukäytävän portailla on hemon virtaukset/ When there's massive tides* on the stairs in the stairway”

[link/credits to the translation]

*added context to this line that gets lost in translation is that the substance flowing down the stairs in the stairway is called “hemo” in the original lyrics. Now, I’ve interpreted it to be either blood/hemoglobin or Hemohes (which is the brand(?) name of the banned blood plasma expander substance that people were caught using in the Lahti 2001 doping scandal. Either way, this detail is relevant enough for this analysis.

-----

The idiom "tulla lunta tupaan" (to get snow in the house/living room) means to get misfortune, but I think I've seen it also used to mean getting (excessive) adversity/criticism for something (wrong) you've done (from the public, usually).

There certainly is something fucked up and rather telling that from what I’ve seen, many of Finnish fans old enough to remember Lahti 2001 (me included) needed only to hear "skis" and "Kari-Pekka" to get the doping scandal reference. After all, this is a rather subtle (as in, only Kari-Pekka Kyrö’s, one of the head coaches of the ski team, first name is mentioned in the song!) reference to a scandal that happened over 20 years ago. But it also tells you how big of a deal that doping scandal was for Finns, especially since it happened in cross-country skiing aka one of our pride and joy sports, and how much (perceived) shame was involved on national level.

And oh boy, did that sense of national shame get projected back to the public opinion about the people involved in the scandal. The scandal did have massive and long-lasting repercussions on the careers and the reputations of the people involved in Finland, way beyond the official disqualifications and suspensions. These people went from being celebrated athletes and ski team members that everyone was proud of to being mostly, or even only, remembered for being caught using doping. Their past (and future) achievements suddenly didn’t either matter anymore or, thanks to the doping scandal, were regarded with suspicion.

There’s also a layer added to this by the media’s role and involvement in all this that I’m not going to get into here. Only thing from the media side I’m going to point out is that big part of kicking off this incident was the investigation and subsequent article by Helsingin Sanomat crime journalist that revealed damning evidence of the systematic use of doping substances in the Finnish ski team.

The point is, yes they did wrong, and yes they did deserve the (official) consequences to their careers and a hit in their public images, but everything else? The figurative lashing (pun intended) they got from the media and the public? The media and the public refusing to forget and move on from that incident years after the fact and in the process probably not letting them move on from it properly, either? Being remembered only for your mistakes? That was excessive, way out of proportion to what the crime in question was.

Bringing this back to the song, the MV, and the artists:

This reference, especially with the MV context just made me think of the topic of public opinion of celebs and how quickly it can turn against you, even if you’re currently seen as a “hero” of sorts, like Finland’s ski team was in 2001 or Käärijä is now.

It also made me think of how Finns often tend to be jealous of other people's success (the good ol’ belief that there’s a finite amount of luck/happiness in the world and so other people having luck/success is to blame if you don’t have it is still deeply ingrained in us even if we don’t realize it). Like, there are always people who hate someone more successful or famous than them simply because they are successful/famous.

Also, there's often a sense of schadenfreude involved from certain parts of the public when someone famous does something bad/wrong. Something that (in public perception) "justifies" the negative turn in the public opinion on that person, regardless of how bad/wrong the thing actually was and if the reaction is actually proportionate to it. And especially in famous people’s case, there are always people who are just waiting for them to misstep, to fall, just so they can go “see? I knew they were a bad person all along, that’s why I disliked them!”. Or hell, we’ve even seen people who are constantly waiting for the moment a famous person does something that can be twisted into a controversy, or even hounding them to do something or react to something in a way that paints them in a negative light.

Now, I don't think the hate comments seen in the MV are comparable to what happened after the doping scandal (nor that are they meant to be that), and I don’t claim to know what kinds of hate Käärijä and Erika get usually but I doubt that’s comparable either. But there are some noticeable, if much smaller scale, similarities to some controversies they’ve been a part of and the media/public reaction to those. Which does make the doping scandal an effective reference to use to get the point of (often excessive) negative reactions/comments to everything you do across.

So, when the hate comment pause happened in the MV and the second verse started, it felt like the missing puzzle pieces fitting into their places, and being able to see what the second verse is trying to say. Or my interpretation of it, anyway.

The first line is rather straightforward, mentioning getting enough "snow" (aka adversity/criticism/hate, not misfortune like I thought before) into their lives ("house" in the song) that they need equipment/tools ("skis") to help them wade through it, just to keep living their lives.

The line mentioning Kari-Pekka, and anxiety at the same level as his, is interesting. Because on the one hand, he did take the blame for the doping scandal and was, according to his own words, “the most hated man in Finland” at the time. On the other hand, he did get a lot of publicity and was offered a job as a crisis consultant to teach people how to lie believably, because he appeared so calm, collected, and confident in the media during the scandal. So, while on the surface this line is about having a lot of anxiety due to the hate they’re getting, well, the dude whose anxiety levels they’re likening their own to doesn’t seem (to appear) anxious at all despite shouldering most of the blame and hate for such a big scandal, does he? Hell, he got job opportunities thanks to how not-anxious he appeared in that situation.

And the following lines, I've interpreted to be about other people having to acknowledge the damage from those hate comments seeping into their own lives as well because, depending on what "hemo" is interpreted as, either the cause of that hate (hemohes) or a rather visible representation of the pain caused by the hate (blood) is flooding the stairway now. The pain or the cause of the hate others have let into their living spaces/lives is out in the public space now. And going by the next line “Ja mä tahdon jäädä siitä kiipeliin (kiipeliin)/ And I want to get in trouble for it (in trouble)” it’s happening they intentionally let it out into the public in the first place, because they want to get in trouble for it?

There’s something fascinating about that. About acknowledging that they’re getting hate anyway, so they might as well intentionally and publicly do things that people are going to send them hate for. But also acknowledging the hate they’re getting and making other people acknowledge it as well, refusing to keep it hidden and letting it rot only their own lives.

And then continuing that yeah, we’re getting whipped/hated on for everything we do, but

[greetings-humans]

ice adolescence and russia

1 - Russia in today's world

okay look. I see you when you talk about how the political climate today means that iceado was doomed. I see you when you talk about the many many many doping scandals of Russian athletes, we saw it when the athletes didn't compete under the banner of Russia but as OAR or ROC, which I absolutely support. I see you when you rightfully mention Russia invading Ukraine. This is genuinely horrible, it's horrifying, it's inhuman, and the fact that many Russian athletes (including figure skaters) openly, unapologetically support their government's actions is disgusting.

2 - yuri on ice was just meant to be fun

now, let's also recognize that the core of yuri on ice to be silly and queer and accepting, to talk about anxiety and depression, about burnout and competition, about rediscovering your passion for your work and falling in love along the way. I see this, and these are some the reasons why I adore yuri on ice.

3 - yoi and russia

I would love to say that yoi is about escapism so we should ignore all real life events. But I'm not really that type of person, tbh.

We could all close our eyes and ignore thousands of people dying, ignore the doping scandals, ignore every bad thing Russia had done in modern history. But what about the people directly affected by this? do they deserve to see us comfortably having fun about a figure skating show ignoring the doping, and showing our main characters living and training in Russia, comfortably? with no mention of the inhumane actions of Russia, be they about the war or queer rights? really? is that something they deserve to see?

I see the people saying that maybe we can ignore the war, the way we ignored homophobia and eating disorders and bribing, but for the reasons above I really think we shouldn't.

I wish Russia had not done any of this, most of all because of all the deaths and destruction, but yes also bacause maybe that would have meant that maybe we could have had ice adolescence. However, we don't live in that world. And that still doesn't mean iceado had to be canceled.

4 - do not forgive or forget about MAPPA

I am not excusing mappa, okay? there is no way I will excuse or forgive mappa for ice adolescence. if they wanted to, they could have fixed this.

I've been thinking about this for maybe 20 minutes and I already have a solution, okay? and if I have a vague plan for how to handle this, then I am dead certain that a whole room full of people working for mappa could have figured it out. this is on the mappa execs, not the people doing the creative process. don't be fooled, the execs are probably just unwilling to try, if Russia's actions (and the actions of its athletes) are part of their reasoning.

5 - iceado could still exist even with everything russia has done

i think that the situation is rightfully delicate. but I also think that if a book like red white & royal blue (an openly gay book) could openly condemn US right wing politics and also portray the oppressive heteronormativity of the british royal family, without outright mentioning any real persons, then yoi s2 or ice ado could potray the figure skating scene in russia negatively and could have the characters leave the country.

they could show yakov as that one different coach in russian figure skating or maybe they could prove that he's your typical russian coach, which played a role in viktor's mental health getting worse and worse.

post-s1 scenes could be about viktor changing his mind and leaving russia, as a result of the doping scandal, or rising tensions internationally about Russia. the fact that we saw him and yuuri and yuri in st. petersburg didn't mean that decision was final. the pressures of a toxic environment could have made viktuuri leave, and whether or not yakov (or anyone) would follow them, or viktor would find another coach is something up for debate, yes, but there can be a debate. There can be a debate about yuri plisetsky about georgi and mila, about what this could mean for them.

iceado could condemn russian politics and the doping, the toxic community, and everything else really. in my opinion, the fact that this didn't happen speaks to mappa's unwillingness to try. im not educated in japan-russia relationships, to be frank, so I'm not sure how much backlash the show could possible face from the Japanese government for a decision like this one. Of course, this would insinuate that Japan is fine with the Ukraine invasion which is, well, not very good press to say the least (and naturally a violation of all sorts of human rights). I do however find it odd that we would never hear anything about talks debating this taking place, which means that once again mappa didn't try. And also, truthfully, just how plausible is it that Japan would go "no don't make more of that very lucrative anime because we don't want to condemn Russia's war / we don't want to condemn Russia's doping"? Because it doesn't sound that plausible to me.

6 - political yoi?

yes, this means that yoi would have become political, but when politics is about the right to live in your home without fear of death or invasion, why exactly shouldn't it get political?

and let's not forget that a world with no homophobia is already unfortunately political. because queer rights are not globally recognized, being pro or against queer rights (of which there are many so some are pro-same sex marriage but against trans rights which complicates things even more) is still a vital part of many many political parties' campaigns in a lot of countries.

yoi was already political in the sense that it showed a world of acceptance, because that's not a given.

what iceado had to do was show that acceptance does not mean ignoring inhumane, unethical actions.

this doesn't need to be the centric idea of iceado or yoi s2, either, by the way. simply showing something bad but realistic is enough. i wouldn't have needed 2 hours depicting the horrors of Russia ft. yuri on ice, but I would have loved to see 2 hours of teenage viktor trying to make it in this cutthroat world, with sporadic evidence of toxicity and too-much pressure, which are almost canon anyways. and any scenes taking place post-s1 could easily just show viktor make a number of realizations and choices that could lead to him leaving russia (to find a new coach or with yakov, with any of the russian skaters in yoi, or just with makkachin and yuuri, etc), which would show that yes they're not just ignoring russia's wrongdoings.

for being released in 2016-17, yoi was delightfully progressive in its queerness. but in 2024, asking the show to condemn doping and war on its way to show us viktor nikiforov's past is apparently too much to ask.

please give me your thoughts on this, yoi fandom, I'd love to see what everyone else thinks!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Wait, what other controversial things happened at these Olympics besides the Drag Queens parody ?

THE CONVICTED P*do in the Netherlands playing volleyball. (Which alone is enough to make me not want to watch.)

Then that whole gender debacle with the boxing event. (This one has more nuance then people care to admit)

typical doping scandals.

The Olympics not accommodating the athletes by making them sleep and eat in below mediocre conditions.

And then there is the whole thing on which countries should or Should not be involved.

And of course, it’s in France.

[mousemannation]

Q for you and also other daniil fans ig:

Would you rather Daniil have Jannik’s year, his success in slams and all that, but you also have to take his doping charges and impending ban?

I thought it’s an interesting question because for Carlos and Novak the answer will obv be no. But as a Daniil fan I thought twice about it ngl. I decided on no btw

ooooooh okay first of all excellent question!!! second of all omg i am also second guessing myself....

I think honestly I would take the success... Like, I won't deny that the scandal has been hard for jannik, and is something that a lot of people are being very rude about; but like... he's also had a lot of good this year? Like the season has been FANTASTIC for him despite the horrors. Two slams, five masters, no.1 + year end. Would he give up his success if it meant no doping scandal?

But all that wouldn't mean anything if not paired with the fact that I think daniil could handle it.

Look, he's no stranger to being the villain- he's been the villian his whole career! I do think daniil and jannik are similar in a lot of ways, and I think the way jannik has managed it is much like how daniil would, and jannik didn't have near the same amount of experience being hated 😭😭

I guess like, I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but if it did happen I just think daniil comes off as self-assured and able to disregard what other people say enough that he'd make it through.

Final note... I know winning isn't everything but in the same vein neither is a doping scandal 🤷 maybe if i felt stronger about doping I'd care more but I so entirely don't sjiwkwkwkw

[andiatas]

"When we talk about Frederik's popularity, we also have to acknowledge that there have been quite a few mishaps"

Denmark's new regent has several scandals in his backpack.

Today, Crown Prince Frederik has entered the office he was born to, and from now on, he will have to fill the huge shoes that his mother, Queen Margrethe, is leaving behind.

These are shoes that he is predicted to be able to fill via his slightly more popular profile, who attends Smukfest and organizes the Royal Run.

But the route to where he is today has occasionally been bumpy and has left the country's new king with scratches in the paint.

There have been cases of public backlash in the 55-year-old regent's life.

- When we talk about Frederik's popularity, we also have to acknowledge that there have been quite a few mishaps, says Cecilie Nielsen, history and royal house correspondent at DR Nyheder.

Among other things, she points to the time a 20-year-old Crown Prince Frederik and 19-year-old Prince Joachim, together with two friends, drove Frederik's Peugeot 205 off the road near Cahors in France.

- It was a rather serious accident, so there was a lot of talk about whether the two princes were even allowed to drive together, Cecilie Nielsen tells about the episode, which took place in 1988.

Partner was driving drunk

And four years later, it went sideways again.

- Then there is also a New Year's party in 1992, where his girlfriend, in a drunken state, gets behind the wheel of his car, says Cecilie Nielsen.

The girlfriend at the time was Malou Aamund, who did not have a driver's license. The episode once again caused a media storm about Frederik.

- Taken for drunken driving, read the headline in B.T.

If you continue to botanize in the then crown prince's misfortune on four wheels, many probably remember when he crossed an otherwise closed Great Belt Bridge in 2015.

The IOC case is the worst

However, that is not where you find the case that has brought Frederik into the most headwinds, says royal house commentator Thomas Larsen.

- The biggest storm was the IOC case because he was also up against the political system, which simply believed that he had made a completely wrong decision.

Frederik went directly against the Danish line in the International Olympic Committee in 2016 and voted for Russia to participate in the Olympics despite extensive scandals about state-sponsored doping.

Before then, it had raised criticism that he stood up for the committee.

- In the role as king, he simply cannot get into such conflicts, says Thomas Larsen.

Especially when he no longer has Queen Margrethe as a frontline fighter, says the royal house expert.

- I think he should consider himself happy that he could stand under the protection of a very, very strong queen.

Herlufsholm and Casanova

In addition, the future regents were also on thin ice when the whole case around Herlufsholm was happening. A case which, as you know, ended with Prince Christian changing schools.

- It raised the question: Can the royal children go to a school that is part of a bullying debate when their mother has an anti-bullying campaign, says Cecilie Nielsen, which, of course, also mentions the recent case of Crown Prince Frederik's trip to Madrid, where he was photographed in the company of the Mexican model Genoveva Casanova.

- It was especially big in foreign media, says Cecilie Nielsen.

Translation of an article by Jakob Slyngborg Trolle for DR, published Jan. 14, 2024, at 18:33. The text has also been edited by me for clarity.

[mappawhereisyoi]

A Ramble about Ice Adolescence & the Franchise as a Whole

Myself and the team behind #MappaWhereisYOI and its petition do not believe that delays and silence on Ice Adolescence are because of the creators. I personally think it has everything to do with the studio and the distributor. If the creator and director are involved in any way, it’s probably because they refused to compromise their vision at one point or another.

As we all know, the intellectual property is dead. There is no new official art or merchandise has been released in years outside of collaborations with contracts sign forever ago. There are no advertisements for it. The most we get these days are tweets to celebrate character birthdays - likely pre-programmed bots.

Part of me believes that Mappa and Avex have let it fade away on purpose. If no one remembers Yuri!!! on Ice, no one will be knocking on their doors asking where the movie is and why they were unable to complete this project. No one will be doubting their abilities to see started projects through to the end. Did the doping scandal, COVID and war impact the movie? Probably, but the delays started before that.

The other part of me believes that, after everything, they don’t think it would be profitable to put the movie out anymore even if it was ready. It has been six years since it was announced, after all. Admittedly, the fandom is not as concentrated as it once was, but if they dropped the full movie trailer tomorrow it would be different. They’d break the internet. The love for YOI is still there in people’s hearts - I see it on every viral tweet and tiktok.

That second part, that’s what I’m fighting for. It’s what I’m holding onto. If that’s the reason, I want to give Mappa and Avex the message that we all still care. That’s why I’m pushing this petition. It feels like the only thing we can do at this point, but I know, if we get enough buzz going about Yuri!!! on Ice and enough signatures, that we could potentially make a difference and save our beloved show.

If this resonates with you, please consider signing and sharing our petition!

[sergeifyodorov]

is valieva actually terrible at skating? i'm a fake figure skating fan and only really pay attention during olympics seasons... i remember the doping scandal and her disappointing free skate but that's all i know...

ok i'm not some kind of Technical Expert and this is a question much better suited for @tofumilanesa than me (sorry for the tag!) but... yeah. and it's on purpose too

before we talk about Skating though we have to talk about Silly Little ISU Politics, which is always a dreadful chore and just a real slog. the ISU (international skating union)(figure skating governing/judging body) is the one that determines the rules for how fs is judged over the years. in essence there's 2 parts of a figure skater's score: the TES (technical score) and the PCS (program component score). the TES measures the value/quality of each individual element (jumps etc) and the PCS measures "skating skills, performance and composition, and transitions." see how little skating skills is part of that? less than half of half of the whole score.

if you've also noticed how little of this is objective, correct! shmoozing to the ISU can get you... generous judgments on your more borderline calls -- bad technique can get glossed over way more easily. especially by larger federations, and especially, in ladies' singles, by The big federation (Rusfed.)

All that to say is that the Russian girls are being judged. pretty kindly. So if you're coaching them, you don't really have to do things like "ensure they're good enough skaters not to get their asses torn to shreds by the PCS panel" and you can focus more on getting that fourth rotation out of that underfed teenager.

so all these girls (and it's not just Valieva -- Shcherbakova, Trusova, Kostornaya to some extent, and the newer generation of Petrosian and Usacheva and Tikhonova and the like, as well as the older girls like Medvedeva and Zagitova) come out of the same camp (all trained by Eteri Tutberidze, who you can immediately recognize at the edge of every rink by her bleach blond it's-gonna-be-may hair and sour expression) and they learn how to spin in the air and that's it. bad initial technique is not trained out of them, because dedicating the time to learning how to jump more safely (ex. EVERYONE has a flutz. except trusova but it's not like her tech is great either) is time you are taking away from getting that stable quad. this training is intensive enough that there's a phrase -- the "Eteri expiration date" where these girls retire at 17 sharp, from injury or anorexia or both.

(this is not necessarily an all-of-Russia problem -- Elizaveta Tuktamysheva is 25 and still going. That being said, no Russians who are competitive on the world stage besides her come out of anywhere except Eteri's camp, so it might as well be.)

anyway, back to skating technique and kamila: figure skating doesn't place nearly as much an emphasis on forward speed as hockey does, but it places a lot More emphasis on efficiency, depth of edges, and smoothness.

probably the best example of this is crossovers -- if you watch a program like, say, valieva's bolero (she skates it clean at GP Rostelecom), whenever she does crossovers, she's doing three or four and putting her whole back into it. You can watch her shoulders bob up and down as she's stroking -- meanwhile, watch bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto go, and she needs barely two and all her power is coming from her legs.

actually, sakamoto vs valieva is a pretty easy comparison re skating skills: when sakamoto skates, she leans very hard into her inside or outside edges, while valieva doesn't really do that at all. sakamoto's crossovers are a lot more powerful, and she has a much easier and more fluid transition from forward to backwards skating. she's also a lot faster -- and i know we said there's less emphasis on that, but speed with little effort is a really good measure of technical ability, and valieva is basically crawling compared to sakamoto (for an even better example of effortless speed, go watch old yuna kim programs!)

but valieva is 6 years younger, didn't medal, and will have quads for the next year or two before she retires from hip or back injury, while kaori might even show up at the next olympic cycle, so who's to say who's winning that game

[winged-wolf-dreamer]

Some (Unorganized) Musings On A Year In the Unoverse

With Worlds 2023 over, it has been officially a year, more or less, of me having become a fan of Shoma, as I started following him at Worlds 2022 (so not exact year but I figured Worlds is easier to track than exact dates, sue me), so I felt like sharing some unasked for thoughts.

So this whole mess started with the Olympics, when figure skating was trending just about every day on tumblr. “But Wolf,” you might say, “Didn’t you say you became a fan of Shoma at Worlds?” Well, yes, cause see, it wasn’t Shoma that caught my attention, it was Yuzu. I saw gifs of him and people stressing over him showing up and found it mesmerizing, so I decided to follow along with his short. 

Well, we all know what happened at the short. The cursed hole.

Anyway, I watched a few of his other performances, mainly Notte Stellata and Hope & Legacy at Worlds 2017 and Ballade No. 1 at the 2018 Olys. And during all this, the doping scandal was going on and I got to watch, real time (I would look at live updates on the figure skating subreddit) as all that drama unfolded and got to witness the nonsense that was the IOC and ISU. Well, that soured me some, I feel, that plus the Olys being in Beijing and not having the energy to watch it all for one skater meant I didn’t watch the free, alas. I tried watching the gala, but that was my first real experience with how garbage skating coverage is in the US, but I did get to see Haru Yo Koi. It was beautiful.

And, by all indications, that was going to be it.

But wait, isn’t this supposed to be about Shoma? We’re getting to that, be patient! Why are you reading this anyway, I’m not important. This is just me rambling. Unorganized rambling where I’m getting the order of things and the exact circumstances confused...

Anyway, fast forward to Worlds a month later. I didn’t really care, tbh, I was still watching the subreddit, I think. And thing is, Yuzu wasn’t quite clicking with me. He is an amazing skater, but something wasn’t clicking with me that clicked with other people. I still liked him, and I loved watching his performances, very moving, but something was... missing for me. And as he would retire after Worlds, I may very well have left my brief look into figure skating at that.

Unfortunately, I saw this other Japanese skater wearing this gorgeous red costume do happy hops after completing his short at Worlds and I went, “oh I love him.”

AND I WAS DOOMED, I TELL YOU, DOOMED.

That was Shoma after finishing his short at Worlds. I don’t know if I saw it on twitter (twitter, that site I hadn’t logged into for over a year at that point and would wind up deleting once ownership changed, but I could still browse) or reddit or here, but I saw it and I loved it. Something about that grabbed me. I watched him do his free, I watched that glorious step sequence at the end and him claim his first World medal. I was hooked. My attention had been grabbed.

Why did Shoma catch my attention when Yuzu hadn’t, when I didn’t even watch Shoma’s performances at the Olys? I don’t know. Maybe it was cause Yuzu would wind up retiring after Worlds. Maybe it was something about the triumphant nature of Bolero at Worlds. Maybe it was the costumes. Maybe it was *sigh* the atmosphere of Yuzu’s fanbase was... not something I particularly liked. Maybe it was Shoma’s story of him going through a tough coachless year and him finding Stephane and how it all culminated, ultimately, in that first Worlds medal. Maybe it was cause, while Yuzu seemed like a spirit of the ice given human form to grace us with his beautiful skating, Shoma seemed like Just A Guy who went out there and Did His Best (and turned out his best was damn good), and I found him more relatable, ultimately, as I learned more about him as a person who loves sleeping and eating meat and hates vegetables. Mood.

Maybe I’m just gay and thought Shoma was more attractive than Yuzu. Maybe this all happened cause I’m very shallow.

Regardless, I became part of the Unoverse. I wound up keeping up with a lot of relevant twitter accounts even though I could only observe, wishing all of them were on tumblr. I followed several Unoverse tumblrs here (special shoutouts to @myjunkisyuzuruhanyu and @vilyae for all the info and pictures and such), I read the figure skating subreddit. I watched the fans deal with... an annoying amount of hate from others for reasons that infuriated and befuddled me. I learned way too much about the season schedules.

I watched Turandot at the 2018 Olys. I watched his triumphant DOMO at JNats 2019 (god, those twizzles. And that utter happiness during the step sequence). I watched La Vie En Rose at MoI 2019 (that skate is so beautiful and gentle...). I would slowly watch all of his programs at least once over the year and fall that cantilever every single time...

I watched his videos on his own YT channel where he could not do English, even as I myself didn’t understand a word he said. I watched Unowan and him constantly being attacked by puppies. I saved way too many pictures to my phone (as of this writing, 2434 photos).

I watched as the fans waited for him to announce his programs for the season. I watched the first performances of Gravity and Aria in shows. I then... got to experience the joys of watching figure skating in the United States without a VPN or Peacock. I wound up watching Aria from Skate Canada on NBC’s “highlights” broadcast, but for every other performance of the GP (INCLUDING THE GPF, WHY WASN’T THE GPF PROPERLY TAPED FOR A BROADCAST ACROSS ALL DISCIPLINES) I had to stick to embed videos on twitter, ultimately, besides maybe a few here and there on youtube (for whatever reason, it seems to me his programs this season are really hard to find on YT versus every other program he has, it’s annoying). I got to see him finally win the GPF. I got to finally watch a good performance of Padam, Padam from JNats on YT (before it got taken down).

And then I got to witness the emotional roller coaster that was this Worlds as he struggled with injury and I prayed he wouldn’t injure himself further and hopefully take the victory and defend his World Champion status.

And he did. I didn’t watch it live cause time zones, but I watched Aria on NBC’s highlights and saw it. It was a good thing to wake up to. The utter joy and finding out he’s the first Japanese man to win consecutive golds in Worlds.

And now here we are. There’s still WTT, but I still wanted to write this, now. Then the season will be over and we’ll be in the offseason, waiting for shows (including him and Yuzu skating together at SoI!), waiting for new program announcements. For it all to start again. There was a small article about him winning Worlds in my local paper today, and I was so happy. I hope to keep it.

I am... still not all that invested in figure skating as a whole, ultimately. If he retired tomorrow (he’s not retiring, for the record), I would peace out then and there. Even without the... Everything regarding the ISU and such (please don’t let Russia back in...), watching this sport in the US is... hard, and I don’t have investment in other skaters to make an effort, for better or worse. That’s not a slight on them, I just have other things in my life.

Still, I’ll be here until he does retire, and I hope that he’ll skate as long as he’s happy and healthy doing it. And maybe he’ll make it to the 2026 Olys and finally get that gold.

Ganbatte Shoma!

[gratisdiamanten]

hello! in your recent post about Max's accent you mention that you'd like to do an autopsy of Visma-Lease-a-Bike 'once the doping scandal drops'. i'm very intrigued as to what form this 'autopsy' would take, and also about the reasons why you believe that it's inevitable that a doping scandal will emerge.

i agree that there's definitely something happening (whether that's outright use of banned substances at a team-wide level or by individual riders, or so-called 'grey doping' – using PEDs that are not yet illegal) at Visma/in the modern peloton as a whole, and i'd love to hear your thoughts on to what extent this could be happening – and, if you'd like, continue discussions in DMs.

:)

I'd love once things come to light to do a comprehensive look at the development of the team(s) and also how people from the team have talked varyingly about its dynamics over time! I have kind of an academic outlook on sports. On a funnier level I want to know what Primi is going to sound like about it ten years from now if it's out by then, because I know he'll say the most insane cryptic equivocating shit.

I think it's moderately widespread. I think gray doping is team sponsored and straight up law-breaking is mostly individual athletes. For Visma I think it's mostly just. Highly regimented gray doping. I'd venture a guess that the cyclists don't even think hard about it whatsoever, dopers generally don't, and if it's not against the rules then what are they really doing wrong.

I have really bland takes on the reality of it, honestly, but I am more fascinated by narratives of doping and of the attempts to transcend the limits of human physiology:)

[moths-wc-aus]

ok ok thoughts on the hypoparents au!

so!!!!! the new prophecy happens, yada yada, we start settling in the new territories. squirrelflight and tawnypelt suddenly find, uh oh! we can't stop thinking about each other!

(side note, one of my issues with bramblesquirrel is the age gap and i'm pretty open about that, BUT the difference between that and tawnysquirrel is that tawnypelt likely never met squirrelpaw until the beginning of the new prophecy, and in this au, had absolutely zero romantic interest until a) they both got to know each other and b) squirrelflight was a fully grown adult warrior able to consent and make her own choices. it's not as Yikes to me because with bramblesquirrel, brambleclaw knew her from the time she was basically a newborn, and with tawnysquirrel, tawnypelt only met her when she was almost grown up)

so squirrelflight and tawnypelt start meeting in secret. at some point hawkfrost successfully kills firestar, and brambleclaw becomes leader. it is important to mark that brambleclaw did NOT help hawkfrost, nor is he aware of what hawkfrost has done! he's an ass in this au, but not a villain. squirrelflight is mourning the shit out of her dad and starts feeling all icky and bloated and sleeping all the time, but that's like. normal for grief, right? oh, she's pregnant? OH FUCK, SHE'S PREGGERS?????

so she tells tawnypelt all panicky n shit, and tawnypelt is also panicking but is better at thinking through things under pressure, and tawny's like "uhhh fuck you're gonna start showing at some point. uhhh i know that there's an unspoken rule about not asking queens who their baby makers are, we could use that??? i mean. our relationship is KINDA illegal so…." and squilf goes "FUCK that!!! i do NOT want people whispering about our kits and making all kinds of shitty assumptions about their sire!!" and tawnypelt has this moment where she's completely blown over with love and is like [heart eyes] "our kits"

so they talk a little more and decide hey, bramblestar is tawnypelt's brother, they could probably ask him to pretend that he sired squilf's kits??? bramblestar has an Unexpected Huge Reaction of "CODE BREAKERS??? IN MY CLAN????? HELL NAW" and kicks squilf tf out, spilling the beans to literally everyone. so basically everyone around the lake is scandalized as fuck, and tawny and squirrel are both MORTIFIED and wondering "hey wtf just happened" (wtf just happened is that bramble and crow have been in their own super toxic hatefuck illegal relationship, and bramble figured that if he starts cracking down on cats who have cross-clan relationships, then no one would suspect HIM of having one!)

leafpool then has a vision of firestar and goes to squilf like "hey uhhhh dad is really pissed about this whole thing and has given you permission to like. start a new clan. i'd be willing to join btw!!! i just gotta figure out how my job would work…" and squilf is like "dope! i don't… particularly want to be leader?" and tawnypelt is like "mmm neither do i… BUT if i become leader i could be the best damn leader ever and piss off my dad, so i'll do it ig!"

some windclan cats who'd been against onestar catch wind of this and join, as do other cats who were in their own secret relationships! tawnystar becomes leader of galeclan with squirrelflight as her deputy and leafpool and mothflight as her healers, and the two mates have a healthy litter of three kits, named flamekit, hollykit, and lionkit! (they later have another litter, alderkit and rowankit!)

crowfeather ends up having his own kit (breezepelt) and cursing bramblestar's name for knocking him up. he refuses to say who breeze's sire is and no one wants to ask because he WILL throw the fuck down. bramblestar knows he's breeze's other dad, though crowfeather hasn't confirmed it. it's sort of up in the air on whether breeze knows that bramble is his other dad? neither have said anything, but sometimes breezepelt looks at bramblestar in a way that makes crow and bramble wonder…

and no, bramblestar hasn't approached breezepelt. he feels pretty awkward about the whole thing, and he didn't even know breezepelt existed until… oh, man, his fourth or fifth gathering as an apprentice, maybe? the point is, bramble doesn't know the kid and isn't sure if he actually wants to be in his life, so just… doesn't reach out. there's always a part of him wondering what it might be like to be a dad, though…

[there-must-be-a-lock]

please go read the incredible Buffy AU that @reremouse wrote as my Winterhawk Wonderland gift! 

seriously. holy shit. funny as hell, banter-y and snarky and perfect. some of my favorite bits: 

Clint’s intro: “You only wish you were this badass,” he says, with leaves in his hair.

all of this: 

“Where are we going to keep him? You can’t just take random humans home,” Bucky says.

Clint opens and then slowly closes his mouth. “I’m gonna guess here that you haven’t heard of Grindr.”

there is a possessed couch. mentions of actual tracksuit vampires. Twilight jokes. a phenomenal visit from a sphinx-god. purple-haired Bucky. references to Clem aka my all-time favorite Buffy background character. SO MANY GOOD THINGS. 

“My dog is a hellhound and my last three exes were a siren, a fallen angel, and a member of the Men’s US Olympic Swim Team.”

“How is that last one demonic?”

Clint looks at Bucky with wide eyes. “Sworn to secrecy. Trust me. You don’t wanna know; doping scandals have nothing on these guys.”

this whole thing is a goddamn delight. go read it. 

[papirouge]

Hey papi, how are you doing? Hope you're having a good weekend 💕

I'm the tranwomen in videogames anon. Thanks for the answer! I really thought about what you siad and it made sense to me. I can see the whole videogame industry filled with more drama and degeneracy due to the types of people it attracts, so I shouldn't mope about there not being enough women. Honestly, sometimes I read stories about women getting messages like "I'll fucking rape you and cut your throat you cunt" when they dont hide their sex... Like who would want to be in such a space? Sometimes I do enjoy watching videos about videogames and there are some pretty dope things and events, so I do get this wanting of there being a place for women in vg without drama or issues. But you're right. I'm glad there are women in other IT departaments successing and being able to even work from home.

Plus there have been sexual scandals in certain scenes, and even the non sexual scandals can be pretty wild. Just last week I was watching this video about this gamer bro who commited suicide and he literally blamed two other gamer bros for "giving him the final push he needed" in his farewell suicide video, all because they called him out for defending his incel white supremacist friend. Like I feel really bad he commited suicide, but it's extremely shitty to partially blame this two dudes because they covered the drama.

But yeah, I guess I can forget sometimes how nasty and rancid the gamer scene can be. I mean, they even get a lot of negative stereotypes associated with them both with normies and between the community itself. The best thing for women would be to not show their faces and try to build a mostly female audience focusing on games popular with girls and women.

And btw, Ive actually stumbled upon some videos that have some transwomen gamers in tournaments and so on and the comments... men can truly be ruthless. I'm honestly not ok with making fun of their appearance or their voices, or how they dress, I think it's low hanging fruit and simply bullying.

Transwomen are men so you better let men deal with their own issues by themselves. There are more to life than gaming breadtube and all their drama. IDK how old you are anon, but I don't know whether all of this will truly matter when you're 30... lol

If you want to chose a career path where you have to publicly expose yourself, might as well chose one you won't age out of in a few years. A a very few are worth it, that's why it's not worth to show your face imo

[joe-england]

Let's talk about Griner, Whelan, and Bout....

There was a time when an American being freed from hostile foreign soil would have been cause for celebration.  But folks on the Right have cultivated an absolutely backwards brand of patriotism that has led to Brittney Griner, someone who gave this country Olympic gold medals, being downright vilified.  And time and again, I see the same insipid talking points trotted out to justify hating her, Joe Biden, or both.  So I thought it'd be good to break this down, point by point:

"Biden could have traded for Paul Whelan instead of Griner!" No, he couldn’t.  Whelan wasn’t on the table.  Russia has painted him as a spy, and they’re holding on to him.  It was Brittney Griner or nobody.  Whelan himself called her release “wonderful news”, and his family put out a statement, as follows: "There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed & for them to go home. The Biden Admin made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, & to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn't going to happen.”  And for what it’s worth, Trump didn’t do jack to bring him back while he was president, so let’s dismiss the pathetic bloviating from 45 regarding his deal-making acumen.

"She deserved it for handling drugs!" No, she didn’t.  Even if the few drops of hash oil weren’t medicinal, as her defense claimed, nine years in a penal colony for a vape cartridge should be outrageous by anyone’s standards.  And let’s not forget, Russia has made exceptions to their strict drug policies for athletes before.  Hell, remember that doping scandal from some years back?  In an attempt to win prestige the Russian government concocted a whole program for helping their athletes to evade doping regulations.  They were technically banned from the Olympics and global sports for years.  But, oh, yeah, this basketball player had less than one gram of hash oil.  Nine years in the gulag!  She had it coming!!

"Viktor Bout is a danger to the world!" No, he isn’t.  He was Mr. “Lord of War” fifteen years ago.  Not anymore.  He’s been out of the game for over a decade.  The market has changed, the players have changed, technology has changed, the world has changed.  He’s not the “Merchant of Death” emerging from a cursed tomb, he’s not going to be handing Cobra Commander any laser guns, and letting Putin crow for a few weeks about getting a buddy out of prison is a small price to pay for reuniting a woman with her family.

"She hates America because she wouldn’t stand for the national anthem!" Give me a break.

If this was TLDR, I'll just point to Beau of the Fifth Column.

[tutuandscoot]

I think it was really interesting early in the interview Rod starts talking about the state of figure skating and a bit of the history of it and how it’s popularity has really dropped off and lost it’s wow factor recently both domestically and internationally and how VM really were the golden age where 🇨🇦 was so strong across all disciplines, and the generation/s before had these stars like Kurt and Elvis. Then Scott jumps in and asks quite broadly if FS is an accessible sport for the general public to watch and people to get interested/active in, and Rod starts to nod affirmatively like ‘yes absolutely it is’ and the way Scott posed the question was kind of rhetorical because straight away he says ‘no it’s not really’.

Now there are those who know far more about FS than me (and Rod) but as a sportscaster he had been around it for a long time whether he knew the details of it or not, he saw the evolution of it and more from a viewer/media perspective, but it’s just interesting those two very differing perspectives of Rod’s yes, it is accessible and Scott’s no it isn’t- but they need to make it accessible again.

It’s very obvious FS has dropped off the radar esp in the last olys the interest was way down and the only thing that tuned people in was the doping fiasco- which it’s never a good thing when it’s doping or judging or Nancy and Tonya that makes people watch the sport coz then it becomes not about the sport- it’s about the artificial headlines. There was of course many years of accessibility brought on the talent of skaters like VM, Yuna, Yuzu and earlier skaters like Michelle, Sasha, maybe even some of the Russian men..? and others also.

It’s the kind of thing where there’s got to be something truly interesting about it on its own- no scandals, for it to be accessible to casual viewers. There’s got to be the skaters with the excitement and wow factor that makes people who don’t know much about the sport and just see the jumps and the spins and the pretty costumes and thinks it looks easy when really it is one of the hardest sports you can possibly do, find satisfaction in watching it. This last cycle or so esp in ice dance I think that has become really obvious- singles has had the increase in the jumps which to laymen is pretty impressive, but ice dance doesn’t have that built in physical wow factor- teams have to create that themselves and this is kinda jumping off the post I wrote the other day about Canadian nationals that it’s just boring now for the casual viewer. It’s nice and pretty but there’s no wow factor. It was the same with the 2022 olys.

VM have their own way of justifying it in that the stories they tell are universal so people can relate to them but also people related to them coz they were two humans just dancing together, and also had this unbelievable athleticism. That’s one of the other things that puts them in that top echelon of skaters. They were different. At that top level all teams are nice and good but for the average viewer across the board there is no excitement there.

So when Scott says is it accessible? not really, I think he’s looking at it from both the inside workings of the judging and politics and the affect that has on an event’s legitimacy but also creating athletes that reach beyond the boards of a rink and make it interesting for the casual viewer. I think that’s gonna take a long time and very few will actually achieve it and blatantly I don’t think anyone will ever do it like VM.

I think the sport as a whole is really going through a period of redefining it’s self maybe like it never has before because of the change in media environment as well, you can watch stuff anytime any where/ some 5 second clip of a 13yr old doing a quad, but that’s all you get and that’s what today’s entertainment is designed for- you don’t have to put a full package together coz peoples’ attention spans don’t last that long- so to hold an audience for 4 minutes is getting harder and harder. (On this note T also made some great remarks on the entertainment environment being so saturated with options, there’s only so many ice shows you can go to- either Stars or Disney on Ice type shows before it just gets repetitive. That’s where they made a small indent with their tours but the industry needs more reinvention like that).

I just thought those were some interesting points and a really honest self-examination of the work he and the skating community has ahead of them.

Again just some of my own person thoughts I don’t claim to know everything about the inner workings of this sport