Figure Skating: How Do They Figure?

I miss the old days.

Days when figure skaters got a row of scores, nothing higher than a 6. Why 6? This didn't correlate to anything in my life. A 5, yes, because that made it an A through F. But 6?

It was mysterious. And yet easy to understand. 5.9 meant the guy rocked. 5.3 meant he fell once. 5.7 meant it was good enough, but not great. This, anyway, is what the announcers helped us to understand.

I miss how each score had the judge's country above it. I miss how the crowd would boo when the Russian judge gave the American a 5.6 when all the others gave a 5.9. At the time, I was booing, too. Now, I know more, and I'd have thought, "Hey! That woman will be thrown into the gulag if she gives any higher!"

But there's no opportunity for this anymore, because there's no way of knowing how the judges arrive at that massive number. What does it go up to? Like, 220?? And NBC puts up a helpful little rubric that explains that anything over 170 is "superb."

I don't care what the numbers mean, NBC. I want to know which country's judge is screwing which country's athletes!

And what's this "personal best" or "season's record high score" nonsense? Are we supposed to forget that this is a subjective sport? All the instant replay in the world cannot make figure skating into a science.

I miss the days when the figure skating world gave the rest of the Olympic Village the finger, saying, "We may just barely be a sport, but we're the ones who get the air time, and then the sponsorships, and then the role of whichever hero Disney is casting in its latest ice show."

Instead, they've left this territory to the ice dancers, upon whom I shall comment on Friday.