Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/25/watch-these-incredible-and-utt.html
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Wait, but the “headbanger” move was the whole point of the 1992 movie, The Cutting Edge!!
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TIL show-skating is a lot more fun to watch. Makes sense I guess. Circus acrobatics are a lot more thrilling than the Olympic gymnastic counterparts.
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Figure Skating is frequently derided as being a “sissy” competition, but it’s one of the only sports where people strap razor sharp knives onto their feet and then slash them through the air at high speed, frequently with a partner in close proximity.
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I thought the point of that movie was the toe pick 
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How would the standing on the shoulder thing even work, surely the bottom person would have to have shoulder pads?
Someone’s entire body weight pressing down on two thin metal blades seems uncomfortable, to say the least.
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The toe pick was the only part of the movie to garner an Oscar nomination!
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Blades of Glory - the Iron Lotus…
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They missed one:
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If you’re lying down, you aren’t skating
So they’re going to ban jumps now?
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I’d heard that Surya Bonaly’s backflip wasn’t technical illegal at the time because she landed it on one foot and that two-footed landings were made illegal specifically to target the backflip. I have no idea if this is true but Surya Bonaly is a certified badass.
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Wait, is this for the I, Tonya sequel?
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Wait, what the hell is going on here?
In fact they banned the backflip because Surya did it in competition, because racism. She was regularly denied medals for being “ungraceful” and “not feminine” which was all racist horseshit. The figure skating establishment has a lot to answer for for the way she was run out of the sport. She was probably the best figure skater that ever competed, but she was black so that couldn’t be allowed to stand.
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At 3:52 you see Torvill and Dean’s Bolero ice dance from Sarajevo which was at the time considered one of the greatest routines ever, until the NO FUN ALLOWED skating authorities stamped their regulatory feet.
In general, aesthetics in skating (as opposed to ice dancing) has been pretty much replaced by what the judges now want, which amounts to:
Race down the rink. Jump.
Race up the rink. Jump.
Race down the rink. Jump.
Race up the rink. Jump.
Race down the rink. Jump.
Repeat until time runs out.
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From Deadspin
When Bonaly showed up to the 1998 Olympics—her third and final Games—in Nagano, Japan, she was dealing with an Achilles injury. Bonaly was the world silver medalist from 1993-1995, but was not considered a serious podium threat at the Nagano Games. The favorites heading into that competition were 1997 world champion Tara Lipinski and 1996 world champion Michelle Kwan.
After the short program, Bonaly found herself in sixth place. She couldn’t possibly win the gold, and the other medals were probably out of reach too due to her placement and the fact that her injury had led her to struggle with her jumps. In her free skate performance, she fell on one, under-rotated another, singled an intended double.
Bonaly couldn’t do her planned triple lutz, the second most difficult triple jump in the women’s repertoire. So instead she did a backflip, landing it on one foot. The moment Bonaly did this, Scott Hamilton, the Olympic commentator, said that it was illegal. “She’s doing it to get the crowd. She’s going to get nailed,” he said referring to the judges’ reaction. Hamilton was no stranger to the backflip; he did the move all the time in ice shows. In the broadcast, he said that he’d been doing them for 14 years though he noted that he couldn’t land it on one foot as Bonaly had.
Was it pretty badass for Bonaly to thumb her nose at the rules and judges and perform the backflip? It absolutely was. Did she create an unforgettable Olympic moment when she did this? Fuck yeah. Was she unfairly penalized for it? Nope. She knowingly did an illegal move in competition. Bonaly knew she’d get a deduction, and she got it.
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My Gif skills failed. Let’s try again:
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And then there’s
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Am I the only person who came here hoping to see examples of why the moves were banned?
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Kneeling on the ice is also banned. So much for the first 40 seconds of that routine.
