Last week USA figure skater Evan Lysacek won the Olympic gold medal in men's figure skating. In an act of sour grapes his opponent, Russian Evgeni Plushenko, made this comment to the press:“Just doing nice transitions and being artistic is not enough because figure skating is a sport, not a show.”Alexei Mishin, Plushenko's coach, had this to add:
“This is nonsense,” Mishin told Yahoo! Sports. “It is wrong. It is criminal. How can it be like this? They are killing figure skating and taking it back 20 years. They have robbed him of his destiny.The idea of robbing somebody's destiny probably speaks to the real issue of his complaint. Anywho, all this hoopla seemed to center on the idea that a quadruple jump makes a guy a better skater than a guy that just does triple jumps.. and it begs the question of whether Olympians are athletes, artists or something else.
Tonight I will be watching and enjoying the Olympic Dance Pair competition.. did you catch that I will be "enjoying" the event? Yes, I understand that it does not involve the athleticism of the (non-dancing) Pairs Skating.. but I simply enjoy the athletes competing.. notice I said athletes.. these skaters need to be mentally tough and have to work together on many very athletic moves.. but again many ask - are these folks really athletes?
So what do you think makes someone an athlete? Hitting a golf ball or a baseball a long distance? Consistently knocking down 10 bowling pins? Riding a bobsled down a slick ice path? Or maybe racing in NASCAR? What do you think? Are these folks artists or athletes?
I would look up the definition but I don't think that it makes much difference. If you golf you probably think it to be a sport - even if you use a cart
So what do you think? Olympic Artist or Athlete?
Hmmm, I have to think about that a bit. They all have to have athletic prowness to do what they do. Perhaps the creative part makes them also artists.
ReplyDeleteI think its a combination of both really. the well toned body and form of their speciality can be seen as artistic too.
ATHLETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAn artist can imagine the choreography of those amazing routines, but only an athlete can pull them off.
As for other sports...I think they should pay them less and use some of the money to support the arts because we need less ball players and more musicians, painters, writers, sculptors, etc. etc.
I sure am opinionated these days! LOL. Great idea for a post.
Athlete, Artist ~~ It's a beautiful marriage!
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