Kristi Yamaguchi 1996 Ultimate Four Short Program

[Dylvente]

Did she ever, ever miss the lutz? She always landed it! How in the world did she do that? Of course, the rest of the program was also exquisite.

[jeac2274]

@Dylvente Yes. Look up "Kristi Yamaguchi 1995 Ultimate Four short program". She had a bad-bad night, but it was also great seeing a champion having a bad time in competition. She was mad! Love her.

[Dylvente]

@jeac2274 Yes, after posting that comment I saw that performance! It was so strange because until then she had made it look like she was incapable of missing it.

[stefrevollo]

@Dylvente Kristi has a very reliable technique on the lutz, and a natural one, as there is less counter-rotation than the way other skaters do it, a little bit like Michael Weiss (although his lutz was textbook) and the toe is not picking very far from the left foot, those two things allow a lot of prerotation. Her lutz is borderline in terms of outside edge. That, the preroation and the lack of power, length and height don't make it a reference lutz like Harding or Malinina.

[Dylvente]

@stefrevollo Good analysis.

[nashleigh79]

anyone know who designed kristi's costume? it's so exquisite.

[onetwocue]

wtf! "never before have so many asians dominated in our sport" is this commentator saying that skating, gymnastics, and tennis are only white people sports?

[dsfddsgh]

Its to bad Kristi didn't hang around for another winter Olympics because she would have dominated in Lillehammer. I can think of no other ladies skater that actually got better as skater and kept up technically when they turned pro then Kristi.

[claude6599]

boring. no. you are stupid

[quirotmutolafan]

LOL at Blumberg calling Chang and Chow dominant athletes.

[tifakurama]

me too

[tapecase72]

She is 25.

[muffycat26]

Michelle had a great performance in the short here too but after watching Kristi's as well I still agree with the judges putting Kristi 1st by a hair. It is just amazing Kristi could keep her level of skating up so high so long after turning pro, and just amazing such a young skater already had such a complete and polished package as Michelle. 2 great champions and icons of the sport.

[grafgirl27]

Beautiful performance. She shows how outstanding a skater she still is. Winning the short program over MK in front of ISU judges who were probably biased against the pros in the first place. Nobody else in the world could do that at the time, even by doing much harder jumps. Tara couldnt come close to beating a clean MK at this point in time even by doing much harder jumps. Yet Kristi does it with the same jumps, she is so great.

[dinh]

Kristi is amazing. That layback was so beautiful & touching.

[stefrevollo]

@dinh technically it was poor though, slow, no major back arch and few revolutions. The layback was never her strong asset. The layback in the combo spin is better though :)

[ollieian]

@stefrevollo matching the music- not everything has to be faster....did you want her to go faster and ruin the tempo of the song?

[stefrevollo]

@ollieian Well the layback was not her strength and believe me it has nothing to do with the tempo. Besides, what's tempo got to do with anything do you want a revolution per beat? A faster layback would have perfectly worked...

[LKW0908]

I so agree with you! Kristi showed throughout her whole career the wonderful skater she is, always challenging herself and keeping the difficult elements, all topped with extraordinary artistry. She is amazing and I'll never get tired of watching and complimenting her!

[Zuranthium]

Have her Long Program?

[muffycat26]

It was great to see Kristi vs Michelle, but it would have been even better to see Kristi vs Michelle vs Midori vs Lu.  So sad Midori had quit even pro skating after her flopped comeback, and Lu was out of action. Someone like Kwiatkowski at this event was a joke.