The Victor and the Vanquished

The reactions of Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya after the 2002 Olympics.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Irina's
• dummy
• spit

[cupcakes2277]

wow. what a ridiculous accusation. she completed SEVEN successful triples. i am a huge fan of michelle, but it was just not her night. irina, on the other hand, is an ugly skater with zero artistry. and you can argue that overall, her technique is better than sarah's, but she did NOT display it here. her landings weren't clean. plain and simple. how dare you belittle sarah's accomplishment simply because she wanted to go to school. her win had nothing to do with luck, she was simply better.

[BrentWolgamott]

Honey, if Slutskaya or Michelle had won GOLD, they would have raced off into the distance as well. Sarah won her GOLD -- nothing could ever top that. She accomplished what she wanted to do. So did Lipinski. I guarantee if Michelle or Irina won here, they would have been off to Disneyland. But they didn't, so they stuck around to try again in Torino (whoops).

[BoraBoraGirl2001]

Sarah's coach was SO annoying. I had to mute the sound while she was talking. Ugh.

[Irishfanism]

@purpleblumidnite Yes but Sarah has something that Sasha and Michelle don't have...an olympic championship and a gold medal...take that,Sarah is the best in the world!!!!

[getrealandsee]

@purpleblumidnite If you read anywhere besides the gushing over kwan you will find that Sarah proved LONG before the Olympics that she was head and shoulders above kwan...she just never got credit for it....the favortism and pampering and holding up of kwan hurt Sarah among many others...in fact the audience booed Sarah's low marks at one competiton and an official in the heirarchy of skating said of kwan's 'win'....set us back ten years....she trained and skated with fire and courage and WON!!

[jondavwal13]

Irina was not more "technical" than anybody. Her one attribute is that she jumped higher than Kwan or Hughes but unfortunately landing is never something she had mastered. Her skating was a sloppy mess. If you knew anything about skating you would understand that nobody even came close to Hughes that night. Also, she was slightly under rotated on the first triple loop in the combination but still within the quarter turn. She would have gotten credit for all of it. Her skate was perfect.

[TribleButz]

@WannaBeANerd Actually, she went back to worlds the following season and finished 6th.

[purpleblumidnite]

Too bad Sarah couldn't prove this wasn't a fluke. She was embarrassing in 2003 Worlds.

She was the best skater THAT NIGHT. That is all, she got lucky. She has no National or World gold medals. Both Irina and Michelle have dozens of medals to back up their skating and prove they are not one hit wonders. Which is what Sarah is. Even Sasha has a National title under her belt.

[allenglandlawns]

@taofolk WORST skater to WIN the OLYMPICS? Are you mental? How can those words even be put together. She skated circles around everyone including Olympic choke artist, Michelle Kwan. But hey, I guess being an Olympic champion is better than being a choking and arrogant Olympic wannabe.

[taofolk]

the wors skater ever to win the olumpics!! but what a strong mind and nerves, to do it exactly at the right moment!!

[michiganisnotsoco]

@BrentWolgamott there have been multiple olympic champions who stick around for multiple cycles wtf

[WannaBeANerd]

Sarah Hughes had the performance of a lifetime. She made ice skating look easy. In her free skate program it looked like she was throwing those triple loops in for FUN. If the announcer hadn't said that she was "scheduled" to make them I would have sworn she was making it up as she went along.

Then she did the REALLY smart thing. Having achieved her goal she retired on top. Smart girl.