Midori Ito SP 1989 World Figure Skating Championships

A rather lifeless program from Midori. The coach and choreographer had it backwards on that one. Too much emphasis on the weakest part of her skating (the artistic expression) and not enough on the technical part. A double toe-triple toe was above almost everything that had been seen that night except for Yamaguchi.

You could really see where the judges were going on that one. They wanted a showdown between her and Trenary. Midori didn't deserve 1st place in my opinion but placing her first here would be the only way mathematically for the skater that would win the long program to become world champion.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Midori
• Ito
• 1989
• world
• figure
• skating
• championships
• short
• program
• ladies's
• event

[muffycat26]

Outstanding performance.  Well deserved 1st place.

[gayskatingfan]

She deserved to win the short program. A double toe-triple toe is harder than the triple toe-double toe that both Leistner and Trenary did.

[officeaddict33]

Music does not work for her at all. She's in the air though.

[gk891]

I agree. Perhaps the judges finally decided to give her credit for her strong spins and difficult entries into jumps. A lot of the judges had lowballed her one too many times in the past but as a frontrunner for the gold, the judges (some of them anyways) had no choice but to give her the marks she deserved. The 6.0s here were completely justified, especially in relation to what Trenary and Leistner received.

[kazzicup]

This was Midori's night. Fantastic Skating!

[kazzicup]

Very nice. Playful, full of joy... It's so much fun to watch. Great speed, outstanding step sequence.

[russianskatingfan]

What you have to remember is for all the talk of her great jumping her spins were outstanding, miles better than the spins of either Trenary or Leistner. The footwork in this program is also outstanding, and much better than Trenary's especialy. The entry into her double axel is very hard and worth extra marks, and the jump is huge, Claudia's double axel this day was shaky.

Her combo is harder. This isnt her best choreographed program but she was the clear short program winner still.

[asianmelb]

I dont understand what they were saying were they bagging eto for being judged favourably or were they rooting for jill trenearY?

[premierrules]

I agree. She did deserve to win the Short, OK, not as technically demanding as her 88 Olympics short or as energetic and entertaining as her fabulous 90 short programme but still this was enough to win on the day. Double-Triple much more demanding than the other way around so the judges got it right here.