One good reason why Figure Skating is a sport. (v 1.1)
A thread on iceskaters discusses yet another article on whether skating is a sport.

I was ready to dismiss the article, but I went back and finished reading it. Sie makes one very good point, but messes another up.

The good point: skating is judged partly on presentation, spectacle (music and costuming), and external, physical beauty. *That* makes it different from most other sports, including subjective ones like diving, freestyling and even bodybuilding (where music and costuming don't come into it). Therefore I'd say that not all of figure skating is sport. That's not saying it's not a sport btw.

The mistake: what about the fighting sports? He seems to give them a free pass by saying there are KO's and refs are needed for safety's sake. How often do KOs happen vs. decisions? Furthermore, how often do real KOs happen, vs TKOs (which in MMA can have a lot to do with the reputation of a fighter)? Not often at all. Furthermore, how often do real KO's happen, vs TKO's Not often at all. Part of the judging criteria for some of these sports include "ring generalship": how well one moves and forces the opponent into the ropes (a sign of skill, yes, but then so was Ali's rope-a-dope in Ali-frazier 2)!! Agressiveness also counts, meaning that in MMA, a big ground and pound guy can win by throwing lots of dangerous looking but ineffectual punching flurries, while the guy who has guard (on the bottom, on his back while grappling, but controlling his opponent with his legs) nullifies the effect of the punches and waits for the opponent to tire and make a mistake leading to an armlock or choke. In a duel or no time-limits fight, the bottom guy would surely win. Subjective. Refs who are better versed in grappling might see the bottom guy being active in his guard, others would see a guy lying there doing nothing but hanging on and covering up. THIS IS NOT due to corruption, but is an inherent subjectivity built into fights that must please an audience rather than choose the better fighter.

Still, Prince Nassim's outlandish tiger shorts did nothing when De la Hoya whooped his butt and won by decision. Nor did de la Hoya's boyish good looks win him any decision. Production values don't earn you squat *in* the boxing ring.

The article is right about physical beauty counting more in skating than in other disciplines. I think it helps one skater edge-out another (and in practice maybe it counts even more than that). I'd like to think -- and nothing in the rules prevents it -- that an "ugly" skater, whose lines are as perfect as sasha's or weir's competes on an even footing with sasha and johnny. Any athlete's body is beautiful. Say one is densely muscled and looks more like venus williams than sasha. Skating has a bit of "ballet envy" and even if said athlete could attain the same position and grace of shasha, she might get deducted for, i don't know, having non-symmetrial elbows or something. Facial features shouldn't matter at all. Ideally good makeup is all that's needed. If one is severely disfigured, I wonder if they'd allow some kind of bland featureless mask?

Why do I firmly place figure skating (but perhaps not Ice Dancing) in the realm of sport? Because skaters push their athletic limits in competition, and even the world's best skaters will fall (as they did today at the Olympics). A ballet dancer, whose dicipline is just as athletic as ice skating, will never do a move in a performance that sie can't do perfectly 99.99 percent of the time. What counts is getting the perfomance perfect, not striving for excellence and surpassing oneself. Not so in figure skating; one must push oneself to and beyond the limits of one's ability in order to beat the competition. That is the very essence of sport, even in competitions with no judges, rankings, or victors. It's the quintessence of two ancient greek wrestlers testing one another at the gymnasium.

Good article, but it should have been questioning and examining the unfairness and extent of judging based on production values or purely physical looks (rather than grace, which is beauty through position and motion). Instead it teleoported through the headline grabbing non-sequitr of "Sport vs Nonsport". To say figure skating is not a sport because it judges based on a well-prescribed asthetic standard, is as absurd as saying chocolate is not a candy because it contains theobromine.