http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Sports/Ottawa+born+Chan+tired+Joubert+complaining/1419918/story.html
By Cam Cole, The Ottawa CitizenMarch 23, 2009 10:01 PM
Los Angeles-With several Skate Canada officials in easy earshot,Patrick Chan calmly lit the fuse Monday on what is certain to be acracking good feud between two of the world’s finest figure skaters.
Whatbrought it on was a simple question about 2007 French world championBrian Joubert, and his oft-expressed opinion that if the sport iswilling to crown a champion who doesn’t even try a quadruple jump,figure skating is actually regressing.
Chan, the 18-year-old,Ottawa-born phenom who is rated a solid chance of winning at thisweek’s ISU world figure skating championship at the Staples Center,doesn’t have a quad. Neither did Canada’s Jeff Buttle, who won it all ayear ago in Sweden, prompting a sour-grapes, post-competition newsconference by Joubert, the runner-up.
“Right after the result, Iwas very disappointed, and I am still disappointed, because Jeffrey didthe perfect competition — he did no mistakes. But he didn’t try a quadjump,” said Joubert, 24, who has won three world silver medals and isthe reigning European champ. “But the new judging system is like that.It is better to do simple and clean than to try something difficult,and that’s why I was disappointed. It’s just for the figure skating. Weneed to give more points for the quad jump in the future.”
Buttle’s rebuttal was outstanding, but Chan took it a step further Monday, speaking between practices to a half-dozen reporters.
“Ithink Joubert is constantly complaining about that, because he’s nevergot anything else to say,” said Chan. “Honestly. Yes, OK, the men aredoing worse — in his opinion. Well, fine then, he better have threegood quads in his program, and nail them good, or he has nothing tosay.”
Chan is still steamed at Joubert’s denigration of Buttle’sachievement last March, especially considering that it wasn’t evenclose. The judges had Buttle winning by a mile.
“Totally. I wasreally disappointed. It’s no sportsmanship, none at all,” Chan said.“Tiger (Woods) is never going to say, ‘Oh, Mike Weir sucks because hecan’t hit it as far as I can.’ You have to play a fair game, you don’ttalk behind a guy’s back the way he did at world championships.
“Itwas a bit of a turnoff. Because now I know his personality. He’s kindof a sore loser, I guess, and if he doesn’t win, he always has anexcuse for not winning and not skating well. So, unfortunately that’shis personality and I don’t really like it. But I’m still not going totrash-talk him or say anything bad ... other than this time, I guess.”
He grinned then, but there was no taking it back.
[太可爱鸟]
“Ikind of dug myself a grave, huh? I don’t know, we’ll see. If he’s madat me, he’s mad at me, what are you going to do? I guess you guys arelooking for a rivalry, but we’re not having a rivalry.”
Not yet, anyway.
Thetruth is, these worlds, which get under way Tuesday with the originaldance and the pairs short program, could use a little spicing up. Socould the sport, in general. It was never more popular than in the eraof the two Brians, Orser and Boitano, and then the no-love-lost days ofKurt Browning versus Elvis Stojko, let alone the Nancy Kerrigan-TonyaHarding fiasco, which put figure skating on a plane it had neverreached before and hasn’t since.
That doesn’t mean we’readvocating fistfights in the warmup groups — or obstruction, which iswhat Four Continents women’s champion Yu-Na Kim claims her Japaneserivals have been doing to her — but a little healthy rancour can’t hurt.
“No,no. He’s a nice guy to me,” Chan said of the Frenchman, “but I thinkwhen he’s on the ice and he has all the cameras around him, he changespersonality, which is kind of bad. I think you should be yourself, andJeff was really good at that, as well, as a role model. He just tendsto puff up a bit when he’s on the screen.
“Obviously, (Joubert)needs to be focused on other things than just jumps. He could do betterin his performance, he could do better in his spins — for sure,footwork. It just really frustrates me.”
Every bit as titillatingas Chan’s remarks about Joubert were his assessment of two of the pastthree Olympic champions — Alexei Yagudin and Ilia Kulik — both of whomhad quads and far more to their programs than just jumps.
“Well,if you look at Yagudin at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, his programwasn’t as difficult as any of ours,” said Chan, expanding thediscussion to include his fellow Canadians, Vaughn Chipeur of Calgaryand Vancouver’s Jeremy Ten, who stood at his side looking like a coupleof uncomfortable bodyguards. Both are older than Chan.
“Ourfootwork today is pretty much a program, you’re pooped after footwork.You can’t really compare it to back then. If you look at their footworkand even their spins, it’s nothing compared to what we do.”
Oh, my. Bless his frankness, but some things you probably shouldn’t say, even if you think they’re true. 我的天呐,主保佑他的直言不韪。但有些事情尽管你知道是真的也不该说出来。
[小陈~小陈~爱老虎油]
First the French, now the Russians.
AndChan hasn’t even won a world championship medal yet. He might want tolook after that small detail this week, all things considered.
“We’ll be here to back him up,” said Chipeur, with a smile.
The kid may need it.
这个报道真令人热血沸腾啊~~ |