April 5, 2002

12:38 AM

International Figure Skating Online presents Ice Porn! See the hottest girls on ice bare more skin than you've ever seen before in these raw, uncensored pictorials. Slutskaya, indeed!
posted by Danelope (24 comments total)

(On a side note, I really thought this was a bizarre site to stumble upon while doing a Google image search for 'ibm ps/2'. The Britneyfication of America's ice skating talent is more than slightly disturbing.)
posted by Danelope at 12:40 AM on April 5, 2002

You have no idea. My girlfriend is a recently retired figure skater (at the ripe old age of 18---she's too arthritic to do it anymore); she bitched to no end about being the only mature one in a bunch of 20-30 16-year old Brittney-heads. Worse yet is that figure skating is a fairly expensive sport---there's custom-fit skates, several dresses per season, warmup outfits, etc., etc. not to mention travelling expenses for competitions. All totalled, it can easily add-up to US$5-10,000 per year, likely more.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:54 AM on April 5, 2002

I never knew ice skating could be so interesting!

Seriously, where's the "members" section? I can't wait to get a sneak peek at Dick Button. What the hell kind of name is that?

Am I the only one that thinks Nancy Kerrigan looks like a horse?
posted by esch at 12:56 AM on April 5, 2002

It comes as no surprise to me.

Contemporary sports figures, when off the field/court/ice/whatever, tend to consider themselves fashion icons. Usually with disatrously funny results.

Some of these skaters obviously love photo shoots, some would clearly skip it -- but it's requisite.

As far as the skin goes, I much prefer those little numbers they wear in competition.
posted by glennie at 1:26 AM on April 5, 2002

Here's a good article on the subject from one of the most comprehensive figure skating pages on the web, Sandra Loosemore's Skateweb. The reference page here is also really useful.

My favorite sentence from the article:

"So, how about it, ISU? If you don't want the press treating figure skating like a beauty contest or fashion show instead of a sport, it's about time to change the rules so that the skaters can dress like the serious athletes they are."

I couldn't agree more. Sadly, this seems a long way off.
posted by 23lemurs at 1:40 AM on April 5, 2002

I probably shouldn't do this, but hey, it's Friday :

"Dang, where are the ?"

=)
posted by XiBe at 1:50 AM on April 5, 2002

Chess (Flash) can be hotter than ice-skating. Alexandra Kosteniuk is the world's chess vice-champion and youngest grandmaster, and she looks great in black and white.
posted by Turtle at 2:37 AM on April 5, 2002

For what it's worth, the American Flag Tara Lipinski costume mentioned above wasn't a competition costume -- that one was strictly for show performances.

(flame on)

I must say that this is the reason I let my IFS subscription lapse several years ago. Every single issue has a fashion shot of a figure skater on the cover. I don't give a damn about those fashion pictures. Tara Lipinski isn't particularly pretty, anyway, and if I want fashion pictures I would buy a freaking fashion magazine. I want to see skaters SKATE. Show me some skating pictures on the cover. Show me athleticism. Show me the SPORT.

But, noooooo. Instead I get Nancy Kerrigan trying to look like a Vogue model, and pictures of IFS's publisher at parties schmoozing with famous skaters. Like I care.

International Figure Skating is a useless waste of paper.

(flame off. for now.)
posted by litlnemo at 2:54 AM on April 5, 2002

> so that the skaters can dress like the serious athletes they are."

Ha. Are they more athletes or dancers? Is it art or a horse race? Speed skaters are athletes. Ballet dancers are artists. Figure skaters are athletic, but do they really want to be lumped in with the thunder-thighed grunts hurtling round the speed track?

And if the girls start dressing in anything other than sexy skirts and fake plunging necklines, they will have to expect at least half of their audience to vanish. Most male fans of figure skating seem to be attracted to something other than the number of rotations that slinky little Tara can complete in one leap.

It's not just figure skating, of course. Compared to other women's sports, it's not very hard to get a guy to watch women's tennis, swimming, or gymnastics, where the competitors are teenaged girls wearing almost nothing and stretching their little bodies for the camera. Men aren't necessarily so excited about women's golf, where relatively old and beefy women stand around and hit stuff, or about women's long-distance running, where bony women sweat for a long time, or about women's sprint events, where the women tend to look like boxers.

Even most female fans aren't watching women's figure skating like they might watch a football game. Figure skating isn't athletics; if it became that, people wouldn't watch. The cheesecake comes with the territory.
posted by pracowity at 3:01 AM on April 5, 2002

xibe, you got it right you f**ker u :)

damn you and your cleverness [and my desperate gullibility], danelope :)

wish i had abs like that...
posted by elphTeq at 3:50 AM on April 5, 2002

What, it's not a sport, it's people dancing on ice. A visual art. Obviously the people doing it are, for the most part, going to look good.
posted by delmoi at 4:20 AM on April 5, 2002

Sports, schmorts--if bowling's to be an olympic sport, you can be an olympian, and, theoretically, drink beer and smoke cigarettes while besporting yourself.
posted by y2karl at 4:44 AM on April 5, 2002

Bowling is going to be an Olympic sport?
posted by pracowity at 4:54 AM on April 5, 2002

What's with the 'attitude' poses? This pic in particular gives me the creepy feeling like she's gonna jump out and bust a gangbanger move on me. I better recognize. And fast.

Know what is the really silly part of that photo shoot? She's got "I was a camp counselor" on her tank top! Well Tara, so was I, so was I. *Sniff* I guess that's what makes you so gosh darn tough ain't it? I can respect that. I did Girl Scout day camp counselor work for 4 summers in a row from the time I was 12 til I was 16. Those 'lil anklebiters will get to ya. Could you ever forgive me Tara, Please? Gosh, that'd be swell.
posted by beejaywhy2k at 5:24 AM on April 5, 2002

Given the topic of the post, I was expecting something about how Shae-Lynn Bourne popped out of her dress, sort of, at the Worlds (first, second), rather than some vaguely creepy vaguely cheesecakey Tara Lipinski pictures. (And, you have to admit, Lipinski-as-celebrity/actress/tart is kind of creepy.)

This is pretty vanilla, actually, after Katarina Witt's nekkid shots for Playboy, Tonya and Jeff's wedding night video — and didn't Butyrskaya pose in Russia, or am I mistaken?
posted by mcwetboy at 5:56 AM on April 5, 2002

I find these women remarkably unattractive/unsexy. And their sport as compelling as Celene Dion music. WTF?
posted by ParisParamus at 6:08 AM on April 5, 2002

Well just seeing Michelle Kwan's abs has made my day. . . nothing can ruin it from here on in.
posted by Danf at 7:00 AM on April 5, 2002

That Dick Button pictorial is hot, Hot, HOT! But where's that foxy li'l Sasha Cohen? Argh...
posted by spilon at 7:31 AM on April 5, 2002

*BoInG!*
posted by Jeremy at 7:54 AM on April 5, 2002

Lu Chen is pretty hot...

But this isn't figure skating.

Personally, I'd rather just stare at girls than read about figure skating, but there are other magazines for that... heh.
posted by Foosnark at 10:02 AM on April 5, 2002

Turtle: according to her bio on her website, Kosteniuk is only an IM and Women's GM
posted by gyc at 11:33 AM on April 5, 2002

This is pretty vanilla, actually, after Katarina Witt's nekkid shots for Playboy...

Ohhh, Katarina, my Katarina...:::swoon:::
posted by aaron at 12:29 PM on April 5, 2002

delmoi: Not a sport? Whatever. I'm not going to get into that discussion with you (I spent way too much time defending figure skating during the Olympics). But the point remains that if you are a skating fan, you might actually prefer to see photos of skaters, well, SKATING. Even if you think it's not a sport, that it's just "dancing on ice" (yeah. right.), wouldn't it seem logical that, if you're a fan, you'd want to see photos of the "dancing on ice" instead of someone off-ice?

Some skaters truly are beautiful and enjoyable to see in fashion photos, but the majority of them are much better skaters than fashion models.

IFS clearly thinks that putting fashion photos on the cover instead of skating photos is good for their circulation, since they have done that for years with no exceptions. But I don't think it does them much good. The only reason that piece of crap has any circulation at all is because they have no competition.

(Yes, I'm bitter, because I would *like* a good skating mag to read, and IFS sucks.)
posted by litlnemo at 8:34 PM on April 5, 2002

But What Would Brian Boitano Do?
posted by terrapin at 11:59 AM on April 6, 2002