Name your top five underrated skaters, past or present. | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Name your top five underrated skaters, past or present.

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
Ashley Wagner
Nathan Chen ... whose performances have been incredible in the past couple of years, such improvement and development!, and he's being rewarded by the judges. Around here, many people love to revert to their first impression of him as being "only" a quadster.
Mai Mihara
 

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
****Gilles/Poirier are the ones who came immediately to mind.

Hard for me to put someone on the list who has a world championship, but Bourne and Kraatz were pretty underrated for much of their career.
Ditto for Jeff Buttle. Often underappreciated
Angela Nikodinov, during her final couple of seasons
Joannie Rochette - she never got the props she should have for being one of the very, very few women to have correct edges and technique on all of her jumps.

Some others were done in by their inconsistency, or inability to put it together for clean skates when it mattered
Liam Firus - truly one of the best pure skaters, and yet I doubt many people outside of Canada (and even inside it, for that matter) know who he is.
Joshua Farris never got to skate to his potential
Jeremy Abbott had all the skill to be a world champion, but couldn't put it together
Cynthia Phaneuf had a huge growth spurt and never got her confidence back in her new body, but she was just such a stunning skater.

I'm sure other (non-North American) countries similarly have skaters that never really made it on the world stage, and thus I don't really know about them.
 

Jeanie19

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 20, 2017
Country
United-States
****Gilles/Poirier are the ones who came immediately to mind.

Hard for me to put someone on the list who has a world championship, but Bourne and Kraatz were pretty underrated for much of their career.
Ditto for Jeff Buttle. Often underappreciated
Angela Nikodinov, during her final couple of seasons
Joannie Rochette - she never got the props she should have for being one of the very, very few women to have correct edges and technique on all of her jumps.

Some others were done in by their inconsistency, or inability to put it together for clean skates when it mattered
Liam Firus - truly one of the best pure skaters, and yet I doubt many people outside of Canada (and even inside it, for that matter) know who he is.
Joshua Farris never got to skate to his potential
Jeremy Abbott had all the skill to be a world champion, but couldn't put it together
Cynthia Phaneuf had a huge growth spurt and never got her confidence back in her new body, but she was just such a stunning skater.

I'm sure other (non-North American) countries similarly have skaters that never really made it on the world stage, and thus I don't really know about them.

Definitely Joshua and Jeremy.
 

Seven Sisters

Medalist
Joined
Jul 17, 2018
While Ice Dancing in the 90s and the early 00s can't be compared with the current ice dancing, as it has completely evolved, in their days Drobiazko and Vanagas was the team which was the most underrated. They never achieved the status which their talent deserved throughout their long, amazing competitive career.

Drobiazko/Vanagas was also the first name I thought of. They were so genuine and passionate, and skilled enough even to pull off a POTO I actually liked, which is no small feat! I often thought they should have been placed higher.

Can’t agree about Gilles/Poirier or Cappellini/LaNotte, though. GP’s scores and placements seem about right to me, and CL have a World Championship!
 

Knebli

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Current skaters: Anastasia Gubanova, Emmi Peltonen, Loena Hendricks and all things Alena Kostornaia. Roman Sadovsky and Roman Sadovsky. Edging, glide of the blade...... he is a force this year!
Past..... imho...... Caryn Kadavy, Nicole Bobek.... if she worked...... Liam Firus, Peter Liebers, Samuel Contesti, Richard Dornbush....... and Adam Rippon’s amazing long program 2018 choreo...... wow.... could watch that program endlessly.... oh and Nobanari Oda... if only he counted correctly....lol
 

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
Drobiazko/Vanagas was also the first name I thought of. They were so genuine and passionate, and skilled enough even to pull off a POTO I actually liked, which is no small feat! I often thought they should have been placed higher.

D/V's Spente le Stelle is one of my favourites to this day.
 

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
Konstantin Menshov
Sergei Voronov
Drobiazko/Vanagas
Alexander Abt
Lesley Hawker

(Three Russian males, oddly enough!)
 

TripleAxelQueens3

sasha trusova is superior
Final Flight
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
My all-time underrated favorite is Maria Sotskova. She has textbook jumps with delayed rotation and amazing height and distance. She skates with maturity, elegance and she also has good skating skills. Also, just a simple addition, she’s gorgeous. The only problem in Masha’s skating for me is her speed, sometimes her programs begin to sort of drag. Another underrated favorite of mine is Li Zijun. Such a good skater who was robbed so many times. For younger skaters, I really like Aofia Muravyeva, Elizaveta Berestovskaya, and Ksenia Melkumova. Berestovskaya might not be “underrated” but Muravyeva! Good skating skills, spins and jumps!

Ah and of course the over so underrated and underscored Boyang Jin. What does my boy need to do to get reasonable scores? And of course Nastya Tarakanova and Gubanova. God I have so many!
 

Reddi

Rinkside
Joined
Jan 16, 2018
GUBANOVA! God damn it! Have I ever seen another skater who's been flat out cancelled as much as her? Can't remember right now.

Also, WEAVER/POJE's style is a class on its own and should be appreciated more IMHO.

Also, Lisa Tuk and Boyang Jin ARE the gold standards in some aspects but it's never ever reflected in scores.
 

EyesOfLove

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Victoria Volchkova for her humongous lutz-double or triple (and a delayed 3Lo)
Takahiko Kozuka for the understated sophistication of his overall skating and presentation
 

katymay

Medalist
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Most underrated in the past? K. Osmond. Always preferred her to Zhenya. (sorry-skating is subjective, and I loved Osmond's huge jumps). I would also say I feel Kaori gets slighted on a regular basis., and this applies to the Japanese girls in general. Would also agree with Tarakanova, Tarusina, Gubanova and would add Vasilieva to the list.

Most over rated: -Carolina Kostner, present day Alina, (Not Olympics Alina-who was spectacular) and Zhenya.
 

deedee1

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Matt Savoie at Torino Games, 2006 :angry2:
Nobunari Oda (by his own federation... :slink:)
Sasha Abt, Constantin Menshov, Sergei Voronov (again, all by their own federation... :eek:hwell:)
 

slider11

Medalist
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Goin WAY back but Janet Lynn never received the accolades she deserved. Fellow and future skaters loved her. And she did well nationally but the "old guard" overscored strong school figure skaters in the free skate making it impossible for Janet to win. Certainly, the Trixi Shuba's deserved good school scores but their free skate scores slightly below Janet's were a joke. Not new, but that did make the most significant change to figure skating by eventually eliminating schools and introducing the short and long program for singles.
 

lariko

Medalist
Joined
Jan 31, 2019
Country
Canada
I feel that I have no way of knowing because they stay at national level, not having access to international competitions, particularly in the big skating nations.

But if I had to, I would just name all the pair skaters who despite medaling & imo being the most amazing, do not get a lot of love and attention overall.
 
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