Name your top five underrated skaters, past or present. | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Name your top five underrated skaters, past or present.

labgoat

I have no words
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 3, 2007
Country
United-States
Valerie Marcoux & Craig Buntin - it is hard to find almost any video of them. I remember liking them and would look for them and only find their names in the standing with decent finishes.
 

LiamForeman

William/Uilyam
Medalist
Joined
Nov 24, 2006
Even though she fortunately won a world and Olympic title, I always thought Shizuka Arakawa was grossly underrated. She had amazing skating skills, 3/3s, spins.
 

withwings

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
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.

Agree, though, IMHO all what Maria is missing is that she cannot open up emotionally (yet). She is, as to say, an intellectual skater, she rather skates with her mind. When she will add this missing part, no one will be daring to say that she is boring or whatever. And yes, she truly IS gorgeous.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
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.

I think Janet is only underrated in retrospect. At the time, the judges and audiences loved her free skating (she was awarded 6.0s on several occasions) and she had fans all over the world (Japan, in particular). The fact that figures were holding back such a superior free skater is the reason we have the short program and why figures began to become devalued. Many years later, people have forgotten and prefer to focus on the new. In this sense, Peggy Fleming is underrated, too, but should not be because she was, in my opinion, the first female skater to skate with what we now call artistry--balletic moves, stretch, beautiful arms, posture, etc.
 

rugbyfan

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Well a lot have already been named - particularly Alexander Abt and Drobiaszko/ Vanagas, but I would add Shawn Sawyer, Jodeyne Higgins and Sean Rice (their lifts were amazing though not so much their jumps) and Sebastian Britten. I would also say I am not sure that Wilson and McCall ever really got their due (despite getting an Olympic Bronze). They were so good. I am pulling out Canadians because they are who I know best. As someone said above, it is the ones who don't always make it out of their country who are truly underappreciated. All of these made it onto the international stage, but not reliably (except Wilson and MCCall)
 

DanseMacabre

Final Flight
Joined
May 27, 2018
Country
Iceland
Past:

Alexander Abt
Fumie Suguri
Angela Nikodinov
Anna Kondrashova (honestly, she's the highlight of the 88 Olympics for me even if the jumps weren't there)
Caryn Kadavy (for her amateur career)
Akiko Suzuki
Li Zijun (her retirement still hurts)
Emanuel Sandhu
Bourne/Kraatz

Present:

Mai Mihara
Gilles/Poirier
Chock/Bates
Satoko Miyahara (Sorry not sorry because her PCS should be head and shoulders above a lot of the pack)
Mariah Bell (her PCS should have been higher in some of her recent international comps)
Anastasia Gubanova (not her hugest fan but in any other country, she'd be a star)
 
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