The Terry Gannon Thread | Page 2 | Golden Skate

The Terry Gannon Thread

labgoat

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Yes Terry was a valuable member on that miracle North Carolina State national championship basketball team. I have certainly enjoyed his work over the years. Terry Tara and Johnny make an awesome threesome. With Terry being the most sane one. ;) I also used to enjoy a great combination of Tom Hammond Peggy Fleming and Dick Button although Terry Tara and Johnny are funnier. :)

I think you mean Tom, Dick & Sandra Bezic - to my knowledge Peggy was not part of the NBC team.
 

sjchilly

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Peggy was a commentator for ABC sports, and did not make the transition when NBC locked up figure skating. One of her favorite lines was that a skater "needs to make that more important". I find myself thinking that when a skater rushes through an Ina Bauer, spiral, footwork or spin, and "need to make it more important".
 

Scott512

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I think you mean Tom, Dick & Sandra Bezic - to my knowledge Peggy was not part of the NBC team.
Yes Sandra too. Peggy I believe worked with Terry and Dick for a while.

Peggy was a commentator for ABC sports, and did not make the transition when NBC locked up figure skating. One of her favorite lines was that a skater "needs to make that more important". I find myself thinking that when a skater rushes through an Ina Bauer, spiral, footwork or spin, and "need to make it more important".

Thanks for the Peggy info.
 

jenaj

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Terry never failed to remind us that under 6.0, the top 3 after the short program controlled their own destiny. :) I miss him, Dick and Peggy, the dream team of commentators.
 

MsLayback

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I loved when Terry and Tanith called Ice Dance @ 2018 Olympics! Not only could you appreciate their great chemistry and repore as a commentating Duo, Terry was learning from Tanith expertise in Ice Dance and you could hear it in his interactions the respect he had for Tanith...I loved them as a Team and would love for them to do the commentating for pairs as well.
 

Scott512

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Terry never failed to remind us that under 6.0, the top 3 after the short program controlled their own destiny. :) I miss him, Dick and Peggy, the dream team of commentators.

Thats right I forgot about that.

But does that mean under the old system kaetlyn Osmond wouldn't have been able to win the World title last year coming from way back when everyone in front of her bombed?
 

el henry

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Thats right I forgot about that.

But does that mean under the old system kaetlyn Osmond wouldn't have been able to win the World title last year coming from way back when everyone in front of her bombed?

No. The top three always control their own destiny, no matter the system (I don’t know what Terry would or would not say today) and if the top three bomb, well they controlled their own destiny, just not controlling it so well.

Sarah Hughes came from fourth in the short, IIRC, to win gold in the Olys in the last year of 6.0. Just like Kaetlyn came from fourth to win Worlds 2018.:)

I hope I have both of those right:biggrin:
 

Scott512

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No. The top three always control their own destiny, no matter the system (I don’t know what Terry would or would not say today) and if the top three bomb, well they controlled their own destiny, just not controlling it so well.

Sarah Hughes came from fourth in the short, IIRC, to win gold in the Olys in the last year of 6.0. Just like Kaetlyn came from fourth to win Worlds 2018.:)

I hope I have both of those right:biggrin:

Yes they control their own destiny just not so well when they bomb. LOLet!

Thanks for the info. I forgot to Sarah Hughes came from 4th to 1st in 2002 Salt Lake City. That may never happen again in the Olympics. I remember being so upset Sasha Cohen did not meDallas. She finished fourth I believe.
 

EyesOfLove

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Peggy was a commentator for ABC sports, and did not make the transition when NBC locked up figure skating. One of her favorite lines was that a skater "needs to make that more important". I find myself thinking that when a skater rushes through an Ina Bauer, spiral, footwork or spin, and "need to make it more important".

I always remember her saying: "This is where she [skater x] has made a huge improvement: reaching to the audience, holding the moves out, and just really feeling the music." She really did have a proclivity for the more 'graceful' type of skaters, just like herself.
 
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Thanks for the info. I forgot to Sarah Hughes came from 4th to 1st in 2002 Salt Lake City. That may never happen again in the Olympics.

It happened at the 2018 Olympics in pairs. Savchenko and Massot went from 4th in the short program to 1st in the long and overall.

This sort of movement was virtually unheard of under 6.0, but with the current point system it is not out of the question that a skater has a disappointing short but can win overall by racking up the points in the LP.
 
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But does that mean under the old system Kaetlyn Osmond wouldn't have been able to win the World title last year coming from way back when everyone in front of her bombed?

No, Osmond wins the gold under the old 6.0 factored placement rules as well as under the current "add up the points" rules.

Placements under 6.0:

Osmond
Miyahara
Higuchi
Kostner
Tennell
Zagitova

Placements under IJS were

Osmond
Higuchi
Miyahara
Kostner
Zagitova
Tennell
 
Joined
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No. The top three always control their own destiny, no matter the system. ...

Still, we know what he means. Under 6.0 factored placements, if you are in the top three after the short then you are in the position (as Scott Hamilton liked to put it): "Win the free, win the gold."

Nowadays you can be in third place but so far behind the leader in terms of points that you will not win overall even if you win the free skate.

For instance, at the 2018 Olympics Papadakis and Cizeron stood in second place after the Short Dance and they won the Free Dance. But heading into the Free Dance they did not "control their own destiny." No matter what they did, they could not win overall unless Virtue and Moir blew it.

However, in general, with IJS scoring there is a greater potential to move up or down overall, irrespective of your placement in the short and not necessarily requiring your rivals to bomb. At 2018 worlds Wakaba Higuchi went from 8th to 2nd overall. At 2014 Olympics Denis Ten went from 9th to the bronze medal.
 
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figurefan0726

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I absolutely love Terry Gannon! I remember he used to commentate on skating since the 6.0 system days. I watch the NBC broadcasts for skating and he truly calms me down with his commentating. Why can’t Tara and Johnny learn from him?!
 

corinthia

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Dec 26, 2014
To further clarify the whole "control your own destiny" under 6.0 thing... As already mentioned, under 6.0 anybody in the top 3 after the short could win the gold simply by winning the free (even if that person had placed 2nd or 3rd in the short by a wide margin from the short winner, and won the free by the slimmest margin ... as Mathman put it, "win the free, win the gold")

The other piece of this is that people outside the top 3 after the short had zero mathematical chance to win the gold without "help" from someone else.

Sarah Hughes in SLC is actually a really good example of this, because being in 4th place after the short (under 6.0), she did NOT control her own destiny.

To win that gold, she did of course need to win the free which she did.

But that by itself was not enough. She also needed Michelle, who had won the short, to place no higher than 3rd in the free. Because even if Sarah had totally trounced the entire field including Michelle in the free, scored straight 6.0's across the board... it would not have been enough for Sarah if Sarah placed 1st in the free and Michelle placed 2nd... Michelle with 1st in the short and (hypothetical) 2nd in the free would have won.

So since Sarah needed Michelle to finish 3rd or lower in the free, she needed SOMEBODY ELSE other than herself to beat Michelle in the free. Since Sarah of course had absolutely no control over whether SOMEBODY ELSE would beat Michelle, Sarah did not "control her own destiny", and "needed help" from somebody else beating Michelle in the free to win the gold.

(In this case of course that somebody else turned out to be Irina. If Irina had bombed her free, and everything else had stayed *exactly* the same, including Sarah's performance and Michelle's fall ... Michelle would have won the gold over Sarah.)
 
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To further clarify the whole "control your own destiny" under 6.0 thing...

What an excellent explanation! Thank you.

This situation actually happened quite a bit back in the day. The TV commentators never emphasized it because the SOMEBODY ELSE situation took away the competitive drama of the free skate and made it a routine exercise.

For instance, at the 1992 Olympics the big matchup was Midori Ito versus Kristi Yamaguchi. But Ito fell to 4th in the SP, with Yamaguchi 1st.

This meant that when the free skate came around, with a billion people watching with abated breath, there was nothing to watch. Ito could not possibly win the gold medal no matter how many triple Axels she landed unless Someone Else (Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding, Surya Bonaly) knocked out Kristi for her.

At 1997 Worlds, similarly Tara Lipinski was in 1st and Michelle Kwan in 4th after the SP. There was little reason to hold the free skate at all. Tara would automatically win unless Someone Else (Vanessa Gusmeroli, Irina Slutskaya, Maria Butyrskaya) took out Kwan.

But at 2000 worlds it all worked out in Kwan's favor. Maria Butyrskaya got 1st in the qualifying round and 1st in the SP, while Michelle limped in with a 2nd and a 4th. Only a miracle could save Michelle.

But she got it. Irina knocked out Maria in the LP, Kwan getting 1st. This gave Michelle the championship by a tie-breaker on factored ordinals (somewhat more complicated because of the qualifying round).

Nowadays all that is out the window: whoever gets the most total points wins, period.
 

jcoates

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My two favorite memories of Terry were from his first US Nationals in the booth in 1996 when he was calling Rudi's FS with Uncle Dick and Brian Boitano. I knew he was a keeper then because he completely went along with the incredible emotion of the moment, letting Dick justifiably gush and getting caught up in the moment himself. He'd clearly studied up for the moment and delivered it perfectly.

The other was actually not commentary. It was from 2009 Worlds in LA, the first year NBC has its current Worlds broadcast rights and the first year Terry wasn't calling Worlds for ABC/ESPN. He came to the event and brought his kids so they could watch together as fans. That was proof that skating wasn't just a job. He'd fallen in love with it.

He's actually covered skating on US TV more than pretty much any other play by play announcer and he's done it wonderfully. I hope one day USFS will consider inducting him into the hall of fame in the broadcaster category.
 

jenaj

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Thats right I forgot about that.

But does that mean under the old system kaetlyn Osmond wouldn't have been able to win the World title last year coming from way back when everyone in front of her bombed?

Not necessarily. It only meant that if you were in the top 3 after the short, placing first in the long would win gold.
 

jenaj

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No. The top three always control their own destiny, no matter the system (I don’t know what Terry would or would not say today) and if the top three bomb, well they controlled their own destiny, just not controlling it so well.

Sarah Hughes came from fourth in the short, IIRC, to win gold in the Olys in the last year of 6.0. Just like Kaetlyn came from fourth to win Worlds 2018.:)

I hope I have both of those right:biggrin:

Sarah did not control her own destiny. She had to depend on mistakes by others to win, even if she skated without mistakes.
 

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.
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Sarah did not control her own destiny. She had to depend on mistakes by others to win, even if she skated without mistakes.

Exactly!
That was my point... I think something must be getting lost in the translation. :scratch3:
 
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