It's not that much, guys. Just learn to watch for it. She's still a good skater.

What happened (see the Wildcat page, especially the historical links) is that a very, very good jumper and technical skater was pretty much forced to "compete according to American media standards" in order to satisfy the American audience's appetite for "beautiful skating." What they didn't realize was that they had an American classic all their own. And should have left it that way.

Dorothy is not Peggy. One more time. Can we all say this together? Dorothy is not Peggy. Very good. One more time...Dorothy is not Peggy!

Yeah! I think you're getting it! Thank you!

I'd slap her up against Irina Slutskaya faster than I ever would Michelle Kwan.

Does that tell you anything?

Don't take it personally, Tonya. They were turning up their noses at technique way before you came along.

Look at this girl's takeoff edges. Despite years of media pleading to "skate better, skate prettier, skate for the public, Dorothy!", she still maintains them. She has to. They are part of her skating style. She has to use them otherwise she couldn't get off the ground.

You can hide anything else. You can't hide takeoff edges.

From the years when they were training her to be a good skater. We used to take early film of Dorothy (before she "went pro" around 1974-75, as the Wildcats derisively put it, and started skating "for the fans") and compare her to Miss Irina (that's Rodnina, not Slutskaya, for those of you who need a little brushup on skating history. And yes, the USSR page is coming. Just hold on to your boxer shorts, willya?). Lookit her jump! Just lookit her! Lord. Give La Slute nightmares if she'd had to compete way back then.

Ruined your reputation enough, Dorothy? Good. You deserve it. ;-)

I honestly think that there was one practice session before a competition when one judge was eyeballing "little Dorothy" and said to another something along the lines of that is just not going to be good enough. This girl needs to learn to jump. Nice and pretty. I think they were scared, quite frankly. Because when that girl took off on a jump and came barreling towards the boards, she could really give you heart failure. I think she just caused one heart attack too many and got rebelled against.

What could she do? Skating was her profession.

Just look at those takeoff edges. You'll see what I mean.