Female Figure Skaters are Tough
There’s a prevailing attitude around my household (which includes an ardent and very informed fan) that female skaters are tough as nails and male skaters are prancing, girlish divas. This belief is fueled by Canada’s Emmanuel Sandhu, who makes Maria Carey seem staid. Sandhu’s ready with any excuse when his program goes horribly wrong (as it frequently does). The media generously call him ‘engimatic’.
Consider, on the other hand, Zhang Dan (that’s a female name). Early on in their Olympic long program, she and her partner Zhang Hao (no relation) attempted something never done before in competition: the quadruple Salchow. Hao throws Dan into the air, she spins four times and lands on her skates.
That’s the idea, but unfortunately it went horribly wrong. Here’s a New York Times infographic which illustrates the fall. Even better, here’s a video of their performance–the fall is about 15% of the way in. It’s probably the second worse fall I’ve ever seen in pairs skating, second only to Tatiana Totmianina’s face plant (she went on to win gold this year with her partner Maxim Marinin).
Astonishingly, despite landing spread-eagled, like a newborne fawn thrown off a cliff, Zhang Dan picks herself up and skates to the boards. The commentator remarks “the music has stopped, and this is it”. I think everybody figured she was done, and seriously injured. She takes all of three minutes, sucks it up, and re-starts the program at the point of the fall. They go on to win the silver medal. Mr. Sandhu, I expect, would already be under the willing hands of his Swedish masseuse.
Marjorie 
