SALON: Jumps on the Figure Skating: Sport Or Not debate. Kerry Lauerman offers the more-objectivity-needed argument:

If figure skating is to remain a valued part of the Olympics, and to continue being treated as a real sport, it must be forced to conform to understandable measures of accomplishment, instead of relying on the whims and connivings of what often appears to be an extremely bitchy sewing circle. If skating officials refuse to clean up their act, then they should be booted from the games -- and then, considering how lucrative the sport has become -- we might see some real tears on the ice.

King Kaufman on the other hand argues people watch figure skating for the same reason they watch NASCAR: for the crashes:

Figure skating dominates the Winter Olympics precisely because it's a circus. As a sport, it's never going to be anything but nonsense. As train-wreck entertainment, it's riveting. This is a sport whose popularity skyrocketed after Harding conspired with her then-husband and a buffoonish thug named Shane Stant to whack rival Nancy Kerrigan's knee and take her out of the Olympic trials in 1994. It's a sport where the stunning caprice of the judges and the amazing goofiness of the performers are assets, not detriments.

Sure, there are plenty of people who enjoy the salchows and the lutzes and the toe loops and the camels, there always have been, but figure skating is a commercial monster because of all the people who tune in to goof on its weirdness and wait for it to burst into flames and go over a cliff again, as it did this week.

I think he's wrong (just like I'm wrong about why people watch NASCAR) because there are figure skaters like Michelle Kwan who can consistently involve an audience emotionally via a dominating athletic performance. A truly objective way to judge figure skating would be to measure crowd reaction, which is also the way you can tell which pro wrestlers are really great. That or make them all skate the same routine every time.