Dancing With the Stars, Another Skater Wins!
With all the chatter about the David vs. David battle last night on Fox, no one is talking about the Dancing With the Stars finale on ABC, crowing a female for the first time in five years. Could this be because we knew it all along? Yeah, probably.
Everyone was amazed with Kristi Yamaguchi from the get go. Some felt she was a ringer, due to her past as a figure skating champion, yet they still couldn’t stop themselves at marveling at her talent. She was just really good. Many people were saying they should just hand her the title from the very beginning, but as we found out, she wasn’t necessarily running away with that mirrored disco ball trophy, no matter what Penn Jillette wanted to gripe about.
In truth, I don’t think her win had as much to do with ice skating as it had to do with sports as a whole. Look at how well the sports stars have done on Dancing With the Stars with a full winners list of Kelly Monaco, a soap actress, Drew Lachey, member of a boy band, Emmitt Smith, football player, Apolo Anton Ohno, speed skater, Helio Castroneves, race car driver, and now Kristi Yamaguchi.
Just like with any lists of reality star winners, there almost needs to be an asterisk by the first winner, as you never know during the first season exactly what to expect and how it’s all going to play out. Yet 2/3 of the winners have been athletes. I keep thinking of the extreme dedication it takes to become a top athlete in your field, not that you don’t have to to become an actress or singer, but the athletes are used to practicing physically several hours a day. I think they understand what it takes to get the top prize.
Perhaps for Kristi, it was just all that much more obvious in the beginning. She not only knew what it would take to train her body, she was also a performer by being a figure skater, not to mention the fact she was used to being judged. The actors and singers are used to performing, and I think for Kristi it was finally finding a contestant that could combine it all, performance as well as athleticism.
Other than that, it was just nice to see a professional win other than Cheryl Burke or Julianne Hough. It’s nothing against them, just nice to see a sharing of the wealth. It was also nice to see Edyta Sliwinska make it to the final 2. She’s been on the show longer than any of the other dancers, being there from the very beginning, so it was nice to finally see her recognized, even if it was only as runner-up.
I think I’ll just put money on whichever athlete appears on Dancing With the Stars‘ seventh season, starting in the fall. And if it’s a male athlete paired with Edyta, I’m going to double up.
Photos Courtesy of abc.go.com
For more information on Dancing With the Stars, see SirLinksalot: Dancing With the Stars. For a discussion of American Idol finales, see What’s Hot On TV.
