I have watched figure skating on TV during the Olympic games, but it is the first time I am watching live figure skating. Olympic figure skating ticket is too expensive, Sears Stars on Ice features Olympic figure skaters, like Joanna Rochette, and a it only cost $45. The skaters seems more relax in the show than in the competition. I suspect they are saving their best for the competition and I only get to see the safe moves.
I never watched figure skate seriously, I have only watched the highlight on TV. Watching a live show confirmed my belief that figure skating is boring. The first few skaters are fun to watch, but soon the novelty wears off. The movements of all skaters are more or less the same, they are just jumps, turns, spins, throws in different sequence. Watched one pretty much watched them all. The most noticeable difference among the skaters is some of them screwed up the landing and lost their balance. Figure skating is so boring that I slept thought the second half of the show.
Sports, like figure skating, with no objective measure of winners and losers are usually boring. It relies on subjective measurements like aesthetic appeal of the judges to determine the outcome, so you don’t get any excitement out of competition. In sports with objective measure, it is easy to understand the athletes, as their action are directly related to winning the game. However in sports without objective measure, the athletes’ actions do not have obvious purpose and the sport lost its meaning, thus it is boring.