As I had mentioned before, I don’t really watch “Dancing with the Stars,” but did know the finals were last night. Well, as I had thought from the beginning, Kristi Yamaguchi wins the competition, as reported in The San Jose Mercury News article, “Local hero Kristi Yamaguchi emerges as ‘Dancing’ champ:”
“All those years twirling and dancing on ice apparently paid off for Fremont’s own Kristi Yamaguchi on Tuesday night’s season finale of “Dancing With the Stars.” From the outset it was obvious she was a contender, and she nailed it in the finale, scoring a perfect 60 and taking home the mirror ball (mirror ball?) trophy. But Yamaguchi was clearly the most talented dancer on this season’s show, even though it’s been hard for women to take the “Dancing” crown. With a viewership that’s 75 percent women – a fact not lost on Taylor and de la Fuente, who never missed an opportunity to show some skin – the show still had plenty of suspense for the final episode.”
I don’t really know who the other “star” competitors were, but come on, Yamaguchi had an unfair advantage from the beginning – that being a former Olympic gold medalist for figure skating! I don’t know how easily figure skating skills can be translated into ballroom dancing, but just practicing routines in both, I have to imagine there is a lot of advantage. An MSNBC Commentary also brings up this point in, “Did anyone really stand a chance vs. Kristi?”
But I guess the audience usually votes not only based on dancing skill, but personality and hot bodies – male bodies that is, given the show’s demographics (the past 4 winners have been men). Though, to be honest, I don’t know if there is audience voting or not (I’m guessing there is). In any case, congratulations to Kristi! Although I think being known as an Olympian is a much greater honor 🙂
