Ice Dance to be removed from Olympics?

[Watermelondrea]

A real overreaction from Russia now that its ice dance programs is dead

Its not dead, its rebuilding, and that's quite and overstatement for a nation who have NEVER find ished off the Olympic podium.

 

[anonymoose_au]

I certainly hope the new info is true and ice dancing isn't going anywhere. That's just a horrible, horrible idea. The IOC would be crazy to do it and what about all the ice dancers who have trained so hard?

OT but there was this ballet skiing at two olympics as a demonstration sport. I wish it became an Olympic sport

This however is amazing! I clicked the link wondering how it would even work: the answer, epically! I would watch the heck out of this!

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

OT but there was this ballet skiing at two olympics as a demonstration sport. I wish it became an Olympic sport

Holy moley! That's amazing!!!! I've never seen that before... it would be an incredible Olympic sport.

Here's another clip. This is sensational... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_nfFZWtVw I have no idea why it was never part of the Olympics -- it's skiing meets gymnastics meets figure skating.

 

[daphenaxa]

Holy moley! That's amazing!!!! I've never seen that before... it would be an incredible Olympic sport.

Here's another clip. This is sensational... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_nfFZWtVw I have no idea why it was never part of the Olympics -- it's skiing meets gymnastics meets figure skating.

yeah and the worst is that not becoming an olympic sport actually killed the sport completely. It was removed of the freestyle skiing association and no competitions are held anymore since 2000 :/

 

[Skater Boy]

Ice dance is the most boring; don't care what you say but to the untrained eye it is absolutely boring. I don't really understand why, however. Taking away Olympics from this sport ks destroyong it altogether... Are

Antonio is kind of right. Ice dancing is the most boring or least exciting to the untrained, uneducated or uninterested person watching skating - sorry but that is the truth. I doesn't have the tricks and all.

 

[caitie]

Antonio is kind of right. Ice dancing is the most boring or least exciting to the untrained, uneducated or uninterested person watching skating - sorry but that is the truth. I doesn't have the tricks and all.

With twizzles and lifts, it's much more interesting than it used to be to even the casual viewer IMO, and I think that's why it's gotten a lot more popular as it's gotten more athletic.

Anyway, I actually wanted to drop off a link to a fun conspiracy theory I read on tumblr that Didier put Molina up to starting this rumor:

This rumor was started by Didier Gailhaguet, whose stock has dipped recently after Marie-Reine Le Gougne called him a bunch of names in Le Monde. He avoids the newspapers this time (because that L'Equipe article alleging USA-Russia vote swapping in Sochi is still fresh) and instead gets his faithful servant David Molina to start the whispers on social media. David Molina’s many judging assignments and monitoring P/B before the Olympics suggest he’s in good favor with Didier, yet is apparently still considered highly credible by the rest of the skating community and lives in Switzerland allowing the possibility of having high-level IOC sources. The entire skating community is panicking.

Then either

A) Didier makes some public statement condemning the big bad IOC and pledging to save the ice dance. The IOC decides not to get rid of ice dance because that was never their intention, but Didier still takes credit (I hear that’s something he likes to do). Grateful federations vote for him in 2016, even the North Americans who are already dumb enough to jump to the conclusion that the IOC only wants to get rid of ice dance now that it’s dominated by North Americans; they welcome a Euro ally (never mind that Didier just wants 2018/2022 ice dance golds for himself).

or

B) Didier plays conservative, does nothing. IOC doesn’t remove ice dance. Nevertheless, seeds of doubt have been planted in the skating community which has always been insecure about ice dance’s status as an Olympic sport. Didier makes his ISU presidential campaign platform all about protecting and promoting the ice dance. He could even get the support of some speedskaters if they’ve been led to believe that this is a question of synchro replacing ice dance (as half of the figure skating community has already assumed). Figure skaters and speedskaters have to share practice/competition ice at the Olympics, and synchro practices take up more time than ice dance which would threaten speedskaters’ limited practice time.

 

[anonymoose_au]

yeah and the worst is that not becoming an olympic sport actually killed the sport completely. It was removed of the freestyle skiing association and no competitions are held anymore since 2000 :/

Well that's just terrible...what a shame! If I had any flexibility or athletic skill I'd totally want to learn how to do that.

I call for a petition to get it going again!

 

[4everchan]

i remember when moguls, aerials and ballet constituted a sort of triathlon event in freestyle skiing. it required such dedication from the athletes. it was spectacular...and as you say, the sport died when it didnt make the olympics... simply because federations got to invest on sports that can win medals.... ice dance will not survive if it loses olympic status. terribly sad

yeah and the worst is that not becoming an olympic sport actually killed the sport completely. It was removed of the freestyle skiing association and no competitions are held anymore since 2000 :/

 

[Interspectator]

Holy moley! That's amazing!!!! I've never seen that before... it would be an incredible Olympic sport.

Here's another clip. This is sensational... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_nfFZWtVw I have no idea why it was never part of the Olympics -- it's skiing meets gymnastics meets figure skating.

That's crazy! I love it.

 

[peg]

Ballet skiing is my new favorite sport. How the heck do they do that stuff with skis on?

 

[iluvtodd]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I hope it turns out to be nothing more than rumor. This would be a slap in the face to all the ice dancers, past, present, & future, who have trained so hard through the years.

 

[invisiblespiral]

This is irrational, 4-person gymnastics teams are also irrational....

 

[cruzceleste]

ISU statement:

21 May 2015 - Lausanne, Switzerland

There is absolutely no truth to this. The review of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games program is currently underway and a final decision will be made during the next meeting of the IOC Executive Board on June 7-8, 2015. The IOC confirms that within the review process the ISU has made a number of proposals which do not include the removal of Ice Dance from the Olympic Program.

 

[invisiblespiral]

Oh, thank god....

 

[shiroKJ]

Thank goodness I missed out on the panicking.

 

[dorispulaski]

Oh, thank god....

:happydance:

but now the Didier runs for ISU president as savior of ice dance conspiracy theories look kind of credible.

 

[cruzceleste]

:happydance:

but now the Didier runs for ISU president as savior of ice dance conspiracy theories look kind of credible.

I will be really thankful if somebody could do some background on him, I know nothing about him and how he works, and it all seems really like a complicated argument for a book.

Would he be better than Speedy for figure skating?

 

[dorispulaski]

I will be really thankful if somebody could do some background on him, I know nothing about him and how he works, and it all seems really like a complicated argument for a book.

Would he be better than Speedy for figure skating?

The best predictor of future performance is past performance. Would you say he has been good for French figure skating?

For one thing, he has always been willing to lie about things that are easily disapproved.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Gailhaguet

As the coach of Surya Bonaly, he was complicit with the story that Surya was born in Reunion.
http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/articles/2004/04/02/positive_spin/

Quote is from the wiki, but the original source cited is a Boston Globe piece above:

Georges and Suzanne initially told the media that their daughter had been born on the island of Réunion, because, as David Wallechinsky's Complete Book of the Winter Olympics explains, they thought this origin sounded more "exotic". When Surya approached the age of 18 and began researching her birth history, George and Suzanne admitted that Surya's biological mother had been from the island but that Surya herself had not been born there. Didier Gailhaguet, who was Bonaly's first coach of her competitive career, admitted fabricating the story because he thought it would interest the press.[1]

.

This is a lie for no good reason at all. It is safe to assume, I think, that he and the truth are not close friends.

Then he was a key figure in the 2002 Olympic pairs/ice dance vote swapping scandal.

Again, the quote is from Didier's wiki
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Gailhaguet

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/1959181.stm

Gailhaguet was a central figure in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal, in which French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne said that she had judged wrongly in the pairs competition under pressure from Gailhaguet, who was at that time the president of the French federation. Witnesses of Le Gougne's statement were Sally-Anne Stapleford (Great Britain), Britta Lindgren (Sweden), Walburga Grimm (Germany) and Jon Jackson (USA). Gailhaguet's chauffeur in Salt Lake City additionally testified to having overheard evidence of his involvement on the scandal. Le Gougne later rescinded her statement and said she had been pressured to make it.

Didier Gailhaguet was excluded for any International Skating Union event for 3 years, beginning 30 April 2002, and has been excluded as an ISU council member. He resigned as president of the French Ice Sports Federation on 12 May 2004, but was re-elected to that position in December 2007

So clearly, he does not draw the line at using his power not just to facilitate, but indeed to compel cheating.

He has also forced skaters to change coaches whimsically and behaved in a capricious manner that IMO did not benefit the development of French skating. I hope French forum members can supply more accurate details.

 

[cruzceleste]

Thank you dorispulaski.

What a shady character...

 

[daphenaxa]

I will be really thankful if somebody could do some background on him, I know nothing about him and how he works, and it all seems really like a complicated argument for a book.

Would he be better than Speedy for figure skating?

Background

Didier Gailhaguet was born in 1953. He is a two time French National champion (74-75) and finished 13th at the 1972 Olympics. He left competitive skating in 75. He married Annick Dumont and they developed the training centre in Champigny (a Parisian Suburb) from where came a lot of the French champions like Surya Bonaly, Eric Millot, Stannick Jeannette, Frederic Dambier...
As Surya Bonaly's coach he already created a few scandals like he lied about where she was born because he thought that would attract media attention.

In 1992 he becomes the director of the French teams in figure skating and ice dancing. He creates camps (like summer camps) where the official team goes and trains together. He also wants to improve the detection, the formation and the monitoring of new talents.

He becomes the head of the French Ice sports federation for the first time in 1998. He is elected at a catastrophic time because the federation is in a state of bankruptcy (55million frcs deficit) and a he has to put up a plan to reimburse the debts. Under pressure of the international hockey federation he has to create an independent French hockey association.

SLC scandal
So all this is vague, there was never any real evidence of anything. Just a he said, she said thingy. But according to the most accepted version, Gailhaguet agreed of a pact with the Russian Fed that was to back up the Russian pair Bereznhaya/Sikharulidze to win gold again the Canadians and then the Russians would back up the French ice dance team Anissina/Peizerat.
In the pairs, the French judge effectively put the Russians in 1st and she was immediately suspected of cheating because she was the only western judge to put them in front. (LOL this always made me laught because that already tells a lot about the state of mind in FS, so because you are a western judge you should put the western couples in front!).

Then allegedly the French judge admitted in front of the ISU technical committee president that she suffered pressure from Gailhaguet to put the Russians in front. She allegedly again repeated that in front of the judging committee and also said it was part of a deal to get the French dancers the gold. However in a signed declaration she wrote that she never took part in such a deal and that she put the Russians first because she felt they deserved to win.

In an article that just came out recently in France, she repeats that version. She even adds that Gailhaguet came to meet her at the airport in SLC to tell her about the deal and how she had to vote but she told him to f* off. (In this interview she kept calling him a thug).
In the end, the Russians kept their gold because there was no proof of their or their federation implication in a deal, the Canadians were awarded another gold and both the French judge and Gailhaguet were suspended for 3 years and banned from Torino Olympics. Didier has to step out from the presidency of the French fed.

Come back, Vancouver and Sochi

In 2007 Didier Gailhaguet is reelected. His project is to create a "national training center" after the modele of what is done in French rugby for example. But this was really criticised by a lot of coaches in France.
What happens is that when a kid begins to get good results, he is usually pressured to leave his coach and move to these national training centers, namely Paris and Champigny. There, not much happens actually. There is ice time problems, coaches problems, the kids stagnate for the most part. If they don't want to leave their coaches, they are not assigned JGPs or other competitions and their fundings are also cut short. But it is not only young skaters it is everyone. Brian Joubert (!) wasn't assigned GPs one year under the excuse he was injured and then he said he was really surprised to learn he was injured lol. Gailhaguet cut fundings for Lyon (Muriel Zazoui's rink) because he wanted Papadakis-Cizeron to go abroad. He forced Pechalat-Bourzat to go to Schpilband etc.

In 2010 he also creates another controversy in France when he says after Brian Joubert melt down at the Olympics that he is a "petit con" which means a little a**hole. He also criticised him really harshly saying that he was fiddling with his preparation. That he begun training only two months before the games, that he wasn't able to work enough and that he had been foolish not to go train abroad with the bests.

In Sochi he was vividly criticised because once again like in Torino and Vancouver there was no medal for the French figure skating. Worse there is no medal at all for any ice sport.
The short track and speed skaters were always very critical of Gailhaguet's politic and very vocal on the fact that there was no money and no support at all for them from the federation. All the resources are allocated to figure skating. They had no coach and no staff in Sochi. The fed even forgot to enrol one of the skater so he couldn't participate! One skater said "there is nobody in the world that I hate more than the people of the federation, they just want to kill the sport". I think that the French speed skater who achieved the better result (4th at whatever race) trains with the National Dutch team because he has more support there than in France.

Now

In June 2014 Gailhaguet was reelected once again as president. He was running against Olympic champ Gwendal Peizerat who was supported by ex skaters Philippe Candeloro and Stannick Jeannette. But Gailhaguet won comfortably.

One thing the French federation is also known for is not releasing their athletes. For example, Jerome Blanchard, a pair skater, went and stayed in Russia. He was in Oleg Vasiliev groups and skated with Mukhortova after her split with Trankov for example. He never got a release from the fed so basically he could never skate.
Now Bruno Massot who wants to skate for Germany with Savchenko is hoping for a release but the French fed said they "would never grant him a release". Apparently Chafik Besseghier also wanted a release but didn't get it. So in a nutshell, they prefer destroying their skater's career than releasing them to other feds.