Quick questions about 2005 U.S. Adult Figure Skating Championships

So I was looking into some skating stuff for a friend, and came across the 2005 U.S. Adult Figure Skating Championships:

http://docs.sk8stuff.com/comps/05/r05an.pdf

So my understanding is that "Class" refers to different age groups, i.e. "Class III" refers to age 46-55 for example, and "Masters" refers to the higher skill levels, i.e. Intermediate to Senior.

My question is about what kind of test some of the categories were. For example, there's "Master Novice Ladies Class II" on page 10; is that referring to moves in the field tests, free skate tests, or something else? And without wishing to be indelicate...if it's referring to free skate tests, then would "Master Senior Ladies Class V" really refer to people 66+ years old doing doubles? (It wasn't an actual category of the competition though, just thinking of the possibility.) I was looking to see if there was an actual program with the elements performed which would've answered my question, but only found the final scores (which seem to be on the 6.0 scale) here: https://www.usfigureskating.org/event_details.asp?id=20428 , although current Adult Championships seem to be using the IJS scoring system now.

Vanshilar said:

So I was looking into some skating stuff for a friend, and came across the 2005 U.S. Adult Figure Skating Championships:

http://docs.sk8stuff.com/comps/05/r05an.pdf

So my understanding is that "Class" refers to different age groups, i.e. "Class III" refers to age 46-55 for example, and "Masters" refers to the higher skill levels, i.e. Intermediate to Senior.

My question is about what kind of test some of the categories were. For example, there's "Master Novice Ladies Class II" on page 10; is that referring to moves in the field tests, free skate tests, or something else? And without wishing to be indelicate...if it's referring to free skate tests, then would "Master Senior Ladies Class V" really refer to people 66+ years old doing doubles? (It wasn't an actual category of the competition though, just thinking of the possibility.) I was looking to see if there was an actual program with the elements performed which would've answered my question, but only found the final scores (which seem to be on the 6.0 scale) here: https://www.usfigureskating.org/event_details.asp?id=20428 , although current Adult Championships seem to be using the IJS scoring system now.

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IJS was not implemented yet in 2005.

Masters Novice depends. It is a combination of Intermediate and Novice FS tests passed (now there is also a Masters Intermediate). It depends on when that Intermediate or Novice FS test was passed what the prerequisites are for those tests.

The Vs weren't doing doubles, but there was a lady well into her 70s doing Axels

Yeah, my hope was just to see the elements, i.e. see if the elements required for the Adult championships are the same as regular ones. IJS does do a good job of that, but unfortunately the 6.0 system doesn't. Oh well.

Heh it's neat to think of someone doing Axels in their 70s, last I heard Midori Ito was still doing double axels, although she's still in her 40s. So there's still some hope for me yet

Side question about the Adults, I'm a bit confused about the "Gold Medalist" terminology for testing. So if you pass the Senior MitF test you're considered a MitF Gold Medalist, something you can put on your resume etc. Senior is the 8th level of MitF testing. But there's also an "Adult Gold" which is the 4th level (Adult Pre-Bronze -> Adult Bronze -> Adult Silver -> Adult Gold -> Intermediate -> Novice -> Junior -> Senior for adults). Is that also considered a Gold Medalist, or is the term reserved for passing the 8th level (Senior) for an adult as well?

No, it's not reserved for Senior only. I am a FS Gold Medalist on the adult track.

Masters Novice has restrictions now - no jump above 2Lo (the highest jump required on the Novice FS test). There's talk about opening it up to 2F. In 2005, I think there were a couple people in Masters Novice in the age class 1 and 2 groups doing 2F and 2Lz as that restriction wasn't in place.

On this page you can find links to Adult Singles Elements for 2014-15 and 2015-16, which shows what's required and allowed. 10+ years ago, all competitions were judged under 6.0; now Adult Gold and above are IJS, Adult Silver and below are 6.0.

The levels and program requirements have changed somewhat over the years, and so have the age groupings. Some but not all of the program content changes were related to the change to IJS.

On this page you can find a link Standard Track to Adult Track Equivalencies. This shows what level a skater is required to compete based on tests they had already passed.

Both those sets of information, along with what tests an adult would need to pass now or have passed to qualify for the level they want to compete now, can be found in the rulebook beginning with rule 4500.

Again, there have been some changes over the years.

For the masters levels, most of the competitors had skated as kids. Most of them could do double jumps when they were competing, and some could do triples, although a few might have passed figure tests that required them to compete at masters levels as an adult but were better at figures than freestyle as kids and never really had doubles back then. Either way, typically adults cannot still do all the jumps they did when they were younger, especially older skaters at the higher levels, but it depends how old they are, what kinds of skating and other training they've done over the intervening decades, whether they took long breaks, how much bigger they are now than as kids, what kinds of injuries or other physical problems they've developed over the years, etc.

You'll see that whether and how figure tests affect adult freestyle levels vary by the date of the test. Before separate freestyle tests were introduced in the late 1970s, some of the figure tests included freeskating requirements. The content of the tests changed in the 1990s as well.

And adult rules apply to skaters who were kids in the 1940s and skaters who were kids in the early 2000s and everywhere in between. The content of the tests they took as kids varies, so the rules need to be complicated to group people into appropriate skill levels.

mskater93 said:

No, it's not reserved for Senior only. I am a FS Gold Medalist on the adult track.

Masters Novice has restrictions now - no jump above 2Lo (the highest jump required on the Novice FS test). There's talk about opening it up to 2F. In 2005, I think there were a couple people in Masters Novice in the age class 1 and 2 groups doing 2F and 2Lz as that restriction wasn't in place.

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Nice to know. So I can become a Gold Medalist in 4 tests rather than 8

Yeah it's interesting you bring up the restrictions. I was talking to some fellow skaters today as well as reading about some related stuff and it seems like skaters will tend to be way "overlevel" in abilities compared to what they test for, so that the skaters will be relatively better (i.e. relative to other skaters) and more polished in competitions since competition placement is based on the highest test level you've passed. So my impression is that for each level, the tests basically set the minimum bar for skill level while skaters compete at the maximum allowed bar (i.e. skills allowed) for that level. Thus advancing in levels becomes somewhat strategic.

gkelly said:

For the masters levels, most of the competitors had skated as kids. Most of them could do double jumps when they were competing, and some could do triples, although a few might have passed figure tests that required them to compete at masters levels as an adult but were better at figures than freestyle as kids and never really had doubles back then. Either way, typically adults cannot still do all the jumps they did when they were younger, especially older skaters at the higher levels, but it depends how old they are, what kinds of skating and other training they've done over the intervening decades, whether they took long breaks, how much bigger they are now than as kids, what kinds of injuries or other physical problems they've developed over the years, etc.

You'll see that whether and how figure tests affect adult freestyle levels vary by the date of the test. Before separate freestyle tests were introduced in the late 1970s, some of the figure tests included freeskating requirements. The content of the tests changed in the 1990s as well.

And adult rules apply to skaters who were kids in the 1940s and skaters who were kids in the early 2000s and everywhere in between. The content of the tests they took as kids varies, so the rules need to be complicated to group people into appropriate skill levels.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. Yeah I watched Olympics growing up but didn't ice skate (except occasionally for fun), so I was only aware of the, for lack of a better word, "young" side of the sport, and didn't really consider "what happens after the Olympics" or when a skater is beyond Olympics age or isn't top level. Now that I'm a participant instead of just an observer it's interesting to see the different options available to adults, but it's also more confusing, since it doesn't seem so linear. I guess yeah part of the challenge is to make it interesting and rewarding to people with vastly different backgrounds (some adults who just started, others who have been doing it since they were a toddler) and to try to structure the competitions to be as fair as possible. It's fun to think of (and probably even more fun to see) people in their 50s and 60s still doing doubles though. I hope my body is still in that good of a condition when I reach that age.