ISU Communication No. 2074 | Golden Skate

ISU Communication No. 2074

gsk8

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Country
United-States
The ISU Challenger Series, introduced during the 2014/15 season as an ISU series of International Figure Skating Competitions (see ISU Communications 1858, 1894, 1928 and 1994) has proven to be successful and an excellent tool for many Skaters to get prepared for qualifying and competing in ISU Championships.

The ISU Council reiterates that being mindful that the ISU support towards the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating is restricted to a limited group of organizing ISU Members, to a limited number of Skaters and to a limited number of Officials, the ISU Council agreed to financially support a restricted group of identified ISU Members traditionally staging International Figure Skating Competitions being part of the ISU Event Calendar.

This ISU support has the objective to ensure the proper and consistent organization and conduct of up to ten (10) International Competitions linked together within the ISU Challenger Series giving adequate opportunities for many Skaters to compete at the international senior level and earn World Standing Points and to increase the opportunity for Officials to officiate at an international level.

- Competitions included
- Minimum requirements for applicable competitions
- Application & selection procedure for the organizing ISU Members of the events of the ISU Challenger Series
- Participation
- World Standing points
- Minimum total elements score
- ISU Challenger Series ranking
- Prize money
- Anti-Doping tests
- Officials remuneration
- ISU contribution
- TV/Media rights - Advertising rights

To read full ISU Communication 2074 please click here
 
Last edited by a moderator:

YesWay

四年もかけて&#
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 28, 2013
To read full ISU Communication 2074 please click here.
So Nebelhorn, Finlandia, Ondrej Nepela, Golden Spin of Zagreb and a yet-to-be-decided "North American" event will become "core" Challenger events? And up to five others may be added to the core each season?

Interesting. The named core events seem worthy and obvious choices. I wonder which Canadian/American event will be chosen? I guess it's between the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic and the Canadian Autumn Classic?

They want to "ensure one Challenger event in North America"... I wonder why they don't also try to ensure (create!) one in Asia?

"Organizing ISU Members are encouraged to provide a TV production and allow TV coverage and/or live streaming of the events to be supported by social media coverage" - I think they should be "required", rather than "encouraged" to provide TV production and live streaming...!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
So Nebelhorn, Finlandia Trophy, Ondrej Nepela, Golden Spin of Zagreb and a yet-to-be-decided "North American" event will become "core" Challenger events? And up to five others may be added to the core each season?

Interesting. The named core events seem worthy and obvious choices. I wonder which Canadian/American event will be chosen? I guess it's between the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic and the Canadian Autumn Classic?

I expect that this year's new document -- which has exactly the same language as the analogous document for 2016 -- means nothing more than last year's.

Thus, AFAIK, the new document is saying that the 2017 Challenger Series will have at least one North American comp.
And that the 2017 series will have a maximum of ten comps: the four core events + at least one North American comp + up to five other comps.
Nebelhorn, Finlandia, Nepela, Golden Spin will continue to be the only four core events.

When the full list of events in the 2016 Challenger Series was announced, it had two North American events: the US Classic and the Autumn Classic ... after Feb 2016's ISU Communication No. 1994 had said:

In recognition of the long standing tradition and merit of the following International Competitions, there will be a core group of four (4) ISU Challenger Series events, namely: - Nebelhorn-Trophy in Oberstdorf (GER) - Finlandia Trophy (FIN) - Ondrej Nepela Trophy in Bratislava (SVK) - Golden Spin of Zagreb (CRO)

In addition, in order to ensure one Challenger Series event in North America, there will be one ISU Challenger Series event in Canada or the United States to be announced after consultation with the respective ISU Members.

The above-mentioned core group of 4 ISU Challenger Series events plus the above-mentioned North American Challenger Series event remains nevertheless subject to receiving an application from the concerned Members and subject to ISU Council confirmation (see Paragraph 4 below for the details for the applications).

Up to a maximum of five (5) additional International Figure Skating Competitions may be added by the ISU Council based on the applications from organizing Members to be submitted to the ISU.
 

cathlen

Team Gorgeous Cacti!
Record Breaker
Joined
May 2, 2015
Country
Poland
So Nebelhorn, Finlandia, Ondrej Nepela, Golden Spin of Zagreb and a yet-to-be-decided "North American" event will become "core" Challenger events? And up to five others may be added to the core each season?

Interesting. The named core events seem worthy and obvious choices. I wonder which Canadian/American event will be chosen? I guess it's between the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic and the Canadian Autumn Classic?

They want to "ensure one Challenger event in North America"... I wonder why they don't also try to ensure (create!) one in Asia?

"Organizing ISU Members are encouraged to provide a TV production and allow TV coverage and/or live streaming of the events to be supported by social media coverage" - I think they should be "required", rather than "encouraged" to provide TV production and live streaming...!

I'm curious too. I think there is enough Asian/Australian skaters who could use a Challenger event somewhere close.
 

Mango

Royal Chinet 👑🍽️
Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 5, 2016
Can Asian Trophy become a Challenger? That's one of the few events that takes place in Asia yearly.
 

YesWay

四年もかけて&#
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 28, 2013
Can Asian Trophy become a Challenger? That's one of the few events that takes place in Asia yearly.
I guess so, if they added either Ice Dance or Pairs competitions, or both (minimum of three disciplines is required to qualify as a Challenger event). I don't know how easy it would be to schedule that - along with the existing senior, junior and novice competitions.

They'd also have to attract enough competitors, from enough different countries, to qualify as a Challenger - I forgot what the minimums are, but it might be difficult to do that because it is so early in the season? (early August)

Edit:

From the document linked above, to qualify as a Challenger event,

"The International Competition must include entries in at least 3 disciplines from minimum ten (10)
different ISU Members, all disciplines combined.
In addition, the minimum number of entries per discipline are as follows:
- Ladies/Men: minimum of eight (8) entries each, from at least four (4) ISU Members;
- Pair Skating: minimum of five (5) entries from at least three (3) ISU Members;
- Ice Dance: minimum of six (6) entries from at least four (4) ISU Members."
 
Last edited:

Mango

Royal Chinet 👑🍽️
Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 5, 2016
They should add pairs! China would send 3. If Japan and Korea send one each then it would totally work. It would take some cooperation amongst the Asian skating federations though.
 

cathlen

Team Gorgeous Cacti!
Record Breaker
Joined
May 2, 2015
Country
Poland
They should add pairs! China would send 3. If Japan and Korea send one each then it would totally work. It would take some cooperation amongst the Asian skating federations though.

Yup. And Australia should send theirs and it would totally work :)
 

cohkaix

FS data keeper
Medalist
Joined
Mar 9, 2013
Re. Asian (Open) Trophy, the result page from last year's competition:

http://www.fsatresults.com/2016AOFST/indexAOFST.html

There was, ACTUALLY, senior pair's category for the first time: entries with at least 5 teams from 3(2?, not sure PRK is one of the ISU members or not) ISU members. So that will be totally do-able in the future, if some more pair teams from KOR and/or CHN can be added.

I wonder if the Asian FS federations are also trying to push AO trophy towards an event of larger scale, and yes, the minor thing is that it takes place so early in the season.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Can Asian Trophy become a Challenger? That's one of the few events that takes place in Asia yearly.

... It would take some cooperation amongst the Asian skating federations though.

Just a guess, but I think regarding Challenger status, it prob. does not help that one federation does not singlehandedly have "ownership"/responsibility for the Asian Open Trophy every year.

I see also that the Announcement for the 2016 Asian Open Trophy stated a limitation of two entries per country per discipline.
IIRC: For Challengers, three entries per country per discipline are allowed. And the host federation for each Challenger is allowed to have four.

I have no proof, but I always have believed that the explanation for the absence of Challengers in Asia is that no Asian federation has stepped up to offer a competition that would meet the requirements of the series. And that all it would take for more Senior Bs to be held in Asia is for Asian federations to step up to offer them. I do not see any reason to believe that the ISU is standing in the way.
 

Mango

Royal Chinet 👑🍽️
Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 5, 2016
The problem with Asian federations is that they've got top skaters in a fraction of all the disciplines. Japan has ladies and men. China has pairs and men. Korea has ladies and men. Kazakhstan has ladies and men. Australia has skaters in all of them but the top look to be men and pairs. There isn't one federation that has got top candidates in three fields. If that one country did then they could likely step it up and host a CS event. But then this is why they need cooperation. If JSF for example says, "Hey guys. We're hosting Asain Open 201X and we're going to have ladies, men, and pairs. Send us your skaters please and thanks," then that may just work.

Realistically speaking Australia is the best country to host a multi-discipline event because they've got multiple skaters in each. Maybe they will think about it, having hosted a JGP event before and another coming up next season.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
... Realistically speaking Australia is the best country to host a multi-discipline event because they've got multiple skaters in each. Maybe they will think about it, having hosted a JGP event before and another coming up next season.

Some recent data:

Australia hosted Skate Down Under (non-Challenger international) in 2013.

Followed by Skate Down Under in NZ in 2014 -- which had only one Senior discipline:
 
Last edited:
Top