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- Mar 27, 2018
Well, they said someone could have snuck in and another person said the lounge was open to the public because they needed to make it bigger. And it was just lipstick, which can hopefully be cleaned.
Arena was vandalised by fans after Men's Free Skate
- Thread starter icybear
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Well, they said someone could have snuck in and another person said the lounge was open to the public because they needed to make it bigger. And it was just lipstick, which can hopefully be cleaned.
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Or Aymoz who everyone could see was underscored in PCS at the GPF and you could easily argue should have been second after the SP.
As for Hanyu also being treated badly by rival fan, it goes without saying that’s wrong but two wrongs doesn’t make a right. Figure skating scores do not justify vandalism - ever.
We’re not talking about politics here where you can justify hard responses. It’s just skating.
If they wanna start a letter writing campaign or a boycott I’m understanding of that. The judging system should be reformed. However disrespecting Chen who is not a judge is disgraceful.
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- Sep 15, 2017
Short answer : Yes .
Does ISU seem to care in terms of developing the sport? No.
IOC cares more than ISU.
My ire is solely towards those who find vandalizing a wall a worthwhile endeavour (plus that sign nonsense) because their favourite skater didn't win in a competition. Their behaviour was childish and petty and I have no idea why saying so is "toxic" behaviour. Unless you think our actions are equivalent somehow?
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- Sep 15, 2017
1) Because the Feds themselves do not have the balls to file formal complaints themselves ? or it is informally discouraged to do so?My personal quandary is why should the ISU actually care about clearly biased fans complaints when the skaters, their federations and coaching staff are not the ones filing these complaints?I am sure they have much bigger things to deal with.
In other sports, the Associations have no qualms in filing formal complaints. One of which I posted the news few pages back.
The fans also have avenues to make complain/protest, with evidences.
In which there is response from a country's Association or the World Body itself.
If the World Body just wring their hands do nothing, complaints go up to Olympic Council & the media.
Normally, the World Body takes action before that cos in this day & age, it is already hot news at stage 1. The World body have to be seen to be doing their job.
Hence why I often say it is not tolerated in other sports.
2) ISU attitude is apathetic. The athlete representative recently appointed has similar vibes. The response :' FS is a subjective sport, it is what it is.' In other words, - just suck it up and swallow it, dont complain. No plans on how to improve. From an athlete representative, who is supposed to advocate for the athletes.
What kind of cop out unprofessional answer is that? <facepalm> To put it in perspective, if I were to give such a statement to customers, I will get an earful from my boss the next day. If it were my subordinate making such a statement, he/she will be relegated to the back room until they learn how to address issues professionally.
FS is the first and only sport I know of that the athlete rep/retired athlete/ top athlete giving such an answer. These are basic public relations stuff.
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- Jan 25, 2013
Very this. I know some people come to competitions solely to watch their favourite skater. That's of course their prerogative, although it's a bit annoying to those who want to buy a ticket to see the entire field. In Sochi many came just to watch Plushenko and when he withdrew they filed out (thankfully, peacefully AFAIK). But they were only there for him, and not for the sport.
But here's the thing -- if your happiness is derived by seeing your idol perform that's awesome -- come to every competition they're at! If your happiness is derived from watching them get/maintain a scoring record or personal best, then you will be disappointed a lot of the time. If your fave withdraws, and you were only there to see them, maybe show some consideration for the other skaters who worked hard to be there and compete. But if your happiness is derived from watching them win, then maybe avoid events like the GPF or Worlds or Olympics altogether, where they are at greater risk of losing.
I mean, the salty lack of applause for rivals is just :sarcasm:-worthy; the straight up sobbing is just
-worthy, and the vandalizing/signs is just :disapp:-worthy. I get that people are emotionally invested in their faves, and are upset when it is not what they came to see... but it's a competition (and not the end of the world if your fave loses or doesn't get the perfect scores that you yearn for them to have). The skaters are (for the most part) dignified in victory or defeat... it would be nice to see these particular fans show more dignity themselves.- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
Fans can complain all they want, but given that the vast amount of advocacy for "better" judging tends to be focused on benefiting one favourite skater and diminishing their rivals, this will obviously fall on deaf ears as merely fanaticism/sour grapes. Not saying the ISU is without fault or could be better, but it's not that they're not so much apathetic about making changes to the sport as they are apathetic to complaints made by fans who just want their faves scored higher and their rivals scored lower.
Fan analysis videos and blog posts are interesting, but they are almost invariably biased. There is almost zero balance. LOL, for some blog posts or YouTube videos the handle usually is something like ILoveSkaterX or they have an avatar/signature glorifying Skater X -- so how can you expect any sort of analysis on that blog involving Skater X to be unbiased?
Exactly.
If you're really in favor of fair judging and tech calling, then learn all the rules, pay attention to the whole field including all elite and many levels of non-elite skaters, get involved with the sport as a volunteer in whatever capacity you are or can become qualified for, make proposals and offer practicable solutions that can improve the officiating for all skaters.
If what you really want is to see your favorite earn the highest scores possible and pay little attention to other skaters, aside from keeping track of your favorite's closest competitors, then you're not really interested in fair scoring at all.
If you're really in favor of fair judging and tech calling, then learn all the rules, pay attention to the whole field including all elite and many levels of non-elite skaters, get involved with the sport as a volunteer in whatever capacity you are or can become qualified for, make proposals and offer practicable solutions that can improve the officiating for all skaters.
If what you really want is to see your favorite earn the highest scores possible and pay little attention to other skaters, aside from keeping track of your favorite's closest competitors, then you're not really interested in fair scoring at all.
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Bienvenue à Goldenskate, DizzyFrenchie, thank you for your first posts.
This was the correct part of the Forum to post; the Fan Fests are “safe places” for posters to celebrate their favorite skater without criticism or comparison to others. And your English is excellent; please do not apologize.
Post long and post often!
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- Feb 10, 2014
Yes, I’ve seen some of what’s being said on social media. I still find the rhetoric in the two posts I responded to - and the subtext - problematic. Those statements were made by specific individuals, not by “Hanyu Fans United.” It’s possible to strongly condemn specific people who deface property or make death threats - and report them to authorities, if warranted - without resorting to inflammatory language and without generalizing. Basically, “calling a spade a spade” doesn’t require name calling. Nor is it necessary to imply that if bad actors are members of a group, all members of that group are somehow complicit and responsible for the actions of those bad actors.
With specific regard to complaints of unfair judging, this is quite frankly not new, and it’s not confined to Hanyu fans. In this same forum, there’s a “judging and tech calls” thread. There have been threads about judging bias. Skating Scores publishes enhanced protocols showing how judges from different counties rank skaters in GOE and PCS. In this thread alone, people have complained that Kevin Aymoz and Satoko and skaters from small feds aren’t fairly judged. In the Russian ladies thread there have been many complaints of underscoring, even when their skaters are winning. The Russian Fed recently filed an official complaint. Last year, Tom Z complained about inconsistent tech calls. Whether you agree or not, it’s both divisive and inaccurate to reduce the “unfair judging” debate to a temper tantrum by Hanyu fans.
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- Apr 4, 2016
I didn't deny fans were allowed avenues to make complaints, but when fan complaints are only taking place in response to a rival skater outscoring their favorite the optics will never look good. The ISU has no reason to respond to fans of skater x being mad that skater y outscored skater x at an event where skater y was the clear winner.
The ISU in my recollection has only changed results when proven cheating was discovered, like the judge collusion which came out at the 2002 olympics. Disgruntled fangirls and fanboys aren't going to move the ISU when the results of the competition they're complaining about are clearly fair. They're well aware the judging system isn't perfect, it's got an element of subjectivity to it that is impossible to remove. Humans are going to subjectively view the objective criteria, and fans are also effected by subjective bias.
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- Jan 27, 2014
I think this a limited view of the situation. The GPF display was a disgusting display of toxic fandom, and clearly tied to a competition result in this case. But I don’t think the same thing would have happened even two or three years ago over the exact same result. The discontent of the fans (not just Hanyu fans) with the ISU has been growing, and encompassing more and more than just competition results. Especially the trend of the past few years has been different and more intense than it was in the past. Meanwhile the response of the ISU has been to do little but be openly dismissive of basically any and all concerns and further entrench itself in response, often hiding behind this same sort of rhetoric, while tolerating openly arrogant and belittling comments from officials on and “off” record. Their actions have directly led to a growing number of fans to basically see them as openly antagonistic, hostile, and proudly corrupt, and ’bad sentiments’ have skyrocketed as a result. Toxicity feeds toxicity.
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- Apr 4, 2016
I just don't see it the same way. I've been a figure skating fan since 2001 and it seems to me that the people who have caught onto the sport in the past 5 years think the ISU owes them response. The ISU doesn't seem toxic to me because the politicking has always been part of the game. We would love to think that things can be 100% objective and fair put judged sports will never be as objective as two people running towards a finish line. Maybe I'm a jaded figure skating fan but I don't find my enjoyment in this sport from the results of one or two skaters, I find it from watching a myriad of skaters pushing the sport forward. I don't understand approaching the sport as a fan of a few and I think the problem with toxic fans growing as they're approaching this sport for one or two skaters.
I wish the sporting fans could go back to enjoying what all skaters have to offer, and stop focusing on trying to make their fave some skating god by whom the benchmark of all good skating is derived but I fear that's not going to happen. I am worried that skating fandoms will continue to form around individual skaters and toxic people will naturally arise from this. I don't think that is the ISU's fault, I think that's just the nature of the world we live in because the rise of social media has led to the rise of collective fandom.
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- Jan 25, 2013
Agreed. I'm so interested to see if advocates for "fairer" scoring will remain as dedicated to this cause long after their current favourites have retired. Something tells me it's a short-term deal for many of them. :sarcasm:
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- Nov 12, 2013
I'd like to point out that official commentators, some of them retired skaters or coaches themselves, sometimes comment on judging they perceive as wrong/unfair too. I've heard it multiple times on my country's TV channels. I wonder if the tone of certain posters here would also be as jeering as it seems to be now, if they were speaking of people with actual skating background, not just nameless forum posting fans. Among those who call out 'unfair' judging that is. I am well aware there are folks who claim to have skating background here, though they seem to be among those happy with judging. With that, I am out of here.
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- Apr 4, 2016
Those people have actual credibility which is different than fans who aren't interested in skating beyond their fave complaining with very clear biased analysis and without thought to how unfair judging actually effects less known skaters than their faves.
The reality is no one denies there is some unfairness to judging and there are biases and politicking that come into play. But a majority of the time true talent is rewarded, and skaters who make mistakes are penalized and the skaters who go clean are rewarded while skaters who make mistakes are not rewarded. Skaters who deliver mediocre performances are deducted for that and skaters who skate lights out are rewarded. I have watched competitions before where it has felt like the judges wanted to crown x champion but then x fell so the judges penalized accordingly and x did not win. Competitions are not fixed, the judges may have their favorites but they will not give good scores to their favorites if their favorites fail to deliver.
When you come into figure skating you have to understand judged sports always have a level of subjectivity. What is a perfect 4Ltz may not be a perfect 4Ltz to someone else. Which spins you think are the best may not be the best to someone else. What programs you think are perfectly performed may fall flat for someone else. This is just a reality of the sport, our opinions as viewers to not dictate what is fair and unfair and what someone else feels while watching or evaluates while watching.
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- Dec 9, 2019
Thank you so much, El Henry, for your welcome.
I much agree with Cohen-esque, except on the fact ISU's toxicity, in my opinion, is not necessary for some to vandalize a venue or to launch death threats (I don't follow social media, I would say fortunately). Fair judgments would have the same result, and to tell the truth, I don't perceive so often really unfair judgment in skating championships.
I'm sorry, I will somehow digress from the thread topic, but as an argument.
Blatant unfair judgment can be of little consequence, for instance with Alysa Liu's positive GOE on quad lutz at Lake Placid, or even invented quad lutz at Gdansk : she saw the wrong judgment, she was neither utterly worried (nobody having been really wronged) nor spoiled (as clearly show her joy after the JGPF free program).
It is a bit more problematic (but then, it is not "favoritism", just that habit of giving good PCS if the technical content is high, contrary to the written rules) with Alexandra Trusova, because, though this season her first aim must be skating clean her program, later I very much hope she will improve on PCS, and how could she be motivated if she has only 2 or 3 points to win, and while the search of refinement must be boring to her, contrary to acquisition of new jumps?
But when it comes to Men GPF, we can see it is of really great consequences.
I was not that much worried, after the injustice of short program judgment, while he had skated "as he never had", a whole new level, even above his own, but a small fault; to see him do those quad axels at next practice "to calm his nerves".
But much more so, to learn this version of his free program — hence its level much lower than his usual, yet above other skaters' — had been so unprepared, even the arrival of Ghislain Briand could not soothe him.
And I heard, from what Nathan Chen said, that Yuzuru Hanyu's distress had not escaped HIM. Nathan Chen IS a great skater, he IS a good and sensitive person, and, though he could do nothing about it, he was outrageously favoured by the judges.
So, ISU's politics about Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu is positively destroying the two best skaters of this generation, one of them the GOAT. Not to speak of Kevin Aymoz, witness of all this, certainly less affected yet he may lose any confidence in skating competition, and I am expecting much of him, not only as a French.
It must be addressed immediately.
I much agree with Cohen-esque, except on the fact ISU's toxicity, in my opinion, is not necessary for some to vandalize a venue or to launch death threats (I don't follow social media, I would say fortunately). Fair judgments would have the same result, and to tell the truth, I don't perceive so often really unfair judgment in skating championships.
I'm sorry, I will somehow digress from the thread topic, but as an argument.
Blatant unfair judgment can be of little consequence, for instance with Alysa Liu's positive GOE on quad lutz at Lake Placid, or even invented quad lutz at Gdansk : she saw the wrong judgment, she was neither utterly worried (nobody having been really wronged) nor spoiled (as clearly show her joy after the JGPF free program).
It is a bit more problematic (but then, it is not "favoritism", just that habit of giving good PCS if the technical content is high, contrary to the written rules) with Alexandra Trusova, because, though this season her first aim must be skating clean her program, later I very much hope she will improve on PCS, and how could she be motivated if she has only 2 or 3 points to win, and while the search of refinement must be boring to her, contrary to acquisition of new jumps?
But when it comes to Men GPF, we can see it is of really great consequences.
I was not that much worried, after the injustice of short program judgment, while he had skated "as he never had", a whole new level, even above his own, but a small fault; to see him do those quad axels at next practice "to calm his nerves".
But much more so, to learn this version of his free program — hence its level much lower than his usual, yet above other skaters' — had been so unprepared, even the arrival of Ghislain Briand could not soothe him.
And I heard, from what Nathan Chen said, that Yuzuru Hanyu's distress had not escaped HIM. Nathan Chen IS a great skater, he IS a good and sensitive person, and, though he could do nothing about it, he was outrageously favoured by the judges.
So, ISU's politics about Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu is positively destroying the two best skaters of this generation, one of them the GOAT. Not to speak of Kevin Aymoz, witness of all this, certainly less affected yet he may lose any confidence in skating competition, and I am expecting much of him, not only as a French.
It must be addressed immediately.
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- Dec 9, 2019
May I add that hasty dismissal of others' arguments by assigning them ignorance or blindness to others skaters or worse, is no argument.
Sorry, I won't be able to continue the discussion until Thursday.
Sorry, I won't be able to continue the discussion until Thursday.
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- Jan 27, 2014
You missed my point, which was that there is a large and growing number of skating fans who have problems with the ISU that have absolutely nothing to with the results of their individual favorites, and the ISU often actively refuses to address these things or else does so badly that they only make things worse. The entire ISU Awards and especially the Shulepov fiasco would be the most recent example from these other areas, for example. We hear ISU officials and high-ranking leaders of ISU Members make negative statements about other Members, even individual skaters and coaches, and they’re rewarded with judging appointments and committee seats. Et cetera. There are many, many, many things the ISU has done and said in recent years that have resulted in the build up of a huge amount of ill will towards them, which have nothing to do with wuzrobbing (but they do increase the sentiment that the ISU is corrupt and lacks legitimacy, and by extension, decreases faith in the results of their competitions).
I think these things should be addressed, personally. And I don’t think the ISU can afford to just dismiss new fans, or ignore the opportunity to turn 'fans of skaters' into 'fans of skating.' But if the ISU doesn’t think so, if they think that these complaints aren't worth responding to—then they shouldn’t respond. Instead, they do give responses (or they sit by and allow their highest officials to make statements with varying levels of ‘official’ credibility) which range from the hopelessly tone-deaf to the thoroughly nasty— shifting blame, making implications, attacking motives, refusing responsibility—and then hiding behind transparently insincere non-apologies and implications about whining fans and wuzrobbings, while rarely offering anything of substance. There are just so many reasons that some fans are angry with the ISU.
Now, this specific incident was obviously tied to an individual skater’s fandom, true. There's a large, vocal contingent of Hanyu fans who firmly believe he should be held up as the paragon of pure skating, interpretation, and technique. But I mean to be responding to your statement about fan complaints and the ISU’s response. I think there's much more to fans' complaints than you're making out.
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Yes. Yes I am really surprised. I would never dream anyone could do something like this.
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