- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
Girls are not growing taller when they are 18. They might be filling out more overall but not in height. And no normal girl is pre-pubescent at age 18. I personally don't think they should change the age to 18. What I do think is that more weight needs to be given to artistry, which would give some advantages to more mature skaters. Right now, the balance is too skewed towards tech. Even PCS is around 50% based on tech, when one considers the weight given to things like transitions and one-foot skating. Those are not inherently artistic moves (though they can be). But the fact is, nothing is going to change in this Olympic cycle, so the advantage goes to the young jumpers, whether or not it is a winning strategy for the long term.
Sure. I mean I myself had a bit of an "additional growth spurt" at around 18, but I also didn't have much of a growth spurt before that, it was quite steady. On the other hand, I know girls who had their growth spurts very young ~12 and haven't grown in height since they were 15. But I'd also like to point out that puberty is not just growing vertically, filling out and developing curves is also part of the pubescent arguments, which seems to the be the basis for those arguing for increasing the age limits. The whole "woman's body skating vs girls debate". And of course there are girls that don't grow or fill out much at all during puberty, but they still have gone through puberty and are no longer children.
I think that more weight should be given to artistry, but artistry is subjective and there is never going to be an overwhelming consensus to the point where we can say with certainty that one skater is more artistic than another, translating into deserving a higher score. Just look at the current quadsters in juniors, Kamila and Alysa. There have been many arguments on preferring one's artistry to another, disliking both, or bringing in that older skaters are more artistic. There are also those who think that they are quadsters and therefore only jumping beans, and those who think that they are amazing artists with the addition of quads and 3As. That's why it's difficult and more debatable to win with an artistic advantage, as that's subjective. Where as we can see clearly that a quad is more difficult than a triple, the differences in qualities of jumps, spins, and skating skills. This is something that appears with many professionals' opinions as well, whenever art is involved. Experts looks at different dancers and artists and some love their work while others hate it, all being more than qualified to critique their works. How do we measure artistry and assign values and points to them objectively in figure skating?