'Radical change' could be on the way

TontoK · Sep 12, 2017

NaVi said:
Figure skating has a glamour problem... and it's the biggest issue that needs tackled.

No. Figure skating has a marketing problem, borne out of an incredibly timid mindset.

Try this:

The Olympics will feature an international stable of daring young men attempting the most difficult jumps ever attempted! It's going to be a war!

vs.

The ISU is enforcing changes that inhibit the technical advancement of the sport, in order to promote skaters with pretty spins.

Which is going to put butts in seats?

Of course, I don't advocate for unattractive and uninteresting programs with no content other than jumps. But the cat is out of the bag on the quads. The ISU needs to quit fighting it and start promoting it.

NaVi · Sep 12, 2017

TontoK said:
The Olympics will feature an international stable of daring young men attempting the most difficult jumps ever attempted! It's going to be a war!

vs.

The ISU is enforcing changes that inhibit the technical advancement of the sport, in order to promote skaters with pretty spins.

I don't disagree with your sentiment here... I'm completely opposed to the rule changes proposed when it comes to BV... and if I were in charge of television programming I'd highly emphasize the men event as the event to watch.

sheetz · Sep 12, 2017

TontoK said:
Try this:

The Olympics will feature an international stable of daring young men attempting the most difficult jumps ever attempted! It's going to be a war!

This is exactly how Japanese media promoted this year's Worlds.
https://youtu.be/jwhvj3M4H44?t=29s

el henry · Sep 12, 2017

bestolen said:
Ok, now we all know you are a old school person that can't accept figure skating is no longer like it was when you were young.

Huh, did you really *completely* miss Noskates' point? Because if you didn't get it, I would be happy (truly) to explain it to you. She is absolutely right, it has always been a sport. Even when male skaters deliberately did single axels, it was a sport:agree:.

But if ithe sentiment is, well, that's not what we modern, up to date, current figure skating fans think, well, that's just so much horse hooey. :rolleye:

good try, though...

plushyfan · Sep 12, 2017

chapis said:
But I agree that this could hurt the marketing of the sport, because people only understand about jumps, they do not appreciate anything else, that's why ice dance is not popular. Even among fans, most of people are always focused about jumps. People thinks that step sequeces are boring because they think that there is no way this could be aesthetically pleasing, but the reality is that they don´t accept that her/his favorite skater is mediocre with step sequences. There is a reason why step seq of ice dancers look so different from singles.

When did you become fs fan? The ice dance was quite popular before the IJS. In 90's was the golden age! There weren't twizzlies, lifts, etc then. And the people adore it! There were real dance with different moves, different programs, emotions.

el henry · Sep 12, 2017

TontoK said:
No. Figure skating has a marketing problem, borne out of an incredibly timid mindset.

Try this:

The Olympics will feature an international stable of daring young men attempting the most difficult jumps ever attempted! It's going to be a war!

vs.

The ISU is enforcing changes that inhibit the technical advancement of the sport, in order to promote skaters with pretty spins.

Which is going to put butts in seats?

Of course, I don't advocate for unattractive and uninteresting programs with no content other than jumps. But the cat is out of the bag on the quads. The ISU needs to quit fighting it and start promoting it.

Tonto, my friend, you knew I was going to show up.

Daring young men at war will put *your* butt in the seat. And that's great, truly.:agree:

But it won't put *my* butt in the seat. :biggrin:

So I don't know if the issue is timidity, but how do we know which is more popular? We truly do not. If someone were to show me real live research, with real live statistics and real live marketing and all that good stuff, that showed that mo' bettah jumps did it, maybe I'd believe it. But so far it's my opinion, and your opinion, and everyone else's opinion.....

Of course, Andrew T. would put *both* our butts in the seat :laugh:

Tulipstar · Sep 12, 2017

In my view, jumps are very important to casual viewers. They are what they see as athletic and difficult.

As a kid, well before I became a fan, I liked figure skating and was mightily impressed by triples. Turning twice was already cool, but three times? Just wow! :eek:

Can you imagine what quads would have done to me?

The jumps are also what most people look at when I show them a program. They get that a quad is harder than a double, even if they don't get the difference between a loop and a lutz yet.

What I think most people (that I know, at least) feel prejudiced about, is programs with classical music, where skaters 'just dance along with boring music'. Interest heightens immediately when modern music is used, that is not considered stuffy or pretentious.

Blades of Passion · Sep 12, 2017

In theory, there is nothing wrong with scaling down the value of all the jumps. Quads wouldn't be "worth less" in comparison to other jumps if all jumps are inherently worth less. It's possible they could actually be worth more in comparison. The reduction would just serve to balance out with the PCS more and make spins/footwork a little more weighty in comparison to jumps. All that matters in the end is if things are being given roughly appropriate value in comparison to each other. The actual number being used is relative.

Grin said:
Plushenko on quads BV: nonsense
https://m.sports.ru/figure-skating/1055578755.html

Why do you keep linking Russian comments without a translation? Most people here don't read Russian. Anyway, it's no surprise that Plushenko would have a knee-jerk reaction without thinking about further details.

gravy · Sep 12, 2017

Interspectator said:
I'm ok with the decrease of BV for quads, since so many can do them, they can be classed as 'less difficult' elements than they were before, like they do every few years in gymnastics. It hasn't hurt the rush towards new and harder elements in gymnastics so I think it will also work in figure skating.

I think this is a false equivalency. Vault values were lowered this year to counterbalance the elimination of the 0.5 point composition requirement you got for a D+ dismount. While the maximum score you can get now is lower than in the past quad, the difficult skills weren't really downgraded because all start values across each apparatus were also lowered. All elements were scaled back and the proportion between them was kept the same--kind of like what BoP is proposing above in figure skating--lower jump element values but keep the differentiation between them. TES as a whole will be lower, but better matched to PCS.

As a side-note, I don't like that the 3Lo is projected to have even less of a difference between it and a 3T. We can say goodbye to -3Lo combinations in the future.

Celine · Sep 12, 2017

Will this thinking become known as the #NathanChen rule? Remembering the #Zayakrule

noskates · Sep 12, 2017

Old person here! :rolleye:

Just to clarify.....I'm not saying the sport shouldn't evolve and I have seen much change in the many years I've been watching figure skating. What I AM saying is that one part of the sport should not be the focus. It should be balanced. Just jumping quads should not mean medals. Just having a beautiful program without quads should not mean medals anymore. A gold medal should be given to the person with a beautiful program AND some number of CLEAN QUADS. They should stop giving points because a skater rotates but lands on two feet or their butt! Believe me, that would eliminate the multiple quads by skaters who can't land them. That would possibly make a skater focus on cleanly landing a couple of quads instead of mucking up 4 or 5 just to get rotation points. And don't try to tell me that isn't happening.

By the way, I looked to see who agree with whathisname who thinks I'm too old to have an opinion and mistakenly gave him/her a thumbs up. Believe me...............that was purely unintentional. I think it's unacceptable that one poster cannot accept another posters opinion and has to throw shade at them in the process. Grow up!!!!!!!!!!!

Manitou · Sep 12, 2017

Still one idea is missing: Removing three skaters per country limitation, making the skaters earn their participation in the competitions, rather than being dependent on federations. Create a point system through the season preceding the World Championships, which would become the Grand Slam of the season for the top group in each discipline. And if that top group is exclusively, or dominantly, one country then so be it!
Removing the three per country limitations would open the door to an even more radical and fantastic change: multinational dance or pair teams. I would love that!

andromache · Sep 12, 2017

Manitou said:
Still one idea is missing: Removing three skaters per country limitation, making the skaters earn their participation in the competitions, rather than being dependent on federations. Create a point system through the season preceding the World Championships, which would become the Grand Slam of the season for the top group in each discipline. And if that top group is exclusively, or dominantly, one country then so be it!
Removing the three per country limitations would open the door to an even more radical and fantastic change: multinational dance or pair teams. I would love that!

It's almost like you're describing another series of figure skating competitions that we already have......

Manitou · Sep 12, 2017

andromache said:
It's almost like you're describing another series of figure skating competitions that we already have......

Rather replacing or adjusting the existing one.
It's a technicality how that would be done...

andromache · Sep 12, 2017

Manitou said:
Rather replacing or adjusting the existing one.
It's a technicality how that would be done...

On the contrary, I think that the Grand Prix series and final fulfills what you're looking for without any changes needed.

TontoK · Sep 12, 2017

el henry said:
Of course, Andrew T. would put *both* our butts in the seat

Hey, El!

This sort of makes my point. When (not if) Andrew rises to his potential, he will be great in BOTH technical merit and artistry. Which is what we all should hope for.

Not particularly relevant to your post, but if jumping elements are so inconsequential to a TRULY beautiful program, then why do we assume that it's just quads that are the problem?

I mean, someone out there is probably the most beautiful "pure" skater in the world, but can't land anything above a 2A. Why should't that man be Olympic champion without a triple of any sort?

The answer, whether the Champions of Artistry will admit it or not, is that we expect some minimum level of technical expertise in our champions. So the argument is really about what that level should be. I say the sky's the limit.

Skater Boy · Sep 12, 2017

CanadianSkaterGuy said:
A throw quad salchow being 1 point more than a throw triple flip/lutz? Pair throws should be worth MORE and yet, they're scaling them down?!

I think the focus on artistry is admirable, but I don't think the guys will all of a sudden stop doing quads, because they're still worth considerably more than triples.

I think the idea of a technical medal and an artistic medal and an overall medal are a bit suspect... especially the artistic medal which could be easily politicked because it's purely subjective.

IN respect to pairs I am not sure it is fair to reduce the score for throws considering the lifts are worth so much and there are more of them.

Manitou · Sep 12, 2017

andromache said:
On the contrary, I think that the Grand Prix series and final fulfills what you're looking for without any changes needed.

It tries.
The order, weight and number of the competitions is wrong. All competitions, including regional, should have their rankings where skaters would earn points. Some competitions would offer fewer or more points than others, and the total sum would count.
Then the GP final at the end of the season should become the actual Worlds. The Grand Slam of FS. Money, fame and reputation...

TontoK · Sep 12, 2017

noskates said:
Old person here!

Just to clarify.....I'm not saying the sport shouldn't evolve and I have seen much change in the many years I've been watching figure skating. What I AM saying is that one part of the sport should not be the focus. It should be balanced. Just jumping quads should not mean medals. Just having a beautiful program without quads should not mean medals anymore. A gold medal should be given to the person with a beautiful program AND some number of CLEAN QUADS. They should stop giving points because a skater rotates but lands on two feet or their butt! Believe me, that would eliminate the multiple quads by skaters who can't land them. That would possibly make a skater focus on cleanly landing a couple of quads instead of mucking up 4 or 5 just to get rotation points. And don't try to tell me that isn't happening.

By the way, I looked to see who agree with whathisname who thinks I'm too old to have an opinion and mistakenly gave him/her a thumbs up. Believe me...............that was purely unintentional. I think it's unacceptable that one poster cannot accept another posters opinion and has to throw shade at them in the process. Grow up!!!!!!!!!!!

Goodness, I'm an old person, too. I hope I'm not "whathisname" because I agree with what you've written.

Sure, I'm a huge fan of increasing jump content. I think it's exciting and good for the sport.

But I also think these are (or should be) risk/reward elements. Do them well, and get rewarded. Do them poorly, and get hammered. Otherwise, there's no point.

For example, I don't think any jump that ends in a fall should receive any points at all, and the fall should still be penalized. After all, part of a jump is the landing. If it's not landed, then it shouldn't count as a jump.

I also don't believe in edge calls. If the jump is off an inside edge, then it is a flip. It is NOT a lutz (e). A lutz does not start from an inside edge. If that means that a skater suffers penalties from repeated jumps, then so be it. That skater needs to fix his/her technique.

And I definitely believe in stricter enforcement of rotation, perhaps even stricter penalty for shortcomings.

Just because I admire great jumps, that doesn't mean those jumps shouldn't be properly executed.

Skater Boy · Sep 12, 2017

CanadianSkaterGuy said:
A throw quad salchow being 1 point more than a throw triple flip/lutz? Pair throws should be worth MORE and yet, they're scaling them down?!

I think the focus on artistry is admirable, but I don't think the guys will all of a sudden stop doing quads, because they're still worth considerably more than triples.

I think the idea of a technical medal and an artistic medal and an overall medal are a bit suspect... especially the artistic medal which could be easily politicked because it's purely subjective.

IN respect to pairs I am not sure it is fair to reduce the score for throws considering the lifts are worth so much and there are more of them. Throws are not worth that much compared to individual jumps.

I am more curious about the men. The young guns have the ammunition but there have been some hints - injuries. They are lucky their bodies tend to get stronger unlike the ladies who have more issues with curves and such. I suspect in the next two years we will start seeing the effects of the push for quads on the body. Who would ever think Kevin Reynolds, Chan, Ten would be almost not given a second thought because they don't have enough quads. It wasn't all that long ago we had a quadless Oly champ with Evan who really did not have the flair of a Lambiel, Buttle, Chan, Weir or Takahashi. They call this progress. I personally am not so sure.

'Radical change' could be on the way

TontoK

Hot Tonto

NaVi

sheetz

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.

plushyfan

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.

Tulipstar

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be

gravy

¿No ven quién soy yo?

Celine

noskates

Manitou

andromache

Manitou

andromache

TontoK

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Skater Boy

Manitou

TontoK

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