Proposals to ISU Congress 2018-2019 Season

Ziotic said:

Backloading should only be on the back half of the jumps, because your jumping legs won’t be tired in the last two minutes if you didn’t do any jumping in the first two.

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Hmm...I’ve certainly wondered about this. I’ve always thought a Level 3 or 4 StSeq to be more tiring than doing jumps. Less risky in terms of a fall but awful exhausting considering the amount of one footed skating most skaters include. Honestly I find it refreshing that skaters are beginning their programs with them now. Some spins can certainly take out a lot of energy too. And I wouldn’t count them as any less stressful than a solo jump. Actually I find starting your program with your big pass (quad, 3-3, or 3a) to be kind of meh. I mean it’s been going on for years that people get their jumps out of the way right away. Why no one ever complained about it affecting PCS like they do backloading is a real head scratcher for me. I’ve never really cared much about backloaded programs although my favorite programs last season weren’t .

I have even suggested though that only combinations get the bonus and let them do as many as they like in the second half. That would be difficult. Actually I just wish the last two or three elements get the bonus. That could shake things up if non jumps are eligible too.

Honestly, that proposal is just laughable and I'm sure than everyone, regardless of their position on the matter, can see it. We want to see "idols"? What is this, Korean pop music? Senior skaters are "afraid they cannot compete" with the younger skaters? Even when I'm trying to argue against the minimum age increase, I don't stoop so low as to suggest that; to do so is kind of insulting to everyone involved.

The worst is the claim that "we currently have the youngest senior age requirement by far of all Winter sports". Did a quick Google search and found that, oh hey, you only have to be 15 to do bobsleigh! And cross-country skiing! And freestyle skiing! And luge, and nordic combined, and short track speed skating, and ski jumping, and snowboarding... and you only have to be 14 to compete in skeleton. I cannot believe something so poorly researched is given as evidence in support of this proposal. I'm totally against the age increase, but I'm pretty sure I could write a better proposal than that. :/

karne said:

The "idols" reason wasn't the most issue I had with this, though it's a pretty dumb reason in itself. The reason that I took the most issue with was the "reason" that older women were "afraid" of competing against the younger girls. That is an absolute GARBAGE reason and makes a mockery and a laughingstock of our SPORT. This is a SPORT!



This is not all the ISU's fault, though. Obviously, for many of Nathan's young American fans, the most obvious places to see him would be Skate America and US Nationals. But the all-event tickets for US Nationals have just come out and what's this? The cheapest tickets are $475, because they won't open up the "cheap seats" at the top. $475. For US Nationals. In a non-Olympic year. The USFS has to be joking, but sadly, they're not.

(Worst, is that I'll probably still pay it, because practice passes generally only come with all-event tickets.)

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What is making me most uncomfortable reading the proposals is the number that are directly targeted at Alina - and none of this "oh no, it's not targeted at all" crap, we know it is, Alina was literally the only Senior lady doing fully-backloaded programs this season and what's this, suddenly there are proposals - from Canada and Japan but of course they just "mean well" :sarcasm: - to ban full backloading; Alina was the Olympic champion at 15 and suddenly there is an "URGENT!" proposal to raise the Senior age to 17.

I'm sorry, but this feels like a bunch of adults in organisations bullying a teenager because she happened to be the best, and it's not acceptable.

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Thank you for saying words that i was thinking, but din't have the guts to say. Did ISU sign a contract with sponsor before the games, with a different champion name in it, and Alina dared to break the deal that was already sealed!
Few more words about proposal..
Does Netherlands have hard data to prove based on data collected by market reaserch and analyzed using tools and methodes intended for sport industry:
1. numbers of figure skating fans and audience are dropping.
2. 15 year old Alina Zagitova is the reason for dropping numbers. I dont recall other 15 year olds on a pidium in the past 3-4 years.
If research was not conducted by professional market research consultant, what qualifications Jeroen Prins has that would alliow him to propose this change. I understand he is working in e-billing industry and is technical isu controller, and eurosport commentator.
I think that if there will be no supporting data presented, isu needs to work with consultants to collect data and analyze it, before this issue can be discussed.

Ziotic said:

Men should be able to wear tights if they like.

Raising the age seems arbitrary, it shouldn’t matter either way. If someone is the best at 15 why wouldnt they be even better at 17?? Artistry doesn’t come from age, it comes from life experience and practice.

Backloading should only be on the back half of the jumps, because your jumping legs won’t be tired in the last two minutes if you didn’t do any jumping in the first two.

Not allowing repeat quads seems silly, simple zayak rules should continue to apply.

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You dont understand why backloading is difficult. Its not about the tired legs, its about the risk. The later in the program you jump, the less time you have to repeate it in case of a fall. In Alina's case when all jumps have less then 10 sec between them, the risk is that first mistake will create a domino efffect. Anyone can do it, but no one wants to the the risk.

sweetice said:

Oh please, Caro doesn't even care that much anymore about the results ( she has say that a lot this season, with bigger smiles than ever ).

The quad development, and girls quick replacement that can results, can potentially damage way more other competitive skaters now just past 18, that may think of retire instead of try to work for earn a pass for the next Olympics.

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Carolina survived tough competition? I admire her a lot. So why Carolina proves with her entire career, that 15 year olds are not an issue for talented older skater, but isu is telling us we need protect some female skaters that are afraid? Maybe scared ladies need to grow something that is never being discussed when we talk about junior men vs senior men, and remember that they are athletes and not idols.

InnaR said:

You dont understand why backloading is difficult. Its not about the tired legs, its about the risk. The later in the program you jump, the less time you have to repeate it in case of a fall. In Alina's case when all jumps have less then 10 sec between them, the risk is that first mistake will create a domino efffect. Anyone can do it, but no one wants to the the risk.

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it's also about tired legs. i wonder if any of those people that are saying that zagitova is not tired in the second half, because she is not jumping in the first, have they ever tried to do so? do they ever attempted to jump even a double?
i think dave from TSL came up first with such eye opening idea. at least he was the first from whom i heard this nonsense. so does anybody knows what is his actual skating background? i think i heard from him also a story where he was skating in juniors and jumping doubles or something. but i'm not sure, maybe it was some other skating podcast and a different guy

InnaR said:

... but isu is telling us we need protect some female skaters that are afraid?

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As Fernando Santos (current Portuguese national football team coach) once said. "If you are afraid buy a dog".

YoenNL said:

Well you can make fun of it, name it "idols", name it "heroes" but here's a thing. On Twitter and in forums like this one, we are pretty knowledgeable about the sport, but there is also the "outside perspective". As a Eurosport commentator I often talk to my colleagues about figure skating and how they see the sport. Even they are not average viewers, as they have a sports background and more or less a trained eye to watch sports in general (albeit not ours but their own sport). So they asked me many times "how can you see this is a quad or a triple?", "why is it so interesting?", "I see this guy fall two times, how can the scores be so high?". Then this winter I saw even 'macho' type commentators with tears in their eyes when they watched Carolina, or Aliona and Bruno - no quads needed.

Is sport entertainment? Yes, to some extent. For sure we have to embrace 'citius, altius, fortius' too. I have nothing against quads. I love skating. I have huge respect for the coaching structure in the top-countries and for all athletes pushing the boundaries. But we have to think about the outside perspective, about increasing the fan base, getting stadiums full, being back as the sport that everyone talks about, and in a positive way. If we continue like this we will have a continuous sweep of 15-16yo on the Senior podiums because I can not realistically see 20+ yo women doing quads and no one apart from the die-hard fan and incrowd will be interested in our sport much longer.

So in the end it will be a philosophical discussion on 'how we see our sport" when it comes to discussing the age limit. Regardless of the outcome, it is good that this discussion is taking place NOW. As we are seeing a technical development like never before and we have to seriously think of how we define the sport. And that is why I pushed for so many proposals that have merit in their own right, but can be seen as a package showing a vision, combined with some proposals of others too.

Sorry, there are so many messages everywhere that I can pick up only on few of them. At the same time I am working on the scenarios. It is quite interesting!

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Whenever I watch figure skating I always notice that the times when you really get crowd interaction are when you get things like a great scratch spin at the end of a routine, a fabulous spiral from a lady, great spreadeagles/hydroblades from the likes of Shoma, Yazuru and Wakaba, also Russian splits from the likes of Jason Brown. Is there any way you can do something to encourage them? - I would suggest a longer choreo sequence worth more points might be a good starting point.

Re quads, hasn't the quad race in men's really been the talking point this last few years. I'm not American but wasn't all the fuss at this year’s Olympics about Nathan Chen and his multi-quads? I'm quite surprised what your colleagues have to say about not seeing/understanding the difference between quads and triples, but have to accept what they say - bit baffled at this point, but would say that ‘pushing’ quads and their difficulty/spectacularity has to be the way forward – look at all the other, often new, Olympic winter sports that are pushing this sort of thing, plus their popularity with more casual fans e.g. Big Air, Slopestyle, Ski-Cross, that sort of thing.

Not saying that figure skating has to copy them slavishly, but that’s the way the modern world is going, more and more instant gratification. Hence I would have thought it would be a good idea in general terms to try to incorporate more of the things I mentioned above, and not discourage quads which I think one or two of the ideas being put forward, such as not allowing quads to be repeated, will do.

Also at this point you have the trade off between clean programs and falls and it’s a difficult one, you want the spectacle, but also the clean programs. Personally I would have said the +/- 5 GOE proposal is a very good way of at least starting to get there. Fabulous jumps will get the same points, and theoretically even more, while falls with their -5 GOEs will be more harshly penalised, looks like 3 or 4 points by the looks of it for some of the quads, so definitely a thumbs up on this one.

Re ladies, well at this point what do you want from ‘ladies’ figure skating. Do you want the beauty of Carolina’s skating (minus some of the horrible jumping mistakes), or the beautiful ‘clean athleticism’ of Alina, and what about quads and the inevitable far more falls and mistakes that you will get if ladies/women start going for these and 3As. Answers on a postcard please. Personally I would have said anything that encourages ‘beautiful skating’, but rewards athleticism as well, and penalises mistakes. I would have said yet again that +/- 5 GOE is a very good starting point, but maybe far more PCS penalties e.g. for Carolina’s mistakes, would be a good starting point – when you’ve got a veteran Eurosport commentator like Simon Reed, saying of Carolina’s marks at the Olympics ‘oh, come on!’, and it wasn’t even her worst technical skate by a long way, then you’ve got a bit of a problem.

gkelly said:

They're going to jump better than older skaters with hips, etc., assuming the technique is comparable.

But older, curvier, more experienced skaters are more likely to skate better (and also present better).

So which should the sport of figure skating reward more -- skating or jumping?

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considering the amount of biase on judges with jumps, and given the fact that they are the ones who gave the scores. I would say jumps

Regarding the popularity of the sport, I do appreciate the efforts of the ISU in the past quad to stream the JGP and Challenger Series. However, I am peeved that for the past two WC especially, that certain networks are overstepping their boundaries and getting videos from other network broadcasts taken down on Youtube and Dailymotion. I am lucky enough to access streaming and archives through CBC and also through the videos posted by fellow GS'ers on alternative streaming sites. However, not all fans have the same luxury or knowledge to access alternative means. If these fans can't access live streaming or videos on the common platforms, how can they further develop their interest in the sport?

Also, the uploaders on the streaming sites do great work in sharing the competition videos, often within minutes after a program is performed. However, they are being punished for their efforts by getting their videos taken down and their accounts blocked, sometimes along with years of competition archives.

BillNeal said:

Regarding the popularity of the sport, I do appreciate the efforts of the ISU in the past quad to stream the JGP and Challenger Series. However, I am peeved that for the past two WC especially, that certain networks are overstepping their boundaries and getting videos from other network broadcasts taken down on Youtube and Dailymotion. I am lucky enough to access streaming and archives through CBC and also through the videos posted by fellow GS'ers on alternative streaming sites. However, not all fans have the same luxury or knowledge to access alternative means. If these fans can't access live streaming or videos on the common platforms, how can they further develop their interest in the sport?

Also, the uploaders on the streaming sites do great work in sharing the competition videos, often within minutes after a program is performed. However, they are being punished for their efforts by getting their videos taken down and their accounts blocked, sometimes along with years of competition archives.

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And if I recall correctly, we had quite a few cases of when a network would get videos taken down that were not even broadcast by this network, simply because they happened to broadcast it in their own country.

In light of the new scale of values being released a few days ago, what do you all now think of the proposal to refactor the PCS for men (1.2 in SP, 2.4 in LP)?

:disagree:

It will work if and only if the judges are finally unbiased. So it won't actually matter whether they do it or not.

Unfortunately, PCS is the greatest opportunity for a judge to be biased. So, hey, let's make it worth even more now! :sarcasm:

BillNeal said:

In light of the new scale of values being released a few days ago, what do you all now think of the proposal to refactor the PCS for men (1.2 in SP, 2.4 in LP)?

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Barf. Why not just tell every up and coming skater to hang up their skates, since top skaters will be saved for bad performances with PCS, and all the quads in the world won't help youngsters catch up until they pay their dues for the first couple seasons and only then start getting mid 8's, and only if they're from a popular skating country at that.

LMAO... the FS gets shorter and the factoring gets greater?! Please.

BillNeal said:

In light of the new scale of values being released a few days ago, what do you all now think of the proposal to refactor the PCS for men (1.2 in SP, 2.4 in LP)?

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I'd prefer to see the factoring for the SP stay as it is now, since there's been no change to the length of the program and the number/kind of elements, and the factoring for the FS to be reduced to 1.8 to reflect the loss of 30 seconds and one jumping pass. It's hard for me to understand why they should get even more points for doing less than they used to when the women aren't getting a factoring boost to reflect the current prevalence of (for example) 3-3 combinations even though their TES/PCS ratios are increasingly becoming unbalanced as a result of their presence too.

Livestream links for Congress are posted on Youtube. Info and documents posted here. Schedule on second page of the Agenda. Get your ready.

Harriet said:

I'd prefer to see the factoring for the SP stay as it is now, since there's been no change to the length of the program and the number/kind of elements, and the factoring for the FS to be reduced to 1.8 to reflect the loss of 30 seconds and one jumping pass. It's hard for me to understand why they should get even more points for doing less than they used to when the women aren't getting a factoring boost to reflect the current prevalence of (for example) 3-3 combinations even though their TES/PCS ratios are increasingly becoming unbalanced as a result of their presence too.

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I have what I’d consider fairly good information from one involved that they’ve thought about removing the SP from the proposal— I have no idea whether they gave it serious consideration or not or whether they actually did (or even whether you can even edit a proposal after it’s submitted to the ISU), just that they’d thought about it.

Edit: personally, I’d prefer to see it stay the same as well: the short program was the “technical program” originally, and I don’t really mind the TES having more weight.

cohen-esque said:

I have what I’d consider fairly good information from one involved that they’ve thought about removing the SP from the proposal— I have no idea whether they gave it serious consideration or not or whether they actually did (or even whether you can even edit a proposal after it’s submitted to the ISU), just that they’d thought about it.

Edit: personally, I’d prefer to see it stay the same as well: the short program was the “technical program” originally, and I don’t really mind the TES having more weight.

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Yes, TES having more weight in the SP, which is explicitly a skills test program, seems entirely appropriate to me. And I'd imagine that even if they can't edit the proposal once submitted, they can propose the suggestion on the floor. The agenda/rules say that the first speaker re each proposal should be from the group that proposed it, if I've understood them correctly.

But if the FS factoring is going to change to account for skill expansion in the general field of men's singles skating, it has to change to account for the same in women's skating too. And yes, there has been one, even if not as impactful as the quad explosion. Otherwise the change is just going to end up devaluing women's skating even more in comparison to men's, even if that's not what was intended. I already see too many references to 'the ladiezzzzzz' in skating as it is; we don't need any more excuses for people to turn up their noses at female athletes, and one group's potential top scores exploding due to factoring while the other group's remains comparatively static will provide just that.

Re: the Congress livestream: never mind popcorn, I'd need large amounts of block chocolate to survive that...

I'm probably going to miss it, but if anyone's up for more fear no more.

Livestream of ISU Congress is starting right here