Adding Team Event at Worlds

soogar · Nov 6, 2019

silverfoxes said:
I'd rather not, and I'd also get rid of the team event at the Olympics. WTT is fine every other year, but I do not like "serious" team events in skating because 1. it's extra stress on the skaters who have to skate twice now at one competition 2. it's highly unfair for smaller fed skaters who already have the odds stacked against them 3. it's become a way for underachievers to claim they have a medal for which they really didn't contribute anything, making it less prestigious in my mind 4. skating has always been an individual (or pairs') sport and if it ain't broke...don't fix it.

The team event provides incentive for federations to develop all aspects of skating and in the long run isn't necessarily going to be a "freebie" medal for Russia. We'll see what happens in China but wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese team makes a run for the podium.

I will also add that no one on any winning team is an "underachiever" and the best in the world can still shine in individual events.

I'd like to see teams with deep fields have different skaters for both the team and individual events.

surimi · Nov 6, 2019

soogar said:
It is a "standard" medal.

No it is not. In a standard competition, a skater needs to perform both the short and the free to win a medal, and a skater who performs only one program gets disqualified. An Olympic team event usually has one skater for the SP and another for the LP. Such a medal is definitely not of equal worth as the individual medal.
As people said, there's already synchronized skating for team medals.

ETA - opinions of us fans are very nice, but the key thing is what skaters themselves would think of the idea.

MGstyle · Nov 6, 2019

I was always against Team Events in the Olympics to begin with, let alone the idea of adding them to the Worlds. Figure skating is an individual sport. The concept is too forced, only to favour a few power nations. Plus it only increases the stress, fatigue and risk of injury to the top competitors. WTT is something like a fun side-show to provide added entertainment and that's fine, but team event shouldn't have a place in a serious competition - at least that's my view.

chuckm · Nov 6, 2019

And WTT is a month after Worlds and pays the skaters who participate big $$$. ISU certainly couldn't or wouldn't do the same, just would make exhausted skaters do more tricks for pennies.

el henry · Nov 6, 2019

Well, I guess I'm the outlier. What else is new :biggrin:

I do like the team event at the Olympics. I think it creates a different atmosphere, I think the skaters like it (particularly skaters who might not otherwise medal. Yes, it's not an individual medal. The fourth guy on the Jamaican relay team still has an Olympic medal even if he's not Usain Bolt).

Not so sure about Worlds, because I don't know how much a Worlds medal means to the skaters as opposed to the work put in. But I am always for watching more skaters skate:agree:

TontoK · Nov 6, 2019

surimi said:
No it is not. In a standard competition, a skater needs to perform both the short and the free to win a medal, and a skater who performs only one program gets disqualified. An Olympic team event usually has one skater for the SP and another for the LP. Such a medal is definitely not of equal worth as the individual medal.
As people said, there's already synchronized skating for team medals.

ETA - opinions of us fans are very nice, but the key thing is what skaters themselves would think of the idea.

But in swimming and track, which present relay medals, frequently teams mix and match who runs the preliminary rounds and who runs the final. Are the finalists less worthy of a medal because they did not run the preliminary rounds?

Or is it the other way around? The swimmers int he preliminary rounds, the ones who put in the effort to get the team to the final, are they the ones who don't deserve the medal?

What about in soccer or basketball? If you only play for one half the game, do they cut your medal in half?

TontoK · Nov 6, 2019

el henry said:
Well, I guess I'm the outlier. What else is new

I do like the team event at the Olympics. I think it creates a different atmosphere, I think the skaters like it (particularly skaters who might not otherwise medal. Yes, it's not an individual medal. The fourth guy on the Jamaican relay team still has an Olympic medal even if he's not Usain Bolt).

Not so sure about Worlds, because I don't know how much a Worlds medal means to the skaters as opposed to the work put in. But I am always for watching more skaters skate:agree:

The voice of wisdom!

I love the team competition at the Olympics, although I'm definitely not a fan of the goofy WTT.

TontoK · Nov 6, 2019

MGstyle said:
I was always against Team Events in the Olympics to begin with, let alone the idea of adding them to the Worlds. Figure skating is an individual sport. The concept is too forced, only to favour a few power nations. Plus it only increases the stress, fatigue and risk of injury to the top competitors. WTT is something like a fun side-show to provide added entertainment and that's fine, but team event shouldn't have a place in a serious competition - at least that's my view.

I think the Team Event is exciting, and I think in the long term it encourages federations with weaker disciplines to do more to shore them up.

Interestingly, the women from your home country recently won their first medal in decades in the Team Event in gymnastics, and judging by their reactions, I'd say they thought it was a big deal. Do you think those girls didn't deserve a medal? After all, they weren't all on the balance beam at the same time.

MGstyle · Nov 6, 2019

el henry said:
Well, I guess I'm the outlier. What else is new

I do like the team event at the Olympics. I think it creates a different atmosphere, I think the skaters like it (particularly skaters who might not otherwise medal. Yes, it's not an individual medal. The fourth guy on the Jamaican relay team still has an Olympic medal even if he's not Usain Bolt).

Not so sure about Worlds, because I don't know how much a Worlds medal means to the skaters as opposed to the work put in. But I am always for watching more skaters skate:agree:

LOL @el henry, that's a good point.
@TontoK I didn't say I am a fan of WTT, I just said it's better if they felt the need to do something of a team event, than bringing it into a serious competition. and I don't follow gymnastics, plus Italy is not exactly my home country, it's a country of my residence. And I just happened to be born where I was born, I never had a sense of so called nationalism, my stance was always countries don't really matter - maybe that's the reason I am not crazy about the concept of team competitions.

surimi · Nov 6, 2019

TontoK said:
But in swimming and track, which present relay medals, frequently teams mix and match who runs the preliminary rounds and who runs the final. Are the finalists less worthy of a medal because they did not run the preliminary rounds?

Or is it the other way around? The swimmers int he preliminary rounds, the ones who put in the effort to get the team to the final, are they the ones who don't deserve the medal?

What about in soccer or basketball? If you only play for one half the game, do they cut your medal in half?

Kindly don't twist my words, and I'll just ignore your irony. I said nothing about being worthy of a medal. I said a skating medal doesn't have the same value if you only contribute to the team effort, and if you skate both programs yourself, in a considerably more numerous field. For me. You may see it differently. And I view it the same way in other sports. A team medal is a team medal, an individual one is an individual one. I don't watch most other sports so I am blissfully ignorant of their types of competitions.

TontoK · Nov 6, 2019

MGstyle said:
LOL @el henry, that's a good point.
@TontoK I didn't say I am a fan of WTT, I just said it's better if they felt the need to do something of a team event, than bringing it into a serious competition. and I don't follow gymnastics, plus Italy is not exactly my home country, it's a country of my residence. And I just happened to be born where I was born, I never had a sense of so called nationalism, my stance was always countries don't really matter - maybe that's the reason I am not crazy about the concept of team competitions.

Fair enough. I assumed you were Italian because of the flag. I'm definitely not a fan of WTT, but i disagree with your views on the value of a team competition in serious events.

I, too, support (or don't support) athletes for reasons other than their nationality, so I respect your point of view.

Harriet · Nov 6, 2019

TontoK said:
But in swimming and track, which present relay medals, frequently teams mix and match who runs the preliminary rounds and who runs the final. Are the finalists less worthy of a medal because they did not run the preliminary rounds?

Or is it the other way around? The swimmers int he preliminary rounds, the ones who put in the effort to get the team to the final, are they the ones who don't deserve the medal?

What about in soccer or basketball? If you only play for one half the game, do they cut your medal in half?

The difference to me is that no matter whether the composition of a relay team changes between the heats and the finals, all four swimmers/runners who compete in the final participate in the same race. Just as all football players who play in the Grand Final participate in the same game, whether they score 32 goals or crash out injured after their first tackle.

There's already an event in skating where a team of skaters participates in the same program. It's called synchro. If we want a team event, shouldn't we look to the actual teams to participate in it?

Roast Toast · Nov 6, 2019

Lmao please. In none of the sports listed are team medals considered as valuable as individual events medals, but the utter lack of competitiveness makes the skating team event even more of a joke. Someone who had never set foot on the ice before could have replaced Kolyada and gotten an Olympic medal in the PYC team event, ffs.

NanaPat · Nov 6, 2019

surimi said:
No it is not. In a standard competition, a skater needs to perform both the short and the free to win a medal, and a skater who performs only one program gets disqualified. An Olympic team event usually has one skater for the SP and another for the LP. Such a medal is definitely not of equal worth as the individual medal.
As people said, there's already synchronized skating for team medals.

ETA - opinions of us fans are very nice, but the key thing is what skaters themselves would think of the idea.

That's not true. At most, a team can have different SP/FP skaters in two of the four disciplines. So at most the skaters can be different half the time. Canada won its gold medal in 2018 with only 1 substitution.

I'll look it up and edit this post to give complete statistics on substitutions.
----------------------
Overall statistics on substitutions:
The Olympic team event has been held twice and the same five countries have advanced to the FP each time: in alphabetical order, they are Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, USA
In 2014, all countries used the maximum number of substitutions (2).
In 2018, 3 countries used substitutes in 2 disciplines, but Italy and Canada only used them in 1.

So, in total there were 40 SP skaters/couples ( 5 countries x 4 disciplines x 2 years). Of those, there were 18 instances where a different skater/couple did the FP and 22 instances where the same skater/couple did the FP. So a little under half the time.

There was some outcry at the time that Canada and Italy were "cheating" by not using all their possible substitutions, since Italy had multiple skaters in 3 individual disciplines and Canada had them in all 4. As the team event continues, I suspect not using all available/allowed substitutes will become more common.

soogar · Nov 7, 2019

surimi said:
No it is not. In a standard competition, a skater needs to perform both the short and the free to win a medal, and a skater who performs only one program gets disqualified. An Olympic team event usually has one skater for the SP and another for the LP. Such a medal is definitely not of equal worth as the individual medal.
As people said, there's already synchronized skating for team medals.

ETA - opinions of us fans are very nice, but the key thing is what skaters themselves would think of the idea.

Skating has moved more towards a team event. You can argue that gymnastics used to be both a team competition and an individual all around and event competition. Now with all the rule changes, gymnastics has evolved from teams in which all participants competed all events to specialists to this new format that seems to reduce the reliance on specialists. Sport is constantly changing and the event organizers/Federations can change the sport to fit viewership interests. Look at the inclusion of all the x-games sports in the Olympics.

A standard figure skating competition prior to 1991 used to comprise of a short program, long program and figures. Prior to the inception of the short program in the early 70's, it was just figures and free skating. Ice dance wasn't added to the Olympics until I believe 1976 or 1980 (someone correct me).

Even the the "standard" that you cite may still be changed in the future.

Anyway, I'm all for a team competition because figure skating is one of the most popular winter sports. Why should speedskaters (short track; regular) and skiiers have so many opportunities to win medals, in both individual and team events, and figure skaters only receive one medal per discipline?

soogar · Nov 7, 2019

noskates said:
I always worry that someone is going to get hurt skating in the team event. I'm glad the US won a bronze medal at the Olympics but if they did away with the team event I would be happy with that.

I don't really understand why skaters are perceived as so fragile. Gymnasts compete in the team event and they have probably more of a chance of getting injured than a figure skater. With that logic, the skaters should only compete one program since there is risk of getting injured in a short program.

Mathman · Nov 7, 2019

soogar said:
Sport is constantly changing and the event organizers/Federations can change the sport to fit viewership interests.

This is true, but my imagination fails me when I try to think of a way that figure skating could be changed into anything giving even a casual nod to the concept of a team enterprise.

Hanyu scores 300 points. Kihira scores 240. I do not see any sense in which Japan has presented a "team" rather than two individuals.

On the other hand, the World Team Trophy is great. A delightful mix of wonderful skaters of different vintages, split into three camps for the purpose of organizing cheering sections, and a good time was gad by all. :rock:

Harriet · Nov 7, 2019

Mathman said:
On the other hand, the World Team Trophy is great. A delightful mix of wonderful skaters of different vintages, organized into three camps for the purpose of organizing cheering sections, and a good time was gad by all.

Ah yes, the "World" Team Trophy. Which apparently takes place in a parallel universe in which Earth only has one hemisphere.

ice coverage · Nov 8, 2019

Mathman said:
… On the other hand, the World Team Trophy is great. A delightful mix of wonderful skaters of different vintages, split into three camps for the purpose of organizing cheering sections, and a good time was gad by all.

"Split into three camps" was true of Team Challenge Cup.

(It is not true of World Team Trophy. All six teams at WTT have their own separate sections.)

Skater Boy · Nov 8, 2019

TO those who love skating one more event would seem awesome. However if it affects the rest of the competition ie tiredness or such then maybe not so great. I know much has been said about not distinguishing team from individual medals - I note in Gymnastics Simone Biles gold medals are often not distinguished from individual to team. I think the main thing or at least one of the things that "lowers" or takes away fromt he prestige of the team medals is that it is kind of arbitrary how the team concept came about. WTT versus Olympics. Well to be blunt WTT seems to be a Japanese thing created very generously and supported generously to highlight the Japanese team which has very strong men's and ladies but not so much dance or pairs.

Adding Team Event at Worlds

soogar

surimi

Congrats to Sota, #10 in World Standings!

MGstyle

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chuckm

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.

TontoK

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MGstyle

Crawling around on the ice after chestnuts

surimi

Congrats to Sota, #10 in World Standings!

TontoK

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