ISU Skating Awards | Page 3 | Golden Skate

ISU Skating Awards

Gourlie

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 19, 2019
Country
Czech-Republic
Voted from the available choices, Trusova, Hanyu, Scherbakova, B/K — my favourite costume is actually Sakomoto’s Matrix dress but I haven’t seen it on the list

Kaori’s Matrix dress is actually among the nominees for best costume.
 

StephenGfan

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
This is going to be a toxic trainwreck. I for one am not going to enjoy the Chen-fans and Hanyu-fans screaming blue murder if their guy doesn't win, etc, etc.

We get it you only stan skaters from under the top 6
 

Edwin

СделаноВХрустальном!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Anybody else getting nothing but errors on the pages? I am on iMac using Safari.

It's probably busy and the ISU server has small capacity.
 

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Yep the website is faulty. It keeps logging you out every 2 minute. ISU needs to get a bigger server to serve all those fangirls logging in and out with their 100 accounts to vote.
 

Edwin

СделаноВХрустальном!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 5, 2019
Yep the website is faulty. It keeps logging you out every 2 minute. ISU needs to get a bigger server to serve all those fangirls logging in and out with their 100 accounts to vote.

Oh well, the voting is open till February 10, 2020, so there is time to cast in time for the decoration ceremony in that new fangled exhibition show ISU plans to have.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
Samarin´s und Shulepov´s FS-costumes are in the selection for best costume. :shocked: :palmf:

Shows how much care was taken with the lists, Shulepov's nomination for this is a sick unfunny joke.

I don’t understand the weighting votes from other countries thing...how can they know for sure where voters live? What’s to stop people from using VPNs to vote? How would they know votes from random countries for Hanyu aren’t really coming from Japan?

Hey, the first thing people pointed out when that was announced was [a] it was clearly aimed at the Japanese and Russian mass fandoms and theyreally didn't think it through at all. But no, the system doesn't at all seem designed to weed out block voting, more just a token effort.

(Can I cynically predict, by the way, the of the Russian wunderkids, they will all score well but the one who will score the highest votes will be the one whose name is easiest to spell?)

Aaand the site's not working. Again.
 

Lzbee

Final Flight
Joined
Sep 25, 2016
I don't understand why there's so much negativity around a new skating related exhibition/award show. This will surely pull in more casual fans as they'll be curious to find out about the winners and that can only be good for the sport right now.
 

theharleyquinn

Medalist
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
I don't understand why there's so much negativity around a new skating related exhibition/award show. This will surely pull in more casual fans as they'll be curious to find out about the winners and that can only be good for the sport right now.

Because the efforts often seem to be apologizing for the technicalities of the sport and instead trying "dumb down" skating in favor of the entertainment aspect. It's hard for some casual fans to take to the sport seriously if the sport doesn't take itself seriously.
 

Batsuchan

Medalist
Joined
Mar 8, 2014
Question - what happens if a finalist (or a winner) is not actually competing at Worlds? Are they supposed to go to the gala/awards anyway? :confused:
 

cathlen

Team Gorgeous Cacti!
Record Breaker
Joined
May 2, 2015
Country
Poland
This is sooo subjective (yes, I know the whole sport is), I have no idea why ISU felt the need to make a voting out of this...It just asks for more fans wars, and it's more popularity contest than anything.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
This is sooo subjective (yes, I know the whole sport is), I have no idea why ISU felt the need to make a voting out of this...It just asks for more fans wars, and it's more popularity contest than anything.

A popularity contest where they reserve the right to manipulate the results.
 

Seven Sisters

Medalist
Joined
Jul 17, 2018
Because the efforts often seem to be apologizing for the technicalities of the sport and instead trying "dumb down" skating in favor of the entertainment aspect. It's hard for some casual fans to take to the sport seriously if the sport doesn't take itself seriously.

You raise an interesting point, harleyquinn. If what the ISU wants to do is to emphasize the entertainment aspect, what about making changes to make the sport itself more entertaining? Something that would allow fans to play along at home, like the old 6.0 rankings that let every casual viewer feel like an expert and get more invested in the outcome. I think this part of the appeal of things like Dancing with the Stars and similar shows—everyone feels like they know enough about what they see on the screen to have a valid opinion.

I suspect that this kind of thinking is what is behind this idea, they’ve just gone about it in a way which may not achieve the objective.
 

composer

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Agree that it is unnecessary but my real beef is Satoko's FS not included on the entertaining category.
But it is? It appears the list is alphabetical by first name. The site is a mess to be honest. I had to register twice because the first one did not go through.
 

theharleyquinn

Medalist
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
You raise an interesting point, harleyquinn. If what the ISU wants to do is to emphasize the entertainment aspect, what about making changes to make the sport itself more entertaining? Something that would allow fans to play along at home, like the old 6.0 rankings that let every casual viewer feel like an expert and get more invested in the outcome. I think this part of the appeal of things like Dancing with the Stars and similar shows—everyone feels like they know enough about what they see on the screen to have a valid opinion.

I suspect that this kind of thinking is what is behind this idea, they’ve just gone about it in a way which may not achieve the objective.

To that I would say - we have the galas. I think it's great that show skating is having a slight resurgence. It would be great if professional events could come back at some point (imagine skaters like Yuna Kim or Yuzuru Hanyu, when he retires, doing those kinds of competitions), where the scoring could be 6.0 or whatever else to make it more accessible to people.

I personally find the sport of figure skating entertaining enough. I can sympathize with the criticism that sometimes the outcomes of competitions don't correspond with what someone "feels" were the best performances, but the sport still has to have technical standards. I don't think there's any clear way around that, and I strongly believe the switch to IJS was for the better in terms of "legitimizing" the scoring (there's still plenty wrong with it but it was a big step in the right direction). We don't have this kind of "score at home" thing for gymnastics (artistic or rhythmic). That certainly wouldn't be done for sports like tennis, basketball, etc., although the artistic analogy doesn't work as well. Why does figure skating have to shy away from the fact that it's a sport to make it interesting for people?

I'm not exactly sure that this campaign is solving a real problem as it relates to casual fans getting into the sport. Investing in the visual graphics that are used at Japanese nationals to show height, distance, and speed on jumps would. Having effective commentators would. Allowing for more fan content on social media including Youtube DEFINITELY would.
 

Leelee425

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 17, 2017
I don't understand why there's so much negativity around a new skating related exhibition/award show. This will surely pull in more casual fans as they'll be curious to find out about the winners and that can only be good for the sport right now.

I think my main issue with it is Figure Skating as a sport seems to be struggling to combat this image as a sport where too much subjectivity exists in the judging. Fans get turned off when their favorites aren’t winning, when you have an “unbeatable” skater or team, when the scores don’t seem to value what they personally prize about skating, etc... There is a lot of complaining about inconsistent judging and scores that are difficult to understand especially for newer or more casual fans. So to appeal to more people their idea is to create and even more subjective awards? Not only more subjective but also with little transparency in how they’ll actually choose the winners, sure we all get to vote but in the end some expert panel will decide. How did they even come up with the nominees? :scratch2: Its taking the subjectivity that angers fans and amplifying it in my opinion. Honestly I’d rather buy a ticket to a gala to see the medalists and fan favorite exhibitions rather than the Figure Skating version of the People’s Choice awards but that’s just me.
I also think the definition of “MVP” is strange, it seems to be based on endorsements and popularity which I guess is one definition of a “valuable player”. I’m a tennis fan and using this definition, Serena Williams would be the MVP of women’s tennis even during the year she was out on maternity leave. Serena is great, she deserves all her sponsors and recognition...but she’s not the best player every season. In my experience with other sports, the MVP is typically the player with the most dominant performance of the current season. I don’t know how you can vote on an MVP now as you don’t know how the season will play out.
 

NaVi

Medalist
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
I don't understand why there's so much negativity around a new skating related exhibition/award show. This will surely pull in more casual fans as they'll be curious to find out about the winners and that can only be good for the sport right now.

Something like this isn't pointed towards the casual fan but to the engaged one. Hence, the fan voting.

I'm mildly positive about the Art on Ice collab(though I wonder about them diluting their brand), but a lot about the awards show aspect doesn't seem well planned. This is Ari Zakarian's idea and while he has done a good organizing and promoting some ice shows there is a bit of a huckster quality to him. And there's weird meme about the "Oscars" in Russian speaking countries which makes me a little offput to the idea of a "Oscars for Figure Skating"(That's organized more like the Eurovision or People's Choice Awards of figure skating). The weird mention of "celebrities" is a bit of a red flag... I've actually suggested once that tickets should be offered to celebrities to raise exposure to the sport but that's where they should be not at some awards show. It's also a bit weird and self-indulgent that this awards idea is being considered the year television exposure was reduced in Canada and on Eurosport.

There are a few potential reasons for putting on an awards show(say, inducing competition or fan engagement... but I think those are either bad/irrelevant here), but from my perspective, an award show should be mostly about recording something now to be reflected back upon in the future. And for the most part, I don't think these categories left to public voting really can reliably tell me anything interesting that wouldn't be easy to find out on my own without the awards. Having a list of what's considered the best galas of the season would be really nice to have to look back on in the far future... far more than any of these categories.

BTW, most award shows are for industries where people have to engage in (some manor or another) public speaking... and that's not really a thing for a lot of skaters. Also, many of the biggest major figure skating powers(Russia and Japan... China too) are from countries where they can get by pretty easily without English and thus often don't have the greatest command of the English language.. These two factors make it harder to put on an awards show as a show,.
 
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