Coronavirus and the new season | Golden Skate

Coronavirus and the new season

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
I'd assume there will be impacts to planning for next season.

Summer Competitions - likely cancelled. This would include the early-season pre-qualification events in the US and Canada

Regionals - start in early October in the US

JGP events start in late August
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
It seems like the plan (currently) is for things to get ramped up by late April or early May for a lot of sports. Obviously there is a lot of uncertainty about that, but I wouldn't assume summer events would be canceled just yet. OTOH, it's also important that the skaters are prepared, so if they can't even get back to training before May then it might be a bad idea to have those early events.
 

NaVi

Medalist
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
I wouldn't plan on full audience events being possible until around March of next year when a vaccine would likely be available. A lot of the events don't have much of an audience which would make them easier to put on. But even within those, it might be a good idea to downsize where possible.

I don't think a full Grand Prix season is really possible. I'd look into either:

1. Only holding a reschedule scaled down 2020 World Championships. Of course, it could end up being canceled but that'd be easier to deal with than cancelling 6 Grand Prixs and the GPF.

2. Hold a rescheduled scaled down 2020 World Championships... and then hold a Grand Prix Final made up of the top 6 from Junior and Senior Worlds.

3. Hold a rescheduled scaled down 2020 World Championships... and then hold a single Grand Prix event made up of the best skaters not at Worlds(there are 11 senior ladies on the top 24 season's best or world standings lists who were not scheduled to skate at Worlds). and then hold a GPF that takes the top 4-5 from Worlds and 1-2 from the Grand Prix event. Not sure how to handle juniors.

I would push back Europeans and 4CC for March and Worlds for mid April.

And it should be mandated that different programs are used between 2020 Worlds and 2021 Worlds an time should be given to make that comfortable to do.

They really don't need to make a schedule till June or so and much more information about how the virus will play out will be available then.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
But North America is only at the beginning of the crisis. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Late April is just 6 weeks away, about the time when the virus spread will be seriously ramping up here. While it is true that the virus doesn't spread well in warmer weather, conditions in a skating rink remain cold, and that environment is favorable for viral spread.
 

NanaPat

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Country
Canada
But North America is only at the beginning of the crisis. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Late April is just 6 weeks away, about the time when the virus spread will be seriously ramping up here. While it is true that the virus doesn't spread well in warmer weather, conditions in a skating rink remain cold, and that environment is favorable for viral spread.

I don't think that is known at this time. Certainly it's something to hope for, as it's true of some other coronaviruses, but it's not a given.
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
I don't think that is known at this time. Certainly it's something to hope for, as it's true of some other coronaviruses, but it's not a given.

I have lived through lots of these since the 1950s...I am still here for now. I think it will behave exactly like the SARS Cov of 2003, like most flus and colds, and when we get the kids out of schools, social distance, and the warm moist weather comes the spread will slow, many more will have had it and have SOME sort of immunity, although how long is questionable. Anti viral drugs are a few months out for sure, and vaccines for THIS strain are even farther....but I also dont believe that we will all wake up on June 15th and it will have dissappeared from the earth. I have hopes of a season next year. My biggest fear is that the govts of the world will ignore this wake up call if it does go away, just like they ignored all the other outbreaks and dont prepare for the next big one NOW.
 

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
I have lived through lots of these since the 1950s...I am still here for now. I think it will behave exactly like the SARS Cov of 2003, like most flus and colds, and when we get the kids out of schools, social distance, and the warm moist weather comes the spread will slow, many more will have had it and have SOME sort of immunity, although how long is questionable. Anti viral drugs are a few months out for sure, and vaccines for THIS strain are even farther....but I also dont believe that we will all wake up on June 15th and it will have dissappeared from the earth. I have hopes of a season next year. My biggest fear is that the govts of the world will ignore this wake up call if it does go away, just like they ignored all the other outbreaks and dont prepare for the next big one NOW.

Unfortunately big government stupidity is even more contagious than the coronavirus.
 

russell30

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 14, 2004
I'd assume there will be impacts to planning for next season.

Summer Competitions - likely cancelled. This would include the early-season pre-qualification events in the US and Canada

Regionals - start in early October in the US

JGP events start in late August


Obviously the aim is to control the curve, at this point it could be several months...so at the moment next season events as planned...but there could be some early summer cancellations, the ISU could start the JGP it bit later than normal maybe, the GP should be ok but maybe some lesser challenger events could be cancelled but we will see..

I cannot see them holding a late 2020 world championships i think that would be no no and will affect the 2020-2021 Season! they just need to put a line through that one unfortunately...no ISU awards thank god! (never been a fan of that one turning into hollywood style oscars!) I skated in the late 70's and 80's thank goodness no social media!!
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
Obviously the aim is to control the curve, at this point it could be several months...so at the moment next season events as planned...but there could be some early summer cancellations, the ISU could start the JGP it bit later than normal maybe, the GP should be ok but maybe some lesser challenger events could be cancelled but we will see..

I cannot see them holding a late 2020 world championships i think that would be no no and will affect the 2020-2021 Season! they just need to put a line through that one unfortunately...no ISU awards thank god! (never been a fan of that one turning into hollywood style oscars!) I skated in the late 70's and 80's thank goodness no social media!!

Yeah, if they cant hold it in May or June, throw it under the bus.
 

theblade

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 15, 2018
Great Park, and, in fact, all facilities associated with The Rinks, have been closed today. Closure is currently supposed to last until March 31st. A large number of skaters will be impacted.
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Country
Norway
Right now I have a hard time believing this will all be over in the next months, and therefore I think that comps in the fall, JGP and GP will be difficult. In the worst case scenario, I don´t even think there will any figure skating next season.

I don´t know how it is in other countries now, but in Norway even the ice rink are closed and the skaters can´t train on the ice now because all organized activities is forbidden until at least the 26th of March, and probably it will be longer.

The borders in and out from Norway are closed, and also a lot of others countries have started to do the same.

Almost every rink in Norway closes down in the summer and the skaters have to go abroad to train in summer camps. I don´t think this will be possible this summer.

If this is as bad as it looks, skaters here will not be able to train on the ice for MONTHS. That is quite dramatic for the skaters, which only could do off-ice training.

I think this will also be the problem for skaters in other countries as well.

How many will be prepared for a new season?

Russia has 63 confirmed cases (if the numbers are correct), and apparently they have closed the borders? If looks like they are controlling the spread in the country, which means the russian skaters probably will have an open ice rink to practice in.

But all in all, this is a serious situation, so health has to go first.
 

Warwick360

Medalist
Joined
Dec 3, 2014
This may seem very premature but can anyone give any tips or idea on how to gain or when the ticket for 2021 Stockholm might possibly go on sale (if everything had been normal)?

Would really want to see Hanyu or Kostornaia at least once before they retire as one would expecte after Olympics season.
 

khtmyzr

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 5, 2018
I don't think that is known at this time. Certainly it's something to hope for, as it's true of some other coronaviruses, but it's not a given.

While it is true that the virus doesn't spread well in warmer weather,

We shall see about that. I live in Thailand and it is approaching the hottest time of the year here. The case counts has been less than hundred up to a couple of days ago (possibly underreported due to testing capacity). However, in the past few days some clusters have been identified and there is also a potential big spread linking back to a religious meet in Malaysia. We are expecting the numbers to go up faster now. So if the numbers in Thailand (and/or Malaysia) experience a trend like that of the colder countries, that would be quite a discouraging suggestion that warm weather, in this case 30 - 40C, doesn’t do much.
 

Seren

Wakabond Forever
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2014
I think it is too early to make any major predictions about what will happen. What the rest of the year looks like will probably be more clear by summer. I think the best thing is to proceed like the Grand Prix will go on as normal in the fall and reevaluate summer events as they come. If things are under control by the summer it is likely many of these competitions could happen with adjustments for spectators/whose allowed in/ect.
 

Skatie

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 25, 2004
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Ontario and Quebec where many skater train, all public and private rinks/clubs are shut down - no ice. Now this is normally a time right after worlds that many skaters would take a 2-3 week break or wind down training, and some would join tours (SOI and carnivals etc cancelled I suspect) So skaters not training, all their income opportunities taken away and who knows when any rinks will be open again - I don't think its any time soon. I am sure this is a very unsettling time for all skater (and all of us!), and so unpredictable on when any reasonable training would resume.
 

NaVi

Medalist
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
TSL pooh-poohed the idea of holding Worlds in the fall... as did a blog article I just read on sports.ru.

I still stand by my sentiment that it would be much harder to put on a full Grand Prix season than it would be to cancel the Grand Prix season and put on Worlds. What do you do if 1 or 2 individual grand prix events get shut down?

Doing Worlds along with a "Grand Prix Final" without the actual full Grand Prix might be possible(and in fact, easier to do IMO) as I outlined in my previous post.

Another issue is that even if individual events are cleared to go that some of these skaters might have been training at places that were forced to close to control an outbreak. The ISU should encourage skaters to find accommodations where that is less likely to happen. But that situation would be more damaging to the event quality of an individual grand prix event than say to a redone World championships... it might be harder to fill in spots for someone who pulls out of an individual grand prix event because of travel restrictions. Someone having to pull out of Worlds would not be great but the quality of the event would not suffer as much as an individual grand prix.
 
Top