2022 Olympic Team Event discussion and predictions | Page 3 | Golden Skate

2022 Olympic Team Event discussion and predictions

4everchan

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Mar 7, 2015
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Martinique
I guess i prefer shows which don't give medals too easily.

i don't get the easy medal point you make... as far as I know, every member of the team has to be ready to perform their program...some may gather more points than others, but in the end, everyone has trained to get to the Olympics for many many years, prepared programs, paid choreo and costumes... etc... and in the end, it's not like anyone is selected to be on the team... an athlete must meet the Olympic minimum scores, compete all year to get those, then win their spot at their own nationals, which is often a bloodbath in some disciplines in some countries (especially since teams have a maximum of 6 entries in 4 disciplines)..... i would like to know what you find easy in this situation... because, even the weakest link of a team is still an elite athlete, able to qualify for the games.... even if a skater is not a podium contender in their discipline, so let's leave the top 5, then they are ranked in the top 50 of the world ....

when it gets easy to become top 50 in any sport, let me know... i am willing to train for it .. :)
 

macy

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 12, 2011
as far as predictions go, Russia will most likely take the win, although i think there's a chance it could be relatively close between them and the US. both countries are well rounded with one discipline that isn't as good (pairs for US, men for Russia). Japan isn't as complete lacking in pairs and dance. i think bronze will be up for grabs between Japan and France.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
when it gets easy to become top 50 in any sport, let me know... i am willing to train for it .. :)

No one is saying figure skating is easy. But not every skater gets Olympic medals, either. Nathan earned his Olympic medal with the single lowest scoring program of his four year career.
 

4everchan

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Mar 7, 2015
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Martinique
No one is saying figure skating is easy. But not ever skater gets Olympic medals, either. Nathan earned his Olympic medal with the single lowest scoring program of his four year career.

yes but that doesn't mean much... you think all 5 gold medal earners of a relay team will medal in their own discipline? Donovan Bailey and Bruny Surin were Canadian stars at Atlanta 1996.... however, the 3 other guys on the team (one of which only ran the preliminary round but still was awarded a medal) never achieved any recognition in the 100 meters. Other countries do not bet on their stars but on consistent relay training like they do in Japan who has won 2 silvers in the past 3 olympics in the relay without big stars in the 100 meters.

I could go on and on... no medal is easy. A team can be made of stars or focus on consistency.... A star on paper before the team event can collapse or an athlete who might not be a contender can have the skate of their lives (Mirai for instance was brilliant in the LP)...

Sometimes, people win medals with their worst performance... it happens all the time... that happens all disciplines.
 

yume

🍉
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Joined
Mar 11, 2016
I am talking about the elite of a sport... not about very smart ways to get a free pass for the games.

even the weakest link of a team is still an elite athlete, able to qualify for the games....
I think she fits in this description. She's an elite athlete, able to qualify for the games.
The only difference is that she was the strongest athlete of her team/country....
 

4everchan

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Martinique
I think she fits in this description. She's an elite athlete, able to qualify for the games.
The only difference is that she was the strongest athlete of her team/country....

and the hungarian olympic committee is reconsidering sending such athletes.... (read on wiki)... as i said, you cannot do that in a lot of countries where an olympic standard is needed to be chosen.

and finally, her path to the games wasn't easy... she was smart and had money to get the points she needed by choosing wisely her events. So, kuddos to her... if by any chance, everyone else had fallen miserably and she had managed a couple tricks and won a medal... you know at that point 1 chance out of 24 is not that bad an odd... i would have said : good for her.

to get back to figure skating, the analogy is holding. Some skaters, for instance Kevin Reynolds has no world medals.... not even a Canadian title, however he carries an olympic silver and considering how well he skated his segment of the 2014 team event, i am pretty sure he feels he belonged and deserved his medal.
 

yume

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Mar 11, 2016
and finally, her path to the games wasn't easy... she was smart and had money to get the points she needed by choosing wisely her events. So, kuddos to her... if by any chance, everyone else had fallen miserably and she had managed a couple tricks and won a medal... you know at that point 1 chance out of 24 is not that bad an odd... i would have said : good for her.
Too bad there wasn't a team event and she had not strong teammates. She could have won an olympic medal.

to get back to figure skating, the analogy is holding. Some skaters, for instance Kevin Reynolds has no world medals.... not even a Canadian title, however he carries an olympic silver and considering how well he skated his segment of the 2014 team event, i am pretty sure he feels he belonged and deserved his medal.
I'm sure he is.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
The team event is for me a problem because of the heavy culling: there are not enough teams/countries competing on the day for it to be called a true world event. This is understandable - we run again into the problem of the length of the thing - but it's not really 'Olympic' team even, it's 'eight or so selected countries who are already at the Olympics' event. The skaters simply do precisely the same routines as they will do several days later for the individual medals later, even the forum threads here and elsewhere treat it as a dress rehearsal.

(And I don't know or care if it's the same for gymnastics, or if they manage to differentiate the team event because they have the different apparatus and therefore more variety, because guess what? - most of the world don't care about the team gymnastics either.)

On the other hand, saying the weakest link gets a medal where stronger skaters from non-competing countries won't doesn't fly as an argument, since that's the same in all sports where they have teams. I agree it's more than a little disingenuous - and in my opinion sad - to keep saying on your website or to the press that you are the Olympic {Whatever Colour} Medallist and I shouldn't be surprised if some casual fans think some team medallists actually own the more prestigious individuals instead of Shoma/Javi and Evgenia/Kaetlyn.

But hey, it is true that you are an Olympic {Whatever Colour} Medallist, you need to make a post-competition buck or two and if blurring the edges helps, you blur.
 

Colonel Green

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Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Country
Canada
It's barely rewarded. Having a substitution between SP and LP isn't nearly as impactful as needing to count scores from 6 separate performances. The argument of "resting" skaters between the Team event and Individual event is completely irrelevant to how it should operate.
Why, since the presence of the individual events undeniably governs how skaters choose to participate (Chen, for instance, did not want to do both parts of the team competition in 2018 for the USA; if the US hadn't had depth, that would have been a bigger problem). And the ability to swap out people with similar talent levels also, within the competition itself, means that you can put fresher people into the second half of the competition versus people who are competing back-to-back.

Then they should work on building up a more robust program.
Everybody works to have a robust program. But there's a limit to what federations can realistically do. Your proposals are just handing more advantages to teams that already have tons of advantages and making the event less competitive.

TEAM competition generally means a sizable group of people competing together.
Dubious. Even a team that pursued your proposed strategy of only competing in 3 of the 4 disciplines would have a minimum of four people, which is the same number as in swimming, track and cross-country relay teams, gymnastics, etc.
 

drivingmissdaisy

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Feb 17, 2010
On the other hand, saying the weakest link gets a medal where stronger skaters from non-competing countries won't doesn't fly as an argument, since that's the same in all sports where they have teams.

The thing is, figure skating isn't a team sport (aside from the opposite sex pairing events). You have four disciplines thrown together to make another medal competition merely because they are figure skating events. No one is picked for any strategic reason other than they are the strongest representative (or two) from their respective division. Honestly, the only "team" thing about it is that they sit together and cheer for each other.
 

4everchan

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Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
The thing is, figure skating isn't a team sport (aside from the opposite sex pairing events). You have four disciplines thrown together to make another medal competition merely because they are figure skating events. No one is picked for any strategic reason other than they are the strongest representative (or two) from their respective division. Honestly, the only "team" thing about it is that they sit together and cheer for each other.

and that's awesome !!!!!

the IOC wanted to create more events without raising the number of athletes. That's why (among other things) synchro didn't get in but the team event was created. It's not a new concept.. all kinds of team events have been presented in the pro circuit in the 90s... or recently, Japan open and WTT.

the IOC also wanted to make the games more balanced in terms of gender. That's why sports that were reserved to men opened doors to women (triple jump, pole vaulting, canoe ---starting in Tokyo, etc) and also why some mixed team events have been created for instance mixed luge relay or some skiing team events as well. For these, it is the same principle as figure skating.... there is no strategy, the fastest in each country will add up their time/scores etc... I have never ever seen anyone complaining about the luge or ski team events... not sure why, we fans of figure skating, complain about the team event... the more skating i see, the happier i am... especially at the olympics.
 

yume

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Mar 11, 2016
Synchro, a different discipline, not accepted at olympics. But a "team" event with the same skaters than in individual events is seen as better idea.....
I would have been glad to see more show, more skating with synchro. There are real teams in synchro at least.
 

StitchMonkey

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
We may have some interesting situations coming up due to Covid. Who makes the team event could be impacted on what countries allow their skaters to travel/compete and even what skaters are realistically able to do so, and even their access to training.

Japan is already not sending juniors even if the JGP happens, if other countries do similar it could impact what countries qualify.

I also could see it being very hard for American skaters to compete as i could see some countries not wanting to host them, or requiring a quarantine that makes competing impractical.

We just really don't know what will happen. But i could seem some skaters gets more of a season than others.
 

TallyT

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Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
Why, since the presence of the individual events undeniably governs how skaters choose to participate (Chen, for instance, did not want to do both parts of the team competition in 2018 for the USA; if the US hadn't had depth, that would have been a bigger problem).

And Yuzuru didn't take part at all - perfectly justified given his circumstances and the fact that Japan was never going to medal, but it does prove the point.

The thing is, figure skating isn't a team sport (aside from the opposite sex pairing events). You have four disciplines thrown together to make another medal competition merely because they are figure skating events. No one is picked for any strategic reason other than they are the strongest representative (or two) from their respective division. Honestly, the only "team" thing about it is that they sit together and cheer for each other.

Oh, I agree - they're not even really thrown together, they never interact on the ice. As I said, because they all do their own thing, entirely separate and exactly the same as the individual competition in a few days, it's more a dress rehearsal for a few selected countries rather than a separate and distinctive event in its own right. And the fact that we then so quickly get to see other non-team skaters promptly beat the medallists makes it even more so.

The only 'team' in the whole event is the word in the title. But be that as it may, if they do skate under the title of team, they are entitled to the medals. Just don't ask me or others to take them as seriously. Dress rehearsals don't win Tonys.

... or recently, Japan open and WTT.

Err.... please no. JO is an unabashed cheesefest and strictly speaking so is WTT (and don't quite a lot of the skaters choose to let that one slide if they can, more than 4CC?) Not exactly a good argument for an Olympic event.

What is needed is some way to give the team event its own character, make it more than a note-for-note dry run for the 'real thing'. However, given the nature of elite figure skating is, I'm not sure that it even currently possible, nor to make it truly inclusive.
 

TallyT

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 23, 2018
Country
Australia
Michael Phelps has 23 Olympic gold medals. Yuzuru Hanyu only two.

This is true. There are a hell of a lot more swimming OMs in the world than skating, of course, because there are a lot of different individiual and team events (we have quite a lot of OMs ourselves). I don't see much expansion in that line.

Which begs the question, how many sports hand out less Olympic medals than skating? (I thought of fencing - a relative's sport of choice - and it gives 12 per games, three for men/women in each of the singles/teams programs). Certainly before the team event was started, figure skating would have been among the most exclusive....
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
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Sep 14, 2008
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France
I don't see the issue. Both programs should worth the same imo.

Hmm, why should the SP and LP be worth the same? That goes against everything of what these programs are. Also important, the SP actually tends to be worth far more right now, because of less people competing in the LP.

Right now if Skater A finishes 1st in the SP and Skater B finishes 10th (and let's say this skater/pair is clearly the weakest in their field and has no hope of placing better), then it's 10 points awarded to Skater A, and 1 point to Skater B, so 9 points more and 10x the amount of points in total for Skater A. In the LP, when Skater B predictably is dead last, that's just 5th place and they get 6 points. So now Skater A is only receiving 4 points more and 1.66x the amount of points in total...that's quite a massive disparity.

If there's only going to be 5 competitors doing the LP, then I think it should definitely be a full 2 point differential awarded in the LP (so 2 points for last place, and 10 points for 1st place...and that's still a 1 point smaller differential than the SP gap). If a base of 8 skaters are competing, and additionally the added idea of allowing countries to double-up in disciplines, then I would say 1.5 point differentials would be good.

But, in general, I'm pretty wary about using placements to decide these things. What do people think about using a scoring range instead? Like for example, a Ladies SP could be awarded 1 team point for their performance scoring 40 points, and then an additional 1 team point for every 3 points more above that mark. This would make it so the team scoring is valuing each performance itself, providing incentive for people to always skate as well as possible, and remove the issue of having a big disparity in rankings for performances that are bunched together in quality.

Dubious. Even a team that pursued your proposed strategy of only competing in 3 of the 4 disciplines would have a minimum of four people, which is the same number as in swimming, track and cross-country relay teams, gymnastics, etc.

4 people but really only 3 "units"; dance and pairs are still a single entry and performance, as opposed to the other examples you named. It's far less than a soccer or basketball or baseball team either way. Gymnastics does normally always have more than 4 on the team too, they changed it for this one upcoming Olympics (while allowing 2 extra people to participate for individual medals), and swiftly decided to change it back.

Everybody works to have a robust program. But there's a limit to what federations can realistically do.

Rewards create motivation. If it's the rule that teams need to double-up in a couple disciplines, then don't be surprised if people focus on trying to reach it, particularly the people who thought they wouldn't otherwise have a spot on the team.

The federations who can't reach it, well sorry, but that's what it is. There's a reason why a small set of countries are dominant in many team sports, especially something like gymnastics, an example you wanted to use. Sport is supposed to be about merit and, again, smaller federations are already benefited by being able have skaters compete who wouldn't have qualified if they were competing within a stronger country. You didn't answer my question either about if figure skating should limit it to 2 entries per discipline, since you seem to find it "unfair" how the large federations have the advantage of entering more highly competitive skaters.
 

Supernovaimplosion

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 13, 2018
Maybe there should be only AA like in rythmic gymnastics then. I wonder why artistic gymnast get more occasions to win medals than rythmic gymnasts at olympics. A good AA gymnast coming from a strong country can have 6 medals in WAG while a rythmic gymnast only one.
There is rg apparatus finals at worlds. I dont know why not at the olympics.
 
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