Speedy gets what he wants
When there was a proposed split from the ISU to establish the WSU, who stood by OC? The fans, The coaches, The judges, and of course the Federations. the answer was 'leave it alone, no reason to switch organizations.'
That would have been the perfect way to eliminate Secret Judging, and OC.
Speedy gets what he wants
Well, on US television you mean? I could see that, especially since our ladies probably won't even be on the podium for the first time since 1964, which was right after our whole team died in the plane crash.Originally Posted by sillylionlove
Joe, was this a question or a statement? The establishment of the WSF was something that divided nearly every group of people you list, except elligible skaters. Understandably no elligible skater wanted to stick their neck on the line in case the WSF failed...which sadly it did.
I'm fairly certain that NISA took the ISU to CAS courtesy of Sally Stapleford.
The WSF also went either to CAS (or i seem to recall it was a case in court) for breach of competition laws but also failed there.
Ant
^^^
Ant - It was just an opinion of mine. Given the comments of the thread regarding OC, I just wanted to point out that during the time of the proposal to start up the WSF, which had momentum, did not work. OC and the ISU survived. I just thought there is no point in discussing eliminating OC now. He rules. And it is just my opinion.
I think the mistake which the World Skating Federation made was this. They were so apoplectic over the villainies of the ISU, and so sure that everyone would see the WSF as the white knights riding to the rescue of the sport, that they put all their efforts into doomed legal challenges instead of trying to build an organization.
They could have started by putting on some competitions -- maybe involving professional skating, or recently retired competitors -- and building from there. The only way the ISU could be successfully challenged is if someone puts out a better product than the ISU does.
By the way, Mr. Cinquanta turns 71 this year. He has been ISU President for 16 years.
The last president, Olaf Poulsen, served for 14 years, 1980-19994. Mr. Poulsen died last year at age 88.
Completely agree with Mathman's assessment of WSF. Would add that many WSF organizers were also more concerned with generating self-aggrandizing publicity than actual doing the work of creating a federation and putting on events.
But wasn't part of the problem that anyone involved with the WSF wouldlose their elligibilty and that included people who require their elligibilty to perform official functions in their own member federations? Judging, testing etc. Also who would judge these events? Using what type of scoring system - 6.0 was out, would they have to use 10.0 and the reputation that already had as jkoe judging in pro comps.
Doomed as they were I think the WSF thought that challenging the ISU was the strongest position to take because if it succeeded in even the smallest challenge then it would show the skating world that it no longer had to bow down to the whim of $peedy. Sadly the world still has to bow down!
Ant
Why would 6.0 be out? As I recall that's exactly what they intended to use, but they allowed for the possibility of modifying it in the future.
Calculations by majority or OBO? That I don't remember.
Well, yes, those are the challenges that the WSF would have had to address if they wanted to succeed. In particular, they would have had to secure support from some prominant national federations.
They burned their bridges with USFS by -- from the point of view of USFS -- tricking USFS into issuing a statement in support of the principles of the World Skating Federation, to wit, fair judging. Well, everybody is in favor of that. But then the WSF rushed to press with the announcement that USFS supports the overthrow of the ISU and the wresting of the Olympic games from ISU control.
This was a far cry from what USFS actually said. And again, that is putting the cart befiore the horse. The WSF would have had to establish itself as a legitimate enterprise first, and then try to seduce some national federations to jump ship. This takes time -- the ISU has been at it, for better or for worse, for more than 100 years. They will not go gently into that good night.
The only thing that I personally did not like about the WSF is that they were not up front about where their financial backing was coming from. They never published a financial report and they never responded to questions about money matters. This reticence fueled speculation -- never refuted -- that the WSF was entirely underwritten by IMG, the giant management group, which presumeably hoped to benefit from the success of the WSF.
This is not to impugn the integrity and altruism of Ron Pfenning, Jon Jackson, and their warriors. I wish their efforts had succeeded.
Last edited by Mathman; 04-24-2009 at 09:42 AM.
I thought the ISU had mandated that 6.0 could only be used in officially sanctioned ISU competitions with ISU judges etc. Wasn't that why pro cmops were marked as 10.0?
Ant
MM - You made an excellent point by saying the WSF did not perservere with their intentions. Yet, the fans, mostly teenagers, demand figure skating competitions and will go with whatever organization is there to arrange that. However, there is little interest in the operations of either organization.
The fans feel complaining is enough but no action against dismantling figure skating competitions would they tolerate, which was why I said OC will endure as long as he wants.
I suppose it all gets a bit chicken and egg in terms of the herculian task ahead of the WSF if they were to succeed. It just goes to show how difficult trying to mount any form of opposition against the ISU would be. The new organisation would also have to fall in with the IOC to retain it's status as an Olympic sport too. Though immediately after SLC would have been the best time to do that with everythig hanging in the balance after the judging scandal.
Wow I did not remember that at all. I can imagine the USFSA would have been pretty peeved about that.
That, I think, is the most difficult part - drawing the member federations away - it would always be all or none. A member federation would not want to stick it's neck on the line and risk it's skaters not being elligible for Euros, 4CC, Worlds Olympics if no-one else went. Federation's agreement would end up being conditional on other federations leaving too and then you would be left with a bunch of conditional agreements and you'd need to really convince them all to go.
That's interesting too. I remember at the time being whipped along in the frenzy for fair judging that i never even questioned where finance for the WSF was coming from!
Ant
Was the financial backing so important for the purpose of change? What about Speedy's entertainment bills. I am sure he abuses them.
Hearing this only now for the first time rather than at the time, i would suppose that the real eyebrow raiser is why would an organisation hell bent on getting the message of fair judging, transparency, accountability over to the masses, not answer a simple question about it's own funding and roots. It doesn't bode well for an organisation touting transparancy if they themselves are not willing to be transparent?
Also i would think people would want to know that they weren't jumping from the frying pan into the fire so more information would allow people to go with the change in organisation with greater confidence. Swapping from own questionable organisation to another would do the sport no favours.
Ant
I don't see why a competing organization would care what the ISU mandated or did not mandate. The whole point of the new organization would be, screw the ISU.
As for the pro competitions, like Dick Button's World Pro, I think they came up with 10.0 deliberately to distinguish their competitions from the ISU amateur events.
I think the new organization would have to put its Olympics dreams on hold -- much like Mao Asada in 2006-- until they got their feet on the ground. They would have to establish their program and show over a period of decades that they can do a better job and secure more public support than the ISU competitions. Then they could approach the IOC and say look, we are the de facto king of the slippery figure skating hill, let us in and kick out that old fossil the ISU.
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