Grand Prix Season Preview: Canadian women rebuilding

SkateFiguring said:

Dragonlady, I think BOP was just making clear his somewhat diplomatic earlier statement about the big boned Canadian women from whom the Canadian Ladies skaters are selected. The graceful and lithe LA princesses not withstanding, the fact is the American ladies are not generally smaller than the Canadians, or most other nationalities on earth. Now that the Babushkas of the Cold War era have turned into beautiful sexy gold diggers and super models, the strong and robust women dwell in the Canadian igloos.

thumbyskates, you made a point I had thought of. To be competitive with the wonder babes, aka Polinas, of the world, SC has to reconsider and modify their protective model. We are proud of our mature champion Ladies with longevities, but we can't afford to discover and nurture them too late. I remember SC's decision to keep Phaneuf and Sandhu from Worlds as too young and unseasoned when they became new national champions and both turned out uncompetitive internationally, albeit with other personal factors involved. At least they have not held back Chan and now Nguyan. Are they still more protective of the girls, thus the gender bias, justified or not, contibuting partly to the gender disparity?

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Canada has to find a middle ground that works for Canada. What works for US, JPN, RUS...may/may not work for Canada. If you push a skater too soon, it can blow up in your face. I think Skate Canada knows this lesson all too well with what was done to Tracy Wainman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Wainman

I can see why they would want to promote health and well-being over pushing someone too soon. However, they need to find the "sweet spot," so to speak, of when to push a skater. It's almost like cooking...

SkateFiguring said:

Dragonlady, I think BOP was just making clear his somewhat diplomatic earlier statement about the big boned Canadian women from whom the Canadian Ladies skaters are selected.

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Silly me. I thought that BOP was just trying to start yet another fight and figured that insulting Canadian women would be a good way to do it.

His opinions on what Canadian culture are all about are sooooo enlightening. Here I thought that I lived in a racially diverse and multi-cultural country with various regional subcultures and quirks, but no, I was wrong (again). There is a definite Canadian culture, and while I don't speak for it, BOP does.

thumbyskates, while I agree that the LTAD program needs to be completely re-thought, the policy hasn't been in effect long enough to have had any impact on our international results. It hasn't even been fully implemented at this point, but I remember thinking that this was the opposite to what we needed to be doing. Right now we're paying the price for Marilyn Chidlow's wrong-headed insistence that only skaters who placed high enough in their first JGP assignment, would get a second assignment. Dropping our of the "B" competitions like Finlandia and the recently completed Andrej Nepal Memorial hasn't helped either. Canada used to use all of the available development spots but no more. Added to the loss of the North American Challenge Skates, these restrictions are all exacting a toll in terms of developing our young skaters.

Coddling of the girls began after the Tracey Waiman fiasco in the early 80's. Waiman was a 12 year old prodigee who won the bronze medal at Canadians in 1981 and was sent to Worlds over the two women who placed above her. Growth spurts, weight gains and a drug fuelled burn-out from too much too soon followed that promising debut. David Dore felt that pushing such a young kid was a bad thing and vowed never to do it again, but even Tracey Waiman doesn't see it as any part of the reason for her subsequent problems.

With regards to Cynthia, I'm told that Skate Canada offerred her either senior Worlds or Juniors and Phaneuf and her coach said Juniors.

With Sandhu, it wasn't his youth and lack of experience that kept him home, it was the Canadian Olympic Committee's qualifying criteria. In 1998 you had to have achieved a level of placement in two competitions internationally to qualify for the Olympic Team. Sandhu had not competed the previous season due to injury and so had not meet the qualifying criteria. The qualifying criteria was changed thereafter so that if you beat someone who had met the qualifying criteria (in Sandhu's case Jeff Langdon), then you qualified, but even that reduced criteria kept Jeff Buttle out of the Salt Lake games when Sandhu was forced to withdraw due to injury. Jeff had actually met the qualifying criteria (winning both NHK and 4CC in 2001/2002), but the win at 4CC came after the COC's final date for qualification and didn't count. The COC qualifying criteria was quietly dropped after 2002.

There really isn't a good model to emulate as far as training young female skaters into strong competitors is concerned. The American free entreprise system ends up with many young girls and their families getting their wishes to rush into doing the triple jumps only to acquire hard-to-correct techniques resulting in URs and edge calls. The Russian amazing jumping beans still have to pass puberty which can be very harsh or even career terminating. In either case, the verdicts on future injuries and health problems are not in. It seems the Japanese young Ladies are doing relatively well and balanced, with "older" Ladies still skating on the competitive level. Korea has had just one wonder kid, with strong Canadian input, but she seems being burnt out since about 20. However, it is also an exceptional case of being a super star sans pareil.

Maybe a Patrick Chan model would work for both genders, balancing early recognition and nuturing of talents with a steady planned progress. There was neither rushing nor suppression. A supportive family and later the earned support from a community also play important roles.

SkateFiguring said:

thumbyskates, you made a point I had thought of. To be competitive with the wonder babes, aka Polinas, of the world, SC has to reconsider and modify their protective model. We are proud of our mature champion Ladies with longevities, but we can't afford to discover and nurture them too late. I remember SC's decision to keep Phaneuf and Sandhu from Worlds as too young and unseasoned when they became new national champions and both turned out uncompetitive internationally, albeit with other personal factors involved. At least they have not held back Chan and now Nguyan. Are they still more protective of the girls, thus the gender bias, justified or not, contibuting partly to the gender disparity?

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Just to correct you, Sandhu was held back from the Olympics, not Worlds. As well it was not Skate Canada's fault why he was held back but it was the fault of the Canadian Olympic Association which at the time insisted that skaters have had at least 2 good senior international results before the Olympics. Because Sandhu just came up from juniors, he had no senior international experience.

A dumb decision but lets make sure that the blame is on the right place.

Canada has pretty much the same ethnic / racial groups as the US ,albeit a smaller population.. and probably more cultural similarities than differences with the US,( though we love our differences and wouldn't have them disappear , thereby losing what makes us unique.)

But , please Blades, better wives and mothers ? How Canadian women tend to be built ?..As one who was born and raised here, I can tell you , we come in all shapes and sizes.

I'm also interested to see the Chinese skaters' development. They seem to have switched from a jump oriented training to good basic skating as the foundation, resulting in a new generation of well rounded young talents, both male and female. It's an extremely minor sport there so we are not seeing many stars from a large talent pool.

Maybe Chan's stunning success has inspired many to follow the patient system of acquiring good basic skating skills first, because, as we can see, difficult jumps can be learned rather quickly and correctly with a foundation of strong skating skills. There is no need to rush into the hardest jumps ASAP, which may cause both technical and health problems.

OTOH, There is now so much pressure for young male skaters to add quads to their jumps that we may see serious injuries later which may harm more than skating careers. Maybe this too can be blamed on Chan.

SkateFiguring said:

I'm also interested to see the Chinese skaters' development. They seem to have switched from a jump oriented training to good basic skating as the foundation, resulting in a new generation of well rounded young talents, both male and female. It's an extremely minor sport there so we are not seeing many stars from a large talent pool.

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I've been very impressed the with young Chinese skaters too. They have much better basic skating, better edges and blade control and better spins than past generations of skaters. Perhaps they're teaching figures. It sure looks like it.

SkateFiguring said:

Maybe Chan's stunning success has inspired many to follow the patient system of acquiring good basic skating skills first, because, as we can see, difficult jumps can be learned rather quickly and correctly with a foundation of strong skating skills. There is no need to rush into the hardest jumps ASAP, which may cause both technical and health problems.

OTOH, There is now so much pressure for young male skaters to add quads to their jumps that we may see serious injuries later which may harm more than skating careers. Maybe this too can be blamed on Chan.

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Patrick Chan took a lot of criticism for that patience. Patrick was landing quads in practice before he moved up to the seniors but stuck to his development plan to work on getting two triple axels into his program and only add the quad after he had successfully integrated the 3A's. He didn't even attempt a quad in competition until the 2009/10 season, landing his first quad at Liberty but subsequently tearing his calf muscle before the GP season started and dropping the quad for the rest of the season.

Did the criticism Patrick took come from more than "fans"? He seems to have always had good support from those who really count - parents, Canadian federation and skating community. Do young skaters and their teams need to concern themselves with some zealous skating fans' opinions? (Yes, if you participate in a forum, you're a zealous fan.) Such long term plan needs to begin early, before bad habits set in.

Dragonlady, you have good knowledge about skating and skaters' histories, can you tell me at what age in general injuries start affecting skaters who started doing quads at a young age? So far Patrick is quite injury free, his only problem being initiated by overtraining with antibiotics induced poor muscle condition and not causing permanent damage. I think these days harnesses have helped protect many quad learners from injuries.

I think it's important for girls to be able to do or keep their triples post puberty in order to have a real competitive career instead of retiring after one major win at 15 or just fading away with or without any success. Do Canadian coaches pay much attention to and consider the parents' physical build at the early stage of the girls' "career", as soon as they show talents and ambitions? How do they decide the time line of learning difficult jumps, especially for the fast progressing talents?

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Dragonlady said:

His opinions on what Canadian culture are all about are sooooo enlightening. Here I thought that I lived in a racially diverse and multi-cultural country with various regional subcultures and quirks, but no, I was wrong (again).

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I never said Canada wasn't racially diverse, you've missed the point. You should perhaps re-read what I wrote about ideas concerning how Canada's culture and historic background may have resulted in a less successful field in the female singles division. Nobody said you have to agree, but you should definitely consider outside opinions if you ever want to seek the "truth" in life.

colleen o'neill said:

Canada has pretty much the same ethnic / racial groups as the US ,albeit a smaller population.. and probably more cultural similarities than differences with the US,( though we love our differences and wouldn't have them disappear , thereby losing what makes us unique.)

But , please Blades, better wives and mothers ? How Canadian women tend to be built ?..As one who was born and raised here, I can tell you , we come in all shapes and sizes.

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I'm sure Canadians do come in all shapes and sizes but I would argue that the colder climate of Canada has certainly had an effect on the population. It is undeniable that climate has an effect on populations throughout the World and as such it's no coincidence that hockey is so popular in Canada, for example.

For whatever reason, from my perspective, American culture dwells more on materialistic values and girls here will do anything it takes to be the "prettiest". Given how much aesthetics plays into Figure Skating, I feel that American women are more driven to push themselves into the ballerina-like training that often results in greater success within this sport. I think that because Canadian society is less materialistic, their female population does not feel as strongly about trying to be ultra-glamorous. Instead, the more romantic Pairs and Dance sides of the sport appeal to them more because that is what Canadian society expects from their woman - to not be "dolls" but rather to be strong matriarchs who can handle a hard winter and know the value of working together. In general I think Canadian culture definitely gives more respect to groups and community than American culture, where individual success and monetary value are instead deemed more important (and where "losers" are treated with greater disdain).

There are numerous cultural differences we could examine and many complexities we could talk about. I've touched on many of them between my last two posts and will leave it at that for now.

Blades of Passion said:

I think in large part it comes down to cultural differences. I don't feel that Canadians particularly want their women to be graceful and lithe, rather they want them to be strong and robust. This unfortunately means that Canadian women suffer in comparison to other competitors in the World when it comes to spins, spirals, and body line.

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Well, I wouldn't use the term "strong and robust", but I agree with your general point. Canadian female athletes don't generally want to be dainty little divas, and it does seem that much of it has to do with our culture and preferences, as well as having less do-or-die competitiveness.

Dragonlady said:

Cynthia Phaneuf got a huges push from skate Canada over Joannie Rochette at the start of their senior careers, Phaneuf being more feminine and graceful.

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Erm...I disagree about Phaneuf being more feminine and graceful than Rochette.

As for your other points, you are not really addressing what BoP is trying to say.

Blades of Passion said:

I'm sure Canadians do come in all shapes and sizes but I would argue that the colder climate of Canada has certainly had an effect on the population. It is undeniable that climate has an effect on populations throughout the World and as such it's no coincidence that hockey is so popular in Canada, for example.

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Well, I am not so sure I'd put it on the climate as such. Russia is cold, and so is Finland, but they have some excellent lady skaters who demonstrate "figure-skating femininity" and allure.

colleen o'neill said:

Canada has pretty much the same ethnic / racial groups as the US ,albeit a smaller population.. and probably more cultural similarities than differences with the US,( though we love our differences and wouldn't have them disappear , thereby losing what makes us unique.)

But , please Blades, better wives and mothers ? How Canadian women tend to be built ?..As one who was born and raised here, I can tell you , we come in all shapes and sizes.

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This thread has been enormously entertaining! And your comments gave me a hugh chuckle, Colleen.

Canada definitely has a diverse population -Anglophile, French, Eskimo, Asian, African - you name it. And how many great figure skaters and coaches immigrated from Iron Curtain countries to Canada during the Cold War years?

As for the Canadian women body types - come on, ladies and gentlemen - they come in all sizes.

One of the posters commented on the rather "bulky" frame shown by some of the Canadian women champions, such as Elizabeth Manley and Karen Magnussen. OK, these women were hardly fragile and waif-like, yet they were very attractive, skated with great skill, and they lit up the ice. :yay: