- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
= anything Yuka Sato is in....with exceptions of course.
= anything Yuka Sato is in....with exceptions of course.
Get rid of eligible/ineligible distinctions (aside from people who are banned for cheating, crimes against competitors or officials, etc.). Let skaters do events with or without competitive formats that aren't sponsored by the ISU with no penalty. But if there are skaters around the world, elite and developing and recreational, who want to participate in alternative events and audiences who want to watch the top levels, why shouldn't the ISU develop a structure of their own and find ways to market it?
And then the Well-Balanced Freeskate competition either does or does not carry over scores from the preliminary events.
In a previous post (#91 above) ivy put the argument in favor of carrying over points in a new light for me. If Chan gets 90 in the SP and Takahashi gets 80, while Fernandez, Abbott and Hanyu get 70, 69.9, and 69.8, this still sets up an exciting finish.
Chan will probably win (but it is not absolutely certain), and Takahasjhi will probably get second (but it is not absulutely certain.) But never mind that, look at the dogfight we have going for bronze!
There should be a competition for who can show the highest degree of skating skill with the most difficulty and variety and quality all in one program, and where skaters who have unique skills deriving from the use of blades on ice can get credit for them. Skaters who can use their technical skills for artistic purposes should be rewarded for doing so. But primarily it's a technical contest.
It's not an art contest or an audience pleasing contest. Audiences who want to watch skating competitions that put art or entertainment first and technical skill second should watch a different kind of event.
Personally I'm partial to the idea of a separate jump contest, spin contest, and skating skills contest (that may also include an artistic component) that earn their own medals and also serve as qualifiers for the well-balanced final. But a short program with required elements like we're used to could also work. It could also be possible to add up the points for the jump elements and give a jumps medal, same for the spins, same for the step sequence+PCS, within the current basic short program format.
Get rid of eligible/ineligible distinctions (aside from people who are banned for cheating, crimes against competitors or officials, etc.). Let skaters do events with or without competitive formats that aren't sponsored by the ISU with no penalty. But if there are skaters around the world, elite and developing and recreational, who want to participate in alternative events and audiences who want to watch the top levels, why shouldn't the ISU develop a structure of their own and find ways to market it?
The ISU might also want to consider sponsoring alternative competition streams with their own championships and their own medals. Maybe some kind of Xtreme Skating circuit that's all about maximum athletic content and exploring the boundaries of what it's possible to do with blades on ice, and an Artistic Skating circuit that allows a limited or perhaps unlimited number of technical elements but is judged purely on PCS perhaps with audience input into the scoring.
Junior Pairs Short: TES Mean (26.50) > PCS Mean (20.94). TES SD (3.05) > PCS SD (2.76).Have you looked at other disciplines...? Maybe next week you could do 2012 Junior Worlds.