Should the rules on age be tightened up? | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Should the rules on age be tightened up?

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I had to go figure out who you were talking about.. and yeah, it is really bad! If it was just a different color it might come across much differently..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSlAW7tHIs

Oh, my word--and they even made her skate to music containing jungle drums. Could anything be more insulting?

GKelly, your list is excellent. The points heading my list would of course also be protecting the children's physical and mental health. Are our lives really so improved by watching a twelve-year-old do triple-triples that we need a constant supply of children risking their futures for our benefit? I think not.
 
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noidont

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 27, 2010
It is perplexing how young Narumi Takahashi always looks...
But come on. If we are to restrict age, why don't we restrict based on "mental age"? Get an evaluation done...If their instagram selfies are to go by, something tells me some of the Russian juniors are more "mature" than Mao Asada, depending on how you define that word.
 

FSGMT

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
GKelly, your list is excellent. The points heading my list would of course also be protecting the children's physical and mental health. Are our lives really so improved by watching a twelve-year-old do triple-triples that we need a constant supply of children risking their futures for our benefit? I think not.
:clap:
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
GKelly, your list is excellent. The points heading my list would of course also be protecting the children's physical and mental health. Are our lives really so improved by watching a twelve-year-old do triple-triples that we need a constant supply of children risking their futures for our benefit? I think not.

The thing is, forbidding younger teenagers from competing in seniors will prevent audiences who only watch seniors from having to watch those younger kids, and it will prevent young teens from having to carry the expectations of their federations and national media and national audiences on their shoulders at Worlds and Olympics.

But age limits alone could easily make the injury problem worse under the current rules for program content (and the realities of female bodies).


Junior ladies have been allowed to do triple-triples in the short program for close to a decade already, junior men long before that. They have always been allowed to do triple-triples in the long program (12-year-old Midori Ito did one back in 1982; 13-year-old Grzegorz Filipowski was the first "man" to do a 3-3 combo 1980) and are currently allowed to do the same numbers and kinds of jumps as seniors in the free program, but they have less time to do them. Doing the same number of jumps in less time is harder on the body than allowing some short rests for the muscles to recover.

Girls' strength-to-weight ratio tends to peak in the early teens. Those are prime jumping years. It's not rules that result in young teens doing harder jump content than older teens and adults, and then often losing the ability to do some of those jumps even without major injuries -- it's physiology.

If you watch from the bottom up, most skaters will never do all the triples, or any triple-triple combination. Many skaters who compete as juniors will never reach senior level because their jump skills will max out with double jumps and maybe double axel, or even regress when they get too big to jump high and rotate quickly. Many will get surpassed by younger skaters from their own countries with greater talented for basic skating as well as for jumping. Injuries will claim some (the injury rates will be higher with harder jump content, but there will always be some), and financial limitations or outside interests will claim others.

But of those who are among the most talented and who are going to make it to the top, if they're going to do very difficult jump content, they're probably going to be doing it by the time they're 15. Girls who master top jump content are just a tiny minority of all girls who take up the sport seriously as kids, but those who learn their hardest content after their bodies have finished maturing are the exception even within the exception, not the norm.

If you watch from the top down, focusing on major championships, you'll see a wide range of jump content at both junior and senior levels, but the hardest jumps from the very top jumpers will often be more common among juniors than seniors, and among the younger seniors (mid teens) than the older ones. That's just the nature of the sport, and the nature of women's bodies.

For example, at this year's senior Grand Prix Final, there were two triple-triples attempted in the long program, both by teenagers who are still age eligible for juniors, although I think Gao would be too old next year. In the Junior Grand Prix Final, there were five 3-3s attempted.

It is already par for the course that the top juniors do harder jump content than the top seniors -- on average depending how you define "top."

Some of those girls who are doing 3-3s in juniors now will lose those jumps by the time they're 18, and not only because of injuries. Some may lose the ability to rotate all their triples at all, although the most fortunate will improve their technique so as to improve the quality of their jumps.

If you just draw a cutoff at age 15 or 16 or 18 and forbid skaters from competing senior before that age, then there will be more difficult jump content in the junior ladies event than in senior ladies. The girls will still be risking injury, just not on the senior world stage. Observers who look only at jump content will think that the juniors are "better" than the seniors. Fans who follow the juniors looking for the next best thing or because they enjoy the greater jump pyrotechnics will suffer disappointment when the talented juniors don't shine in seniors or don't even make it that far. Fans who only want to watch the seniors will rarely see the hardest jump content -- but they may not miss it if that's not the main reason why they like to watch ladies' figure skating.

If you draw an age cutoff and also forbid juniors below that age from performing the hardest jumps in competition, then there will be fewer difficult jumping feats performed in any ladies' competition. Either the young teens who are at their jumping peak will work on the hard jumps in practice (learning them now while they know they can) but leave them out of their competitive programs until they reach seniors, or they will wait to work on them until they reach senior age, by which time in most cases it will be too late for their bodies to learn those hard tricks. So either they will still risk injury in early teens -- maybe not as much because the number of repetitions will be lower if they're not using the skills in competition -- or they will risk injury in their later teens when they try to learn new skills that are harder to learn at that age.

On another note, flexibility moves are another potential source of injury where it's easier to learn the skills the earlier you start. Older skaters may have more wisdom to listen to their bodies and work on stretching more prudently, but you can't suddenly decide at age 18 that you want to stretch in ways you never tried before and expect the same kind of success.

So if the goal is to prevent injuries, we need to consider other kinds of rule changes that might encourage wise training before the mid teens. Better education of coaches is probably even more valuable than rule changes.
 

Chemistry66

Mmmmm, tacos.
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
When there are thousands of skaters involved, covering a wide range of ability, it makes more sense to divide the competitions by skill level first and then if necessary by age afterward.

Maybe take a page out of gymnastics' book? They do this at competitions. Girls (I don't follow the boys/men as closely so don't know if they're the same) are split among numbered skill levels (based on their shown skills and if they've had qualifying scores for the level). Within the levels, they're split into age groups. So, there could be multiple Level 8 state champions, for example, with one being 10 and another being 12 and so on.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Maybe take a page out of gymnastics' book? They do this at competitions. Girls (I don't follow the boys/men as closely so don't know if they're the same) are split among numbered skill levels (based on their shown skills and if they've had qualifying scores for the level). Within the levels, they're split into age groups. So, there could be multiple Level 8 state champions, for example, with one being 10 and another being 12 and so on.

Possibly.

We're mostly talking about ladies singles when we're talking about large numbers. In the early 2000s, when the sport's popularity was at its peak and the maximum number of skaters in one group was 18 under the 6.0 system (now 24 under IJS), there were a couple of regions that needed to use qual rounds for intermediate men in a couple of years. But generally the number of boys competing is well below the maximum, and not all skill levels have enough to hold a competition at all in all regions in all years. In pairs and dance the numbers are even lower, and the juvenile age limits are higher.

There are no state championships. The first level of qualifying competition that conveys a meaningful title is Regionals -- there are 9 regions across the country,

Other than that, there are just nonqualifying competitions, which can range in size from a couple dozen skaters at various levels over a few hours to hundreds of skaters requiring five 14-hour days on multiple ice surfaces. But those are just for fun and practice -- they don't count for anything. (At the handful of largest most important events, there might be federation officials monitoring the top skaters under consideration for international assignments, but that's incidental to their main purpose.)

At the higher levels (novice through senior), there are no age limits or divisions in the US -- age is only relevant when it comes to international assignments. There aren't so many skaters at those levels that age divisions are necessary. It's rare for there to be more than 24 junior or senior ladies in any one region -- maybe up to 200 at either of those levels for the whole country in any given year. For novices there might be as many as 50 or so in a larger region, a few hundred across the country, so they have qualifying rounds at the regional championships.

Intermediate level is under-18. There could be over a 100 skaters at that level in a large region (moreso a few years ago before 13-year-olds were allowed to stay in juvenile) -- about a thousand girls across the country. So qualifying rounds are almost always required, except maybe in the smallest region.

Juvenile is now under-14 (used to be under-13 until 2 years ago). Again, the largest regions could have close to 100 entries and only the smallest region might have less than 25 and not need qual rounds.

Teenagers (now over 14) who have passed the juvenile but not the intermediate test cannot compete in qualifying competitions. There's a nonqualifying event called Open Juvenile they can enter. Many who can pass the intermediate test will move up even when they're not competitive at that level, just for the prestige of competing at a qualifying level.

In addition to conveying a regional championship title, the top 4 skaters move on to the next level, i.e., sectionals. And then the top 4 from sectionals move on to nationals.

(*There have been some changes over the years, especially at intermediate and juvenile levels, but I won't go into past details.)

So the juvenile skill level is already divided into skaters over 14 who are not eligible for championships at all, and skaters 13 and under who do compete at the first qualifying level. Only a small percentage will qualify.

Intermediate skill level has an age cutoff, but it includes almost all skaters of high school age. Those who are past high school and not up to novice skill level are probably not looking to win championships.

Regionals take place in October; ages are as of Sept. 1.

Would it make sense to divide the juveniles at regionals into, say, 10 and under, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and 13-year-olds? Or 11 and under vs. 12-13?

To divide the intermediates into, say, 11 and under, 12-13, 14-15, and 16-17?

That would give more medals to more kids. But in the smaller regions, some age groups might have only one or two entries (especially for boys!) -- so then would it make more sense to combine the age groups in those regions?

How many should go on to sectionals, or from sectionals to nationals? Should there be separate national championships for preteen vs. teen intermediates?

On average, the most talented skaters will move up the levels at younger ages, although there will be exceptions and there will be instances when the more mature presentation of older skaters will triumph over greater athleticism of younger talented ones. So should opportunities to advance beyond regionals be focused on the skaters who are most likely to reach the higher levels at all, or on the ones who are currently at their peak at a middle level? Or both? I think there were also age-divided Intermediate A and Intermediate B events at Junior Nationals at some point, but again that wasn't an experiment that the federation decided was worth keeping.

Usually the age divisions at nonqualifying competitions are made only for nonqualifying levels, below juvenile, and the divisions into qualifying rounds at juvenile and above are made randomly (and at regionals they are seeded at intermediate and above).

I do remember one medium-sized nonqual I attended ~15 years ago that divided the intermediates into three groups by age and then took the top three finishers to a final round. The results fell out very predictably:
1st winner of youngest group
2nd winner of middle group
3rd winner of oldest group
4th second finisher from youngest group
5th second finisher from middle group
etc.
 

Chemistry66

Mmmmm, tacos.
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Yep. The issue is how to put the skill/age divisions across regions when there's not necessarily as many girls in certain regions. I don't have a solution for that yet.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
So not only are the needs of different regions in the US different, you can see how they could be even more different within different federations.
 

Chemistry66

Mmmmm, tacos.
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
So not only are the needs of different regions in the US different, you can see how they could be even more different within different federations.

Well, yeah. I was just giving a quick little suggestion without spending time on the details. Don't have time to go into depth right now.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Yep. The issue is how to put the skill/age divisions across regions when there's not necessarily as many girls in certain regions. I don't have a solution for that yet.
There kind of are skill/age divisisions across regions already since there are age and skill limits at Juvenile and Intermediate levels in place. Interestingly, most of the qualifiers out of Regionals (and Sectionals) for the Juvenile level were on the younger side. I know in the Region I live in, the Intermediate winner was also on the younger side.
 
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