Senior B scheduled for August in Australia!

Orange Cat said:

Driving is probably easiest. The 428 used to be like clockwork but this year it's gone haywire (buses missing on live data etc which confuses me, because how do you lose a bus?!) and the 445 isn't exactly the most reliable ...

Parking, however, is generally pretty easy in Canterbury, so your plan sounds pretty solid. And christinaskater I didn't realise you were in Hurstville! That's so close! Ahh the world of goldenskate members

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christinaskater said:

I wish Sydney could hold the Four Continents Championships in the future. We were supposed to have worlds here right?

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NMURA said:

Unfortunately, it's quite apparent this event can't attract enough athletes to make ISU points. I doubt anyone from other than AUS and NZ will participate.

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NMURA said:

I don't know what "fact" you mean. In the case of NZ Winter games, only senior ladies event of four years ago gathered minimum skaters/nations to reward ranking points. In that season, Asian FS trophy was not held. This year, Asian "Open" Trophy is scheduled in Bangkok. It became a subject of ISU ranking points. Anyone who wants to earn points won't have motivation to travel Down Under. If Japan sent some skaters to AUS, it must be from friendship purposes (i.e. expecting some favors from the AUS federation when necessary).

To reward points, at least 8 skaters from 5 countries are required for singles competitions.

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1.4 International Senior Competitions, provided there are minimum 8 single skaters, respectively 6 Ice Dance couples out of four ISU Members present respectively 5 Pairs out of three ISU Members.
1.5 Events, mentioned under paragraph 1.4, in which the Technical Panel (Technical Controller and the two (2) Technical Specialists) are from three (3) different ISU Members. (It is recommended that participating ISU Members, before entering their skaters, check with the organizing Members of International Competitions whether this requirement will be fulfilled).

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golden411 said:

Rae35 posted this announcement on FSU:

Australia and Canada sign Olympic agreement
18 June 2013
http://corporate.olympics.com.au/news/australia-and-canada-sign-olympic-agreement​

Excerpt:
"Australian athletes training hard for the 2014 Sochi Games will be the first to benefit with a special focus on winter sports cooperation with the world leading Canadians, ahead of the Games in Russia."​

Makes me wonder whether a ripple effect could be that Skate Canada will send one or more entrant(s)/judge(s)/official(s) to Skate DownUnder?

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golden411 said:

Rae35 posted this announcement on FSU:

Australia and Canada sign Olympic agreement
18 June 2013
http://corporate.olympics.com.au/news/australia-and-canada-sign-olympic-agreement​

Excerpt:
"Australian athletes training hard for the 2014 Sochi Games will be the first to benefit with a special focus on winter sports cooperation with the world leading Canadians, ahead of the Games in Russia."​

Makes me wonder whether a ripple effect could be that Skate Canada will send one or more entrant(s)/judge(s)/official(s) to Skate DownUnder?

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gkelly said:

Well, these are image issues that may turn off some potential participants or potential spectators. For people who love the feeling of gliding across the ice (directly or vicariously by watching), they're not very relevant. But you do have a point that people who haven't been exposed to the actual skating might resist getting the exposure if they're turned off by the externals.

The externals develop by people who are actually doing the sport, according to their interests. And, yes, the external styles are sometimes a generation or two behind the trends in the wider world because today's skaters want to appeal to yesterday's skaters who are now judges. There's a long way up the competitive ladder before appealing to paying audiences is a consideration, and by that time the skaters themselves are used to the trends within the sport.





I don't think you understand the economics of ice rinks.

I'm reminded of a moment from my childhood. A skating parent asked the owner of the ice rink where we skated, who was also a coach, "What does it take to become a successful figure skater? Talent? Hard work?"

His response: "Money and access to an ice rink."

Figure skating started in northern Europe and North America because it could only be practiced on natural ice in cold weather. In places where there was no ice, there was no ice skating.

Artificial rinks were invented in the late 19th century.
They're expensive to build and maintain.

It wasn't until the mid-20th century that indoor competition became the norm.

To develop figure skating skills to the level that general audiences find entertaining takes many years, skating many hours per week, preferably starting at a very early age, on ice with comparatively few other figure skaters and not having to dodge the general public. This was even more true when school figures were central to competition, because they needed to be practiced on clean ice so the skaters could see the tracings.

Hence, the sport was started and developed by people who had access to relatively empty ice on a regular basis. That cost money and requires much leisure time for practice, so the sport was developed by rich people in the areas (northern Europe, Canada, northern US) that already had traditions of ice skating on natural ice.

They, along with speedskaters who came from similar areas with access to ice, created an organization (ISU) to regulate international competition in the sport.

The ISU does not build or maintain rinks or teach people how to skate. Nor, for the most part, do national federations.

That happens at a local level. A rink comes into existence because entrepreneurs think they can make money by providing ice for recreational purposes to the general public in their area and to hockey players and figure skaters or others with specialized sport goals. Or because a local government chooses to provide an ice rink as part of a program to provide recreational facilities to the community.

Figure skating practice is not a cost-effective use of ice time, from a rink's point of view. A session open to the general public may hold a couple hundred paying customers. That's where they make their money.

Hockey practices and figure skating practices may serve a couple dozen skaters at a time, which means that ice time costs more per individual.

In order for an ice rink to be built in a part of the world that does not already have a history of interest in the sport, some entrepreneur needs to be willing to take the risk of introducing the general idea of ice skating to that local population and be willing to lose money at first while developing that local interest.

Once the ice exists, some locals can start to learn and practice beginning figure skating skills. A local figure skating club can be organized. This will probably be necessary to negotiate ice time dedicated to figure skating, since the rink owners can make more money by keeping the ice open to everybody.

As the years go by, especially if there's at least one good coach available, some of the figure skaters will go on to develop more advanced skills. They may be interested in competing.

Local skaters have to put in the time practicing many hours a week for years. Someone has to pay for that ice time.
If there is no history of advanced figure skating within this country, then foreign coaches will need to be brought in and/or the more ambitious local figure skaters will need to travel abroad to places they can get better instruction than is available locally. All this takes time and money.

It may be time to join the national figure skating federation if one already exists, or organize one if it doesn't. A national federation can join the ISU and send skaters to international events at appropriate skill levels. Again, this takes money from within the federation.

So when a new federation is formed in a new part of the world, it's usually because one or more rich families in that area have kids who are becoming serious enough skaters to go beyond the local level and are willing to invest many hours of volunteer time in addition to the money for training and travel necessary to get the kids to that level.

In most cases, most of the money comes from the skaters' families.

The only situations where national federations pay for the ice time and coaching, and travel when relevant, and choose talented poor kids to support in this way, tend to be communist countries that place high value on success in international sport. Which right now is primarily China.

Otherwise, skating is a hobby, and one that becomes more and more expensive for participants the higher the level at which it's practiced.

Figure skating is a time-intensive and money-intensive sport. Poor kids -- even poor white kids living in cold climates with several ice rinks in commuting distance -- are not going to become world-class figure skaters. Race isn't the issue -- access to practice ice, and good coaching, is the issue.

I live in a part of the US that has a lot of immigrants and foreign nationals living here for stretches of several years. Some of their kids skate. Some of them get to levels they could never have dreamed of reaching back home someplace with no rinks or one rink with only a few hours of figure skating ice time per week. If they get to junior or senior level and if their family comes from a country that has a figure skating federation and if they can afford to take several overseas trips at their own expense, they may compete for that country.

Getting to junior or senior skill level living in a place with one ice rink and four or five hours of figure skating ice time a week is a lot less likely.

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