Post Mortem on the Team Event

I enjoyed the team event and concept, however some of the comments from certain skaters treating it as a practice/warm up really disturbed me. I do believe some of those comments were excuses rather than being true but they did bother me.

It was fun to watch, yes, but all know that only some countries can medal the same which will get many individual medals, too. There has been too much figure skating for me. Even though I did not watch all performances I felt I could not watch any more after men's individual competition. So I watched only best free programs of ice dance so that I would still have enough interest for ladies programs which are the most important for me. I would like to have syncronized skating in the olympics instead of the team event. It is different, no same programs again two times in the same olympics. Then Finland and Sweden could have possibilities for medals even gold which we won't get in the individual figure skating or it would be very hard and rare to get them.

I would like to hear what skaters themselves thought of it. How it felt afterwards?

I love synchro too, but time & again the Ioc has refused even to have it as an Olympic sport.
Perhaps a four or eight person synchro team sport could be created? The size of synchro teams makes housing them all difficult.

draqq said:

Either double the value of points in the free skate or don't cut down the field to five in the free programs. Or both!

Click to expand...

+2. The biggest problem was that the contest was over after the short program. So much so that contending teams didn't even bother to send their best to the long program.

On the issue that only a few countries can field competitive teams, that is true of any team sport. Counrires like Korea who have a great individual can sit out the team thing and still get crazy for the individual.

I loved the team event and hopefully it will stay in the olympic calendar. This may be a away of encouraging the federations to develop skaters in all disciplines.

It used to be that in the gymnastic team events they would drop the the lowest score. I could see something like that being helpful as an interim step. Drop the lowest place short and long program. That way more countries are in the mix

I liked the idea of the team event and the execution was pretty good for something that hadn't been done before. More importantly, I think it really helped strengthen the bonds of each teammate who participated or rooted each other on.

I would change a few things, though.

- Have it after the individual events, so they don't treat it as a "warm up"
- Change the scoring to cumulative value rather than assigning points
- don't allow one pair or singles skater to participate in the short and long, make it truly a team event (ahem, Russian singles and US/Canada dance)
- I would like to see six teams in the final round, not five

ivy said:

It used to be that in the gymnastic team events they would drop the the lowest score. I could see something like that being helpful as an interim step. Drop the lowest place short and long program. That way more countries are in the mix

Click to expand...

The only issue with this... a country with a low placing team (e.g. China in ice dance) doesn't even need to do their elements then as they're going to end up last anyways.

My question is why were GBR and UKR even in the team event?
For UKR, Godorozha was 20th in men, L/R were last in pairs, and H-C/D were last in ice dance. And Popova will probably place around 15th
For GBR, their only solid team is Coomes/Buckland (who ended up 10th)... Kemp and King didn't make the FD, and Parr wouldn't have made the FS. McCorkell will end up in the top 20 if she makes the freeskate.

Like, even South Korea would have done better if Kim competed in ladies and men's, without a pairs/ice dance team. She could have scored 8-10 earned points in ladies and if she competed in the men's (even with lower PCS factored scores), she'd have likely placed 7th (4 earned points) above Abbott. With GBR and UKR getting 8 and 10 points total, respectively, she actually could have placed higher. With men's 1.0 factored placements her personal best PCS in the SP would be 8.45 points higher, so she'd probably have beaten Amodio (possibly even Yan)...she'd get 10 points and 6 or 7 points in men's.

Kim could have tied Germany, and beaten Ukraine and GBR with just two events, skating at her best.

I'd still put it after the individual disciplines.
The team event was a great way to 'test the waters' in terms of skating on olympic ice, in front of the big crowd, under pressure and how to handle all that (because sometimes it is just different when it's olympics compared to worlds, especially for a first time olympian). But only the skaters whose national teams qualified for it got that chance. Maybe Denis Ten would've enjoyed to test himself under those conditions, maybe Yuna would've, or Javier Fernandez. But neither Kazakhstan nor South Korea or Spain was in the team comp. (And yes, I know that none of those three examples are olympic first timers, but still, you get the idea)

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

The only issue with this... a country with a low placing team (e.g. China in ice dance) doesn't even need to do their elements then as they're going to end up last anyways.

:

Click to expand...

I doubt many skaters are going to spend their Olympic moment standing in center ice, running out the clock, waiting to get your 1 point. If you expect to be last, you're maybe more likely to try hard exceed expectations. You never know too what competitor or team member might have a melt down and then your effort might really count. I prefer a system where every skate counts, but one thing the IOC doesn't like is competitions where there is not true international competition. IIRC that's why women's softball was eliminated after 4 cycles - to heavily dominated by just a few countries.

I like the scheduling before the individual events, to give skaters a chance to feel out the arena. But I think in general the scheduling at Sochi has been tricky because of sharing venue with short track and a lack of practice rinks nearby.