Shocking news - proposal to eliminate short programs

WeakAnkles · Mar 26, 2014

The ISU could save a bundle I bet by getting rid of Cinquanta. Or stop using figure skating to fund speed skating. Honestly, it's like the plot of a bad trash novel: the insider who is secretly working to destroy the company/sport from the inside.

Alba · Mar 26, 2014

WeakAnkles said:
The ISU could save a bundle I bet by getting rid of Cinquanta. Or stop using figure skating to fund speed skating.

Let's do both. :clap:

Anyway, he can't do this alone. So if the figure skating department will support this than everybody should go.

NMURA · Mar 26, 2014

The ISU and federations can save money on each compeition, which means more competitions could be organized. That is good for skaters and fans in general. I guess the majority of skaters don't like SP because it entails more tension and pressure. They can save money on choreography and training time for the SP. Most of them won't object. Mistakes in the FS are less costly than the SP, which means skaters can have stronger motivations to up their content. As a result, technical progresses will be enhanced. In short, it has many benefits.

cinnamon · Mar 26, 2014

The craziest thing ever I've heard. It won't be a sport any more.
Instead I suggest to return school figure. Maybe every 20 years we should switch the system around between [SP+LP] and [Compulsory + Free], to have balanced skaters, seriously

Alba · Mar 26, 2014

NMURA said:
The ISU and federations can save money on each compeition, which means more competitions could be organized. That is good for skaters and fans in general. I guess the majority of skaters don't like SP because it entails more tension and pressure. They can save money on choreography and training time for the SP. Most of them won't object. Mistakes in the FS are less costly than the SP, which means skaters can have stronger motivations to up their content. As a result, technical progresses will be enhanced. In short, it has many benefits.

It sounds like a show in the end, not a competition. At least to me.

MidnightSkater · Mar 26, 2014

Is this a joke ?.
It was bad enough when he got rid of the compulsory dance.
If it's true then the judging could get even worse. No skater could make up for a poor program or poor judging.
Just awful.
Grand Prix Events used to be 4 days now they are 3 days. How much shorter can he make an event ?.
I don't know why he would do this.
If figure skating is losing so much money then the sport is being run very badly.

Anna K. · Mar 26, 2014

Looks like he's read my comment where I said that once figure skating is awarding medals wresting-wise they should learn from wrestling plot-wise to entertain the public :yes:

Elimination of short programs was the first step but he obviously didn’t read my whole comment. It also said that title pretenders should skate their programs face-to-face and end them in a catfight!

OS · Mar 26, 2014

I think he is plotting the demise of his successor by killing the sport. So he can go actually during my time the sport was doing better.

I wonder if he received some concerns from the guilty judges/ invested feds about revealing the mark that is why he is addressing the matter his way for assurance.

If there is a petition demanding his firing tomorrow do you think it can gather more than 2 million votes? I bet it can. Some one should start one.

Anna K. · Mar 26, 2014

Mathman said:
And, by being shorter, it would save money by keeping the short program and eliminating the long. They wouldn't have to rent the arena for so many hours.

Yeah, but wouldn't it look too much like a sport?

NMURA · Mar 26, 2014

Among Figure skating elements, only jumps are what can be considered as sport-like for most of the viewers. Surely eliminating the SP will make it more like a "sport".

iluvtodd · Mar 26, 2014

NorthernDancers said:
Wow. Here's a shocking suggestion: let's clean up the sport from the top down

- become a professional organization run by respected figure skating experts elected by all the federations
- remove conflicts of interest from decision making - policy level and at a judging level
- recruit and hire competent judges who are not nominated or chosen in any way by their federations
- remove anonymous judging
- make judging decisions of international events fully transparent and accountable
- improve communication along with that transparency

If the sport can become clean from the top down, and be more transparent and accountable, and prove that good decisions/results can be made at international competitions that have nothing to do with "taking one's turn", life-time achievement awards, who's been there the longest, which music you liked best, which country one comes from, who the coach is, etc., and everything to do with how the skaters skate on the day of competition, perhaps some credibility will come to the sport. And with credibility, perhaps some money will come too.

Makes sense to me! Speedy is an idiot. He's got to go!

YesWay · Mar 26, 2014

Cinquanta said:
The abolishment of the Short Program. Reason: if almost no other sports are based on two segments there must be a reason.

This makes no sense to me. "no other sports are based on two segments"? Seriously?

I'd say that can only be true, if you grossly simplify how many sports are played out. Because I would draw parallels with tennis matches being decided by multiple games, and multiple sets... F1 grand prix qualification and grid placement, followed by the "proper" race... time-trial days, mountain stages and "regular" race days in Tour de France... soccer matches divided into two halves... biathlon, triathlon, etc etc having radically different stages and requirements... diving... gymnastics... multiple runs/attempts in bobsleigh, ski jump, half-pipe etc etc.... the list is endless.

There are some good arguments for having only a FS, but I do not regard "no other sports are based on two segments" as one of them.

Personally, I like that there is SP and FS, and I'd be very sad to see it go. It requires skaters to have a certain amount of consistency and endurance in order to win. One unusually good performance may not be enough for victory... and one sub-par performance by a skater may not be enough to defeat them.

I might even be less inclined to go to competitions in person, since they would only be "half" the events/spectacles that they are now. And I imagine galas would be dropped too, since "what other sport has that?" -_-

Olympia · Mar 26, 2014

sk8in said:
his logic seems poor. track and field basically works on the exact same principal of 'long' and 'short' events. You have the 100 meter dash all the way up to 2 mile runs. They are different disciplines/require different training.

I'd say that a closer parallel in track and field is the heats. Runners compete in several heats before they even make it to the finals, and the runners with slower times are eliminated, leading to the final six or so who run for the medal. This is like the final flight of skaters.

Wow, if he wants to save money, why have a competition at all? Each skater can compete on his or her home ice, skate a program, and send it in to a group of judges who evaluates the video. Instant savings! Of course, the sport would die an immediate death. Then the ISU wouldn't have to spend money on it at all.

caelum · Mar 26, 2014

YesWay said:
This makes no sense to me. "no other sports are based on two segments"? Seriously?

I'd say that can only be true, if you grossly simplify how many sports are played out. Because I would draw parallels with tennis matches being decided by multiple games, and multiple sets...

His argument is even weaker than you give it credit for, in my view (though your points are well taken). I could just as well respond "no other sports is based on jumping on ice skates" so what's your point? What does basketball's lack of a "short game" have anything to do with figure skating? Perhaps this explains the ISU and Speedy's problem - they are trying to make figure skating into something it's not.

neraiselle · Mar 26, 2014

what about some snowboarding events where only the better of the two attempts counts?

Diving?

RABID · Mar 26, 2014

If this all does come to pass, how will it look finally come Korea 2018? Curious, don't you think? The woman who often and habitually won many a competition in the short program is Korean. I know it is a stretch to connect one with the other but the recent protests by the future hosting nation probably isn't making the top officials very happy. Perhaps this a subtle message and warning to them.

tetana · Mar 26, 2014

Oh,.,, Please. I hope it is just rumor.

bartlebooth · Mar 26, 2014

If almost no other sports are ruled by the iron-fist of an incompetent who encourages rigging there must be a reason.

“To finally clarify the true difference between Pairs and Ice Dance and to impose to these two important disciplines to respect the difference otherwise the external entities will actually get confused.”
Actually, I've read another interview in which Cinquanta hoped for merging the two categories, so probably HE is the clueless “external entity”. The guy's a moron.

Quousque tandem abutere, Octavie, patientia nostra?

OS · Mar 26, 2014

RABID said:
If this all does come to pass, how will it look finally come Korea 2018? Curious, don't you think? The woman who often and habitually won many a competition in the short program is Korean. I know it is a stretch to connect one with the other but the recent protests by the future hosting nation probably isn't making the top officials very happy. Perhaps this a subtle message and warning to them.

Well... it is harder to cheat twice than cheat once and have been done with it. Twice the risk, twice the paper trail. Having an extra day in between events also allows more room to reflect, challenge the judges decisions and facing media reckoning.

This letter seems more like he is flexing his muscle to exert power and control to quash the recent calamities under his ISU ruling. It is arrogant, ignorant, indifferent and tragic (probably insecure). He seems really out of touch with reality and displaying weird characteristics of grandiose and narcissism in his rambling letter like some vain dictator that has little respect for his side project.

He bring great disrepute to the Olympic movement, little value to the sport and he should be fired by IOC, or be totally overthrown by the fans of this sport and majority of the skating federations or whatever is left in this sport that made it unique and special.

ILuvYuna · Mar 26, 2014

I'm at a total loss for words right now

Shocking news - proposal to eliminate short programs

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