Petition to Reject Cinquanta's Figure Skating Proposals for the 2014 ISU Congress

Pepe Nero said:

Would the OP mind sharing the reasons why people should sign this petition?

I'm not sure there is any evidence in history that petitions do any good, though they sure make relatively lazy agitators feel self-satisfied (in the absence of meaningful action).

I have no opinion on Cinquanta. Should I attribute the problems of figure skating to him? Why?

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This petition is not about whether we like Mr. Cinquanta or not, but specifically to urge our representatives in the ISU Congress to vote against the specific proposals that he is urging for next year. The one that has caused the biggest uproar is Cinquata's proposal to eliminate the short program altogether and have figure skating competitions in the future have just one skate. He also is recommending to the assembly that anonymous judging be retained (there is a U.S. sponsored proposal on the table to do way with it) and to eliminate some of the race distances in speed skating.

Will it do any good to sign a petition about this to the representatives of our national federations? Dunno.

Mathman said:

The one that has caused the biggest uproar is Cinquata's proposal to eliminate the short program altogether and have figure skating competitions in the future have just one skate.

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God, really? That is absurd. Is it supposed to be a cost-saving measure?

Why isn't such news on IN? (I'm sorry if that's a dumb question.)

Here is the Golden Skate thread about it. (It has meandered down to page three already.

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...ing-news-proposal-to-eliminate-short-programs

Yes, all of the proposals seem to be about saving money. For instance, Cinquanta proposes to have speed skating races on smaller tracks because it is too expensive to build regulation size tracks.

I doubt if the proposal to eliminate the short program will fly. I do think, though, that Cinquanta wants to establish a sense of fiscal urgency in the minds of member federations of the ISU.

I'll point out again.

This is the behavior of a failing business. Random changes that don't really address the underlying problems. It's like an episode of Kitchen Nightmares come to life (without Gordon Ramsay to engage in sidewalk psychoanalysis and save the the day)

I suspect that ISU finances are far worse than most people suspect and this is a last ditch effort to keep from going under.

It can't go out of business too fast for me. Maybe then a figure skating only organization can be built.

Mathman said:

Here is the Golden Skate thread about it. (It has meandered down to page three already.

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...ing-news-proposal-to-eliminate-short-programs

Yes, all of the proposals seem to be about saving money. For instance, Cinquanta proposes to have speed skating races on smaller tracks because it is too expensive to build regulation size tracks.

I doubt if the proposal to eliminate the short program will fly. I do think, though, that Cinquanta wants to establish a sense of fiscal urgency in the minds of member federations of the ISU.

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Ah, I see. Thanks, Mathman. I haven't been on GS lately to follow the news. It is disturbing, both in itself, and that one cannot get this news on IN.

It is reminiscent of the strategies of university (and I guess generally) administrations to rationalize cuts -- fiscal emergency!! This is why figure skaters, too, should have a union, as I believe Patrick Chan suggested some months back.

Mafke said:

I'll point out again.

This is the behavior of a failing business. Random changes that don't really address the underlying problems. It's like an episode of Kitchen Nightmares come to life (without Gordon Ramsay to engage in sidewalk psychoanalysis and save the the day)

I suspect that ISU finances are far worse than most people suspect and this is a last ditch effort to keep from going under.

It can't go out of business too fast for me. Maybe then a figure skating only organization can be built.

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This would actually be the perfect time for the ISU to fall apart. A figure skating only organization would have enough time to set itself up for the next Olympics.

cooper said:

and yet it didn't change anything..

i agree with bop.. speedy doesn't care if this petition reached 1 million or 10 million.. as long as the people within the ISU keep on ignoring the real issue speedy will smile while watching the sunset and just drink wine until he retires..

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It's true. I don't get Speedy. He might have hated figure skating very much, huh?

I still can’t fathom how Cinquanta could leave the two infamous quotes;

1. “Would you rather have an idiot acting as a judge than a good one who is a relative of the manager of a federation?”
um… Didn’t ISU say they followed the protocol every step of the way and there was nothing wrong with the judging in Ladies Figure Skating event? How can we trust that statement if head of ISU has that thought in his mind? He’s actually admitting that he’s willing to overlook rule 121 “conflict of interest” when needed. And it’s exactly what happened at Sochi.

2. “We are not perfect, as also the skaters are not perfect. Sometimes, they do a mistake. Mistakes are possible, because we are human beings.”
First of all, it’s funny that Cinquanta himself admitted there was a chance that judges made mistakes. – What disgusts me is that Cinquanta can say that so openly because he knows people can’t do anything about it – ISU rule makes sure the marks given by the judges can’t be challenged or protested in any way. (Unless there was a calculation error) And anonymous judging systems lets the judges off the hook from being pinpointed for any mistakes they make. Judges are supposed to be professionals who are paid to follow the exact protocols as they judge a skater’s performance. They are supposed to be well-educated on how to judge objectively and accurately based on the performance. They should be competent enough to catch flutz, pre/under-rotation, full blade take off and award correct levels on the elements like step sequence. They also should be able to acknowledge quality of execution when they see the performances. They are human, yes, but the way Cinquanta rationalizes and defends the technical/judging panel’s mistakes only raises questions as to whether ISU is doing everything in their power to minimize those mistakes. Where’s the infallible ISU judging system that makes sure those errors are minimized? I looked at their guidelines of giving out GoE – and I was laughing at how vague the guidelines are. They have a bunch of checklist (which by the way have no detailed explanation as to how a checklist can be satisfied – and they say “It is at the
discretion of each Judge to decide on the number of bullets/checklist for any upgrade, but general recommendations are as follows;”)

Cinquanta needs to wake up and face reality – His long reign founded upon power, connections, and sponsorship, are crashing down…

Why not get an actual figure skater as president? I mentioned possibly Peizerat and / or Lambiel before, but I'm now wondering if Marina Anissina could become the new overlord ... I mean president.