Ice Skating community needs to regain control of our sport - Petition to remove Cinquanta | Golden Skate

Ice Skating community needs to regain control of our sport - Petition to remove Cinquanta

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Ice Skating community needs to regain control of our sport - Petition to remove Cinquanta

https://www.change.org/petitions/ot...presidency-of-the-international-skating-union

It is time for the Ice Skating community to stop sitting by and allowing our sport to be ruined. We have reached an all-time low in relevance and participation. A major reason for this is the extremely poor leadership of the sport. For 20 years now, a speed skater has been president of the ISU. Why should our sport be presided over by someone who didn't participate in it and doesn't understand it?

The first action the ice skating community needs to take, to stabilize the sport at this moment, is the removal of Cinquanta as president of the ISU. After that, the ice skating community needs to immediately think about plans for withdrawing from the ISU and forming an international skating union that does NOT include speed skating. Why should these two sports be mixed together in the same governing body? There is no purpose for it and continuing to have them linked together will only serve to damage ice skating. It should be noted that figure skating, or "freestyle skating", is what brings in the VAST majority of revenues to the ISU. Speed skating essentially just "steals" the money that figure skating generates. There is enough time for a new ice skating union to become accredited before the next Olympics. We must act NOW.

After the root of the problem has been solved, we must then treat the sickness that has been caused, which is a judging system that is severely flawed. The rules must be significantly altered to not reward failure, to not reward convoluted and uncreative skating, and to have properly trained judges who are not anonymous. Our sport has lost the audience because the skating has become ugly/uninspiring and because the judging has no consistency and no clarity. In an age where there are more and more outlets of media and recreation for people to engage themselves in, ice skating absolutely must stand out as a unique blend of artistry and athleticism in order for it to have any real future.

Please sign the above petition and contact the skating unions to let your voice be heard. The email addresses of each skating union can be found here (a separate but related petition) - https://www.change.org/petitions/is...-skating-proposals-for-the-2014-isu-congress# (the contact info for Great Britain's union is not listed there, they can be contacted at [email protected]).
 

YLFan

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 3, 2014
I did not. The petty comments about Adelina make this look really uncredible.

Not to bash Carolina, but if she is so great why did she win no gold medals this season. Its not like her finishing 3rd at the Olympics was some big conspiracy. She got a way higher score than she did all season.
 

qwertyskates

Medalist
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
Wow...this is really agenda driven and political! Frankly, CoP has made judging much more transparent than the 6.0 system. After all the death threats, online persecution and the lack of civility, I now support anonymity for judges because it seems it is open season on judges and attacks WILL be visited on their persons IF they ever dare to place certain skaters second! This is seriously beyond the pale.:disapp:
 

Winnie_20

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
I don't think as a speed skater, he's very popular in certain speed-skating countries at the moment, either. :laugh: Speed skaters here did very well at Sochi. What does the pres say? Let's scrap some of those distances!
Imagine for a minute, the USA or Japan taking gold, silver, bronze in, say, ladies FS, and the ISU pres says, Hey, that event is dominated by one country. Let's get rid of it!
Nope, not very popular guy here! Just saying, you may not enjoy a former figure skater as pres, either.
 

izradria

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Wow...this is really agenda driven and political! Frankly, CoP has made judging much more transparent than the 6.0 system. After all the death threats, online persecution and the lack of civility, I now support anonymity for judges because it seems it is open season on judges and attacks WILL be visited on their persons IF they ever dare to place certain skaters second! This is seriously beyond the pale.:disapp:
People who intentionally misconstrue the point of certain matters—certain matters, might I add, that are actually legit—for their own sorry agendas are seriously beyond the pale. :disapp:
 

qwertyskates

Medalist
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
People who intentionally misconstrue the point of certain matters—certain matters, might I add, that are actually legit—for their own sorry agendas are seriously beyond the pale. :disapp:

Maybe I missed the whole horrible Mao vs Yuna brouhaha, as I'm quite stunned by this vitriol, glad I missed out on that drama...I've seen worse judging travesties, tbh, but I accept that there will always be two sides to every win, and judging will always be subjective to a certain extent, as PCS gifts. This type of warpath turns me off, I will not even bother to visit any thread related to this agenda anymore. Sochi is over, there are more competitions to look forward to. While Tonya vs Nancy was sort of fun, they related to two skaters. This is different, this is about uprooting the entire system, a system that I feel is more transparent and pushes the envelope of SPORT much more than the old 6.0. Throwing the baby with the bath water,...it's really too much.:disapp:
 

nimi

Medalist
Joined
Apr 7, 2014
Signed.

I expect Cinquanta and his pals at ISU and IOC are just gonna ignore this protest, too, but still... We can't just keep quiet.
 

izradria

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Maybe I missed the whole horrible Mao vs Yuna brouhaha, as I'm quite stunned by this vitriol, glad I missed out on that drama...I've seen worse judging travesties, tbh, but I accept that there will always be two sides to every win, and judging will always be subjective to a certain extent, as PCS gifts. This type of warpath turns me off, I will not even bother to visit any thread related to this agenda anymore. Sochi is over, there are more competitions to look forward to. While Tonya vs Nancy was sort of fun, they related to two skaters. This is different, this is about uprooting the entire system, a system that I feel is more transparent and pushes the envelope of SPORT much more than the old 6.0. Throwing the baby with the bath water,...it's really too much.:disapp:
Sochigate is only one of many catalysts, not the one and only catalyst, as you are repeatedly trying to make it out to be. Also (revisiting your anonymous judging comment); if football/soccer referees (you know, the sport where you can plainly see the referees' faces and their names are easily accessible) can frequently influence games, short of scoring goals themselves for their team of choice, yet live on to judge many more games, and still continue to screw up match outcomes and somehow not mysteriously croak (especially in a sport like soccer known for its intense and passionate fans), I sincerely doubt figure skating fans will be putting serious bounties on figure skating judges' heads if anonymous judging ever went away. Your exaggerations are gross but funny. :) Shame you have such little faith in fans like yourself.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
The petty comments about Adelina make this look really uncredible.

Not to bash Carolina, but if she is so great why did she win no gold medals this season. Its not like her finishing 3rd at the Olympics was some big conspiracy. She got a way higher score than she did all season.

What do you find petty about what was written about Adelina in the petition?

The general idea is that nobody thinks Adelina should have scored as high as she did, even if they think she deserved to win. The petition is not stating that Adelina robbed Kim or Kostner. It's stating there was a clear case of judging fraud and/or incompetence on display, and that Cinquanta has done nothing but ignore it. Perhaps the petition could have slightly better wording, but the points are pretty clear.
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Cinquanta has done nothing but ruin the sport during his tenure, and that was long before the proposterous ladies event scoring of the Games which might have been the apex of his reign of curruption and incompetence. Any success the sport has had is inspite of him, not because of him. I signed, but take comfort even if this doesnt work he is retiring in 2 years so his reign of terror is soon over either way.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Cinquanta has done nothing but ruin the sport during his tenure, and that was long before the proposterous ladies event scoring of the Games which might have been the apex of his reign of curruption and incompetence. Any success the sport has had is inspite of him, not because of him. I signed, but take comfort even if this doesnt work he is retiring in 2 years so his reign of terror is soon over either way.
But he intends to kill Short Program during that 2 years you know.
 

anyanka

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
Did I miss this or wasn't there already a thread on this?
Am I imagining multiple threads because I swear I've seen this petition posted before!
 

mirai4life

1Lo <
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 26, 2013
Is that petition site ever mean anything?

Didn't Yuna get like 1 and half million signed petition lool
 

nimi

Medalist
Joined
Apr 7, 2014
Blast from the past: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/winter/2003-03-25-skating-wsf-announcement_x.htm

I'm sceptical about anything changing anytime soon, but even futile protesting is better than apathy and quiet acceptance of status quo. What else can we do as fans but voice our concern and sign petitions that most probably get ignored by an authoritarian and secretive governing body? Any well-connected billionaires here who could pull strings and bribe people in positions of power? Yeah, I didn't think so.
 

HanDomi

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2014
The new system has resulted in more political and reputation-based judging than ever before, with skaters being held up, resulting in scandal after scandal.

Really ? I thinked that nothing can beat 6.0 the most cheatable system in history :rolleye:
 

Anna K.

Medalist
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Country
Latvia
Really ? I thinked that nothing can beat 6.0 the most cheatable system in history :rolleye:

Only figure skating can beat figure skating :)

Wow...this is really agenda driven and political! Frankly, CoP has made judging much more transparent than the 6.0 system. After all the death threats, online persecution and the lack of civility, I now support anonymity for judges because it seems it is open season on judges and attacks WILL be visited on their persons IF they ever dare to place certain skaters second! This is seriously beyond the pale.:disapp:

I’d say CoP has made the judging more understandable without making it more transparent (so, we can see how much each element costs but judges are free to cheat in GoE area). For me as a no-skater this is much better than 6.0; now, I can at least learn what FS is about.

However, I totally can’t see how keeping the judging anonymous might stop death threats, online persecution or lack of civility. We have all this already despite of anonymous judging. Quite the opposite, anonymity nurtures suspicion because judges are not in position to defend or clarify their marks in case they are correct. In fact, today a skater can’t shake hands or give a hug to a judge to thank for a good work because everyone is free to misinterpret that :)
 
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