For whatever reason, skaters sometimes choose to keep a program longer than one season. Other times, they resurrect an old program from several seasons past. What are your thoughts on this? Does it annoy you, or is it something you understand and accept? How are returning programs received by the judges--and how should they be received?
For me, I tend to want skaters to switch a program if I feel like they did all they could with the current one. I want them to keep it if I find the program beautiful but it was never skated to its full potential. It helps if a skater keeps one program but switches the other (e.g. they keep their LP for another season, but do a different SP). For beautiful, iconic programs, I want skaters to keep skating them in shows, rather than bringing them back in competition.
However, though keeping old programs isn't my preference, I understand why skaters do this and try not to be too harsh on them. I don't think they should be punished marks-wise unless they go way overboard--see the bottom of this post.
The inspiration for the thread comes from Brian Joubert and the Matrix, which seems to re-emerge every couple of seasons. I don't hold this against Brian, but it seems like he's done all he could with the Matrix. COP improved upon some aspects of the program, but I felt like the step sequence became more and more generic with every iteration (yeah, the original step sequence was kinda Yagudin-wannabe, but at least it was heartfelt and fit the music). Would he have gotten on the podium in Nice 2012 if only he'd done a different LP?
Example of a program I wish the skater had kept: Yuna Kim's Homage to Korea LP. Simply breathtaking and beautiful. I'm simultaneously sad that such a program didn't win Worlds... but also glad it didn't, because she really didn't skate the program to anywhere near its potential. I wish she'd competed more with it and perfected it.
Example of a program I wish had been dumped: That LP Viktor Petrenko kept for four years. It's kinda sad that when I look up old videos of him, it's the same LP over and over again. He had enough style to do better than that. And maybe he could've won the 1991 Worlds if he hadn't bored the judges to death with the same mediocre LP. :disapp:
For me, I tend to want skaters to switch a program if I feel like they did all they could with the current one. I want them to keep it if I find the program beautiful but it was never skated to its full potential. It helps if a skater keeps one program but switches the other (e.g. they keep their LP for another season, but do a different SP). For beautiful, iconic programs, I want skaters to keep skating them in shows, rather than bringing them back in competition.
However, though keeping old programs isn't my preference, I understand why skaters do this and try not to be too harsh on them. I don't think they should be punished marks-wise unless they go way overboard--see the bottom of this post.
The inspiration for the thread comes from Brian Joubert and the Matrix, which seems to re-emerge every couple of seasons. I don't hold this against Brian, but it seems like he's done all he could with the Matrix. COP improved upon some aspects of the program, but I felt like the step sequence became more and more generic with every iteration (yeah, the original step sequence was kinda Yagudin-wannabe, but at least it was heartfelt and fit the music). Would he have gotten on the podium in Nice 2012 if only he'd done a different LP?
Example of a program I wish the skater had kept: Yuna Kim's Homage to Korea LP. Simply breathtaking and beautiful. I'm simultaneously sad that such a program didn't win Worlds... but also glad it didn't, because she really didn't skate the program to anywhere near its potential. I wish she'd competed more with it and perfected it.
Example of a program I wish had been dumped: That LP Viktor Petrenko kept for four years. It's kinda sad that when I look up old videos of him, it's the same LP over and over again. He had enough style to do better than that. And maybe he could've won the 1991 Worlds if he hadn't bored the judges to death with the same mediocre LP. :disapp: