Asian and American Champs instead of 4CC?

[Tanager]

Begin an African Championships (even if it's tiny to begin with). Continue the Asian Open Trophy. Encourage the growth of the South American Championships. Heck, if there's an appetite for it, even bring back the North American Championship. Have these each as ISU-sanctioned continental competitions.

But keep them as separate from Four Continents.

Keep Four Continents as one of the prestige "goal" competitions that skaters use their own continental championships to aim towards through gaining international experience and building their TES.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Well, you have to have the participants first. There's not much point in having an African Championships in a sport that only has one federation participating.

Exactly.

2 Federations, actually:

• Morocco has skaters competing internationally at Junior and Novice level.
  
  
• South Africa has skaters competing internationally at all levels.

http://www.rinkresults.com/list-skaters

And I wouldn't be surprised if there were small skating programmes in other countries that we don't know about because the skaters haven't broken through yet.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Ice Dance]

I think the Four Continents Championship raises the profile of the athletes who succeed there, precisely because of the depth of competition. And it helps bring together judges and members of the skating community--exposing them and the athletes to other 4CC athletes earlier on in their careers. (Just as judges are exposed to European athletes at Euros). 4CCs helps athletes set goals beyond their own region's strengths. The competition helps raise the experience level for 4CC judges (who are not the only judges at 4CCs but who do have a good chance of serving on the panels there). And advances the level of competition in all four disciplines across 4CC countries.

It's at another level than a similar event would be just in the Americas or just in Asia/Oceania.

If I was going to argue for a change at the organizational level, I would argue that the JGP system be spread out more equally across continents--with at least one event in Asia/Oceania and one in North/South America every year. If it benefits young European athletes to choose to compete at local events, surely it would benefit young Asian & Latin American athletes to do so as well. (If people are unhappy with attendance, then either 1. athletes could be distributed equally throughout the events rather than simply allowed to choose to attend regional competitions or 2. more local athletes could be invited on continents with fewer countries than Europe).

 

[cohen-esque]

Europeans routinely gets more skaters than Four Continents... and this is despite the fact that at Four Continents, everybody automatically gets 3 entries.

There just aren’t enough skaters from the Four Continents countries to justify a separate championship, IMO.

 

[NanaPat]

How about the Polar Caps Championship?

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/DN7GB2/polar-bear-and-penguin-ice-skating-DN7GB2.jpg

But one of the penguins is wearing hockey skates. How can we take this seriously?

 

[chuckm]

I think it is a terrible idea to split 4CC into smaller, less meaningful championships. There's already an Asian Open. What would be the need for still another Asian Championship?

 

[draqq]

I think that splitting 4CC into two separate championships would lessen the competitiveness of the, and thereby make them even less important than Euros than 4CC is at this point. However, like other people have said in this thread, it would be good for 4CC to rebrand itself.

Either place 4CC before the Nationals events from Asia and America, or suggest to their federations to turn 4CC into a de facto qualifying event for final World/Olympic team spots like Japan does on occasion. Instead of solidifying the second or third World/Olympic spots after Nationals, have some of the skaters go head to head in 4CC to see who should really go. From last year's Nationals, I would have loved to see a theoretical match-up between Karen Chen and Ashley Wagner for the third ladies spot as well as Miner, Rippon, and Brown for the men's third spot as well. (Doesn't have to be those specific skaters of course.)

Now that the USFSA looks at a skater's body of work - that is, more flexible in their team selection - use 4CC as an asset and a last chance to see how the skaters would actually be scored under an international judging panel which is what Worlds/Olympics is based on anyway. That would increase the importance and viewership of 4CC in general.

 

[4everchan]

^^ i like this but i also like that we see some of the close to the top but not at the top skaters that we don't see anywhere else... in europe, there are many competitions so even the russian number 13th skater gets a chance to compete easily... but in north america... there is not much for let's say a usa number 5 or 6... so 4cc at times can help them to get some world ranking points and experience... some years, canada has sent athletes to compete for the one world spot.... so that option is also exciting but i like the format now where federations can send their top athletes or not.. depending of the needs

 

[Ladskater]

We used to hold biannual North American championships, but those stopped in the 1970s.

I don’t think this would be an improvement, and the quality of competition would necessarily decrease. In both putative contests, you’d see some disciplines that would be completely dominated by one country (in Asia, for instance, China would always win pairs, Japan would always win ladies).

I was going to mention North American championships but you beat me to it! I well remember it.

 

[acapenci]

Theres already the southeast asian games... op should have checked

 

[karne]

What a terrible idea. We are still at the point with 4CC where the only discipline with a cut is the men's - and we only just got that up to a proper number of skaters to be cut this year (whereas in prior years only one or two were cut).

This concept people have of 4CC being the "inferior product" is just so bizarre to me. Other than Olympic years the top skaters still usually come, with only one or two high-profile exceptions (looking at Miss I'm Too Good For 4CCs Wagner). Do people on this forum have goldfish memories? Or did I make up that in 2017 we had a crazy showdown between Hanyu and Chen for the men's title at 4CC? I mean, how much more high-profile do you want to get?

And IMO, the skating quality at 4CC is much better than at Euros, especially in recent years and very especially in the men's.

 

[chopinskate]

And IMO, the skating quality at 4CC is much better than at Euros, especially in recent years and very especially in the men's.

Agreed. Not a fan of this idea. I also think that most of the top men (especially now that Fernandez is semi-retired) are part of the 4CCs, as are most of the top ice dance teams (Canada and the USA), most of the top pairs (China, Canada)... Maybe the retirements this season would make that change, but probably not.

 

[yume]

What a terrible idea. We are still at the point with 4CC where the only discipline with a cut is the men's - and we only just got that up to a proper number of skaters to be cut this year (whereas in prior years only one or two were cut).

This concept people have of 4CC being the "inferior product" is just so bizarre to me. Other than Olympic years the top skaters still usually come, with only one or two high-profile exceptions (looking at Miss I'm Too Good For 4CCs Wagner). Do people on this forum have goldfish memories? Or did I make up that in 2017 we had a crazy showdown between Hanyu and Chen for the men's title at 4CC? I mean, how much more high-profile do you want to get?

And IMO, the skating quality at 4CC is much better than at Euros, especially in recent years and very especially in the men's.

The only advantage that euros have over 4CC is prestige due to history. But that doesn't make euros more important than 4CC or more competitive. These last years 4CC were more competitive than euros in most of categories.
The only issue with 4CC is the timing. If North American nationals were in December there would be less withdrawals and 4CC wouldn't be called an unimportant competition.

 

[karne]

The only advantage that euros have over 4CC is prestige due to history. But that doesn't make euros more important than 4CC or more competitive. These last years 4CC were more competitive than euros in most of categories.
The only issue with 4CC is the timing. If North American nationals were in December there would be less withdrawals and 4CC wouldn't be called an unimportant competition.

But again. I really don't think, Olympic years aside, there are all that many withdrawals. I think too many people look at Olympic-year 4CC and think it the norm when it is the exception.

 

[Sam L]

What they should’ve done was made the European Championships open to everyone. 4CC lack prestige but it does have stronger fields in every category except the ladies and that’s only recently and because of Russia.

 

[chopinskate]

What they should’ve done was made the European Championships open to everyone. 4CC lack prestige but it does have stronger fields in every category except the ladies and that’s only recently and because of Russia.

In whose minds do they lack prestige though? Not that I like citing ISU's nonsense ranking system, but I think gold at either the Euros or the 4CC fetches you the same number of points. Just because the Euros was established a while back doesn't mean it's "more prestigious", and it certainly shouldn't be considered more prestigious than the 4CCs, when the 4CCs has straight up more talent at this point. Maybe people should start evaluating talent and using their brains, instead of claiming something has more prestige based on history. Geocentrism was also a historically accepted "fact".

And 4CC+Euros already exists. It's called Worlds.

 

[gkelly]

Part of the reason that Four Continents was established when it was had to do with the introduction of prize money. European skaters had an opportunity to win prize money at their continental championships, so it was only fair to give non-European skaters a comparable opportunity.

In order for that to be fair, the size and depth of field need to be comparable. Perhaps the idea of separate Asian and American championships was considered and rejected in the 1990s on that basis.

It is true that the number of federations outside Europe has grown in the past 20 years, and so has the number with potential medalists. But that just means that the strength of field at 4Cs is now comparable to Euros -- sometimes a little stronger in some disciplines, sometimes a little weaker. It is still far from true that an Asia-only or Americas-only field would be comparable to Euros. So if they were to separate, should the prize money for each be halved?

And should South African senior skaters have no opportunity to compete internationally at a championship level? (Aside from Worlds, assuming they can earn the minimum tech scores)

 

[yume]

What they should’ve done was made the European Championships open to everyone. 4CC lack prestige but it does have stronger fields in every category except the ladies and that’s only recently and because of Russia.

Even with Russian ladies i don't think the european field is stronger than 4CC. There are more top 10 contenders for worlds at 4CC than euros. There was more 4CC skaters in top10 in the last 4-5 seasons.

 

[lovaticcanada]

With the ladies field, its only top heavy at Euros, where the top 4 have potential to make the final flight at olympics/worlds (3 Russians + Kostner). However, the depth falls off rapidly after that.

This year, Loena Hendricx finished 5th at Euros with 176 (55 SP//121 FS). You can easily name a big group of female skaters who are eligible to skate at 4CC, who can score higher than that.

 

[chuckm]

Part of the reason that Four Continents was established when it was had to do with the introduction of prize money. European skaters had an opportunity to win prize money at their continental championships, so it was only fair to give non-European skaters a comparable opportunity.

It wasn't just the prize money---it was also the ISU World Ranking points. The ISU had established the World Ranking and gave ISU Championship points for Europeans. Since Euros wasn't open to non-European countries, the ISU had to create a separate but equal ISU Championship for those countries, and Four Continents was inaugurated.