Ice Dance to be removed from Olympics?

[GF2445]

Female-only? How is it "gender balanced" if it excludes one gender?!

Well, they want 50 50 amongst all sports. This is happening in the summer olympics as well. They propose to get rid of some events and replace them with mixed gender or womens events to achieve the 50 50 they wanted in their vision.

 

[MK's Winter]

There are so many talented teams all over the world. I feel like Ice dance was just starting to get the recognition it deserves. If this is the expense for synchro, I would not watch it.

 

[daphenaxa]

The trouble is, the rules changed. Previously, there used to be a limit for the total number of sports that could take place at the Olympics. Now, there is a limit for disciplines. Meaning some disciplines could be dropped in order to make room for another sports.

I don't think there is a limit in the total number of sports, especially for the winter olympics. As for limit per discipline, cross country skiing has 12 events, alpine skiing 10, speed skating 12, biathlon 11 etc. whereas figure skating has 5. Even if they wanted to had synchro skating, the number of events wouldn't be a problem.

Also according to wikipedia only 2 sports were ever dropped from the winter Olympics: special figures after 1908! and military patrol that became biathlon.

I seriously hope they don't drop ice dance. That makes no sense. That would be so despicable for the athletes as well

OT but there was this ballet skiing at two olympics as a demonstration sport. I wish it became an Olympic sport

 

[GF2445]

Tjis could be seen as a classic case of political correctness on overdrive

Or a bad case of ends justifying means.

 

[centerpt1]

I love synchro-but I also love ice dance.

IS this Speedy's doing? Perhaps Ice Dance needs to be re-named something more sport-like. Precision Skating? Something....

 

[YesWay]

Well, they want 50 50 amongst all sports. This is happening in the summer olympics as well. They propose to get rid of some events and replace them with mixed gender or womens events to achieve the 50 50 they wanted in their vision.

I still don't get it. Are there some male-only sports? And they want to "balance" that by making some female-only sports?

Because to my mind, that's doubling the imbalances, not cancelling them out.

Two "wrongs" don't make a "right"...!

Is a male Synchro team member supposed to feel good about not being allowed to compete? Because some other sport is male-only?! It's ridiculous.

 

[GF2445]

I still don't get it. Are there some male-only sports? And they want to "balance" that by making some female-only sports?

Because to my mind, that's doubling the imbalances, not cancelling them out.

Two "wrongs" don't make a "right"...!

Is a male Synchro team member supposed to feel good about not being allowed to compete, because some other sport is male-only?! It's ridiculous.

So in the winter games, nordic combined is still men only.
Also, women's ski jumping was only introduced last olympics

In the summer games, combat sports and weightlifting which have lots of events are male dominated as well.

 

[Alchamei]

I don't think there is a limit in the total number of sports, especially for the winter olympics. As for limit per discipline, cross country skiing has 12 events, alpine skiing 10, speed skating 12, biathlon 11 etc. whereas figure skating has 5. Even if they wanted to had synchro skating, the number of events wouldn't be a problem.

Also according to wikipedia only 2 sports were ever dropped from the winter Olympics: special figures after 1908! and military patrol that became biathlon.

I seriously hope they don't drop ice dance. That makes no sense. That would be so despicable for the athletes as well

OT but there was this ballet skiing at two olympics as a demonstration sport. I wish it became an Olympic sport

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/olympics/30374234

Well, you are right, as I said there is not a limit for the number of sports. Perhaps I should have said it completely, there is not a limit for number of disciplines, but for the amount of athletes and the medal sets.

For some reason I could not find a lot of articles about that, but the limit for Summer Olympics is 10.500 athletes and 310 medal sets. The article I inserted does not talk about Winter Olympics, but I found some info in a Czech article. The limit is 2900 athletes and 100 medal sets.

Going back to my first post, by ,,sport'' I mean figure skating, biathlon, cross country... By ,,discipline'' I mean Ice Dance, Pairs, Sprint, Pursuit etc.

 

[YesWay]

So in the winter games, nordic combined is still men only.
Also, women's ski jumping was only introduced last olympics

In the summer games, combat sports and weightlifting which have lots of events are male dominated as well.

I just don't believe the way to "fix" that, is to deliberately introduce female-only sports.

In my opinion the way to do it, is to include females in those sports and encourage participation.
Female boxing made it into the last Summer Olympics. Why not other male-dominated sports?

 

[seabm7]

^^ Here is the source to your information on the limits.

http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf
P87

3.2 Unless agreed otherwise with the relevant OCOG, the following approximate numbers shall apply:
- with respect to the Games of the Olympiad, ten thousand five hundred (10,500) athletes,
five thousand (5,000) accredited coaches and athletes’ support personnel
and three hundred and ten (310) events.

- with respect to the Olympic Winter Games, two thousand nine hundred (2,900) athletes,
two thousand (2,000) accredited coaches and athletes’ support personnel
and one hundred (100) events.

According to wikipedia, there were 2,873 participating athletes and 98 events in Sochi.

 

[Alchamei]

Thanks seabm7. All articles I found spoke only about Summer Olympics. But these changes will affect winter Olympics as well, so that could be the reason why the Ice Dance may be dropped, to clear space for other sports and disciplines.

 

[Krunchii]

As others have said, many lesser skating countries are represented through ice dance, I don't like the reason for making the Olympics more gender equal, whatever sport they choose to include should have both mens and womens disciplines, ice skating is one of the most gender balanced ones if anything. We have singles for each gender AND pair disciplines, I don't like this...

 

[GF2445]

I just don't believe the way to "fix" that, is to deliberately introduce female-only sports.

In my opinion the way to do it, is to include females in those sports and encourage participation.
Female boxing made it into the last Summer Olympics. Why not other male-dominated sports?

Of course i am only speculating about this being the reason but having read the IOC's terribly written and long winded Agenda 2020 paper, i am trying to make sense of this.

 

[daphenaxa]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/olympics/30374234

Well, you are right, as I said there is not a limit for the number of sports. Perhaps I should have said it completely, there is not a limit for number of disciplines, but for the amount of athletes and the medal sets.

For some reason I could not find a lot of articles about that, but the limit for Summer Olympics is 10.500 athletes and 310 medal sets. The article I inserted does not talk about Winter Olympics, but I found some info in a Czech article. The limit is 2900 athletes and 100 medal sets.

Going back to my first post, by ,,sport'' I mean figure skating, biathlon, cross country... By ,,discipline'' I mean Ice Dance, Pairs, Sprint, Pursuit etc.

^^ Here is the source to your information on the limits.

http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf
P87

Thank you! very interesting!
Well for now there were 98 events in Sochi.
But the limit number of athletes may be a problem if they wanna had synchro. And even if they cancel the dance event, it probably wouldn't suffice!

Also they really would make figure skating no favour by doing that. Even with the so called "controversial" results, dance is a popular event. Casual viewers can enjoy ice dance because even the less technical teams have nice pleasing performances. There are also teams from everywhere. Whereas for synchro, however how difficult a discipline it is, watching it is kinda underwhelming, especially for casual viewers. The judging wouldn't be any less controversial either. And also maybe the nordic countries are more represented but other than that, always the same countries: Canada, USA, Russia.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Although I love pairs, if it came down to getting rid of a discipline, I would get rid of pairs, because fewer countries are involved than in the other events.

A big part of me agrees with this actually. However, think we both know that doing so would mean we would start to see Ice Dancing become more like pairs. I don't know how much good that would do either.

 

[Violet Bliss]

Ice Dance is all about skating, something casual fans enjoy without knowledge about figure skating as a sport. In fact, it seems most people don't even know the difference between Pairs and Ice Dance. However, it needs to be promoted and better understood as a sport, one worthy of the Olympics.

I say to take away the Team event instead. It excludes some of the best skaters in the world while including and rewarding very few nations and their athletes, bestowing them with extra medals. Meanwhile, it takes so much Olympic time and the athletes' energy for the individual events.

And what about swimming? With the variety of styles and distances, as well as teams and individuals, there are so many events and swimmers have the most opportunities to amass medals. Rather unfair in the distribution of glory.

 

[YesWay]

Thanks seabm7. All articles I found spoke only about Summer Olympics. But these changes will affect winter Olympics as well, so that could be the reason why the Ice Dance may be dropped, to clear space for other sports and disciplines.

I can think of a lot of other events that I'd rather see dropped instead... eg.

-Skeleton (because it looks stupidly, STUPIDLY dangerous)
-Luge pairs (because it looks stupidly... stupid)
-Freestyle skiing (because snowboarders beat skiers hands-down. Except mogul, which I'd drop anyway)
-Snowboard cross and slaloms (because skiers beat snowboarders hands-down)
-etc etc

And as for Synchro skatng - just not high enough level for prime time, in my opinion.

 

[Cherryy]

Doesn't seem likely. First of all, Russia and USA are one of the best countries in ice dance and I guess they might have a lot to say. Moreover, figure skating is one of the sports that attract the biggest TV audiences, so removing ice dance would mean smaller profits from advertisements and whole TV thing in general. It's just that it wouldn't do any favors for anyone. The ratio of genders may be an issue but it's nobody's bussiness to keep it at 50/50. Doing so in such an artificial way is just pointless.

 

[Tutto]

Russians apparently treat this source seriously enough:

http://www.sports.ru/others/figure-skating/1029891634.html

 

[Violet Bliss]

And as for Synchro skatng - just not high enough level for ready for prime time, in my opinion.

It seems to be an event to give out many medals to lesser athletes.