Ice Dance to be removed from Olympics?

[ice coverage]

Was the team event a one time only? After alll, that event in that format has only been competed that once in Sochi, and not at Worlds.

What I recall from when the ISU officially proposed synchro for the Olympics (doesn't mean that things have not changed at this point or will not change in the future):

- The official site for the 2018 Games did list the team event in the plan for figure skating.

ETA, I just went back to double-check, and the team skating event still is listed.

http://www.pyeongchang2018.org/horizon/eng/sports/Figure_Skating.asp#Figure_Skating​

- At the time, Cinquanta said that the idea was for synchro to be an addition -- and not to be a replacement for the team event, which would continue.​

ETA, the Olympic team event of course has the longer-standing counterpart of WTT (although a slightly different format), which one could say has the imprimatur of Worlds status.​

but what about the guys in synchro? maybe there are not a lot but still they exist. Would they be prevented to participate? (I don't think there are guys in synchro swimming for ex, is there?) ...

IIRC, the ISU proposal to the IOC re synchro specifies that the Olympic synchro teams would be all-female.

... Who is this David Molina? Is he reliable? His bio says he's a judge.

Agree with others who have said that Molina has a lot of credibility. His tweets in the past that have previewed ISU news have proven to be true.
Ice dance is Molina's specialty as an ISU judge and technical panelist, so he surely is concerned for the entire discipline.
And he is very plugged into Team France, so no doubt that he also has high hopes for Papadakis/Cizeron to win Olympic gold.

I don't think it's a good idea to suggest other sports being removed. After all, those athletes work very hard to make it to the Olympics....

I know, but obviously I am totally biassed towards figure skating, so I will argue every other sport be removed before a figure skating event :-D

And I will use whatever nebulous arguments I must, to support their removal :-D

Understand that YesWay is showing loyalty to figure skating -- but agree with CSG that it's bad karma to suggest elimination of other sports.
I wouldn't want fans of other sports to blithely support elimination of ice dance.

^^ 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.

...

seabm7, thank you for looking up the passage in the Olympic charter.

 

[daphenaxa]

IIRC, the ISU proposal to the IOC re synchro specifies that the Olympic synchro teams would be all-female.

well that is really upsetting. Since there are no jumps, having male team member wouldn't give a substantial advantage.

Also creating female only sports is a very short-sighted and dumb way to address the parity problem at the games.

 

[QMATTERS]

I hope this does not happen. I rather see rhythmic gymnastics get the cut. No one outside Eastern Europeans have a chance to win the medals. That has been that way for a long time.

 

[Hyena]

This would be really disappointing, especially for all the younger teams who haven't been to the Olympics but are training now with an Olympic medal as a long-term goal, like Papadakis/Cizeron and Hawayek/Baker.

I've always kind of assumed they get rid of sports that are becoming less and less popular with fewer participants. Is that the case for ice dance? Here in North America it seems more popular than ever but I'm not sure about other countries. Now Pairs, on the other hand, does seem to be shrinking in size (not that I'm advocating for its removal, either).

 

[daphenaxa]

This would be really disappointing, especially for all the younger teams who haven't been to the Olympics but are training now with an Olympic medal as a long-term goal, like Papadakis/Cizeron and Hawayek/Baker.

I've always kind of assumed they get rid of sports that are becoming less and less popular with fewer participants. Is that the case for ice dance? Here in North America it seems more popular than ever but I'm not sure about other countries. Now Pairs, on the other hand, does seem to be shrinking in size (not that I'm advocating for its removal, either).

At the WC in Shanghai there were 27 countries represented for ladies, 24 for dance, 21 for men and 11 for pairs. So Ice dance is the 2nd most international event.

 

[Alchamei]

I also think the Ice Dance is rather growing in popularity... As a child, I considered it a boring discipline (hey, I was about 10! I cared mainly about jumps) but I think during recent years it has grown on popularity and become a widely watched discipline.

 

[Mathman]

I wonder what ISU insiders think about this. Alexei Mishin, for instance, has long been on the "ice dancing is not a sport" train.

 

[Jaana]

I think ice dance should stay and instead they should drop the figure skating team event.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

I also think the Ice Dance is rather growing in popularity... As a child, I considered it a boring discipline (hey, I was about 10! I cared mainly about jumps) but I think during recent years it has grown on popularity and become a widely watched discipline.

Same. As a kid, I had very little enjoyment from ice dancing, and certainly as a skater it seemed ice dance was what you fell back on if you couldn't cut it in singles. But now under the new system I respect ice dance more as a sport and less as "who has the best theatrics?". Certainly at the last Olympics, some of my coworkers were very impressed with the stuff V/M and D/W were doing, and they quipped that it wasn't what they expected ice dance to be.

 

[visaliakid]

icenetwork
‏@icenetwork icenetwork retweeted Nancy Armour
USA Today columnist @nrarmour gets the scoop on the rumor about ice dance being taken out of the Olympics. icenetwork added,
Nancy Armour @nrarmour
Stand down, ice dance fans. IOC spokesman says 'none whatsoever" when asked if any truth to rumor dance could be removed from OLY program

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

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.

That's why I pointed out earlier that maybe speculation and threats of removing Ice Dance will increase the push by fans to keep it and as such further legitimizing the sport and possibly creating a bit more buzz. Hopefully a push of this nature maybe will increase the interest and standing of the discipline overall.

Just to sort of see the whole picture and maybe see it from an outsiders view, I have to admit, Ice Dance is probably the least likely to garner much interest amongst casual viewers of all the disciplines FS has to offer. Maybe even synchro.

I personally like the sport and don't want to see it go anywhere.

 

[whatif]

I hope it stays BUT this was long coming and won't surprise me at all.

 

[glam]

I doubt Mr. Molina would have tweeted this without any reason and he hasn't deleted his tweet, either. Maybe he knows something that the IOC spokesman doesn't know yet. Why hasn't the ISU commented this?

 

[Hanmgse]

I think ice dance should stay and instead they should drop the figure skating team event.

:thumbsup:

 

[actualrealliveanna]

No way! Strange that they would even think of removing it, with the inception of the team event only last year! Plus this sport is only growing thanks to teams like Davis/White and Virtue/Moir, more and more people are tuning in! Hope that this is nothing more than a rumor.

 

[gmyers]

A real overreaction from Russia now that its ice dance programs is dead

 

[ice coverage]

icenetwork
‏@icenetwork icenetwork retweeted Nancy Armour
USA Today columnist @nrarmour gets the scoop on the rumor about ice dance being taken out of the Olympics. icenetwork added,
Nancy Armour @nrarmour
Stand down, ice dance fans. IOC spokesman says 'none whatsoever" when asked if any truth to rumor dance could be removed from OLY program

I doubt Mr. Molina would have tweeted this without any reason and he hasn't deleted his tweet, either. Maybe he knows something that the IOC spokesman doesn't know yet. Why hasn't the ISU commented this?

I do wonder whether Nancy Armour has reached out to her ISU contacts as well.
Maybe she has, but no one from the ISU has responded yet ?

The gymnastics world is reeling b/c the international governing body has changed the numbers of gymnasts for the Olympic team event.
At least for ladies, only four gymnasts per team will compete in the Olympic team event.
My understanding is that the gymnastics governing body made this decision on its own -- it had nothing to do with any IOC requirement.
(Sorry, I'm not a gymnastics groupie -- but I think I have the basic story right.)

So it is not impossible (IMO) that the ISU could have its own agenda of which the IOC spokesman would be unaware.

 

[cruzceleste]

I do wonder whether Nancy Armour has reached out to her ISU contacts as well.
Maybe she has, but no one from the ISU has no responded yet ?

The gymnastics world is reeling b/c the international governing body has changed the numbers of gymnasts for the Olympic team event.
At least for ladies, only four gymnasts per team will compete in the Olympic team event.
My understanding is that the gymnastics governing body made this decision on its own -- it had nothing to do with any IOC requirement.
(Sorry, I'm not a gymnastics groupie -- but I think I have the basic story right.)

So it is not impossible (IMO) that the ISU could have its own agenda of which the IOC spokesman would be unaware.

Conspiracy theories FTW! The truth is out there...

 

[Watermelondrea]

Ice dance is the most boring; don't care what you say but to the untrained eye it is absolutely boring. I don't really understand why, however. Taking away Olympics from this sport ks destroyong it altogether... Are

 

[Watermelondrea]

I do wonder whether Nancy Armour has reached out to her ISU contacts as well.
Maybe she has, but no one from the ISU has no responded yet ?

The gymnastics world is reeling b/c the international governing body has changed the numbers of gymnasts for the Olympic team event.
At least for ladies, only four gymnasts per team will compete in the Olympic team event.
My understanding is that the gymnastics governing body made this decision on its own -- it had nothing to do with any IOC requirement.
(Sorry, I'm not a gymnastics groupie -- but I think I have the basic story right.)

So it is not impossible (IMO) that the ISU could have its own agenda of which the IOC spokesman would be unaware.

No you're right Gymnastics is reeling and I hate that its doing that... Also its because of the fact that pretty much everything you do turns to deductions