Er I do. I enjoy supporting these skaters. They may not have all the jumps, but sometimes they have the best interpretation. Consider Donovan Carrillo of Mexico, if not for the three per country rule we might never see skaters like him.
That's the point. You still are speaking about "countries", and I'm offering to remove this word from the equation at all. Athletes and their individualities are more important than their countries. Besides competitive figure skating is still a sport. There are shows and stuff for best "interpretation". And for those who doesn't jump quads but have a lot of transitions (and "balanced programs" *cough cough* Lysachek) .
Just think about it. Donovan Carrillo definitely took a spot of a more talented athletes from somewhere else, was it fair to that guy? So we discriminate and leave this guy home just to give Donovans-Carrillos of the world their 8-9 minutes to shine and to do some flag waving? Not cool. We would survive if we'd never saw him, but at the same time the better athlete was deprived his chance at all and this athlete had probably a real talent and a big chance to medal, he worked harder, longer and is probably more talented. But he never had a chance. Gubanova comes to mind here too, BTW. And, look, now we are heartbroken and going to leave either Liza or Zhenya behind. I bet we will see a lot of skaters on this Worlds which we probably would survive without. Especially if amazingly talented skaters are left at home. Is it fair? More fair?
Every time you see those kind of skaters in Japan during this Worlds just think about Liza (or Zhenya) for a second. [emoji14]
I think the opposite is true, how would a skater from a small Fed such as Yuna even get a chance to become great if only the skaters from countries with lots of facilities get a shot. There's so many amazing skaters from Russia, Japan and the US is partly because of all their amazing facilities available. For example a single suburb in Chicago has more rinks than in the whole of Australia. How would skaters like Brendan Kerry and Kailani Craine ever get opportunities in such an unfair playing field?
Every country with skaters that make the minimums should be allowed one entry. They can have six Russians and six Japanese skaters too, but pushing out the skaters from smaller Feds is not the way. This will make the competition longer and since the ISU won't let this occur, the 3 per country quota has to remain.
Yuna made it because of her talent and her honest hard work. Just like skaters from Russia, Japan and North America. Talent+hard work. They have ice rinks in Korea.
Brendan Kerry and Kailani Craine have a fair playing field - they have ice and they are not forbidden to train. Opportunity is there. Everything is/was in their hands. Besides the world is very global now. There are plenty of opportunities to train almost everywhere in the world. Bigger amount of ice rinks in Chicago is not a factor for unfair advantage for Gracies-Golds of US over Kailanis-Craines of Australia. Key factors for success are still the same: talent, hard work and coaching traditions (methodology/school). Australia's reluctantness to build public sport infrastructure available for their own kids is not a good reason to discriminate Zhenya/Liza in favor of less talented skaters just for "diversity". IOC and sport feds introduced this "diversity" and "inclusivity" thingy in sport just for sponsors to have them advertise their goods to broader public. (oh, yeah, high-fructose corn Coca-Colas). They dont care about athletes and diversity, it is more about money and brand exposure for them to sell more of their Coca-Colas.
Smaller or bigger federation - does not matter. You have a talent and you have a passion about your sport as much as others - train as hard as others. See how hard Japanese and Russian ladies are training. Yuna made it. Javier made it. They had ice and opportunity to train. They showed potential and trained with few elite coaches. We live in the global and very connected world now. For crying out loud Nathan trains with Aratutyan over Skype. There is YouTube with bunch of lessons on every topic possible.
Sorry for harsh words, but this is the reality. It is not only about Australia or particular skaters, but more about fairness and opportunity. By giving opportunity to someone less talented we are stealing opportunity from others more talented (and proly more exciting to watch) This is bad for sport. Hypothetically speaking, we are not going to have Liza or Zhenya just probably because Australia does not like to have public ice rinks for their kids? How is it fair? Just think about it. Do you still want to play a "country X is less supportive to children and has less public sport infrastructure, so we have those athletes prioritized over others (more talented)" card?
With all the respects to the X country. For crying out loud "amazing facilities" is literally just a shed with a cooled concrete floor and Zamboni machine service. It is not a presidential palace. Ice rink is regularly $1-2 millions to build, $500k to maintain. Balpark numbers, but somewhere around. Compare how much for instance is spent for navy and other stuff to "project power" or smth. Well, just a quick googling for making my point:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2853171/Inside-Australia-s-biggest-battleship.html - $1.5 bln - 1 expeditionary warship for militaristic hawks or 1000 ice rinks for children to train. Priorities, I guess. Imagine politicians worldwide would stop making those and building sport infrastructure available for free to everyone instead.
