2019-20 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[Manitou]

Very important.

So I am proposing whoever wants to watch skaters from Bahamas to travel over there on their own expense. It's really nice over there. It's worth the trip.

 

[beachmouse]

How important is it to figure skating to watch skaters from Solomon Islands and Bahamas?

Because if a sport is not actively looking to grow its participant base, it faces great risk in losing the athletes with the most potential to other 'trendier' sports that come along. The UCI is now pushing hard into the newly middle class parts of Africa to try to build cycling there and is starting to see results from those development efforts.

As screwed as as the IAAF (or whatever they've rebranded into) is, IMO, they've actually got the fairest way of handling athletic domination from one nation in certain events with the high paycheck/high prestiege Diamond League series not allocating by country at all, and the World Championships offering spots into individual events that do not count against national quotas for the most recent World Champions and now most recent Diamond League champion in the event, so in theory you can get 5 athletes from the same country into an event if talented enough- 3 national team allocations, 1 defending WC spot, and 1 DL champion spot.

It wouldn't be much for skating to allocate non-quota champion's spots for last year's WC and this year's GP champions. If you were feeling generous, you could add bonus slots for the winners at Euros and 4C, which would encourage better participation in the later.

 

[Manitou]

Because if a sport is not actively looking to grow its participant base, it faces great risk in losing the athletes with the most potential to other 'trendier' sports that come along. The UCI is now pushing hard into the newly middle class parts of Africa to try to build cycling there and is starting to see results from those development efforts.

How much do they care about ski jumping in Bahamas or Indonesia? Or cross country skiing? Cross country skiing is no more than maybe four countries, with one (Norway) dominating much more than 3A dominates ladies skating. How much do they care?
If you look at practically all sports, all of them, maybe except no more than ten, they are seriously practiced and dominated by a tiny handful, with the rest barely doing any insignificant background.

 

[Good Vibes Only]

How much do they care about ski jumping in Bahamas or Indonesia? Or cross country skiing? Cross country skiing is no more than maybe four countries, with one (Norway) dominating much more than 3A dominates ladies skating. How much do they care?
If you look at practically all sports, all of them, maybe except no more than ten, they are seriously practiced and dominated by a tiny handful, with the rest barely doing any insignificant background.

You have to keep in mind that some skaters from smaller federations or federations that are not as figure skating focused could be “diamonds in the rough”. In order to find these diamonds they need opportunities to compete and gain experience internationally as well. Some skaters that I think are examples of this are Javier Fernandez, Carolina Kostner, Denis Ten, and I know that there are many more but I can’t think of the spelling of their names off of the top of my head. If you want an example of this in terms of the Russian Ladies, then Alina is a great one. If Russia would have decided that she had too inconsistent of a past to give her JGP assignments, then her whole skating career may be drastically different. So I do agree that it’s a shame that Alina, Zhenya, and Liza won’t be at worlds meanwhile skaters who are not on their skating level will be, but that’s part of the sport. Until the ISU does something about it, there is no use in belittling skaters from smaller federations.

 

[Jontor]

We've had this discussion before. And I say it again. They should increase the number to at least 4 per country. In alpine skiing and in cross-country skiing, there are 4 + the reigning champion so there could be a max of 5.
I think that's reasonable in figure skating too. When you think about it, there is not many countries that will come up to that quota anyways. For Russia, maybe in Ladies and Pairs but not in Men and Ice Dance. And over time this will change between countries.
There is something wrong with the system when countries like Kazachstan gets three spots for Worlds in Ladies this year. When they probably have none to send.
Qualification for Worlds should be the best from the GPs and Challenger events in the autumn season. And throw in the champion from last year as well.

 

[LiamV426]

We've had this discussion before. And I say it again. They should increase the number to at least 4 per country. In alpine skiing and in cross-country skiing, there are 4 + the reigning champion so there could be a max of 5.
I think that's reasonable in figure skating too. When you think about it, there is not many countries that will come up to that quota anyways. For Russia, maybe in Ladies and Pairs but not in Men and Ice Dance. And over time this will change between countries.
There is something wrong with the system when countries like Kazachstan gets three spots for Worlds in Ladies this year. When they probably have none to send.
Qualification for Worlds should be the best from the GPs and Challenger events in the autumn season. And throw in the champion from last year as well.

Yeah or alternatively they could allow 4 or 5 spots for top performing countries at the previous Worlds. Like if to get 3 spots you must have 2 skaters' placements add up to 13 (?), then you could do 9 for 4 spots and 6 for 5 spots. It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever that you could potentially have every GPF qualifier be from the same country but only 3 at max can compete at Worlds? This does nothing for the sport.

Also I can't remember if this is still the case but it's weird that 1 great skater can win 3 spots for their country by placing 1st or 2nd (assuming they are the only one from their country competing). Like 2 spots I'd understand, but 3's a little much.

 

[SkateSkates]

I have proposed in the past up to 3 additional quotas for the GPF, European and 4CC champions. Obviously if the same person wins GPF and Euros or GPF and 4CC then it’s just 2 extra quotas. I don’t see how adding 3 more entries to the SP could have such a massive impact on worldwide participation in the sport. 24 skaters would still qualify for the LP - it would likely mean the skaters placing 25-27 would’ve made the LP without these champions quotas.

 

[Mathman]

How important is it to figure skating to watch skaters from Solomon Islands and Bahamas?

That's an interesting question and the key to the whole discussion. I think we could also ask, "how important is it to watch skaters from Russia, orfrom Japan, orfrom the USA, or from Mars?"

 

[Mathman]

I would not separate GP and worlds, but why not to transform GP into qualification for the worlds. Who qualifies he qualifies, without the limit of entries per country.

For that proposal to work I think the Grand Prix would have to be greatly expanded. We would have to have a pre-Grand Prix where skaters could compete for Grand Prix assignments. Otherwise only skaters with Grand Prix assignments could ever have a chance to qualify for worlds.

This would also put more power, not less, in the hands of the federations, taking away from the skaters the power to determine their own destinies on the ice.

 

[SkySkater]

To be honest, figure skating is completely dominated by several countries even now, which is not rare in many other sports as well. My propose could work with the details like this to provide some "diversity". But look at Europeans, where for many skaters 3S+2T was nearly impossible combo to do it clean, while there are numerous skaters who are much better and can't go because of the max. 3 entries quota. More diversity was possible just because some 5 or 6 russian skaters represented another flag, of which most still train in Russia, Ekaterina Kurakova is an exception. Where is the sense in the system, where countries don't train their own skaters on the necessary level, just buy some "mercenaries" from elsewhere do defend their national pride.

Did you watch the same Europeans I did—it was pretty much necessary to have a triple triple to qualify for the free skate only 3 out of the twenty four qualifying didn’t. Moreover if you actually watched the competition you might have seen how all of these skaters fought so hard regardless of their country and deserve to be there. Similarly Dasa’s fight to get to worlds after the isu increased the tech minimums after she thought she’d achieved them you might find her to be as inspirational as the Russian skaters who are also fighting to go to worlds. For me at least the best skates of Euroes surprising weren’t by any of 3A or the ‘Russian mercenaries’ but Eva Lotta Kiibus’s free and both of Emmi Peltonen’s programs because of everything that they brought to the ice. As unfair as it might be that more Russian girls can’t compete it is as unfair that other skaters don’t have the same funding, quality and availability of ice/coaching and bonus points from the judges due to their federation so until skating is equal in these aspects I don’t think the country quota is unfair.

 

[Manitou]

That's an interesting question and the key to the whole discussion. I think we could also ask, "how important is it to watch skaters from Russia, orfrom Japan, orfrom the USA, or from Mars?"

I would put Mars into the same category as Solomon Islands and Bahamas.

 

[Manitou]

As unfair as it might be that more Russian girls can’t compete it is as unfair that other skaters don’t have the same funding, quality and availability of ice/coaching and bonus points from the judges due to their federation so until skating is equal in these aspects I don’t think the country quota is unfair.

I think it's unfair that some countries have snow and others don't. Some have ocean beaches and others don't. Some have mountains and others don't. It's very wrong.

 

[KatGrace1925]

We've had this discussion before. And I say it again. They should increase the number to at least 4 per country. In alpine skiing and in cross-country skiing, there are 4 + the reigning champion so there could be a max of 5.
I think that's reasonable in figure skating too. When you think about it, there is not many countries that will come up to that quota anyways. For Russia, maybe in Ladies and Pairs but not in Men and Ice Dance. And over time this will change between countries.
There is something wrong with the system when countries like Kazachstan gets three spots for Worlds in Ladies this year. When they probably have none to send.
Qualification for Worlds should be the best from the GPs and Challenger events in the autumn season. And throw in the champion from last year as well.

Judges are apparently complaining about events being too long as it is, I don't think they're going to want to add extra spots or opportunities to earn more spots.

 

[Scott512]

Judges are apparently complaining about events being too long as it is, I don't think they're going to want to add extra spots or opportunities to earn more spots.

Get new judges and get rid of the dinosaur judges.

 

[Alex65]

Get new judges and get rid of the dinosaur judges.

They will have to do it sooner or later. It will inevitably happen. Technology advances and presentations are increasingly contrasted with the refereeing of dinosaurs. This is how to get planes and tanks in the era of Ancient Rome and biblical heroes.
And yes. The world champion must be entitled to defend the title no matter what. If he cannot or does not want to, this is another matter. It is in almost every sport. It is so obvious that it is surprising that this is not in the FS.

 

[Jontor]

Let's see how it could have been for the Russian ladies if the champion gets an extra free spot AND if we expand it to max 4 per country:

Europeans:
2015: +Lipnitskaya (last year's champion), +Leonova (next in line at RusNats)
2016: +Tuktamysheva (last year's champion), +Sotskova (next in line at RusNats)
2017: +Radionova and Konstantinova (next in line at RusNats)
2018: +Konstantinova and Tsurskaya (next in line at RusNats)
2019: +Medvedeva and Tarusina (next in line at RusNats)
2020: +Samodurova (last year's champion), +Tuktamysheva (next in line at RusNats)

Worlds:
2015: +Leonova (next in line at RusNats)
2016: +Tuktamysheva (last year's champion), +Sotskova (next in line at RusNats)
2017: +Radionova and Konstantinova (next in line at RusNats)
2018: +Tsurskaya (next in line at RusNats), (Medvedeva chose not to go)
2019: +Tarusina (next in line at RusNats) (or perhaps Tuktamysheva)
2020: +Zagitova (last year's champion), +Tuktamysheva (next in line at RusNats)

 

[Amei]

We've had this discussion before. And I say it again. They should increase the number to at least 4 per country. In alpine skiing and in cross-country skiing, there are 4 + the reigning champion so there could be a max of 5.
I think that's reasonable in figure skating too. When you think about it, there is not many countries that will come up to that quota anyways. For Russia, maybe in Ladies and Pairs but not in Men and Ice Dance. And over time this will change between countries.
There is something wrong with the system when countries like Kazachstan gets three spots for Worlds in Ladies this year. When they probably have none to send.
Qualification for Worlds should be the best from the GPs and Challenger events in the autumn season. And throw in the champion from last year as well.

My thought has always been - let the past podium from Europeans/4ccs/Worlds and 'defend' their medals without it counting against their country's 'quota' with the stipulation that they had to podium on the GP series. It would reward country's, like Russia right now, with deep fields and honestly 3 skaters aren't going to add that much time - the FS can be kept with the same amount of people so you might be looking at what 10-20 minutes extra for the SP?

And to avoid situations like Kazakhstan with ladies this year I think they should change the 3 skater criteria to include that at least 2 skaters have to place in the top 10

Very important. Who knew that we would have such charming and wonderful skaters from Mexico what if they could grow the sport in that large and important country:scratch3:

But of course that has little to do with the Russian Ladies. Folks can complain about the make up of Worlds until the end of time and it won’t change. So best to cheer for the lady of your choice in whatever competition they compete in!

This is might come off nasty but how many of those skaters representing the Solomon Islands or the Bahamas at Worlds are actually from there and not just Russian or American skater that couldn't perform well enough to get out of Nationals for Russia or the US so they switch to a country with very little if any figure skating competition, that they might have some kind of familial connection to, like Alexia Paganini for Switzerland - from reading her bio, she's always lived and trained in the US.

And this does have something Russian ladies as well as the other major skating countries - for years the ISU has had this cap on how many skaters can skate under what flag and the sport has not grown and is not growing; why not try something else?

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

We've had this discussion before. And I say it again. They should increase the number to at least 4 per country. In alpine skiing and in cross-country skiing, there are 4 + the reigning champion so there could be a max of 5.
I think that's reasonable in figure skating too. When you think about it, there is not many countries that will come up to that quota anyways. For Russia, maybe in Ladies and Pairs but not in Men and Ice Dance. And over time this will change between countries.

I'm good with three per country. I don't think any country should have 4 or 5 chances at sweeping the podium. There are three medals, and if you have a deep field you have three good shots at getting them. In recent years, Russia has only gotten three women in the top 6 once (2016) and it's not very often that they leave someone in medal-winning form at home (although arguably they did this year and last year).

 

[colormyworld240]

I get limiting to 3 spots per country to see a more diverse representation of nationalities in figure skating. But is this a true representation? Bringing the discussion back to Russian ladies, many have switched to neighbouring Eastern European countries and now can appear at major competitions. Take Euros for example. So many ex-Russian ladies. For example, if Alina Zagitova were to represent Belarus tomorrow, but continue to live in Moscow, train in Eteri's camp, and have the same life as an athlete as before, would she really be a skater representing national diversity? With someone like Lilbet, it was different as she had to leave her coaching team, a major part of her career as an athlete, as a direct result of her switching nationalities. But what about athletes and only change their flag while keeping everything else the same as when they were representing Russia?

I think what we're seeing currently is Russian ladies who are "lucky" to be good skaters but not quite good enough for the Russian Federation to see them as threats; they are released to switch to other countries. By doing so, they are more "guaranteed" spots at major competitions as they are the top skater of that country. Meanwhile we have skaters are are "unlucky" to be good enough that RusFed doesn't want to risk releasing them, but not quite good enough to take one of the 3 spots on the team. All these skaters are Russian and have been competing against each other since the beginning of their careers under the same federation, but it seems that making the world team is not dependent on ability, but rather which of those categories they fall under. This phenomenon is more prominent in Russian ladies, but is this also the case for other nationalities?

 

[flanker]

Did you watch the same Europeans I did—it was pretty much necessary to have a triple triple to qualify for the free skate only 3 out of the twenty four qualifying didn’t. Moreover if you actually watched the competition you might have seen how all of these skaters fought so hard regardless of their country and deserve to be there. Similarly Dasa’s fight to get to worlds after the isu increased the tech minimums after she thought she’d achieved them you might find her to be as inspirational as the Russian skaters who are also fighting to go to worlds. For me at least the best skates of Euroes surprising weren’t by any of 3A or the ‘Russian mercenaries’ but Eva Lotta Kiibus’s free and both of Emmi Peltonen’s programs because of everything that they brought to the ice. As unfair as it might be that more Russian girls can’t compete it is as unfair that other skaters don’t have the same funding, quality and availability of ice/coaching and bonus points from the judges due to their federation so until skating is equal in these aspects I don’t think the country quota is unfair.

I did. How many of the 3-3 combos of those who qualified for the free weren't clean, even when it was just the most simple 3T-3T. Yamada, who was the last who advanced to the free skate, received 26 points for TES. That's ridiculously low to be considered european elite, when there are so many skaters decesively better than this, who can't compete there because of the quota.

As for funding, equality and all this, I think manitou answered precisely how I feel about this. We have some experience with forced artificial equality in everything and that's not the right way. It's not those "better funded" russian girls fault that in some countries people are not interested in this sport and therefore the money and support goes into some different sport branches which on the contrary may not be as supported in Russia. That's how things work, it will never be the way that people in different countries will be equally interested in all things including all sports and all will be suppported equally. I even dare to say that nobody wants such system, so why we are artificially creating that.