Raise The Senior Ladies Age To 17 Please!

[el henry]

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If anything, these youngsters bringing in a younger audience helps the sport grow and brings the average age viewer down, which is good. You don’t want the average age of a sports fan ti be increasing every year.

Link please. . I have seen absolutely no evidence that younger athletes bring in younger fans, controlled for variables of country, sport, etc.

Also, age of majority in Eastern hemisphere countries: Japan: 18. South Korea: 20. (ETA: according to Google, I have no actual knowledge.)

In Western Hemisphere places like Moscow, (since some of Russia is in the Eastern Hemisphere), other places in Europe. North America, South America, it varies.

"Western" as a political construct is meaningless for me, because it is so variable and not agreed upon, so I use the actual geography for standards in the East and the West.

 

[moonvine]

But men grow more during 15 to 19 year period and suffer just as much if not more. There is a growing list of junior men who are doing complex content early, with a string of injuries, sometimes career ending. I am yet to see the thread advocating for Grassl’s health who skated for both juniors and seniors since age 15 or Malinin doing ahem… tricks and depriving those seasoned 18 and 20 yo’s from medals. Or worries that Kagiyama didn’t look like a man in his prime when he started seniors. How Gummenik grew a foot a year and how hard he falls?

Nobody seem to care about the low degree of success of junior men coming into seniors, where very, very few are successful for years on end at the expense of so many. They come with their junior ranking, then get locked out of senior competitions because senior guys have higher chance of prestige scoring and that’s that.

Why is the concern always for women, when their discipline is flourishing and developing and moving with a healthy competition and a chance to compete while men’s is pretty much locked out? Maybe we should start tweaking the age limit on men’s. How about caping it at, I dunno, 22? Otherwise it’s just so unfair and so damaging to health of the 18 yos during the all important formative years?

You’re right. I should have been concerned for the men and haven’t been. Something needs to be done to ensure safety of athletes of both genders.

 

[moonvine]

I will say...thanks to YouTube and Instagram it is now at least possible to follow a skater from their very youngest years...at least the Russians (but I've noticed that the Australian Figure Skating Association also streams a lot of their local competitions too).

So the argument that the age range should be raised purely so fans can get to "know" the skaters doesn't really hold water.

But then I guess if you don't like novice and junior skating that doesn't really help, but if you like the ability to follow a skater's journey it's cool.

Well you have to realize we (at GS) aren’t normal fans. I don’t know about Australia but here in the US I attend many comps that have few fans in attendance. Cranberry Cup I would say there were maybe 150 people in attendance (though I will say we were pretty enthusiastic). Juniors had a much smaller crowd. US Nationals doesn’t even sell out the women’s long though it comes close. Nathan Chen can’t sell out a comp in his own country, it is ridiculous. Juniors is pretty much friends and family only in attendance. It makes me very sad. I won’t be doing juniors this year either due to finances.. Many US fans just really want to see the top 6 skaters at Nationals, or if it’s an International comp the US skaters who aren’t in the final flight plus the final flight.

Anyway I’m getting off topic. There’s a big drop off between novices and juniors. I can’t possibly follow all the novices. There are just way too many. And I probably watch way too much skating as is.

 

[moonvine]

And, in addition, the only male skaters who end up on the world podium are the ones who are able to land at least 3 quads consistently, which is a technical rarity. That technical rarity gave longevity to Chen, Hanyu, Uno and Zhou. Now there is Kagiyama. Since 2018, while we had a wonderful diversity in women’s field and a turn around on the world podium, all we see in men are Chen, Hanyu + one more. Like… how’s that fun? I mean, Zhou managed to outskate Chen for the first time since 2018, and omg, sensation, sensation, alert the press! Then Chen restored the balance. Colour me excited. And god forbid anyone new advances in male skating! God forbid! Bring out PCSs! Stack up the GoE! Prop up the older guys! Same guys, always.

The senior men skating I saw in GP this season was messy, exciting and unpredictable. But did the podiums and the points reflected that? Nope. It should have been a wider spread of placements that ended up in the final, but somehow the finalists all ended up no lower than the second position. And if Hanyu was there? Even less spread. But that’s not reality. In reality, only Uno put two solid, unassailable performances, with Kagiyama (if I am generous to his free in France) and Zhou each having one. Everyone else was no better or not significantly better than the guys who didn’t make it, Grassl, Tomono, Ignatov and Sato. Brown and Kolyada in particular had 4/4 unsuccessful routines. On probability, with this kind of randomness, it should have been a blend of old and new and at least one of those 4 should have made it instead of either Brown or Kolyada. At least one! but look, no. It’s the same guys. Magic.

I mean, y’all still want to see Zagitova vs Medvedeva play out for the fourth time running? Really? People root for Tuktamysheva because there is so much competition and they are all different contenders and any of them can snatch the golden ring. You didn’t like Valieva showing up? You really would have minded less if it was Zagitova all these 3 years winning everything like Chen? That would have made you happier?

What’s the longest thread on this forum? Russian women.

Do you all love playing ice dance part of the prediction contest the most or what? Because, like, there everything is known in advance pretty much and hadn’t change since 2018, except Virtue and Moir retired. Wow. Will P/C win gold this Olympics? Oh, my, I am hyperventilating from suspense.

I find it boring when 3 interchangeable Russian women are winning everything. I just randomly pick 3 for my predictions.

I’ve never looked at the Russian Women thread so don’t know what to tell you there.

 

[moonvine]

Link please. . I have seen absolutely no evidence that younger athletes bring in younger fans, controlled for variables of country, sport, etc.

Certainly not in the US in regards to figure skating.

 

[el henry]

Certainly not in the US in regards to figure skating.

Exactly. Did Tara Lipinski bring in a rush of 14 year olds to watch figure skating? Judging by the age of figure skating fans here that I know now, I doubt it.

But without the studies that no-one is paying for (certainly not me ), we have no idea. We only have what I like to call the "me and all my friends" argument. (or its modern corollary, the always reliable social media likes) I use that argument myself for skaters I like, but

 

[yume]

I guess my issue with the current onslaught of Eteri girls dominating FS for the last 2 olympic cycles is the whiplash of who is the top women's skater -- as it changes from season to season depending on who's healthy and who is jumping the most difficult jumps. I get that all body types are different and develop differently, but it has to be more than coincidence that every Eteri girl seems to peak at 15/16, experiences jump issues around 17-19, and calls it quits before 20.

My issue is that part of the joy of seeing your fave skaters win gold is you got to see their journey through the WHOLE olympic quad. And joining the skaters through their ups and downs is one of the best parts of being a skating fan. But lately, it feels like the trend isn't about watching someone's olympic journey to olympic gold (Nathan Chen and Liz Tuktamysheva are good examples of skaters I'm particularly invested in during this quad). Now it feels like the ladies champion will no longer be who was the strongest skater of the last 4 years, but rather, who from the Eteri camp is 15/16 at the time of the olympics. And while its impressive to watch, its harder to be invested.

Well, it will always happen. Even if the age is raised to 17/18, there can always be a new senior who will win, just because they are better.
With this point of view, i feel like some skaters should be rewarded for being born sooner and others punished for being born later.

And junior years count for me. Especially now, since it's hard to even get a JGP and the junior results decide the amount of politicking feds will do in seniors for the skater. That's why JGP finals are more and more like olympics last group.

 

[jen84]

I’m a very casual skating fan… my interest comes and goes, but I wanted to chime in here. I’m all for the youth in the Olympics. If you can win at 15, why shouldn’t you? Why should you be forced to try to peak later if you’re athletically and mentally ready now.

Artistic gymnastics. A little background for those who may not know. The age limit was raised in ’97 to 16. At the same time compulsories were dropped… to the detriment of the sport according to many. Open-ended (no difficulty capping) didn’t come around until ‘06. In my opinion, the men’s side seem to have done better with not necessarily giving up so much in the quality department. Yes, we’re seeing athletes into their 20s now being more common especially when you start seeing depth dropping off in less powerful nationals. Oksana Chusovitina was able to make some decent money competing into her 40s. Timing is everything in sports as some were able to hold on (Ferrari, who was originally going as an individual) and some got healthy (Andrade) and others were broken (Morgan Hurd). Simone Biles, in my opinion, only really got hosed on her beam dismount for difficulty. The other skills were within reasonable range of expected difficulty given the natural progression of elements.

My point going back to figure skating is you’re in the midst of a revolution of the sport. Time will tell if the next generation, outside of Russia, will catch up technically. Raising the age won’t solve the problem IMO. I will be curious to see if the PCS scores are weighted differently going forward. It’s the best chance of leveling of the playing field, if enforced properly. I also think you have similar problem to gymnastics in ‘08 with the open-ended score because you’re not allowing quads in the short program. It’s an unfair advantage to those who can do a triple axle and not a quad. Trusova should be allowed to do quads in the short. I think she’d have an easier time with the triple axle then. I think she’d be more relaxed.

As a very causal fan, I have to ask, why is the age cut off in the middle of the year? That one never made sense to me.

 

[SNAKSuyun]

My issue with your argument is that you are comparing men's skating where having triple axels/quads be a general requirement for the top skaters for how many years now, whereas senior ladies skating we are still in the infancy stage of of quads and/or triple axels being pretty much a necessity. So while the up and comer men are coming to the senior ranks with these elements, there is also a pool of established senior skaters with those elements already.

Shcherbakova and Trusova are the pioneers for senior ladies doing quads consistently in their program layouts as pioneers of it that means no one was doing them consistently before which means the ladies field of the 'established' skaters weren't training those elements its only the up and comers - I've said for a long time that it was a foul on everyone's part that the established senior ladies didn't appear to take seriously the 2 junior skaters doing quads and had to wait till those 2 were smoking them in competition to realize that quads and multiple triple axels in programs were going to be a thing and they might not be able to win any longer with only 1-2 triple-triple combinations.

I think it's too early to say whether the ladies doing quads/triple axels consistently are or are not going to have 'long, illustrated' careers, Shcherbakova and Trusova have been doing quads for 4-5 years now (3 years as seniors), both girls are 17 and appear fairly steady with those elements, even through the 'puberty monster' and extended time off the ice due to pandemic and injuries. Mao Asada was doing triple axels into her 20s, as is Tuktamysheva currently doing. Additionally, as the established senior skaters were not working on the quads/triple axels and those are the big-point elements, that does mean that we can have a time where the younger skaters are dominating until we cycle a bit out of the current group of 'established' ladies skaters who were competing in a time when quads/triple axels weren't a requirement.

To be fair, I think I'd be a lot less concerned if I could be convinced that having quads + 3A is sustainable for ladies in the long term. Right now, a lot of the things coming out of the Eteri camp are not exactly supportive of that (a lot of talk about weight controls, endless drills, and controversial jump technique, among others). Among the men we've now seen dozens of guys maintain their quads + 3A for years while not having an excessive amount of issues. If ladies can start churning out quads + 3As in multiple clubs around the world decently consistently (like the situation we now have with the solo 3A, with many American and Japanese girls landing it) then I'd be willing to support it as the next era. It's not so much that I want to see Russia's downfall, either - if say Plushenko and Mishin can have their girls consistently skate quads + 3A way into their 20s (I think Tuktik has tried with the 4T but deemed it not worth enough), I'd be fine with that, too.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

I also think so. Loena got financial support from her federation for the first time when she got olympic spot at WC in 2017. I wonder how far would Zagitova and Medvedeva reach if they had to pay for everything with no strong federation behind.

You are right, this is a very obvious inequality of opportunity. In Russia, a skater like Loena could have reached the level of Tuktamysheva without any special problems (and this I still make a very careful, minimal assumption). But how to fix it - I have no idea.

 

[Alegria]

In other sports, the youngsters are considered prodigies, but it figure skating it’s a black mark. Why?

Because in other sports they really are. There can't be so many new prodigies every year.

 

[[email protected]]

You are right, this is a very obvious inequality of opportunity. In Russia, a skater like Loena could have reached the level of Tuktamysheva without any special problems (and this I still make a very careful, minimal assumption). But how to fix it - I have no idea.

The state support argument was addressed many times as nonsense. But it is as live as it was before. I can't refute it every time but I shall keep doing it of course not for those who want to listen only to the things that correspond to their state of mind. The state support in Russia matters only when we are talking about the national team. Befote skaters get there it is a big financial commitment and sacrifice for skaters' families. The costs are comparable. Average household income in Russia is 5 times less than in the USA. Trankov had to live under the stands in a stadium. Sima had to quit because she didn't have money, Nastia Tarakanova wrote an open letter asking for help as her family could no longer pay for figure skating, and so on and so forth.

 

[Alegria]

The state support argument was addressed many times as nonsense. But it is as live as it was before. I can't refute it every time but I shall keep doing it of course not for those who want to listen only to the things that correspond to their state of mind. The state support in Russia matters only when we are talking about the national team. Befote skaters get there it is a big financial commitment and sacrifice for skaters' families. The costs are comparable. Average household income in Russia is 5 times less than in the USA. Trankov had to live under the stands in a stadium. Sima had to quit because she didn't have money, Nastia Tarakanova wrote an open letter asking for help as her family could no longer pay for figure skating, and so on and so forth.

Really? And what about paying for ice and coach work from the very beginning? I mean, what if all figure skating schools in Russia were private.
And figure skating exists not only in Russia and USA.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

The state support argument was addressed many times as nonsense. But it is as live as it was before. I can't refute it every time but I shall keep doing it of course not for those who want to listen only to the things that correspond to their state of mind. The state support in Russia matters only when we are talking about the national team. Befote skaters get there it is a big financial commitment and sacrifice for skaters' families. The costs are comparable. Average household income in Russia is 5 times less than in the USA. Trankov had to live under the stands in a stadium. Sima had to quit because she didn't have money, Nastia Tarakanova wrote an open letter asking for help as her family could no longer pay for figure skating, and so on and so forth.

This is a special case. It was initially about the potential return of Zagitova or Medvedeva. Both of them were already members of the national team, they had already received financial support, had already won the most important tournaments, received prize money, advertising bonuses, etc. And Loena (as she said in an interview), although she got into the national team of her country, receives only symbolic financial support - according to her, she still has to pay for almost everything herself. And this despite the fact that there are only two people in the team.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

Really? And what about paying for ice and coach work from the very beginning? I mean, what if all figure skating schools in Russia were private.
And figure skating exists not only in Russia and USA

a year ago, figure skating training for the youngest children (up to 6 years old) cost $ 150-200 per month in Moscow. Then (but still at the initial stage) the cost of training reached about $ 800-1000 per month (this is in "Khrustalny"). At the Plushenko Academy it is somewhat more expensive. And the further you go, the more expensive it will be

One individual training - from $ 50 without ice rental.

There are no free figure skating schools now.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

I find it boring when 3 interchangeable Russian women are winning everything.

what if they were three interchangeable (or not interchangeable) US women? Would it still be boring?

 

[jenaj]

I am also in favor of raising the age limit--to 16. We have seen too many examples of 15 (and younger) phenomenons who don't last more than another year or two. Can they really be said to be among the greatest skaters? Some amount of longevity is needed for that. Raising the age limit will give more time to see if skaters are really that talented or are just benefiting from their youthful physiques. There is also the issue of injuries. Pushing skaters to do the most difficult jumps at younger and younger ages seems pretty risky, to me.

 

[jenaj]

this can only be said about Trusova.

Anna S. fell on a quad, too.

 

[Zora]

Nobody ever complains about male skaters' age or height or weight or slimness or asks them to show their credentials as a man vs boy.

I think the men have become incredibly thin lately, maybe that's just my impression, but I think many of them don't look naturally that thin and healthy anymore, sorry. There could be a BMI rule like in ski jumping, where eating disorders were/are very common. Since it's not possible to do something like adjust the ski length, they could reduce the points for jumps if the required BMI hasn't been reached. But I guess no one sees it as an issue.

 

[jenaj]

what if they were three interchangeable (or not interchangeable) US women? Would it still be boring?

It would be for many Russians and other non-US fans.