Well, I wrote about this before, but I guess I can repeat it now. I did some work on the careers of single skaters. Started with Worlds medalists and then got crazy and did in the end all skaters who participated in the Worlds from 1947 to 2021. I took the ones with certain year of birth, looked at how old they were when they went to their first senior comp, if they got medals in major champioships (and how old they were then), if they won any majors (and how old) and then when they retired (and ofc at what age). Lots of other detail as well. Plus a bit on how the transition from junior to senior works. 600+ women and almost 500 men.
I divided them chronologically into two groups, 1993-4 as a semi-arbitrary cut-point. The reason for this are the changes in FS in general in the 1990s - 1990 saw the end of compulsory figures which had previously kept the young jumping beans from winning in their first big competitions. The strict amateur rules were removed by mid-1990s and skaters could do competitions and earn money skating shows at the same time which had not been possible before. And then the age limits were raised first from 12 to 14 and a bit later to 15.
Women
1) For the whole data set, all 600+ women, the age at the start of international career ranged from 11–26 years, the average being 16,2 years. The age at end of international career varied from 14–36 years, the average 21,3 years. Number of seasons varied from 1 to 15, average 5,3. Careers with 10 or more seasons numbered 65 - vast majority of these after 1994, 48.
2) For all skaters who began before 1994 (almost half of all), the overall ranges and averages apply for start, end, and number of seasons. The truly long careers were rare, the number of skaters with 7 or more seasons was 68 and those with only 1–3 seasons in international seniors was 88. Then I looked at those who won a medal and/or won a major championship. There were 83 medalists, of whom about half became champions (42). They started their international careers slightly younger (average 15,7 years) and ended it slightly older (average 21,7) with more seasons (6,1) than your average competetive skater. The champions started even younger - average 14,6 year, but ended at normal age (average 20,6) with about 6,5 seasons in seniors.
The medals came after 2-3 seasons in the seniors and the average age for this was 17, the first big win a season later at 18. Usually they medaled for 2-3 seasons (average 3,5). 39 medaled or won in their last season and then they quit competing and moved on. The only Oly winner to continue after her win was Katarina Witt, who came from DDR and could not start earning money in the pro circuit until after 1988.
3) For women who began 1994 or after (a bit less than half, those competing currently were not included), the average start age is 16,5 and they end at the age of 22 in average and skate for 5,9 seasons. The number of skaters with 8 or more seasons is 83 and those with only 1-3 seasons number 83. No huge differences here compared to the previous era.
The medalists and champions then, 49 and 25 respectively. Medalists start at the normal age, but skate ca. two seasons longer than the average skater. And like before, the future champions enter their senior careers a year younger and finish their careers slightly older with 8,3 seasons. From the first senior competition to the first medal it took 2-3 seasons just like before and the average age was 17. And the first big win came the next season at 18. The champs kept on skating and medaling for about 4 seasons in average. The skaters to continue competing after winning the Olympics were Sarah Hughes, Yuna Kim Adelina Sotnikova and Alina Zagitova.
I think the possibility of earning with skating whilst competing has resulted in longer careers in women. In addition, these girls often have 1-3 years of international juniors before they go senior which makes their careers even longer. But what is also clear is that the peak time for women is around 17-18 - this applied already for the previous group and has not changed since. And the good ones start earlier and end later than everyone else.
Men
1) All skaters (ca. 500) the age at start of international career ranged from 11–27 years, the average being 17,6 years. The end came at 14–36 years, the average being 23,9 years after 6,5 seasons in average. 85 skaters had 10 or more seasons 85, 34 before 1994 and 52 after.
2) Before 1994, the averages for the whole group apply, the average senior career began at 17 and ended at 23 after 6 seasons or so. Longish careers with 8 or more seaons were had by 76 guys and short ones (1-3 seasons) by 53.
The cream of the crop: medalists 34 and champions 21. And like with women, medalists started at the normal age and ended a year or so later with one more season under their belts. The champs started a year younger than the rest and ended a year later with about 8 seasons. The medalists took about 4 seasons to get to the first medal at about 21. The champs took only 3 seasons to medal at 19 years, but about 5 before the big wins at about 21 years. Dick Button continued to compete after his first Oly gold. Boitano and Petrenko came back for 1994.
3) Those who began 1994 or after (current ones excluded) start a little bit older than before at 18 and end also a year older at 24. The number of seasons is 6,9, a bit but not awful much longer than before. Skaters with long careers of 9 or more seasons number 53 and short ones 48.
There are 18 medalists and 21 champions, whose careers work similarly to the women. The medalists start at the normal age (18), but skate a bit later (26) with more seasons (8). The champs start earlier at 16 and end older at 26 with a staggering 10 seasons behind them in average. The first medals came after 3 seasons at around 21 years of age. For the champs it took only 2 seasons in seniors to get to medals and the first championships loomed around the corner the next season, ages 19 and 20. The number of seasons with medals was 2 for those who did not win and about 5 for champions. Urmanov, Plushenko and Hanyu have continued competing after their wins.
So, most of the trends are similar with women and men apart from guys being slightly older. The good ones start earlier and have longer careers. But what is different is that the average age for getting to the big wins is a little bit lower now than what it was before, though not much.
Juniors
This was tougher to do because junior competitions are not necessarily documented that well, especially for before 1990s. A lot of skaters started directly at seniors at a very young age because there were no age restrictions. So I took the participants in Junior worlds 1975-2020 and looked at what happened in their careers afterwards. There were four main possibilities: they had no senior career, they went on to compete in seniors but never got to the major championships level, they got to Europeans/4CC but never to the worlds, or they went all the way to the Worlds and/or Olympics.
About 40% of the girls go on to have a top level senior career in average. For the last 15 years, the data is so good that it was possible to establish that about 15% never have a senior career, 20% have a lower level one. Usually at least one of the medalists goes on to medal in a major senior competition and at least one of the non-medalists does the same.
About 50% of the boys go on to have a top level senior career in average. The other groups are about the same size as in women except for those who have no senior career which is less than 10% in men.
Only few of those who start skating get to the top of the pyramid...
I did not do any statistics on specifically the big nations but my gut feel is that there is more skaters from the US, Russia and Japan who can have really short or no senior careers. More skaters, more internal competition, no guarantees for getting to the international competitions.
But I would still like to emphasize the fact that the single skaters have now longer international careers than ever before, both women and men. The good ones especially. Whatever seems to be happening in the women at the moment cannot be taken as the "new normal" because they represent a very small fraction of them all and only time will tell if this is something that continues. For the past 70 years, women have been peaking around 17-18 years with or without age restrictions.
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ETA: and to be fair to Tara, (paraphrasing), "Masterpiece. Chills. I can't stop watching". So she's cool too.
