Opinion: The brevity of skating careers

[Jeanie19]

There are now so much opinions in this thread that make me I don't find the time and energy to reply to everything.
But I definitely don't count the years in juniors or even novice as part of a career. That's so clear for me, I can't even believe that's a debate, but apparently I am even in the minority here. Junior years should be a development stage. If they are not but just a different age group, why even have seniors and juniors? Let them all compete in one category.

I also can't believe we are arguing about whether people get better with time, at least in certain areas. If they don't, do ice dancers peak around 14-20?

If we are going with just seniors that are competing now. I'm pretty sure that Shoma and Deniss are the only men that have competed in 7 World Championships.

 

[lariko]

Also, when do people consider a skating career 'starting'?

Senior? Junior? Novice?

I would assume most casual fans only become aware of skaters when they reach the senior level, but more knowledgeable fans know skaters have been competing for years before the senior level.

Unfortunately, the OP outright rejects the most sensible approach to longevity and sport's growth around the world, which is highlighting junior and tier B as much as possible. It's only seniors that count for whatever reason. Everything else is not sport for them. They want simplified sport with one to three athletes competing for each country for ten years like every country is represented by its capital. Everyone who was born in the wrong year is out of luck. Everyone who didn't turn 17 by July 1st is not worth their time.

 

[DancingCactus]

Not interested in Juniors, sorry. I'm really not interested in watching kids skate, 15 year old seniors are bad enough.

 

[lariko]

Not interested in Juniors, sorry. I'm really not interested in watching kids skate, 15 year old seniors are bad enough.

Then you are not interested in figure skating prospering and growing, popping up in different countries, as well as career longevity of individual skaters.

 

[icewhite]

Unfortunately, the OP outright rejects the most sensible approach to longevity and sport's growth around the world, which is highlighting junior and tier B as much as possible. It's only seniors that count for whatever reason. Everything else is not sport for them. They want simplified sport with one to three athletes competing for each country for ten years like every country is represented by its capital. Everyone who was born in the wrong year is out of luck. Everyone who didn't turn 17 by July 1st is not worth their time.

No, that's not my opinion. I have stated elsewhere, for instance in the Canadian skating thread I think, that I do not like the tight country quota.

It's also not that juniors are not "sports" to me, but it's sports on a hobby and development level or at least it should be. My sister was a very good athlete in her teenage years, winning national medals and placing well internationally in junior competitions, and even got a medal or two at senior nats, then left the highest level of her sport to focus on studies and personal life. I have much respect for what she was able to achieve and I know that it took a lot of training and mental strength. But it is something different from two of the girls she trained with who went on to go to the Olympics in their 20s.

Messi was a super talented footballer, making waves in his teenage years and those who saw him surely would say it was worth watching him because it was outstanding talent they saw. Yet nobody would talk of those years until he got his first pro contract, at 17 I think, as part of his actual "career".

And I think people being born in the "wrong year" is part of the problem - how can it be skating careers are so short that the peak of awesomely talented athletes is already over when they are old enough??? That's not a problem of the age limit being too high, it's a problem of careers and peaks being so short.

 

[icewhite]

Not interested in Juniors, sorry. I'm really not interested in watching kids skate, 15 year old seniors are bad enough.

I think it's interesting to watch juniors at times, but I always see them the way I would watch a local competition. It's interesting to see the programs, the different talent, but they are in development in skills, if they aren't and that's already their peak I feel that's very sad, and I cannot watch them the way I watch real senior competitors. In sports I have my favourites, I don't cheer on everybody, I critisize them. I don't want to critisize kids or young teenagers. I don't want to cheer because one won and another didn't. I don't really want to point out their weaknesses (which I overall consider totally fair in a sport) because I know that 1 they are still very much developing and 2 it's not adequate for me as an adult viewer to do that to teenagers. Of elite competitors at the biggest comps I expect something. What right do I have to expect something from juniors? None. Maybe if you don't see it as a competition but just as a show where you enjoy everybody it's different, but that is not the nature of a sports competition for me.

 

[icewhite]

Apart from whether I enjoy it or not though my original point was that the average viewer gets to know people because they are at the big senior comps, like OGs, WCs, EC, GPs. That's what casual viewers see and then they may get attracted to an athlete and want to see more - only to realize the athlete, despite being 15 or 17 or 20 or 22, will now end their career, that was his last or one of his last comps...

 

[lariko]

No, that's not my opinion. I have stated elsewhere, for instance in the Canadian skating thread I think, that I do not like the tight country quota.

It's also not that juniors are not "sports" to me, but it's sports on a hobby and development level or at least it should be. My sister was a very good athlete in her teenage years, winning national medals and placing well internationally in junior competitions, and even got a medal or two at senior nats, then left the highest level of her sport to focus on studies and personal life. I have much respect for what she was able to achieve and I know that it took a lot of training and mental strength. But it is something different from two of the girls she trained with who went on to go to the Olympics in their 20s.

Messi was a super talented footballer, making waves in his teenage years and those who saw him surely would say it was worth watching him because it was outstanding talent they saw. Yet nobody would talk of those years until he got his first pro contract, at 17 I think, as part of his actual "career".

And I think people being born in the "wrong year" is part of the problem - how can it be skating careers are so short that the peak of awesomely talented athletes is already over when they are old enough??? That's not a problem of the age limit being too high, it's a problem of careers and peaks being so short.

Because people are all different. And sport only grows when a 4 or 5 yo sees it and wants to try it across the world. Seeing someone shine at 13 or 17, seeing athletes win medals because they were great there and then, with true joy and energy is by far more inspirational than a starved, hurting in every joint 28 yo barely holding it together in Olympics and pretending they are conveying something elevated, while in truth they are thinking 'oh God, oh God, when will this finally end? Will I have my back functional in 5 years?' while even older, even more jaded people deal in the back rooms to inflate their scores, because Olympics is so bloody important to someone in their government.

When I see kids of so many countries skating so well in the country where their parents had immigrated to, I can't help but know that the untapped talent far, far exceeds the very few who are allowed to hit leet tier and who always win. And that talent will remain untapped if the opportunities are as few as they are now already.

There is already even less and less random humans succeeding in skating, with far too many skaters coming there in second, third generation, children of coaches, children of former champions. And that whole open secret queue by seniority, by fed, by parentage that exists is simply tragic. It shouldn’t take a country-wide tragedy for some other skaters to break out! It is absolutely unnecessary to show talented newcomers their place in the corner for a few years and outright lie on their scorecards. If they are good today, score them accordingly, not put it on hold and then score them ten years later with hat they no longer earned. It's not a saving account in the bank with a compounding interest for God's sake! Human beings are not fine wine! They don't need to age in the cellar for a more developed bouquet!

Narrowing the field and the pool always leads to extinction. Look at any dynasty in history. Years of limiting selections and prolonging the reigns don't refine and improve. They always bring progressively diminishing returns.

 

[4everchan]

I appreciate junior skating as well. I don't undervalue it, quite the opposite. However, as there is a timeline with age eligibility, I don't think we can talk about longevity : it's already prescribed. In seniors, that's different.

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

Honestly, I can't wrap my head around how someone wouldn't want their favourite skater to have a long career. I want to watch my skaters compete for as long as possible, and yes, I'll still love them when they are old and grey and crawling across the ice with their inconsistent jumps at 28.
But then again, I have almost zero interest in figure skating outside of a competitive setting, so I won't be consoled if they go for a show career after retirement.

 

[eppen]

Thanks for reflecting on the length of careers so far - I hope the discussion continues. As @lariko pointed out somewhere above, I have dabbled a little bit with the length of singles careers. I have looked at what the careers of participants in the Worlds 1947-2022 were like for men and women. This sample covers ofc only elite skaters, but as the discussion about career lengths are about them, I think it is ok. Oh, and also it is quite difficult to find out about the careers of skaters outside the sphrere of international circles.

The focus is on senior international competetive careers - this is also important in the general discussions and it is what most of the career data is about.

The 1990s mark a big change in the timeline from 1947 to 2022. The compulsory figures are abolished. The age eligibility limit gets raised to 14/15 (it was a bit ambiguous until 2015). The amateur rules were changed. So I have divided the material choronologically to before and after 1994 (ie according to the season when the skaters first participated in an international senior competition).

What came out clearly was that the average career has gotten longer since the 1990s. For women before 1994, the average senior career was 4,9 seasons and for those who had retired by 2022, it had risen to 5,7. Those who were still skating at that time, the average was 6,1 seasons. The post-1994 skaters usually also had an international junior career, 1,5 to 2,2 seasons on average. So, the latest and usually still active skaters are doing about 8 seasons in the international scene. (And I think the juniors are quite competetive these days, though without the attention that the seniors get.)

What is also interesting that the average starting age for senior careers was about 15 years before the age rules were set. The average retirement age was 20,4 years for those before 1994 and 21,5 for the later group (the current ones are even older at 21,9). For women, it seems that the good ones (those who become medalists in majors and/or champions) tend to start early and stay on later. There are not that many big names in the past who would have started their international competetive careers at the age of 17 or later - 147 medalists in majors in this material and 33 of them got to the scene at 17 or older (eg Rika Hongo and Bradie Tennell).

For men, the trends are similar, though the average starting age is 17-18 and retirement at 23-24 years of age. So, a little older than women and a little longer. The number of seasons has risen from 6,1 to 6,9 from pre to post-1994 and the current skaters have the average career length at 8,2 seasons. And of course, men have also junior seasons, 2,0 for the retired post-1994 skaters and 2,8 for currently active ones.

I do wonder about the differences in women and men's careers. And whether it is possible to change it so that women would also continue generally to their mid-20s? It will just take a very long time before the effects of the current age rules can be evaluated... And I also wonder whether women's careers should be evaluated with the same age criteria as men's?

I will finish this long post with an example from Finland. Kiira Korpi and Laura Lepistö are some of the most decorated women skaters from my country. Kiira skated 10 seasons in international seniors and if her biography and interviews are telling the real story, she did not really enjoy many days of that time, even when she did really good. Laura Lepistö had early injuries and her junior career was pretty long, but her senior career lasted only 3 seasons. She has talked about having been happy and content during her active career (I will read the bio when it comes out next year with great interest!).

So, Kiira had a respectable 10 seasons and was unhappy all the time, Laura despicably short 3 seasons, but with joy. Which one of them should be considered to have been in the wrong?

 

[sisinka]

Yeah, but plenty of skaters peaked artistically before they started to have troubles with technical side. Valieva, Lipnitskaya, Hanyu, Medvedeva, Vasilievs all skated by far more memorable and attractive programs when they were in their teens then after twenty/late teens. ...

I was talking about peaked presentation which comes at grown-up age (not by law but as to mental aspect).

You are mentioning Kamila and Evgenia. But we never saw Kamila's grown-up presentation, simply because she is not grown-up yet. And we never saw Evgenia Medvedeva's competive grown-up presentation, because mainly injuries led her to retire before becoming grown-up person.

What you compare is their presentation in their prepubertal period versus their pubertal period. It was written multiple times that puberty brings changes of height / weight / body shape. Different body shape influences not only timing, take-off, speed of jump rotation, but it also influenced speed of any movements = transitions. It leads to less number of movements in transitions, which may look like simplifying transitions. Dealing with body changement's is not easy.

I think that Yuzuru Hanyu's presentation got better with years, but I let this on Yuzuru's fans.

Yulia's last competition was Cup of China 2016 - she was 18 years old, so still teenager going through puberty which means the same troubles mentioned above like Evgenia and Kamila.

When I compare Deniss at 2017 European Championships FD to Four Seasons and 2022 European Championships FD to Romeo & Juliette, he was much better in presentation in later one. He put much more of his own personality in 2022, his posture was way more elegant, movements had meaning (not just moving arms around).

 

[sisinka]

... Witt is like million years old and you can't really compare anything in the eighties to modern sport. What they jumped would barely even be considered jumps now, let alone step sequences, and the artistic was all about politics. ...

Presentation is about expressing the music you are skating to...it is not equal to number of movements per second or counter-bracket-rocker-double Twizzle during 5 seconds, so the difficulty of today's Step Sequences versus old Step Sequences is not an argument I believe.

The way you move your arm, the tension from arm to fingers, the depth of movement...there is difference between lifting your arm like when you lift a suitcase or lifting arm to ask woman to dance. You will have different dynamics of movements dying like Juliette or being killed like Carmen - you don’t need difficult turns to express this and you will not jump in such moments.

Robin Cousins is 1980 Olympic Gold medalists - look at his exhibition number - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7sSuPpmcc - his presentation was great. I don’t know exactly which year it was, but for sure more than 25 years ago.

Don’t underestimate skaters of old times, some of them were excellent.

 

[Mathman]

... but now some people are even talking about stars on ice

All is grist that comes to the Golden Skate mill.

But I do think that figure skating languishes if it diminishes any aspect of the arc of its rainbow.

Some of my fondest memories as an enthusiastic fan and spectator have been local club shows. Little kids (including a few toddlers so young that they had to be carried onto the ice by their coaches), well-choreographed group numbers for skaters on a continuum of levels of age, training and talent, advanced students whom I would otherwise never have heard of displaying impressive prodigies of achievement, the occasional guest star or adult alum to close the show. This is the life’s blood of the sport. You can’t have a long life if you never have a life at all.

At the other end of the rainbow is the pot of gold. It is not an accident that the golden age of figure skating in the United States coincided with the greatest fan access to high-profile professional competitions (for instance Dick Button’s Landover productions) and shows like Stars on Ice. Who contributed more to the prospering of figure skating in America than Scott Hamilton? (OK, maybe Peggy Fleming or Dorothy Hamill ). Every week brought a pro event (who would win this time, Brian Boitano or Kurt Browning? Kristi Yamaguchi or Yuka Sato?), an entertaining cheesefest, or a “skating special” to free prime-time network TV. How can we discuss what a “long career” means and leave out of account an extra ten years in the sport after Olympic-style competition?

My hat is off to those athletes and entertainers who keep the torch alive by appearing at venues like Sun Valley, either as fondly remembered guest stars or as regulars. A while back I went on a cruise and guess who was on board to ensure smooth sailing? Ann Patrice McDonnough – 2002 world junior champion, retired from competition in 2004.

 

[Jeanie19]

I was talking about peaked presentation which comes at grown-up age (not by law but as to mental aspect).

You are mentioning Kamila and Evgenia. But we never saw Kamila's grown-up presentation, simply because she is not grown-up yet. And we never saw Evgenia Medvedeva's competive grown-up presentation, because mainly injuries led her to retire before becoming grown-up person.

What you compare is their presentation in their prepubertal period versus their pubertal period. It was written multiple times that puberty brings changes of height / weight / body shape. Different body shape influences not only timing, take-off, speed of jump rotation, but it also influenced speed of any movements = transitions. It leads to less number of movements in transitions, which may look like simplifying transitions. Dealing with body changement's is not easy.

I think that Yuzuru Hanyu's presentation got better with years, but I let this on Yuzuru's fans.

Yulia's last competition was Cup of China 2016 - she was 18 years old, so still teenager going through puberty which means the same troubles mentioned above like Evgenia and Kamila.

When I compare Deniss at 2017 European Championships FD to Four Seasons and 2022 European Championships FD to Romeo & Juliette, he was much better in presentation in later one. He put much more of his own personality in 2022, his posture was way more elegant, movements had meaning (not just moving arms around).

Evgenia had five senior years, 2015-2016 season to 2019-2020. Her last International competition was just shy of her 20th birthday Nov. 2019. A little longer than some of her peers in Russia. And her Memoirs of a Geisha program choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne is really good.

 

[4everchan]

All is grist that comes to the Golden Skate mill.

But I do think that figure skating languishes if it diminishes any aspect of the arc of its rainbow.

Some of my fondest memories as an enthusiastic fan and spectator have been local club shows. Little kids (including a few toddlers so young that they had to be carried onto the ice by their coaches), well-choreographed group numbers for skaters on a continuum of levels of age, training and talent, advanced students whom I would otherwise never have heard of displaying impressive prodigies of achievement, the occasional guest star or adult alum to close the show. This is the life’s blood of the sport. You can’t have a long life if you never have a life at all.

At the other end of the rainbow is the pot of gold. It is not an accident that the golden age of figure skating in the United States coincided with the greatest fan access to high-profile professional competitions (for instance Dick Button’s Landover productions) and shows like Stars on Ice. Who contributed more to the prospering of figure skating in America than Scott Hamilton? (OK, maybe Peggy Fleming or Dorothy Hamill ). Every week brought a pro event (who would win this time, Brian Boitano or Kurt Browning? Kristi Yamaguchi or Yuka Sato?), an entertaining cheesefest, or a “skating special” to free prime-time network TV. How can we discuss what a “long career” means and leave out of account an extra ten years in the sport after Olympic-style competition?

My hat is off to those athletes and entertainers who keep the torch alive by appearing at venues like Sun Valley, either as fondly remembered guest stars or as regulars. A while back I went on a cruise and guess who was on board to ensure smooth sailing? Ann Patrice McDonnough – 2002 world junior champion, retired from competition in 2004.

Simply because there is a difference between competitive skating requirements and show skating. The toll on the body is not the same and that's the point of the thread.

I loved seeing Kurt and Elvis at Stars on Ice. I wouldn't consider their show career the same as their competitive career. YMMV

 

[TallyT]

No one has answered my question on Shoma when he was down and looked out, on Patrick and Jason in 2018, on Keegan et al. Hands up those who think they should have accepted their decrepitide and made way then. Or there's Takahashi, it's positively criminal him coming back at his advanced age to do ice dance! Come on, if you think a string of one-or-two-hit wonder teenagers are what brings success, heaps more genius skaters with mature and complex artistry in a teenager brain, and huge loyal audiences to that string of one-or-two-hit wonders you should be nodding furiously.

 

[Mathman]

Simply because there is a difference between competitive skating requirements and show skating. The toll on the body is not the same and that's the point of the thread.

Well... here is OP:

The brevity of skating careers is what hurts the sport the most.

That's what I'm thinking more and more often. Skaters who actually have a "career" with ups and downs, a journey to follow, are so popular. But there just aren't many skaters like that.

To grow the sport the most effective measure would be to try and keep people in the sport for a longer time.

This, to me, is a wide-ranging call with many facets.

 

[4everchan]

Well... here is OP:



This, to me, is a wide-ranging call with many facets.

Semantics. Sport to me is sport. Shows are entertainment

 

[TallyT]

Semantics. Sport to me is sport. Shows are entertainment

Sport is entertainment.