@4everchan - I am so sorry that I upset you. At the end of the day, we both want the same thing - for the skaters to get the opportunities that they deserve. We are just coming at it from different angles.
Don't worry, I know that I am the oddity on this. I have never been able to get my head around why somebody would have strong feelings towards a country or a flag. I know that this is because, being where I am from, I can see where it can lead. And, frankly, I don't like what I see.
That is why I always place more importance on family and heritage than on where you happened to be born. And why I feel that sportspeople should be representing their coaching team rather than representing a country.
Anyway, I didn't realise that you were actually having a jibe at your government with your comments about taxes, and that sport in Canada in general was experiencing funding issues. That would certainly explain a lot about why Skate Canada are not giving the skaters the support they deserve. And I can relate on that - practically everything in NI that gets state funding is having to make massive cutbacks at the moment due to insufficient money being allocated.
In a way, if you look it purely from a purely financial point of view, I can see what the people allocating the funding to sports are getting at. "You don't have as many top athletes, so you don't need as much money". That is the same approach that the British government takes, with funding only going to those sports where the athletes are most likely to win. But, from a sporting point of view, that is totally the wrong way to look at things. You need funding to
develop top athletes and grow the sport.
I know you are not interested in motorsport, but the effects of the different approaches are clear to see in it. In Formula 1, when the promoter is dividing the money up amongst the teams at the end of the season, it is done based on results. So, the top teams get the most money, and the bottom teams get the least money. And, as a result, the top teams, who are mostly factory teams with manufacturer support and lots of sponsors, have more money to spend on making their cars even better, and so stay at the top. Meanwhile the bottom teams, who are mostly independent teams without manufacturer support and with fewer sponsors, do not have enough money to improve their cars enough, and so stay at the bottom. And, in many cases, struggle to even survive.
In MotoGP, the Championship promoters take a different approach. Most of the funding goes to the independent teams, which helps them improve. The factory teams get less money from the promoters, because they are getting lots of money from elsewhere. It helps to level the playing field. And the success of this approach is shown by the fact that, for the first time ever, an independent team won the Team's Championship this season. And we are going into the final round of the season this week with an independent team rider and a factory team rider fighting for the Rider's Championship title.
I wish this approach was taken in most sports. Where the money goes to those that most need it, rather than those that are already at the top. But, before you can do that, there needs to be money in the first place.
I have been critical in the past about the number of British Ice Dancers that are now representing Canada. But, knowing how little funding that ice skating gets in the UK, I could undertand it. Let's face it, training with top coaches in Canada (or anywhere!) is not cheap, so if your partner's Fed is offering to help more than your Fed, you can see why they would switch. But, the other side is that there is a bigger pool of competition in Canada, so there is less chance of getting international assignments.
But now that I hear that Skate Canada isn't getting as much funding as I thought, and they aren't sending skaters on as many international assignments as a result, it does make you wonder whether they would be better coming back to representing the UK. Having, for example, Lilah / Lewis, Nadiia / Peter, and Molly / Dmitre on the team would certainly bring the results that would attract more funding.
And on that note, don't forget that Lilah is Canadian. So, although the traffic is mostly in one direction (westward), it can go the other way (eastward). And it's a good job it did because if it wasn't for the results of Lilah and Lewis, British Ice Skating wouldn't be getting what little funding it does get. (Not that the Fear family needs any help when it comes to money. But the other skaters in the team do).
It is sad that there is not enough money in the sport to be able to give everybody the opportunities they deserve. But, to get money in, the sport needs to become more popular. And to become more popular, it needs to be easier for the general public to access.
Which brings us back to the issue of broadcasting. Every event needs to broadcast, be it on TV, online, or preferrably both. The sport is not going to get new fans, and maintain existing fans, if they are not going to be able to watch it. Skate Canada is good at this, but the ISU is not.
And there is no use in having a series of events if nobody is able to follow what is happening at the final event of that series. So, the Golden Spin really need to get their act together and make sure that they have livestreaming and livescoring this year.
Sorry for this being such a long off topic post. I wasn't intending on writing anywhere near this much, but what
@4everchan said about the funding in Canada started me thinking, and I got carried away exploring those thoughts.
CaroLiza_fan
Olga, Maurizio, Sophia/Livio, and maybe we will finally see Giorgia/Luc debut in seniors.
of Golden Spin, if there was a stream, and I cannot.
