ISU releases official agenda with proposals for 2024: age limits, jump limits and more | Page 5 | Golden Skate

ISU releases official agenda with proposals for 2024: age limits, jump limits and more

These proposals are not hysterical, but well-crafted and thought through, agree or disagree.

They sure as heck aren't anti-Ilia:laugh:

Ilia is a gifted skater. He is not the end-all and be-all of men's skating, he is not the future or savior of men's figure skating, he is not the only skater doing many and varied jumps.

An Ilia-centric view of the proposals does him no favors and does no favors to any other skaters.
 
I fail to see how any rules proposed are anti-Malinin. Quite the contrary : Remove a jumping pass, he's still going to have the highest BV because his jumps are the hardest. Penalize more on falls, he still is the best jumper and less likely to fall. I saw him skate three programs (ACI and Worlds) He didn't have any issues with his jumps.... but moreover, his technique is solid. He is not one I would think would be losing out the most points on these new rules... (and yes, it's possible he may have a bad day... I get that).

Remove a leveled spin and replace it by a choreo spin... NO difference at all. Ilia can spin.. not the greatest, not the worse spinner... won't make any difference.
What else ?

Include sommersaults ? MEH.

Unless Ilia is planning to move to pairs, where actually quadsters were truly penalized (throws and twist) then he is fine.

If there is any hysteria it is that the rules are anti-Malinin.
 
These proposals are not hysterical, but well-crafted and thought through, agree or disagree.

They sure as heck aren't anti-Ilia:laugh:

Ilia is a gifted skater. He is not the end-all and be-all of men's skating, he is not the future or savior of men's figure skating, he is not the only skater doing many and varied jumps.

An Ilia-centric view of the proposals does him no favors and does no favors to any other skaters.
They are knee-jerk reactions to Ilya's win.
 
Remove a jumping pass, he's still going to have the highest BV because his jumps are the hardest. Penalize more on falls, he still is the best jumper and less likely to fall.
He has even less margin for error now. He did skate 7 insane jumping passes clean, which was a huge pressure. Skaters with lower content that are supposedly better at PCS will have less pressure. Risk is under-rewarded with less attempts to regain points with the next pass. If he falls on 4A, that is going to be an automatic loss for him, and it shouldn't be when other skaters can miss passes no problem.
 
They are knee-jerk reactions to Ilya's win.
If the ISU members had wanted to prevent Malinin from winning, they had a few seasons to make rules to limit his fire power... they didn't. The ISU likes Malinin. He is popular and can attract the crowds with his prowess. This reminds me of a while back when some fans thought that the ISU was doing everything possible to prevent their cherished skater from getting higher scores... seriously....
 
If the ISU members had wanted to prevent Malinin from winning, they had a few seasons to make rules to limit his fire power... they didn't. The ISU likes Malinin. He is popular and can attract the crowds with his prowess. This reminds me of a while back when some fans thought that the ISU was doing everything possible to prevent their cherished skater from getting higher scores... seriously....
Then why are they limiting jumping suddenly and immediately after Malinin shows that he can skate a clean program with 4A in the highest level competition, while he didn't show it before? And when tbh the PCSs scores are the highest ever and jumping content is at the lowest in juniors and women?
 
He has even less margin for error now. He did skate 7 insane jumping passes clean, which was a huge pressure. Skaters with lower content that are supposedly better at PCS will have less pressure. Risk is under-rewarded with less attempts to regain points with the next pass. If he falls on 4A, that is going to be an automatic loss for him, and it shouldn't be when other skaters can miss passes no problem.
i don't think so. You are speaking as if only Ilia could fall on a jump and not the others. How many clean programs did we witness at worlds in the LP.... from memory... not even a handful. Remove a jumping pass and maybe we will see better skated programs from
EVERYONE.

Ilia still will have an insane BV advantage. End of the story.

Sounds like some of his fans would like him to win if he falls on his jumps ? I am fine if he wins by a landslide like he did at worlds because he was the best competitor that day.

If the ISU wanted to penalize Malinin, he wouldn't be getting 90 in PCS.....
 
Then why are they limiting jumping suddenly and immediately after Malinin shows that he can skate a clean program with 4A in the highest level competition, while he didn't show it before? And when tbh the PCSs scores are the highest ever and jumping content is at the lowest in juniors and women?
you think it's an instant reaction ? these proposals have been in the mix for a while... a lot of people have looked for a better balance of quads and skating skills. The perfect balance was achieved in the early 2010s. The ISU tried to make it better by limiting the number of times a quad could be repeated (only one quad gets to be repeated).. that was way before Ilia... it was to remove the 2 quad toes, 2 quad salchows programs that were starting to look already like a jump fest. What did the skaters do? Learn new quads... Now, they realize that many skaters have 3 or even more different types of quads and instead of LIMITING the quads they say, let's be fair and remove ONE jumping pass... Which means that a skater can ditch his least favourite or lowest value jump... That doesn't prevent Ilia from doing a quad axel, repeating his quad lutz, do a quad flip, loop and toe. It doesn't penalize him at all. It doesn't even have anything to do with making the field more even.
It has to do with finding a better balance between choreography, program building and jumps.... so that fans have something more than big jumps to cheer for.
 
How's all that, taken together, minor?
These changes, taken together, are in fact quite trivial and will not have any perceptible effect on the direction of the sport, or on one skater's fortunes vis-a-vis another's.

As for hysteria, there is a rule, like the rule "no crying in baseball." No hysteria in figure skating.
 
The thing is that "normal" single skating should also be about more than just the bv of certain jumps.
For better or for worse, I think that the handwriting is on the wall. "Normal" figure skating will continue to move more and more in the direction of "extreme" sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, aerials and hot-dog skiing, doing backflips on road bikes, etc. -- things that people really, really like to watch and have come to expect of whichever sport they follow.

I'm not complaining. It's not my job to tell people what they ought to like or not like.
 
For better or for worse, I think that the handwriting is on the wall. "Normal" figure skating will continue to move more and more in the direction of "extreme" sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, aerials and hot-dog skiing, doing backflips on road bikes, etc. -- things that people really, really like to watch and have come to expect of whichever sport they follow.

I'm not complaining. It's not my job to tell people what they ought to like or not like.

I don't think this is the future.

Because fewer people will watch the "X" Games figure skating, even if it is nothing but teen girls and boys throwing themselves into the air for as many revolutions as possible. Because the X Game audience, ewww, figure skating. 🤢 They will need to call it what it is, "Air revolutions" or some such. I still don't think the X Games audience will give a hoot. And the "regular" figure skating audience will say, whatever this is, it ain't figure skating. 🤷‍♀️

If figure skating is to survive, it should accept unapologetically what it has been and what it is. Trying to be the X Games will kill it faster than any other approach.

IMHO, of course. :)
 
Anyone leet gets above 7 and it doesn't matter what they did or didn't do in their program. I mean, I like Memola on ice. He is striking. 7.5 seems good to me for interpretation for him because he is different, even if it's his limbs and height. I am glad he gets higher marks than someone who doesn't stand out. It's great to see someone who is 6 feet show that figure skating can be done at that height, not just 5 feet 3".

Equally, nobody who saw Trusova live could possibly not see how animated and fiery her skating is next to literally everyone else before (my time) and/or since. Not to mention that Trusova and the rest of the Russian women continue to show that women can have jumping content that is the same as men's on the high level overall in juniors. It's great.

I am in favor of rewarding the exceptional stuff, versus pushing forward the only decent but all around. Exceptional talent must receive exceptional marks, particularly for things that nobody else can do.

Of course, it is hysteria, and of course it's anti-Malinin.

They propose to chop a jumping pass in singles and in pairs, greatly reducing the number of jumping passes we'll get to see and increasing the length of the segments of the program that do not have jumps.

They wouldn't give 4A BV it deserves for the absolute gorgeousness and difficulty of the jump.

Someone even proposed to increase penalties for a fall, making it pretty much the same as popping a jump, while a fall with a full rotation is >>> pop.

How's all that, taken together, minor?

Minor is taking penalty from 2A on the end of combos to equate them to triples and helps create more combos other than +2/3T--something that skaters enthusiastically implemented. Minor is messing with spins' features annually.

Cutting a jumping pass is not a minor alteration, particular when it's not balanced by proposals that increase focus on jumps and give something to those who want jumps in figure skating.

I think the ONLY rule in favor of having more jumps is taking Euler out of the count as a jump and permitting longer cascades. Where are the other balancing proposals in favor of more and bigger jumping? What about permitting cascades in SP, allowing women to jump separate 3A and quads in SP, allowing all 3 combos to be cascades? Russians showed absolutely gorgeous cascades in the Jumping tournament. So fun...would love to see like 4-5 jumps cascade as a program opener or closer instead of a long spin.

I will answer you, but the following points are not only directed towards you.

1 There are no height categories in skating. If there was a category 1.90m+ Memola would surely win that one, no doubt, but there is no rule (and there shouldn't be one) saying you get a bonus if you have a specific size or shape and perform difficulties.

2 It absolutely makes no sense to see this as anti-Malinin. If anything Malinin will profit from the proposed new rules. In his worlds' jumping layout he had one combo and one sequence. None of those would have to be removed. He did not repeat any jump (seen regardless of revolutions) more than 3 times - other than Kaori. Kaori is actually the one who would have to change her "winning" recipe with her many toeloop combos.
All that Ilia would have to do is take out his 4S (his lowest scoring jump). Yes, that costs him points against Yuma with a bv of 9.70 while Yuma would likely take out his 3F (5.83). But Ilia will still be able to
Ilia is able to do his 4A instead of 3A in the short and wins about 4-5 points - he has also jumped 4-4 combos in training and could do a 4Lz-4T or something. In the free, within the proposed rules, he can still upgrade his content significantly. For him the options seem to be almost without limits. Just playing now: he could do for instance a 4A-3T - 4S - 4F - 4Lo - 4Lz-eu3S - 4A-3A - while Kagiyama and Siao Him Fa have limited options of upgrading. Yes, they can include another quad, but they will never get close to Ilia.
What might limit him is his stamina - not the rules.
To "target" Ilia one would have to come up with completely different suggestions. Like make the quality of the step sequence the one and only decider. Or the quality of gliding. But with the current system, even if you leave them just one single jump in the short and in the free - Ilia would do his 4A, done.
And even the 0 base value for a fall - which like I said I don't expect to go through, I don't see much support for it - the ones who would have felt it at last worlds would have been Kagiyama, Uno, Miura. One could almost think they are targeting the Japanese skaters...
Ilia would have to play by the new rules like anyone, he would have to adjust, but it would not keep him from winning.

3 Pairs has become such a boring discipline to watch. The only thing that is intriguing is who actually wins because it's so close atm. But the programs themselves - there was one program I really liked last season, Kam/O'Shea's East of Eden (but I'm really not a fan of that team). The other ones were dreadful, only checking boxes -done, done, done. Okay, Ghilardi/Ambrosini's vampire was also not bad - but that's about it, not bad. The other ones could have skated without music, without step sequence, just doing their acrobatic tricks, it wouldn't have made much of a change. I can't get too excited about the proposed rules for them, because I simply don't care enough about pairs to... care... but... yes, a change in the outlet of pairs' programs is desperately needed. I would prefer longer programs instead- make them a minute longer and you can still do the elements and gain time for more skating. But I know that it's simply unrealistic. Already people, organizations and broadcasters are complaining about the length of events. I'd be fine with less skaters, but overall there is no support for that. So... reducing the number of elements seems to be the only realistic solution. Personally I would probably make twists and death spirals optional because I find them very boring, but again... just unrealistic.
In pairs I think it is most obvious that this is not targeting anyone, but that the majority of viewers is just fed up with the state of the programs.

4 I wouldn't call taking out a jumping passage minor, but in the end, the effect will actually likely be minor. I don't expect the results to change. I don't expect seriously better programs. I see it as a step in the right direction which shows that at least there is still some interest in good, interesting programs. Apparently taking this step into this direction is what bothers you, not because of the actual effects, but just as a symbol. Because no, it's not a sign of "we want jumping to become more important than it's now".

And why should it??
It's already so important.

Oof, I was doing some statistical stuff and so on, but honestly I'm just too tired to go on now and I still have to work... don't get money from the ISU for this, so... I'll leave it at this.
 
For better or for worse, I think that the handwriting is on the wall. "Normal" figure skating will continue to move more and more in the direction of "extreme" sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, aerials and hot-dog skiing, doing backflips on road bikes, etc. -- things that people really, really like to watch and have come to expect of whichever sport they follow.

I'm not complaining. It's not my job to tell people what they ought to like or not like.

I don't think that's the future at all. All these sports have more or less existed for decades now and they have not made a break through or are actually in decline. Skateboarding is at the Olympics now, but it's not a huge success as a viewers' sport for now, because honestly it's very boring. ( tried.) Just like diving has a certain fan base but will never become the popular sport (pure jumping on ice would be very similar to diving in terms of attraction).
There are things that are cool to do or have a fun scene, but are not very viewer friendly as a competitive sport. It can be big on tiktok, though. But usually it's not.
 
Ilia is able to do his 4A instead of 3A in the short and wins about 4-5 points
Not true. Unless there is a rule change, one of the required elements in the short program is a double or triple axel.

He can include the 4A in the combination or (as at the GPF) as the solo jump, so it would be replacing a quad, not the 3A. And therefore could add a few more points but not 4-5.

- he has also jumped 4-4 combos in training and could do a 4Lz-4T or something.
In the free skate. Not currently allowed in the SP.

Let's hope someone tries a quad-quad or at least a triple-quad in a FS one of these days. Would be cool to see.
(One way to encourage that would be to offer a bonus multiplier base value of the second jump in a true combination.)

Especially in a program with fewer jump passes if the currently proposed rule change takes effect.
 
i don't think so. You are speaking as if only Ilia could fall on a jump and not the others. How many clean programs did we witness at worlds in the LP.... from memory... not even a handful. Remove a jumping pass and maybe we will see better skated programs from
EVERYONE.

Ilia still will have an insane BV advantage. End of the story.

Sounds like some of his fans would like him to win if he falls on his jumps ? I am fine if he wins by a landslide like he did at worlds because he was the best competitor that day.

If the ISU wanted to penalize Malinin, he wouldn't be getting 90 in PCS.....
Removing jumping pass results in seeing less jumping passes.

Look, I am all in favor of single ice dance and whatever they want to do with synchros is their business, but why are they taking the fun part? At least allow longer combos to let people like me who like jumps to see more jumps or do more jumping tournaments or even insert a 3rd program, jumping program.

Less jumps, less entertainment --> major impact as a spectator sport.

To win, Malinin will have to fight to allow 4A to be included into SP. And they wont even allow women jump 3A, so they won't let him jump 4A.

Where he could have picked points, it's if they stopped limiting cascades to just one pass. If all 3 combos could be turned into cascades, or one cascade could be increased to up to 5 jumps, well, now we are talking. And it would be by far more fun to watch than skaters going in circles.
 
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1 There are no height categories in skating. If there was a category 1.90m+ Memola would surely win that one, no doubt, but there is no rule (and there shouldn't be one) saying you get a bonus if you have a specific size or shape and perform difficulties.
Actually, why not? Because they don't put a 150 lbs boxer versus a 300 lbs one. Then why do they put 5'9 and 6 feet guys in the same competition with a 5'2" guys? Would be nice to see more diversity and have taller guys be competitive, so the 'omg, he's growing' doesn't spell the end of the career or rapid transition to pairs.
 
Removing jumping pass results in seeing less jumping passes.

Look, I am all in favor of single ice dance and whatever they want to do with synchros is their business, but why are they taking the fun part? At least allow longer combos to let people like me who like jumps to see more jumps or do more jumping tournaments or even insert a 3rd program, jumping program. Less jumps, less entertainment.
Yours is your personal preference. It seems you only enjoy jumps.

Other fans enjoy programs that include a variety of different skills including jumps, spins, steps, field moves, etc. Some are especially interested in the blade-to-ice technical skills, others especially in the ability of skaters to perform to audiences and interpret music while performing all sorts of difficult technical skills both on the ice and in the air.

Not everyone agrees on what is the "fun part" to watch or what is the most entertaining.

All these moves have historically been part of singles free skating as a discipline.

The rules need to balance respect for the technical basis of the sport and the pride of the participants in mastering a wide variety of technical skills, and also try to maintain audience friendliness to please fans who are most interested in jumps, those who are most interested in skating skills, those who are most interested in performance qualities, and those who are most interested in how all those different kinds of technical and performance skills interact with each other.

Catering to one subset of fans who enjoy only one kind of skill and devaluing all the other kinds of skills that other fans enjoy more is not the way to maintain or build wide audiences.
 
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