59th ISU Congress: Watch and Discuss

[Karoltyna]

An athlete delivers an iconic performance that garnered widespread mainstream attention... bringing new eyes to our sport... the most exciting and groundbreaking performance our sport has seen in years...

and the first thing the ISU does is to say "Well, we certainly can't have any more of THAT."

So, I'm not interested in accusations about who does and does not care about the sport.

4A is and will be iconic but not the performance. It was 3 months ago and I can't remember anything from it.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Drafting matter means that it's considered a wording issue now. If they wanted to keep it at 16 without a vote, I'm sure there would have been some words from Israel and Great Britain.

Yes that means they're going back to reverse order from the SP. If they don't remove it from the package, it means it goes through.

Thank you for the clarifications, @saine.

I've never paid any attention to what happens at these congresses before, so I am not sure about the terminology used.

In fact, the only reason I have been paying attention this time is that I wanted to see if those three decisions would be reversed, because they should ever have been passed in the first place.



CaroLiza_fan

 

[4everchan]

No. This rule gives a message that jumps are unwelcome for years to come. That's the problem. That it's a continuation of a crack down on jumps, and not only among the top 5 fighting for the podium, but even more so in 3 to 20 and it passes down even further. And, like, the effect in women is even stronger, though it is currently not visible, since they held back jumping in women via other means already.

look... you are allowed to think whatever you want, but to me this rule is about quality versus quantity. I value the first one.

 

[TontoK]

How do you measure the number of new eyes broughot to the sport ?

Let's check IG followers. Malinin and his 4A have 175k. Jason Brown and his 3A has 287k. Even Kimmy Repond and her 2A have 211k.

So where are those eyes ?

The YouTube of Malinin's free skate had MILLIONS of views in a very short time... like in days... and then, of course, NBC pulled the video.

That, of course, is a different problem... but there were certainly eyes on that performance.

Edit: I just checked and in USA we STILL cannot view official video of Ilia's Free Skate on YouTube. Not from NBC or the ISU. There are some fan videos of lesser quality taken from the arena, but obviously not the same.

 

[lariko]

4A is and will be iconic but not the performance. It was 3 months ago and I can't remember anything from it.

And I remember it vividly and every emotion and the build up at the stadium and the insane uplift each jumping pass created. I don't even remember what Brown skated to, just remember laughing my head off when people cheered on his pop, lol. Everyone, literally everyone, was standing and screaming from the moment Malinin landed 4A. It was intoxicating. He was amazing. He was flying. He had that night.

 

[4everchan]

I'm saying nobody has pure motives. Nobody.

ok.. then why would one's not so pure motives trump everyone else's ?

this is why i prefer looking at this from another perspective and not making it about the current athletes.

 

[Karoltyna]

No. This rule gives a message that jumps are unwelcome for years to come. That's the problem. That it's a continuation of a crack down on jumps, and not only among the top 5 fighting for the podium, but even more so in 3 to 20 and it passes down even further. And, like, the effect in women is even stronger, though it is currently not visible, since they held back jumping in women via other means already.

Phisics, human body and women's own common sense are the reasons they don't jump quads. People who understand it won't want women to jump quads and men jump 4A or quints.

 

[TontoK]

ok.. then why would one's not so pure motives trump everyone else's ?

this is why i prefer looking at this from another perspective and not making it about the current athletes.

Exactly. Why should anyone's motives trump anyone else's? Leave it in the athletes' hands.

You want to beat the best? Then get better.

 

[figureskatingandrainbows]

Maybe people like different aspects about skating and maybe this argument is subjective because it reflects people's personal preferences? We can't fully judge the impacts of this rule change until we see it in action, and I don't think we can objectively say that it's "bad" or "good" until we see the scores and programs. Of course some people love it and some people hate it, because that is the nature of opinions and changes to a sport. Let's instead celebrate the cancellation of the Qualifying Round or something (or move this conversation to a different thread because I'd like to hear about the Congress and not scroll through six pages of the same argument) please and thank you

 

[Alex Fedorov]

No. You love Russian FS.

I could never have guessed that Yuzuru Hanyu, Nathan Chen, Yuma Kagiyama, Adam Siao Him Fa (and all of them together can be called the collective face of modern figure skating) are Russian. But you opened my eyes.

 

[lariko]

Phisics, human body and women's own common sense are the reasons they don't jump quads. People who understand it won't want women to jump quads and men jump 4A or quints.

Yes, everyone wants to limit women and then put it down on them too. But, apparently, some women don't want to be limited. Women jumped quads in training since the storied 1990's btw. And, you know, the bodies' limitation should prohibit bielmans as well, along with all spins, because the G overloads are above what a human heart should take routinely. Pair skating is also far outside what an average male human body should be able to perform, period. In fact, humans can't skate at all, it's just physics.

There, the figure skating as a whole should be cancelled, because physics doubts it's possible. Oh, wait! Physics is a science that evolves every damn day in new and unusual directions expanding human mind beyond every possibility envisioned. It is a science with incredible breadth and reach. So, if anyone, physicists would be the first ones to believe that if you can think it, it's possible.

 

[Arigato]

How do you measure the number of new eyes broughot to the sport ?

Let's check IG followers. Malinin and his 4A have 175k. Jason Brown and his 3A have 287k. Even Kimmy Repond and her 2A have 211k.

So where are those eyes ?

Number of views can easily be pumped up artificially on a video, regardless of platform. That's why it's silly to takes views seriously much less argue it means anything to figure skating.

 

[saine]

This 10 minute break is taking a long time. Hopefully it ends soon, and Ireland is invited to constitution modernization. She's really into it, make use of that passion ISU!

 

[cheerknithanson]

The YouTube of Malinin's free skate had MILLIONS of views in a very short time... like in days... and then, of course, NBC pulled the video.

That, of course, is a different problem... but there were certainly eyes on that performance.

Edit: I just checked and in USA we STILL cannot view official video of Ilia's Free Skate on YouTube. Not from NBC or the ISU. There are some fan videos of lesser quality taken from the arena, but obviously not the same.

The bigger issue is that NBC needs to stop being cowards.

 

[gkelly]

An athlete delivers an iconic performance that garnered widespread mainstream attention... bringing new eyes to our sport... the most exciting and groundbreaking performance our sport has seen in years...

and the first thing the ISU does is to say "Well, we certainly can't have any more of THAT."

So, I'm not interested in accusations about who does and does not care about the sport.

How do you feel about the Zayak rule?

 

[gkelly]

Exactly. Why should anyone's motives trump anyone else's? Leave it in the athletes' hands.

You want to beat the best? Then get better.

That applies to on-ice skills as well as above-ice skills.

The problem is that a minority of skaters have been able to push the above-ice skills to exceptional levels that the majority (including a minority who are actually better skaters on the ice) mathematically cannot keep up. "Getting better" at skating is not the same as "add more revolutions in the air." Maybe it's the same as getting better at jumping. But the sport is not all about jumping.

 

[Arigato]

The bigger issue is that NBC needs to stop being cowards.

Too many Americans have a short memory regarding what happened with NBC and figure skating, and why it happened. But that's for another thread at a later time.

 

[saine]

Okay, package for singles and pairs has been moved on from. Time for ice dance.

 

[Karoltyna]

That applies to on-ice skills as well as above-ice skills.

The problem is that a minority of skaters have been able to push the above-ice skills to exceptional levels that the majority (including a minority who are actually better skaters on the ice) mathematically cannot keep up. "Getting better" at skating is not the same as "add more revolutions in the air." Maybe it's the same as getting better at jumping. But the sport is not all about jumping.

Don't say such not-modern things jumps and revs are everything.

 

[TontoK]

How do you feel about the Zayak rule?

I think it was a rule targeting a specific athlete to undermine her advantages and limit her chances of winning more major titles.

And it did that very effectively.