AIN Competitors, Coaches, and ISU Rules

[Mathman]

However, ISU imo made it even more unsavory with AIN rules it gleefully created.

I had something of the opposite impression. It seemed to me that the IOC directives to the ISU caught the ISU by surprise and then they tried to scramble to try to make the best of a no-win situation. I don't think that the ISU is gleeful at all over this headache.

Unfortunately, no, they were not able to craft any silk purses out of what they had to work with.

 

[Karoltyna]

I had something of the opposite impression. It seemed to me that the IOC directives to the ISU caught the ISU by surprise and then they tried to scramble to try to make the best of a no-win situation. I don't think that the ISU is gleeful at all over this headache.

Unfortunately, no, they were not able to craft any silk purses out of what they had to work with.

Correct, ISU didn't want any athletes from banned countries at international competitions. This whole situation was forced on them - IOC ordered them to provide the opportunity to qualify. Unfortunately ISU isn't best in creating coherent rules and handling complicated situations.

 

[lariko]

I had something of the opposite impression. It seemed to me that the IOC directives to the ISU caught the ISU by surprise and then they tried to scramble to try to make the best of a no-win situation. I don't think that the ISU is gleeful at all over this headache.

Unfortunately, no, they were not able to craft any silk purses out of what they had to work with.

I disagree. The rules, particularly in respect to substitutes, were extreme and they followed their own criteria... actually, they didn't follow them or Petrosyan wouldn't be in Beijing in the first place. Not to mention the insanity of the very undesirables who shall not be associated with AIN happily accepted in other ISU competitions. The athletes suffered and continue to suffer, while actual guilty party is thriving. The footnoted Belarus is in an even harder to justify situation with every new development in the polit-athletics. And ISU sure as heck looks smug.

 

[lariko]

Hm... This is not the place for talking about this, but I've always been more interested in the artistic side of figure skating than rotated jumps, correct edge take-off, etc. I don't care as much about AI in judging as the return of aesthetics, skating and programs. Historically, it's been fluctuating between technicalities and artistry. In the 70-80s, the artistic skating seemed to be on the rise, and we are still seeing the result of this in choreography from Sandra Bezic and Lori Nichol who I believe skated in John Curry's show, and their students. Then figures were gone and by the 2000s, quads in men, triple-triples in women became a necessity, but late 2000s-early 2010s brought back artistry, programs and an advance in skating skills. Now it's jumps again, so I hope for another renaissance. Perhaps, if one had more data from earlier years, similar tendencies could be traced, but there is really not enough. I agree that archiving rules and results and removing videos from youtube doesn't help. You'd be hard-pressed to figure out e.g. how spins, steps and spirals were given levels circa 2010 OG, and this was only 15 years ago.

I am here for a fair athletic competition with a no-nonsense, sane ruleset and not having to check where next Olympics is, and who is the coach for each skater when making predictions. As far as I am concerned, figure skating started with Shoma Uno and Alina Zagitova in 2018. My patience for ISU is basically on its last legs now.

 

[Mathman]

And ISU sure as heck looks smug.

I don't see it. They don't look smug or self-satisfied to me at all, If anything, they seem to be aware (how could they not be?) that they are running off in all directions at once like chickens with their heads off, but couldn't come up with anything better. They surely must realize how ridiculous they will look when Adelia Petrosyan walks off with the Olympic Gold medal despite the ISU trying their hardest, but failing, to keep her out.

The ISU just looks like they are stooges who are not masters of their own domain.

I do, however, feel sorry for the ISU -- they are tasked with the job of making some sort of sense out of a senceless situation. It is easy for us fans to criticize, but not so easy to think of a better approach that will satisfy everyone.

 

[lariko]

I don;t see it. They don't look smug or self-satisfied to me at all, If anything, they seem to be aware (how could they not be?) that they are running off in all directions at once like chickens with their heads off, but couldn't come up with anything better. They surely must realize how ridiculous they will look when Adelia Petrosyan walks off with the Olympic Gold medal despite the ISU trying their hardest, but failing, to keep her out.

The ISU just looks like they are stooges who are not masters of their own domain.

I do, however, feel sorry for the ISU -- they are tasked with the job of making some sort of sense out of a senceless situation. It is easy for us fans to criticize, but not so easy to think of a better approach that will satisfy everyone.

Zero sympathy from me. They could have easily disqualified Petrosyan, they could have taken measures against actual culprits for actual FS violations (which is their direct responsibility), but they chose not to. They only create more acrimony with every decision they make.

 

[lariko]

The press-conference after the competitions in singles will be for top 5 since top 5 qualifies for Olympics. So, even if 2 AIN athletes make the top 3, it wouldn't leave the press-conference too weird and empty.

 

[Mathman]

Zero sympathy from me. They could have easily disqualified Petrosyan...

Indeed they could have, and still can.

But that's the part that I can't get around in my mind. You put on a skating contest. If Petrosyan skates the best she gets the prize. If someone else skates better, then the girl with the better performance wins. That seems to me to be a reasonable way to conduct a sporting event.

But no! It is suddenly revealed that Adelia's choreographer, or her rink mate, once saluted the Russian flag. No gold for you, Missy.

If the ISU and the IOC had said, Russia is banned until Putin turns over a new leaf, OK, that is straightforward enough, whatever we might think of it's effectiveness. This set of ISU Rules is the opposite of straightforward.

 

[TallyT]

As I wrote, shitshow.

The women's event has been a shitshow since 2014 - that's over a decade now - and a good 70% of the blame is squarely on the Russians, so although I have nothing against the girl I will not be sorry if she - and Tutberidze - fail to take home the precious and only-thing-that-matters gold. I am not exonerating the ISU, they fawned over and hyped and encouraged the overscoring of the Tut girls and quadsters in general, landing them and the sport in this mess.

I agree that the Olympic ideal (excellence, respect, friendship) is wonderful but

a) we don't need the Olympics to appreciate the achievements of athletes at the global level. Once could argue that the achievements at world events, particularly repeating international successes - is far more important than the Olympics as it represents consistency of performance.

b) the Olympics and its stature and opportunities to make money creates more "reasons" for cheating by athletes, coaches, national sporting organizations (so many examples). Best to leave that for the "professional" sports.

As mentioned, the Olympic tarnish (physical and emotional abuse, cheating, doping, political interference, etc) has damaged the brand of figure skating to the public - just ask somebody who isn't a knowledgable fan like us what their impression of the sport is.

Heroes are wonderful but we can have heroes without the Olympics.

Nice theory but if the Olympics (the only time that figure skaters in most of our nations can get any halfway decent level of coverage including international, be noticed by the public and get some level of fame and recompense) didn't matter a whooooole lot, the Russians would not be jumping through all the hoops put up, putting up the nominations, checking them all for meeting (or not) the conditions, taking the rejections, going to the qualifier. They. Really. Want. That. OGM.

And the elite skaters - do, way more than the GPF, Euros/3CC, even Worlds - want Olympic bling. Despite the fact that - as @Skater Boy said - quite a lot of the sports' legends don't have the gold (and you can add Shoma Uno and yes, Sasha Trusova to that list) every single one of them wanted it desperately and skaters like Nathan Chen is not the only one who shook the ice off his boots and scarpered the minute he had it (which is fair enough, his three Worlds and nine? - WRs didn't garner a skerrick of the publicity his Olys run for 2018 did). There is always a mass exodus inbetween the Olympics and Worlds because no one anywhere near the running is going to miss out on a chance to compete in the former.

 

[Mathman]

The women's event has been a shitshow since 2014...

IMHO 2018, Zagitova versus Medvedeva with Osborn, Miyahara nd Kostner also acquitting themselves well (not to mention a triple Axel from Mirai Nagasu ) was a fine competition, however much we don't like coaches, skating federations, the iSU, etc.

 

[4everchan]

IMHO 2018, Zagitova versus Medvedeva with Osborn, Miyahara nd Kostner also acquitting themselves well (not to mention a triple Axel from Mirai Nagasu ) was a fine competition, however much we don't like coaches, skating federations, the iSU, etc.

I didn't know Ozzy skated in 2018 May he RIP.

 

[Jontor]

I don't understand the discussion about flags and anthems and nationalism. I am here to watch good figure skating...isn't that the priority?

 

[Jontor]

IMHO 2018, Zagitova versus Medvedeva with Osborn, Miyahara nd Kostner also acquitting themselves well (not to mention a triple Axel from Mirai Nagasu ) was a fine competition, however much we don't like coaches, skating federations, the iSU, etc.

Agreed. That was a nerve wrecking battle between Zagitova/Medvedeva and with a great skate from Osmond to round it up. Great stuff.

Federation politics are a separate issue.

 

[Mathman]

I didn't know Ozzy skated in 2018 May he RIP.

Not only that, but he went on to win the World Championship that same year!

 

[Skating91]

The women's event has been a shitshow since 2014 - that's over a decade now - and a good 70% of the blame is squarely on the Russians, so although I have nothing against the girl I will not be sorry if she - and Tutberidze - fail to take home the precious and only-thing-that-matters gold. I am not exonerating the ISU, they fawned over and hyped and encouraged the overscoring of the Tut girls and quadsters in general, landing them and the sport in this mess.

The way you talk about the Russians, I couldn't imagine someone getting away with talking about any other entire group of people like that.

Sorry your skaters or teams haven't won since 2010 but they have a great chance next year of beating the Russians. A lot of fans get upset and irrational when their team or favourite athletes are beaten year after year, but that's sport.

Federer fans boo Djokovic, Hamilton fans boo Verstappen, British fans used to boo Schumacher and cast him as the villain, a lot of people hated the New England Patriots when they were always winning (wanted them banned for deflated footballs and stealing signals ). Some people get very emotional. Look at football and hooliganism the hatred for a different group of players can be so intense it ends in violence. Not healthy.

We live in a world where a world champion can have 3-4 q's and underrotations in a free skate (Russian skaters have always been strong with making sure to rotate their landings even with quads) with none them being called and big GOE, a junior world champion have higher PCS than Valieva as a junior, Hendrickx received one of the highest PCS of all time for that short program at Skate America, so I don't really see how skaters from Russia were overscored. I'd actually argue that Valieva was underscored relative to her rivals. There should have been bigger gaps in terms of PCS from Valieva to everyone else.

There is also some belief among people that a skater can't have quads and high PCS as if mutually exclusive. In my opinion Russian skaters especially from Tutberitze excel in both of these areas. We'll see in a couple of hours that very high presentation and composition in Petrosian's program, as well as decent skating skills (although not the strongest among Russian women just lacks a little power). Her spins should be receiving a perfect 5 as well, complex step sequence.

 

[Mathematician]

The way you talk about the Russians, I couldn't imagine someone getting away with talking about any other entire group of people like that.

That was pretty moderate was he said, you should check the actual tournament thread lol, and God forbid you make your way over to whats happening on another site

 

[anonymoose_au]

That was pretty moderate was he said, you should check the actual tournament thread lol, and God forbid you make your way over to whats happening on another site

Ooo boy don't go to the Figure Skating another site, I joined for about 4 seconds before noping out of there!

In other news, sorry if this has been answered, but how did Adeliya get the chance to qualify? Her coach was involved in a doping scandal? Or has all the blame for that only gone to Kamila?

Also no AIN pairs or dancers?

 

[Mathematician]

In other news, sorry if this has been answered, but how did Adeliya get the chance to qualify? Her coach was involved in a doping scandal? Or has all the blame for that only gone to Kamila?

Well it's likely only direct correlation. If you start extending the fact that she is correlated with a correlation things will get silly. I was pretty confident arguing Adeliia couldn't get barred for that.

Oh and, Kamila has had zero officiation with the club since the ban. There was no proof the staff had anything to do with it. Thats probably the biggest reason.

Also no AIN pairs or dancers?

They only got 1 chance with their submission. M/G and S/B were denied. I think both were for taking part in patriotic shows. No more tries.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Federer fans boo Djokovic, Hamilton fans boo Verstappen, British fans used to boo Schumacher and cast him as the villain, a lot of people hated the New England Patriots when they were always winning (wanted them banned for deflated footballs and stealing signals ). Some people get very emotional. Look at football and hooliganism the hatred for a different group of players can be so intense it ends in violence. Not healthy.

True fans don't boo anybody.

Since you brought in examles from F1, I just want to add something.

I don't like either Hamilton or Verstappen. I used to like Hamilton when he first came into F1, because he was the same age as me and came from a humble background in a sport full of rich kids. But then he got too big for his boots, thinking of himself as a celebrity rather than a sportsperson (I blame Nicole Scherzinger for that). I never liked Verstappen, because I thought he was a dirty driver. And still do.

I was a big fan of Michael Schumacher. The controversies that he was involved in were before I started following the sport. He was already at Ferrari when I came in.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[anonymoose_au]

Well it's likely only direct correlation.

Good point. Although I'd have thought it would at least mean that her coach isn't allowed - the rules I read said the coaches couldn't have any involvement in shifty things either.

I guess throwing Kamila under the bus really helped that coaching team

Anywho I hope Adeliya has a good skate.