2 points which stood out as extremely valid and really quite disturbing for the sport:
- The high risk of injury to different body types. It is rare to find a skater with natural flexibility and the quick twitch that is required for a full clean set of big triples. Especially true for women. I do think this has forced many skaters out of competitive skating.
Yes, and this was true well before the IJS. Basically by the end of figures in the early 90s, certainly by the mid-90s, it was impossible to succeed at the senior level without triples, and most girls who take up the sport will never get clean triples, or clean double axel, no matter how good they get at other skills.
The difference now is that flexibility is also highly rewarded, and it's even less likely to find the ability to do triples and the ability to do Biellmann spins and the like in the same person.
Also, as the overall skill level of the top skaters keeps increasing, anyone who wants to try to keep up needs to train very challenging programs with very challenging skills, and younger skaters are also training skills that used to be the province only of the top seniors.
So there is that much more potential for both traumatic and overuse injuries.
But again, much of this was true under 6.0 as well. For example,
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...combinations-naomi-nari-nam-junior-grand-prix
The focus then was more on the jumps than the flexibility moves, but some of those skaters who were named as injured were already doing the kind of spin and spiral positions that we might worry about under IJS a few years later.
- The rarity of beautiful long gliding quiet edges although it is apparent that they do still exist with some skaters and it seems the judges are rewarding this ie Chan Abbott Czisny. There are coaches that are still focusing on this but as noted maybe a dying breed. These aforementioned skaters did learn their skills during 6.0
Judges can be encouraged to reward high-quality sustained edges under both 6.0 or IJS judging. In 6.0, edge quality and flow would be part of the technical merit mark apart from the elements, although the beauty could also contribute to a higher presentation mark. And at certain points in the history of the short program the first mark was specifically just for the required elements, so then qualities like speed and edges were rewarded in the second mark for the SP.
With IJS, obviously this is rewarded under Skating Skills. And we've seen that, for better or worse, higher Skating Skills scores tend to lead to higher scores in the other components.
There are also ways specifically to encourage edge quality within the elements, some of which are already built into the system and others that could be.
The leveled spiral sequence from a few years ago required skaters to hold their spiral positions longer than had been the case, on average, under 6.0.
It also encouraged difficult positions, sometimes at the expense of sustained glide and steady edges. And often skaters would hold three spirals for 3 seconds each to get the necessary levels but never hold anything longer (i.e., longer than most 6.0 spirals but not as long as the most iconic ones). Adding the 6-second hold as a feature did change that a bit.
And now the choreo spiral sequence allows a single 6-second spiral, and the same base value for two as for three 3-second spirals, so there's no need to rush if the skater can hold a single strong edge in a strong position and earn positive GOE that way. So far what I see happening is that the skaters with the best spirals use this opportunity to show off their strength, but the others have made it more of a throwaway element again. Which was pretty much the case for long program spiral sequences a decade ago.
Step sequences require recognizable edges and turns in order to earn higher levels. If you look at step sequences from the 6.0 era, often quickness was emphasized at the expense of edges and the turns were unidentifiable because the exit edges weren't held at all. So the skaters need to improve and hold their turns and edges if they want to get higher levels on the step sequences.
Judges will consider the quality of the edges in those sequences in awarding the GOEs. How much each judge rewards them can vary with the individual judges' priorities.
Transitions are marked on variety, difficulty, and intricacy, which might encourage cramming in a lot of different moves without sustaining any of them. But they're also marked on quality, so a single really well-executed gliding move, e.g., Arakawa's iconic Ina Bauer, can make up in quality what it might replace in quantity.
The article in short I think is lamenting the loss of a broader range of skaters whom are able to produce beautiful programs with their strongest skills, as a result of the demands and limits of the IJS.
I tend to disagree with that assessment. I remember a lot of boring or generally unbeautiful programs under 6.0 as well. Skaters did the best they could with the skills they had and didn't feel the need to attempt positions that didn't come easily to them. But on average, across the whole field, I think the general quality of spins and spirals, for example, is much higher now than 10-20 years ago.
