Synchro9 Earns Its Place at the Alpes 2030

[bckabck]

Just finished watching the Rocker Skating Podcast video for the synchro 9. It was very good in stating what synchro 9 will be.

So far my opinion is that FIFA should stay in its lane. As of right now my opinion of synchro 9 has lowered a bit, but I’m still interested right now to see it in action and give it a chance.

 

[NanaPat]

of course, if synchro 9 works out well and then people understand how much better it could be for 12 or 16, it could change and we could get larger teams.. so that's a victory and I quite agree with this sentiment.

When artistic skating was first in the Olympics, it was just solos and duets. This was especially odd because the it was called synchronized swimming at the time and it is hard to picture how a solo can be "synchronized". The sport desperately wanted teams in from the beginning, but took what they could get. After 3 Olympics, team came in and replaced duet and solo. The following Olympics, duet was added back in. I believe that the duet entries have to swim on the team as well, so adding duets didn't add any total athletes.

Perhaps synchronized skating hopes to follow a similar trajectory, by starting with synchro9 and later replacing it with synchro12 or traditional synchro (16 member teams).

OT: my daughter, who did artistic swimming, thinks 8 is a much better team size than 9. Her proposal is to have one skater standing beside the boards pointing appreciatively while the other 8 skate. The more drastic alternative is shooting one skater as the team enters the ice.

 

[SmileHappy34]

What is syncro. 9.
Is it different from regular syncro.
Can Olympics cities add or delay sports to use
It important to them that sport

 

[midori green]

* maybe some ex or current skaters may pop up in this format( I haven't considered this possibility, cause synchro is so dependant on group skating skills)

What does this mean? Are currrent or recent elite dance, pairs, or singles skaters going to switch and try this discipline for the Olympic prospect? That would be a little sad for the dedicated synchro skaters who've been fighting for years to be included. But I guess synchro 9 is quite different from regular synchro, so why not have skaters adapt up as well as down?

 

[TontoK]

OT: my daughter, who did artistic swimming, thinks 8 is a much better team size than 9. Her proposal is to have one skater standing beside the boards pointing appreciatively while the other 8 skate. The more drastic alternative is shooting one skater as the team enters the ice.

Well, that's sure to drive up viewership! LOL

I like the way your daughter thinks. She seems like a "no half-measures" type of gal.

 

[4everchan]

When artistic skating was first in the Olympics, it was just solos and duets. This was especially odd because the it was called synchronized swimming at the time and it is hard to picture how a solo can be "synchronized". The sport desperately wanted teams in from the beginning, but took what they could get. After 3 Olympics, team came in and replaced duet and solo. The following Olympics, duet was added back in. I believe that the duet entries have to swim on the team as well, so adding duets didn't add any total athletes.

Perhaps synchronized skating hopes to follow a similar trajectory, by starting with synchro9 and later replacing it with synchro12 or traditional synchro (16 member teams).

OT: my daughter, who did artistic swimming, thinks 8 is a much better team size than 9. Her proposal is to have one skater standing beside the boards pointing appreciatively while the other 8 skate. The more drastic alternative is shooting one skater as the team enters the ice.

Yup. I know how that went but the solo is still not in after all these years and it was by far, my favourite.

 

[4everchan]

What does this mean? Are currrent or recent elite dance, pairs, or singles skaters going to switch and try this discipline for the Olympic prospect? That would be a little sad for the dedicated synchro skaters who've been fighting for years to be included. But I guess synchro 9 is quite different from regular synchro, so why not have skaters adapt up as well as down?

I can see solo dancers without a partner like Emmy Bronsard could return to the sport in that capacity.

 

[Mathman]

OT: my daughter, who did artistic swimming, thinks 8 is a much better team size than 9. Her proposal is to have one skater standing beside the boards pointing appreciatively while the other 8 skate.

You know, the more I think about this the more the problems with 9s come into focus. For starters, unless they can come up with an entertaining format and rush it into place, this Olympic event could be a one-and-done, and then we will have disrupted everybody's program for nothing.

The other thing is that someone really needs to develop some original ideas as to how to manage a team of nine. It can't just be 16s with some skaters missing. One possibility would be to go for more acrobatic tricks, all eyes on the flyer at the top of the pyramid -- but that would be opposite to the whole concept of synchronization.

 

[4everchan]

You know, the more I think about this the more the problems with 9s come into focus. For starters, unless they can come up with an entertaining format and rush it into place, this Olympic event could be a one-and-done, and then we will have disrupted everybody's program for nothing.

yup... definitely. there was a lot of lobbying, including from Canada, to promote synchro. I think they even went ahead and created synchro9 demonstrations to show how great It would be to convince the ISU (if I listened properly to some podcasts)

However, after 2030 there will one of 3 outcomes

1)synchro is nixed from 2034 and thus, all the work put into syncrho9 and disruption of synchro16 will be for nothing
2) synchro 9 is kept as is. Will synchro16 survive in the long term ? Would national federation like Skate Canada put all their money into synchro9 and thus, pretty much killing the larger program ?
3) synchro9 is a success story and the IOC is open minded to bring synchro16 next (least likely outcome) again, not as bad but certainly disruptive to the infrastructure already built.

IMHO Syncrho 16 should have been kept for the games, honouring the hard work national federations and clubs have put to building a very diverse field. Watching worlds for the last few years has been one of my guilty pleasures. With synchro9, the smaller federations will no longer focus on the larger team. Less money, if any, will be left for synchro16. The illusion of synchro9 is exciting but I cannot just put on pink-coloured glasses here... I am genuinely afraid for the sport that I like, the one version with enough athletes to actually create descent shapes, blocks, intersections, lines and programs.

The other thing is that someone really needs to develop some original ideas as to how to manage a team of nine. It can't just be 16s with some skaters missing. One possibility would be to go for more acrobatic tricks, all eyes on the flyer at the top of the pyramid -- but that would be opposite to the whole concept of synchronization.

I think you are mistaken with this. First, there will be required elements. The acrobatic elements already exist in synchro. The pairs lifts is one of them. Usually, it's 2 or 3 skaters lifting one skater. It's not really a pairs lift like the ones you would see in pairs. It's usually a short lift, which is done by a few smaller groups, all at the same time, so it is synchronized.

Here is an example of creative lift element ...

.
So there is a skater flying high while there are duos doing basic dance lifts and trios (2 lifters) doing basic lifts as well... All synchronized.

and here is the group lift element. 3 lifters per lifted. It's a very different kind of lifts that fans, not used to synchro would imagine. It's not like what we would have seen back then in the Fours discipline.