ISU Challenger Series modifications for 2015/16

sorenkay said:

I think one way to get a challenge series event in Asia is to somehow tie it in with the Japan Open.

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A challenger series in Korea would be interesting too... There's no international event except 4 continents or junior worlds in this country and figure skating is growing so fast there!

Part 1

OK, you’ve caught me on the hop here. I was planning on reviving this thread in a couple of days with one of my proposals to improve the sport. But, since a couple of the things I am going to discuss have been mentioned today, I have decided to reveal the first 2 posts now (the third post will be a theoretical calendar, which I was planning on starting work on tomorrow, i.e. when the current snooker tournament is over).


Since I joined this forum, I have made some suggestions about how to improve the sport, some of which have been seen as pretty radical.

I was planning on bringing all my suggestions together during the off-season, along with a couple of new ideas. But, since there have been announcements about the Junior GP and Challenger Series already, I have decided to do it now.

The figure skating world is essentially divided into 4 regions:

The Americas (mainly North America)
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Asia / Pacific (mainly the Far East)

To demonstrate this, I have taken the list of competitions on the 2014/15 season page on Wikipedia, and organised them according to which region they are located in (I have not included the major ISU Championships, which move about):


As you can see, the vast majority of competitions are held in Europe, with Eastern Europe in particular being more than generously represented. So, to make the distribution even clearer, here is another table showing the specific countries that the competitions from this season are held in:


When I made out this second table, I was shocked to find that the only events in Russia and China were their Senior GP competitions. Given their prominence in the figure skating world, I would have expected these 2 countries to at least have a Senior B each.

This prompted me to then check the list of countries that have hosted a Junior Grand Prix. As I expected, I found that China is one of those countries that regularly hosts a Junior Grand Prix, but just didn’t get allocated one this season. But, I was REALLY shocked to find that Russia has never held a Junior GP! Like, this is the country that in recent years has been over-run with talented Juniors!

Given the success of Kim Yun-A over the past decade, I was also shocked to find that there were no Senior B competitions in South Korea. And also that, like Russia, the Koreans have never held a Junior GP. That said, South Korea is a regular host country for Four Continents, including this season. So, it is not as if there is some sort of dispute between the ISU and the KSA.

Continued below...

Part 2

...Continued from above

Just over 2 years ago, I started a thread about how the GP Series could be improved by increasing it to 8 events, with even distribution between each of the regions. And I still stand by that basic principle. However, the introduction of the Challenger Series has made me refine my ideas a bit.

In the previous thread, I suggested that the 2 Senior Grands Prix in some regions could rotate between countries.

For example, I suggested that the second of the Grands Prix in Eastern Europe could rotate around the region. But, now that we have the a formal series for Senior B’s, I think it would be better to not have competitions switching which Series they are part of, and hence the rules they are run under, from one year to the next.

Instead, I would now have the most prominent Senior B in Eastern Europe, the Ondrej Nepela Trophy, become a permanent fixture in the GP Series.

I had toyed with the idea of having one of the other competitions held in Slovakia (probably the Tirnavia Cup) take the slot in the Challenger Series. But, these are all currently Junior competitions, and it wouldn’t be fair on the kiddies to turn them into Senior competitions. So, given how good a job the Hungarians did when holding Four Nationals this season, I would instead let the Santa Claus Cup have the fourth Eastern European Challenger slot.

Similarly, I suggested that the 2 Grands Prix in Western Europe could rotate between France, Germany and Italy. After the Challenger Series was introduced with German’s Nebelhorn Torphy and Italy’s Lombardia Trophy on it, I thought “right, we could have France keep it’s permanent slot in the GP Series, and have Germany and Italy swapping each year between a slot in the GP Series and a slot in the Challenger Series.”

But, recently I saw how this type of event sharing arrangement can go wrong very easily. In Formula 1, the German Grand Prix has been alternating between the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring for the past few years. But this year, both circuits say they can’t hold it, and it now looks like there will be no German Grand Prix.

So in light of this, I would now have the Nebelhorn Trophy become a permanent fixture in the GP Series, with a unified North Rhine Westphalia Trophy taking the German slot in the Challenger Series. Italy would also keep their slot in the Challenger Series.

As for the Asia / Pacific region, I suggested that the 2 Grands Prix could rotate between China, Japan and Korea. But after finding out that South Korea doesn’t have any Senior B’s, and has never even held a Junior GP, I think it would be better to let the Koreans get experience of holding these types of competitions on a regular basis before they are even considered for a Senior GP.

Moving on to what is new, and I have now extended the even distribution principle to the Junior GP and Challenger Series.

Unlike the Senior GP, the Junior GP has different events included every year. So, I have kept the principle of 2 events per region, but instead of it being the same 2 events, they move around different countries. For the American and Asia / Pacific regions, I have listed in the table the countries which have previously held Junior GP competitions. But, if any other countries would like to hold a Junior GP, they would be more than welcome!

The Challenger Series was only introduced this season, so it is hard to tell what way the ISU is going to develop it.

There were supposed to be 11 Senior B’s in the inaugural Challenger Series, with the Slovenian Federation switching the Triglav Trophy from it’s traditional April date to November so as to be a part of the new Series. However, the Triglav ended up on the same weekend as the Volvo Open (another Challenger Series round), and the Latvian event was getting more entries than the Slovenian event. So, the Triglav was switched back to April. And since the ISU did not replace them, the Challenger Series was reduced to 10 events.

Under my proposal, the Challenger Series would be increased to 12 rounds. Ideally, I would have had 3 rounds per region. However, there are so many Senior B’s held in Western and Eastern Europe, and so few Senior B’s held in the American and Asia/Pacific Regions, that I have had to adjust that theory slightly:

2 events in North America
4 events in Western Europe
4 events in Eastern Europe
2 events in the Asia/Pacific region.

To achieve the latter, I propose giving Challenger status to Skate Down Under (which, let’s face it, we were all expecting it to be given anyway!) and the Japan Open, which would be transformed from an invitational competition to a fully fledged Senior B (well, Japan has another invitational event in the shape of the Medal Winner’s Open, so why not let this one count towards the World Standings?)

The “Other Senior B” list has largely been left the same as this season’s, except that I have addressed the strange situation of China, Russia and South Korea having no Senior B’s. By rights, given how many very good skaters these countries have, these proposed new Senior B’s should probably have Challenger status. But, better to walk before you can run.

The table below shows a summary of how each Series would look under my proposals:


And here is a table showing how it would break down by country:


So, what do you think?

As I said in the previous post, I am planning on making a mock-up of a calendar for these proposals.

So, this is not goodbye. Instead it is:

To Be Continued...

CaroLiza_fan

Makes sense to me.
That was an immense amount of work, with thought. Well done to you.

A lot of work, and some good thinking there.

I don't think there is all chance of more than 6 GP's, but no reason there can't be 2 more senior B's. Hungary not only ran 4ccs well. Santa Claus Cup.was so much better run than Golden Spin. And it has a great logo!

http://www.moksz.hu/images/mukorcsolya/versenyek/2014_15/8_SC/8th_mikulas_logo.jpg

I would love it if it replaced Golden Spin.

Some thought has to be given to the series scoring though. Golden Spin was an overscored travesty with no transparency at all, and yet it determined who the series medalists were, given it was the last event of the series. Like it or not, it is likely to stay on the list because it is a very old and well-known event, so I would suggest that the 2 extra events should be scheduled after Golden Spin and they should be in Asia. They should have all 4 disciplines included. That arrangement would perhaps make it easier for skaters to schedule to try to reach minimum TES scores for worlds, since there would likely be enough countries sending teams in pairs, especially.

And it should be a requirement that live scoring be supported, and that livestream and video archiving/upload to YouTube or dailymotion be done.

The series could boost fan interest, but only if fans can see the event and check the scores.

dorispulaski said:

All true. But Senior B's have been the property of Europe exclusively. They have been a great vehicle for getting your skaters to get the minimum TES scores and have often featured inflated scoring.

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Well, I would rather have less B competitions and more World championships!
2013 London, Canada
2014 Saitama - Japan
2015 Shanghai - China
2016 Boston - USA
2017 and finally! Europe!!!! Helsinky.

hanca said:

Well, I would rather have less B competitions and more World championships!
2013 London, Canada
2014 Saitama - Japan
2015 Shanghai - China
2016 Boston - USA
2017 and finally! Europe!!!! Helsinky.

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Very good point!

Hosting a competition is all about money.
Why are the JGP's hosted by mostly Eastern European's? Because it is financially very difficult to organize the event. There are few from non Eastern block, but those are the ones that are held at the same place for years and are pillars off that country skating. JGP series draws no viewership, hence no sponsors. All had to be covered by the funds from the ISU and work of the volunteers and FS dedicated individuals or groups.
Challenger series are waste of ISU money in my opinion.
ISU gives financial support to organize the competitions, but not much more is accomplished when compared to Senior B's. Both have empty seats. Its not fair to Nice or Merano to be second grade competition, where Golden Spin or Volvo cup get ISU financial support. The only difference is more earned points and ability to make some change when winning it all. On the other hand, the non challenger senior B's gets now third grade participation which is even more separates the already segregated competition field.
As far as the non European, (Challenger or not), it would be difficult to get desired participation. One has to remember that the the competition participation is paid by the competitor not the organizer. Therefore unless they change that, a senior B in middle of Russia, USA, Japan, Kazakhstan or China would not make lot of sense. The only exception is the USA where many foreign skaters practice or live and can in theory inexpensively participate.

hanca said:

Well, I would rather have less B competitions and more World championships!
2013 London, Canada
2014 Saitama - Japan
2015 Shanghai - China
2016 Boston - USA
2017 and finally! Europe!!!! Helsinky.

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Yeah, but I doubt your an Asian figure skater that has virtually no B level competition and has to travel to Europe just to compete in one. While European skaters have the advantage in the Challenger Series plus its easier for them to get points for the world standings because they can join a ton of competition without traveling very far

sorenkay said:

According to this news story that was just tweeted out, the Russian Fed will apply for Saransk to be included in the Challenger Series. I'm a complete homer for the Russian ladies, but I find the notion to be a bit preposterous

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Agreed. I'm Russian and I have no idea where Saransk is. This will obviously not be attended by anybody other than the local crowd and the most passionate Russian fans.

CaroLiza_fan said:

But, recently I saw how this type of event sharing arrangement can go wrong very easily. In Formula 1, the German Grand Prix has been alternating between the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring for the past few years. But this year, both circuits say they can’t hold it, and it now looks like there will be no German Grand Prix.

Click to expand...

Okay, just a quick clarification. Both of these circuits are perfectly capable of hosting the German Grand Prix (and for a while, they used to have the German GP at Hockenheim and hold the "European GP" at the Nurburgring). The reason neither circuit is going to host it this year is because Bernie is a greedy little (insert cutting insult of your choice here) and is demanding far too much money from them to do so. He is the reason that "classic" races like Germany, Imola, et al are dropping off the calendar, to be replaced by Grands Prix in such places as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates. So, the comparison doesn't really work, because figure skating (thank Plushenchrist!) does not have a Bernie.

Carry on.

Noolan said:

Agreed. I'm Russian and I have no idea where Saransk is. This will obviously not be attended by anybody other than the local crowd and the most passionate Russian fans.

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Saransk currently hosts a big international junior event, Crystal Skate & has hosted Russian Nationals most recently in 2011. It was pretty well attended, so the city does have a good history of hosting skating events, and there are daily flights to & from Moscow, so its not impossible to get to.

As for the distribution of senior B events, it's up to the Asian or North American federations to actually volunteer to host them. But they seem to only want the glamour events like GPs or WC rather than smaller competitions that help the sport develop.

If only KSU petitions to add one of its domestic competitions to become part of the CS series or even a Senior B....

*cough* Skate Korea, a domestic competition, is held at almost the same time as Golden Spin *cough*
*cough* KSU get yourself together *cough*

I don't understand. There are only 5 major NA and Asian skating countries that is including Korea. CS events limit entrance number from per fed and in theory it just does not make any sense to host any of them outside Europe. It's a small price for the five said countries to pay for their skaters to go to Europe, though China never does, but that's a different issue altogether.

karne said:

Okay, just a quick clarification. Both of these circuits are perfectly capable of hosting the German Grand Prix (and for a while, they used to have the German GP at Hockenheim and hold the "European GP" at the Nurburgring). The reason neither circuit is going to host it this year is because Bernie is a greedy little (insert cutting insult of your choice here) and is demanding far too much money from them to do so. He is the reason that "classic" races like Germany, Imola, et al are dropping off the calendar, to be replaced by Grands Prix in such places as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates. So, the comparison doesn't really work, because figure skating (thank Plushenchrist!) does not have a Bernie.

Carry on.

Click to expand...

Yes, I realise it is all to do with Bernie charging the circuits too much money. But, at the end of the day, it still shows that an event-sharing arrangement can backfire.

And anyway, I wouldn't class the German races as "Classic" races any more, seeing as they no longer use the "full" circuits at either the Nuerburgring or Hockenheim. (At least with the Nuerburgring, the Nordschleife is still there. At Hockenheim, the rest of the circuit is being reclaimed by forest!)

Similarly with Monza, now that the oval section of the circuit is bypasssed and no longer used.

Incidentally, I don't like these a lot of these new circuits either. Especially all these street circuits that Bernie seems intent on introducing.

But, it is not just in F1. In MotoGP, there was a danger that there was not going to be a British GP this year, because Silverstone said they couldn't afford what Dorna (the series promoters) was charging them. And the new Circuit Of Wales, which has the contract from next season, hasn't even had a spade hit soil yet. The Welsh circuit did a deal with Donington Park for them to hold the race this year, but Donington pulled out when the money didn't materialise from Wales. Now Silverstone has said they will hold it after all. But, there are now doubts over whether the Circuit of Wales will even get built.

So, it isn't just Bernie that is the problem in F1. It's a more general problem. And I wouldn't bet against a similar situation being one of the reasons that there are so few Senior B's and Junior GP's outside of Europe.

And, erm, I thought the ISU did have a Bernie...

CaroLiza_fan

noidont said:

I don't understand. There are only 5 major NA and Asian skating countries that is including Korea. CS events limit entrance number from per fed and in theory it just does not make any sense to host any of them outside Europe. It's a small price for the five said countries to pay for their skaters to go to Europe, though China never does, but that's a different issue altogether.

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But it's not just the "major" skating countries - they'd be the one who host, but there are other countries whose skaters will not make the GP events, but who would do well to get more international experience at a smaller event. Looking at the Junior Worlds event, there are skaters from Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taipei, Malaysia. From the ISU bios, many are based in Asia still. When these kids turn senior, their only option is to go trekking around the world to Europe on senior Bs. Some of them do manage it, but a lot of the kids we see skating for these countries in juniors just disappear when they turn senior. Add in skaters from China, South Korea, Japan, maybe Australia, and I think an event held somewhere like South Korea would get a big enough field to meet the Challenger requirements & it would give more opportunities to skaters from that area trying to break through. But it is up to the federations in that region to make an event happen.

I don't understand the comment about "so few Senior GPs outside Europe" that's come up a few times in this thread. 2/3s of the events are outside Europe!

uhh said:

I don't understand the comment about "so few Senior GPs outside Europe" that's come up a few times in this thread. 2/3s of the events are outside Europe!

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Sorry, in my case, that was a typing mistake. I meant to say "Junior GP's".

That's what happens when you try to type at the same time as watch skating, and end up not concentrating properly on either!

CaroLiza_fan

Part 3

...Continued from previous page (Part 1, Part 2)

Firstly, sorry for the delay. Making this out was a LOT more time consuming than I was expecting.

Although the calendars on the Wikipedia pages for the past couple of seasons have been very comprehensive, the same cannot be said for the few seasons before that. So, I was having to hunt down dates to add to Wikipedia, before I even got to put them into my spreadsheet. It was getting so tedious and I was losing all enthusiasm for the project, the forum, skating, and life in general.

In the end I needed to take a break from it for a couple of weeks. Hence my decision to take a sabbatical from the forum. As it happened, I came back to the forum quick quickly. But the same cannot be said for the spreadsheet. Any time I tried to come back to it, I ended up only doing a bit before getting fed up.

Just over three weeks ago, I decided to make a concerted effort to get the spreadsheet finished, and get all the other loose ends I had left on the forum tied up before I went on holidays. Unfortunately, I did not allow myself enough time to do all that AND pack.

But, once I got home, I got stuck back in again. And the spreadsheet is now finally complete. I have uploaded it to Google Spreadsheets, and it can now be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I-atHhhehCKN8J4R8fla5lIyQpAVgNWujuBDRZzTJ8A/edit?usp=sharing


When I went into this project, I had a number of basic principles that I wanted to put into practice in my calendar proposal:

1. The majority of entrants to Junior competitions are still school pupils. Therefore, it would make more sense if all the Junior Grand Prix events were held during the school summer holidays, in July and August, rather than encroaching into the start of the school year in September.
   
   
2. Challenger Series events should not clash with Grand Prix events (be they Junior or Senior level).
   
   
3. Where possible, all events should keep to their traditional date. And, if that is not possible under these guidelines, they should be held as close to their traditional date as possible.
   
   
4. Where possible, there should not be more than one skating competition (be it a GP, Challenger, or other Senior B event) in the same “skating region” at the same time. (For more on this idea, see my previous post in this thread)
   
   
5. There should be no National Championships held the same week as the GP Final. This would avoid the situation where skaters that have qualified for the GP Final are not able to compete in their National Championships (and hence eliminates one potential source of dispute over who exactly gets picked to go to Europeans / Four Continents and Worlds).
   
   
6. There should be no Senior B competitions scheduled between the GP Final and the end of January, to allow a break in the international season where National Championships can be slotted in.

To me, on paper, these proposals made a lot of sense in principle. Then I came to make out the calendar proposal. And I found that, in practice, most of them were not compatible with each other.

As there are no skating events in July, moving the Junior Grand Prix events a month earlier was easy enough. And if this was applied in 2014/15, it would have removed clashes with four of the Challenger Series events.

However, it got tricky after that. With the ISU seeming to want the Challenger Series to be an exclusively autumn series, and with the existing Senior GP events being held on consecutive weeks over October and November, avoiding clashes was impossible.

The crux of the matter is that there are just too many figure skating competitions in the autumn to make these proposals work. Even trying to avoid having more than one skating competition in the same “region” was impossible.

If you take Europe as a whole, in November 2014 there were either 3 or 4 skating competitions every weekend. And on the first weekend of December, there were 3 competitions in Eastern Europe alone!

Continued below...

Part 4

...Continued from above

Seeing graphically how congested the calendar is, I have had a total re-think on my proposals on how to improve the GP Series and the Challenger Series.

I still believe that the GP Series should be expanded to 8 events plus the Final, with 2 of these 8 events in each of the four “skating regions”.

But, my thoughts on the Challenger Series have changed completely. Rather than boosting it, I would now get rid of it!

Instead of having an autumn series consisting of selected Senior B’s, I would like to see a system where ALL the international competitions count towards a season-long World Cup. And at the end of the season, the winner is presented with a Crystal Globe. Just like the FIS has in Skiing.

In reality, this would not actually entail much change. I had long known about the “World Standings”, which keeps track of how skaters are doing over the past 3 seasons. But, it was only recently that I found out (thanks to golden411) that the ISU also has a single-season version, called the “World Rankings”.

So, the only extra thing that the ISU would have to do is to organise getting a trophy, which they can then hand over to whoever is at the top of the World Rankings each season!

However, I for one find the names of these lists very confusing. In my head, the names should be the other way around.

In most sports, when you talk about the position of the competitors in a single season, you talk about “the World Championship standings” or “the World Cup standings”. This is the universally understood terminology.

Similarly, in other sports (most famously in snooker), the multi-season list, which is used to decide the seedings for competitions, is known as the “World Rankings list”. Again, this is the universally understood terminology.

So, why does the ISU insist on using the same words, but the opposite way around to how most other sports use them? Are they deliberately trying to confuse the general public?!

Although it would be highly confusing for skating fans who like to research what has happened in the past, I would bring the names of these figure skating lists into line with the other sports.

That said, I suspect that most fans would not even notice the changeover. For the simple reason that many fans do not even know that these lists exist and those that do often use “the wrong name” anyway!

At the moment, the World Standings and World Rankings are not very well publicised. Which is a shame, as the skaters have worked really hard to achieve their positions, and they deserve to be recognised for them.

So, I would like to make the 2 lists more prominent in our minds.

I have already described how I would boost the status of the single-season list, by transforming it into a full-blown World Cup to replace the Challenger Series. But, I also have plans for making the 3-season list more prominent by tying the Senior GP Series to it.

In snooker, the 2-season World Ranking list has always been foremost in our thoughts. One reason for this is that the tournaments used to have seeded draws, where the higher-ranked players were able to come into the tournament at a later stage than players of a lower rank. But, most tournaments now have an open draw, where everybody comes in at the first round.

But, even before the change to open draws, the main reason the rankings mattered to the most people (players and fans alike) was that only the Top 16 players in the World Rankings got to play in the London Masters.

Snooker players are rewarded for being consistent over the past two years by getting the opportunity to play in one of the three most prestigious tournaments in the sport.

And I would like to see something similar happen in figure skating.

Figure skaters would be rewarded for being consistent over the past 2 years by getting the opportunity to compete in the Grand Prix Series.

Of course, the Grand Prix Series is not a single competition like the London Masters. So, you would need more than just the Top 16 taking part.

In a previous thread, I suggested a number of ways to improve the GP series:

1. Have 8 Grands Prix (+ the Final) instead of 6 Grands Prix (+ the Final).
   
   
2. Have each of the competitors compete at 2 Grands Prix.
   
   
3. Competitors not allowed to compete in consecutive Grands Prix.
   
   
4. Have 12 competitors compete in every category at each Grand Prix.
   
   
5. Have up to 4 local “wildcards” on standby to step in if there are last-minute withdrawals.
   
   
6. Increase the number of competitors that go through to the Grand Prix Final (although, I couldn’t decide whether it should be the Top 10 in the GP Series standings or the Top 8).

However, since then, I have been wondering if we could increase the numbers slightly. When you look at the timetables for the GP events this season, there are quite a few gaps between sessions which are longer than the 15 minutes required for a re-surfacing. So, these could maybe be shortened a bit to allow time for more action on-ice.

If we re-visit the list above, I would now make the following adjustments:



For the Senior Grand Prix, the competitors eligible to participate would be the 64 highest placed competitors in the 3-season list that are competing at Senior level during that season.

For the Junior Grand Prix, the competitors eligible to participate would be the 64 highest placed competitors in the 3-season list that are competing at Junior level during that season.

Skaters will be encouraged to let the ISU know by the end of April whether they intend to compete the following season or not. At the start of May, the ISU will update the single-season and 3-season lists and remove the competitors that have informed them that they are retiring

Once this is done, the ISU will contact the competitors that meet the GP Series criteria. They would be asked if they intend to take up their place in the GP Series and, if they do, which Grands Prix they would prefer to take part in. Junior competitors will be given until the end of May to reply, while Senior competitors will be given until the middle of June.

If a competitor informs the ISU before the allocations are announced that they do not intend to take up their place for whatever reason, then the ISU will contact the highest eligible competitor on the list who was not initially contacted, and offer the place to them. And this process will be repeated until they have the full quota of 64 for each category.

At the start of June, the ISU will start allocating the competitors to each competition using the same process that they currently use. The Junior Grand Prix Series will be sorted out first (since it is held first), with the participants for each event announced in the middle of June. Then the Senior Grand Prix series will be sorted out, with the participants for each event announced at the end of June.

The criteria for qualifying for the Grand Prix Final would be pretty much the same as it is now. The only difference would be that it would be the Top 8 in the GP Series that would go through to the Final, rather than the Top 6 that currently go through.

Continued below...

Part 5

...Continued from above

One thing I do not like about the GP Series is that we have a different schedule at each event. I would prefer to see a standard timetable for every round of each round of the Senior Grand Prix Series, and a standard timetable for every round of each round of the Junior Grand Prix Series.

So, based on my ideas, I have created a spreadsheet with a hypothetical standard time schedule for the main rink at each Grand Prix. The Senior version is in Sheet 1, the Junior version is in Sheet 2, and the Grand Prix Final is in Sheet 3.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xMAf8l-ymjNeRjNRwjDv98_bbqsMGXW1PcGm8PLz2V8/edit?usp=sharing

The Junior and Senior GP time schedules were pretty straightforward to put together, and are pretty much identical. The only differences are down to the different lengths of the routines at each level.

The GP Final time schedule was trickier to put together, as there are a total of 64 competitors to fit in for the entire competition, rather than the 64 for the SP and 48 for the FS that we would have at the other GP events. It was easy enough to do the SP days (hey, they were identical to the other Grands Prix!) The problems arose when I came to the FS days. As there were only 8 entries to start with, we are not knocking anybody out after the SP. The result is that we have a VERY late night finish (23:15!!! ) on the day that most of the Free Skates are held, Saturday. And that is even with starting an hour earlier and trimming each of the medal ceremonies by 5 minutes!

At some of the National Championships we watched this year, they had the Junior skaters on just before their Senior counterparts. I thought this would be a nice idea to use in the GP Final.

I have also integrated into this spreadsheet a few other ideas for figure skating in general (not just the GP Series) that I have brought up from time to time.

1. Each group should be limited to 4 competitors to avoid the ice getting too congested during the warm-ups. This is purely for safety reasons (I shouldn’t need to remind you of what has happened at the Cup of China twice in recent years…)
2. The starting order in each segment should be a purely seeded draw, based on what we have in ski jumping. So, the starting order for the Short Programmes would have the competitors starting in the reverse order of where they are on the 3-season list. And the starting order for the Free Skates would have the competitors starting in the reverse order of where they finished in the SP.
3. The third idea is to do with the length of programmes. Here are the programme lengths that have been used in recent seasons:

In a (different) previous thread, I suggested that the age eligibility for competitions should be looked at. My suggestion was that, rather than having “Junior” and “Senior” levels, we should have six age groups, each with their own World Championships

However, seeing how congested the calendar is already, it has made me realise that having more than 2 sets of World Championships per year would not work.

The only way we could possibly fit in 4 extra World Championships would be to shorten the break between seasons even further and hold these extra competitions in the summer. Which would tie in with my idea of having youth competitions during the school holidays.

But, with the Junior Grand Prix events also moving to the summer under my proposals, that would mean that there would be an awful lot of youth events in a short space of time. Making young skaters have such an intensive competition schedule would just not be right.

So, I am reluctantly accepting that we should keep the current system. However, I do believe that the titles of the age levels we are currently using could do with a bit of tweaking.

To me, the term “Senior” means “older”. And this is reflected in other sports. For example, in snooker, the Senior World Championships are for older players that are aged over 40. (It used to be 45, but when Stephen Hendry retired from the main tour at the age of 43, the organisers of Senior Worlds changed the rules to tempt him into entering straight away).

So, it seems weird that in skating, this is the term that is used for the competitions involving the top skaters. For me, a much better term to use would be “Elite level”, which is the term that is already used for this level by some National Federations.

Similarly, I despise with a passion the term that is currently being used for competitions for older skaters – “Adult skating”. It has so many dodgy connotations! So, if it was me, I would re-name this level of competition to “Senior level”.

True, using the same term for a different level would make it very confusing for people who are looking up old results. But, I believe that the “Junior – Elite – Senior” nomenclature is much easier to relate to than “Junior – Senior – Adult”.

As for the levels under “Junior”, I don’t understand them at all. Apart from anything else, the term used for the level directly below Junior, “Advanced Novice”, is an oxymoron! The terminology here definitely needs revising, but what to?

But, this talk about terminology is distracting us from the main issue. How the calendar (and hence the sport) could be improved.

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