Skaters option to change coaches

From what I know the real long term ame sex coach-skater relationships are only
Irena and her coach, Kristy and her coach are the only long time same sex coach-skater relationships, maybe Witt and hers. But under communisim sport system, you have no freedom to switch coach. If you are not listening you are out of national team. So Witt and her coach's should not be counted.

Arakawa just switched to TT last year, and this year already showed the sign that Arakawa is not happy. Oksana was taken by Galina not too long before her Olympic win, and her previous coach was a gentleman, not too long after her winning, Oksana left Galina. Afer 2003 Sarah Hughes did not talk to Robin again, her early years' coach was Jeff D, and her current coach is a guy. At kiss-cry it's always Mr. Sato sat with Miki Ando, all the interviews said she takes from Mr. Sato rather than Mrs. Sato. Yoshi Ondo just switched to Weissiger and you can count it as long time relationship. Plus Weissiger's major pupil is Michael Weiss which fits into opposite sex coach-skater rel ationship. Now Tim went to her. BeBe left Tiffany Chin, at past two nationals she let Don Law put her on ice.

Didn't know we are talking about long term, so we can now expect Cohen to stay with Nicks for a LONG time?

Whether Mr. or Mrs. Sato is sitting with Miki is IMO not a reflection of who is coaching her day in and day out, probably both. We know when she first landed the quads in practice, it was Mrs. Sato who was there supporting coaching and cheering. Sarah Hughes and Robin IMO qualifies long term, I mean relative to her senior career. After Sarah achieved one of the main goals in skating, she does not need an olympic competition style training coach anymore. Same story with Oksana and Galina, once Oksana achieved her big goal in skating, and turned pro, she need a different style of coach. Onda's previous coach Yamada is female

I don't agree on the hypothesis / theory that girls do better with male coaches, with reasoning based on MK only had male coaches. If we look at the USA OGM since figures were deleted. 2/3 were coached by female coaches. In the US there is a tradition of deeper ladies field, and better placement at worlds and olys than the other 3 disciplines. I am not sure if a female coach will be discouraged by hypothesis like this one

What I don't get is the emphasis on having one coach forever, e.g. Irina. I am one who feels the skater has to do what a skater has to do. If it's not working change it; if it is working, keep it.

Joe

I have no intention to say that a female coach can not do the job. However I do think opposite sex coach-skater relationships work better. Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill were coached by Carlo Fassi, and most of their early years coaches were men, and Kristy Yamaguchi's pair coach was a guy. Tara Lipinski was mainly coached by Jeff D. and Richard Callahan.

Several articles on Miki Ando talked about how she went to Mr. Sato for weekend training, rather than saying Miki went to train with Mrs. Sato.

Sasha had been with Mr. Nicks for long time. After two years wandering she went back. How do you know this time their relationship won't last long? I feel Sasha is very happy now.

Everybody knows that Yagudin is TT's most favorite student. I notice that even Yagudin did not do well at competitions, TT still comforted him rather than showing disappointed when her lady student did not skate well.

I did not, and do not conclude that opposite sex coach-skater relationships work better just based on Michelle Kwan's skating history. I also do not believe a female coach can not coach an Olympic champ.

Wasn't Richard C, Todds only coach? And when Richard moved to another rink to coach Todd left home at very young age to go with him.

Using Carlo Fossi and Peggy / Dorothy example has the same basis as arguing on the basis of MK and all her male coaches. I would have to know the data back in Peggy and Dorothy competitive days how many coaches were male, and how many coaches were female. If back in their days 8 out of 10 elite level skating coaches were male, OTOH, if 8 out of 10 world / olys medal contending skaters from USA were female, then the math is simple. Just by reality you will find more likely than not, top US female skaters were coached by male coaches. BTW, you are choosing the data to fit your hypothesis. For example Sarah and Kristi were coached by female coaches for a long period of time to their OGM success, you ignore that and go back to their earlier coaches. When talking about Peggy and Dorothy you use Fossi who coached them in their medal contending years. I think we should compare their medal contending years, and 2 were coached by female and 2 were coached by male. ( Assuming the ratio of male to female top level skating coaches in both era are 1:1) Sarah andn Kristi earlier singles coach were male, does not tell a lot. If I want to I can even say, see opposite sex coaches did not work well for them, that is why they switched to female coaches and went onto olys glory

About Kristi's pair coach is a guy, so what did that prove or disprove? Her pair skating success is the same as Rudy. So Kristi was coached by an opposite sex pair coach, and Rudy was coached by a same sex pair coach.

In Japan, currently there are 3 top name coaches, the Satos, and Yamada. 2 out of 3 are females. I am not familiar with Japanese culture to know whether Mrs. Sato prefers to stay behind when her and her husband's skaters go to international competitions. Doug and Michelle coach as a team in Canada, and they both attend their skaters competitions. Anyhow, if we look at Japan, top female coaches and male coaches ratio is at least 1:1, or maybe even 2:1. You look at the number of medal contending skaters are mostly female. We have a situation of more female skaters are coached by female coaches in Japan. It indicate to me just the reality of coach and skater availability phenonmenon. Yamada coached Ito, Onda, Nakano?, and Asada sisters. I suppose if I want to spin a theory, I can use the Japanese situation and say female skaters do better with female coaches.

Miki is coahced by the Satos, both.

IMO, it is not the same sex or oppositie sex pairing that makes the relationship work better. A lot of these pairing has to do with availbility of coaches, and location.

I am sure you did not conclude opposite sex pairing works better base on just MK and her male coaches. You randomly select data that seem to fit your hypothesis. Sorry, on analysis of your data, it actually shows there seems to be not much correlation at all. at least to me it indicates that skaters can do equally well with same sex and opposite sex coaches

I know you did not say: 1. female coaches can not be successful at producing OGM, OTOH you said 2. opposite sex pairing works better. So whehter you meant it or not, one way of drawing a conclusion with 1 & 2. is that if one is a female coach and wants to take a female skater to world, olympic success, the female coach has more to overcome and has to work harder? (at least in the USA)

millie said:

Why are so many fans so interested and get so upset when a skater changes coaches? I think that if a skater hires a coach to coach them and they are not pleased with that coach, it is their option to go to someone else. Coaches are not doing this for free or out of the goodness of their heart, they are being paid big$$$$$ for their service. If you weren't pleased with a service or their work, you would get rid of them also. Some skaters stay with their coaches forever ,because they are happy with them, other change because they are not happy. In my opinion, if a skater changes coaches, that's their decision and nobody elses. SKATERS ARE HUMAN TOO. Enjoy the skating and the skaters and not worry about the coaches.

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Well, Yeah, Millie...of course they can change coaches...like Joannie and Sasha.

What was your stance on the coaching change issue when Michelle changed coaches?

gezando, statistically you did not show me that more same sex coach-skater relationships are surviving long. As for husband and wife coach team, I don't believe the Mrs. can spend more time on ice to coach. When the team was in their twenties and thirties, Mrs. needs to take care of children first and teaches whenever is possible. Even the team is getting older, Mrs. is still a major force to take care of the house chore. There are quite a few husband and wife or partener team locally and they coached some national competitors, no doubt that the hasbands are most time at the rink. As for if there were equal numbers of male or female coaches forty or fifty years ago, that's a relatively huge reaearch project to do.

jesslily said:

gezando, statistically you did not show me that more same sex coach-skater relationships are surviving long. As for husband and wife coach team, I don't believe the Mrs. can spend more time on ice to coach. When the team was in their twenties and thirties, Mrs. needs to take care of children first and teaches whenever is possible. Even the team is getting older, Mrs. is still a major force to take care of the house chore. There are quite a few husband and wife or partener team locally and they coached some national competitors, no doubt that the hasbands are most time at the rink. As for if there were equal numbers of male or female coaches forty or fifty years ago, that's a relatively huge reaearch project to do.

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Hmmm, let's see... There is Tamara & Igor Moskvins, Natalia Lininchuk & Genadi Karponosov, the Velikovs... Those are all examples of coaches where the wife is the headliner. Of course, there are also the Mishins and the Kudryavtsevs where the husband is the headliner.

Although most time Tamara Moskvina appeared at interviews and kiss&cry, some articles or even Tamara herself acknowledged that Igor did a lot of overall training planning as well as day to day coaching. Plus Tamara was Igor's student. In carlo
Fassi's team, Christa was secondary, it's Carlo Fassi coming to rink every day and picked up Peggy Flemming mom's phone calls every day. Peggy wrote clearly in her autobiography that she worked better with male coaches. So all of her coaches were men. As for Sato's case, I doubt that Mrs. Sato did most of the coaching, but Mr. Sato sat at kiss&cry with Miki Ando. That's not Japaness culture. Japaness husbands always have to play leading roles..

jesslily said:

gezando, statistically you did not show me that more same sex coach-skater relationships are surviving long. As for if there were equal numbers of male or female coaches forty or fifty years ago, that's a relatively huge reaearch project to do.

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I have random data, I don't have statistics, You have random data not statistics. There are a lot of problem with using random data to support one's hypothesis.I am not trying to show you that more same sex pairing are surviving long. Your hypothesis is : opposite sex pairing works better. We have not define "better". What does better mean. Whether same sex pairing survive long or not does not necessarily factor into the ingredient of so call "better"

Didn't Yamada coached Midori Ito since she was a little girl??

Just b/c opposite sex pairing works better for Peggy does not mean it can be generalized to all or even most skaters.


Sure maybe trying to find out the male to female coaches ratio 50 years ago is difficult. But if you or anyone is passionate about the hypothesis that opposite pairing works "better". It will be fun to define what is meant by "better". I imagine success in terms of medals is at least part of the ingredient of "better" I think it is not too difficult to look up all the coaches of the US national champs male and female from the past 50 years. If you see indeed a majority of the men champions coaches were female, and the female champions coaches were male, then you may ask some of the statistic whiz here at GS to feed the data and run some test on it to see what is the liklihood of the observed phenomenon is due to chance alone. OTOH if the majority of the male and female skating champs coaches were male then there is a good chance that your hypothesis may not be correct