The question of whether or not skaters ought to be competing in the colorful, individualized costumes that they wear now, or whether skating would be better served by moving to the barracks leisure-wear look of unitards, as in gymnastics (as distinct from rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming, in which the kit is arguably just as flamboyant), is bound to inflame passions on both sides, if taken up seriously, possibly even fisticuffs...
If the sport lost its fanfare, pageantry and traditions, would it lose something ineffably vital, or would it merely be a much-needed housecleaning for the twentieth-first century?
My own views on the matter are still not fully formed, although in considering such potentially radical proposals, the precept that I start with is: first, do no harm.
To me, this is similar to the debate about CoP versus 6.0. What it boils down to, IMHO, is this. Is figure skating a participatory sport or a spectator sport?
The strongest argument in favor of CoP scoring goes something like this. Ninety-nine per cent of all skating competitions are on the “less than elite” level. 6.0 scoring left myriad little girls crying, “Boo-hoo, the judges don’t like me. Next time I am going to hide Suzie’s skates so she can’t find them.”
Under CoP such wailing is left to the fans, while the coaches can say, “Good job, you got 16.2 points. Let’s start to work on Monday on your double Salchow and see if we can get up to 18.5 by the next competition. And the reason Suzie won is because she did a more challenging combination spin and got a higher level, so that is something else we can work on.”
The arguments against CoP are: the fans don’t like it, the fans don’t understand it and have no interest in improving their understanding, 6.0 is a familiar copyrighted brand associated in the public mind with figure skating, CoP skating is less entertaining and displays less variation and originality, etc.
The debate about costumes – especially sexy and revealing costumes – falls within the same parameters, I think. We are seeing a sea change in the whole idea of sports for girls. Way back in the day, teenaged boys in the U.S.wanted to be football heroes. The most praised and emulated teenaged girls were the cheerleaders who stood on the sidelines showing their panties while the boys bashed each other back and forth on the gridiron. But for the past thirty years or so girls have been saying, “Why can’t
we bash somebody (at least symbolically, in the case of figure skating)?”
Historically, one of the appeals of taking up figure skating as a sport is that little girls got to dress up like princesses and have everyone tell them how pretty they are. That seems old-fashioned and sexist now.
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