Is having the Junior Pairs category the best solution for Pairs discipline?

[Jumping_Bean]

Actually, I believe you are wrong. Gordeyeva's birthday is in May of 1971. Under the new age ability cut-off, she would have to be 17 by July 1 of 1987. I am sure you can do the math and realize that what you said is a falsehood.

Not being eligible for the Olympics is not an "eligibility issue" when they would have still been eligible for Juniors, sorry. Eligibility issues are when teams are not eligible for any international age category at all.
If they hadn't gone to their first Olympics, they probably wouldn't have gone pro in 1989 and would have gone to the Olympics 1992 and 1994, big f*ing deal.

Perhaps you should know more about Kov/Nov before you post? Radka was known to have teamed up with Rene when she was only 13 (perhaps earlier) in 1988. And he was 25. I don't think you are making an argument that you think you are making when you clearly have no clue to the actual data. (I guess you just make up numbers and 'facts' in your head? Who knows.) There was a TWELVE year age difference between them, if you don't do mathematics very well.

Oh, I love people who try to be passive-aggressive. Do better yourself, because I have a feeling you might run into problems offline if you behave this way there too.

The reality is that her non-English Wikipedia page (in the language of the country I live in) claimed they paired up in 1990 (when she was 15), while his said they paired up when he was 25. I didn't double-check, and that's my fault, but no, I didn't "make up" anything. I'll go and correct that, so nobody else runs into the same issue.
And no I didn't make up any facts either, but painstakingly (mostly manually) made a spreadsheet of all major international medalists in pairs and their birthdays, so unless you want to do that yourself, you can sit yourself back down.

Have a nice day.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

But then the same people think that Kwan's performances in Nagano were legendary and she should have not just been allowed to perform even if she was just a CHILD, but should have won the gold medal. I see a blatant hypocrisy here, and I don't think that they are making the argument they think they are making. Sorry.

What kind of made-up argument is this?

I, for one, certainly have never talked about Michelle Kwan - On this or any other forum. And sure, would have been bad luck for her to have been born a week after the age cutoff for the Nagano Olympics, but that's life. Just like Mao Asada and Mao Shimada had bad luck.
Someone will always be just a smidge too young, someone else will miss qualifying by just a few tenths of a points, another person will get injured and not make it to the Olympics. Life isn't predictable, and life isn't always fair, that's just the way it is.

 

[TallyT]

What you think is me making a "gotcha", in reality is just stating that in history Gordeyeva would never had her first Olympic gold in 1988, when she was clearly the class of the field. She was a CHILD in Calgary Olympics and many people think the ISU should have protected her.

Maybe they should have, but that was then and this is now, and no one thought that way then about a lot of things History is littered with coulda woulda shoulda and no one can go back to un-shoulda it, so all that can be done is to try and do better now.

But then the same people think that Kwan's performances in Nagano were legendary and she should have not just been allowed to perform even if she was just a CHILD, but should have won the gold medal.

Again that was then and this is now, and people are more aware of the exploitation and physical/emotional damage that was and is done (and as @gkelly points out, difficulties of protected persons in adult legalities), maybe not to Michelle Kwan or Yuzuru Hanyu when they were 16, but to a number we are increasingly being made aware of who matter just as much as Michelle or Yuzuru. No one is taking their medals away from them, and no one is saying the current crop can't do brilliant skates... they'll just do them in juniors.

And I am still confused, do you think that the fact that Gordeyeva was 12 years younger than her (skating and later romantic) partner rather than 10 is a point in favour of the higher age for seniors/smaller age differences, or against it?