ISU Congress: Age limit to gradually increase to 17

[sissyfritz]

As per the ISU Congress, the proposal to raise the minimum age for seniors from 15 to 17 has been accepted in a 100-16 vote in favour.

Just as a reminder, this would go into affect in the 2023-2024 season by first raising the age to 16. The age will move to 17 in the following season.

ISU 58th Ordinary Congress Phuket 2022 – Age limit to gradually increase to 17 - International Skating Union

The ISU Congress voted in favor of the ISU Council Proposal 22 to gradually increase the age limit for Senior Skaters from 15 to 17 years for the sake of protecting the physical and mental health, and emotional well-being of the Skaters. There will be no change for the season 2022/23. An...

isu.org

The ISU Congress voted in favor of the ISU Council Proposal 22 to gradually increase the age limit for Senior Skaters from 15 to 17 years for the sake of protecting the physical and mental health, and emotional well-being of the Skaters. There will be no change for the season 2022/23. An increase to 16 years for the season 2023/24 and an increase to 17 years for the season 2024/25 and subsequent seasons will then be implemented.

 

[Anni234]

This is good

 

[Anna K.]

So there will be no annual complaining session caused by "they failed to raise the minimum age for seniors again"? I feel robbed

 

[Novalis]

So there will be no annual complaining session caused by "they failed to raise the minimum age for seniors again"? I feel robbed

Don't worry Anna, in this sport there will always be many other opportunities to complain

 

[LiamForeman]

I feel badly for Sofiya Akatyeva. She has four more years of Juniors ahead of her. Then Seniors start for her the next Olympic cycle. She might make history of winning everything in sight, including GPs and CS events for four years and still not go to the Olympics. Hopefully there will be some clause allowing a 16 y/o, 358 day/old girl in a situation like that? Plus, Tara Lipinski's international records need to have a major asterisk after them from now until the end of time.

 

[Minz]

Hopefully there will be some clause allowing a 16 y/o, 358 day/old girl in a situation like that?

Personally, I say no.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a tough situation to be in, but rules are rules. Other sports have these rules too. You can’t change them for one person without changing them for everyone.

 

[LiamForeman]

I think it should be like gymnastics and go by the year of birth. It's one thing knowing you missed the cutoff by days, because it stings. But when someone slides in and is up to six months older, it s tolerable. Please change to must be 17 by year before Olympics. That solves the problem of minors participating in Worlds and Olympics. I have a problem with someone who is 16.5 being allowed to compete in a season where anyone 17 after June is disqualified, BEFORE the season even starts.

 

[skatesofgold]

I think it should be like gymnastics and go by the year of birth. It's one thing knowing you missed the cutoff by days, because it stings. But when someone slides in and is up to six months older, it s tolerable. Please change to must be 17 by year before Olympics. That solves the problem of minors participating in Worlds and Olympics.

Gymnastics goes by year of birth because the Summer Olympics aren't until later in the year. And before someone says that gymnastics has 16 as an age limit instead of 15 (because someone inevitably will), if someone is born in late August, September, October, November, or December, they would be 15 when they're eligible, just like Kamila, Alina, Yulia, Tara, etc. were. It's all moot because figure skating is raising their age limit obviously, but yeah, I can understand why figure skating uses June 30 as the cutoff.

 

[Corwin]

It would be fair if the ISU would determine age not at 01.07, but at the moment when the athlete enters the competition. Then athletes born in the second half of the year would be able to compete with their peers in the same season. I wish our great minds in the delegation would address this issue instead of slogans.

 

[skatesofgold]

It would be fair if the ISU would determine age not at 01.07, but at the moment when the athlete enters the competition. Then athletes born in the second half of the year would be able to compete with their peers in the same season. I wish our great minds in the delegation would address this issue instead of slogans.

Are there any sports that do it this way as examples?

 

[macy]

so then Akatyeva won't be a senior until 25-26?

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

It would be fair if the ISU would determine age not at 01.07, but at the moment when the athlete enters the competition. Then athletes born in the second half of the year would be able to compete with their peers in the same season. I wish our great minds in the delegation would address this issue instead of slogans.

Halelujah. Somebody who thinks the same as me, that it should be done on an event by event basis, rather than having an arbitrary date for each season.

That is the way it is done in motorbike racing. You have to have reached the minimum age for your class on the day of qualifying. For example, back in 2002, Jorge Lorenzo (ESP) missed the first 2 rounds of the 125GP World Championship because he was underage (he was 14, and the minimum age was 15). But, he was able to join for Round 3, the Spanish Grand Prix, because his 15th birthday was on qualifying day. And because they have since raised the minimum age, he will forever hold the record for the youngest ever grand prix rider.

When the 2-stroke 125cc bikes were replaced by 4-stroke 250cc bikes in 2012, the minimum age was raised to 16. So, taking an example from this season, David Muñoz (ESP) missed the first 7 rounds of the Moto3 World Championship because he was 15. But was able to join the championship at the 8th round, the Italian Grand Prix. His 16th birthday was actually on race day for Round 7, the French Grand Prix, but he could not race because he was underage the previous day when qualifying was held.

The last time I suggested this for figure skating, somebody replied that it wouldn't work, because the different requirements for the levels would mean preparing 2 sets of programmes, and because the minimums for Juniors don't carry over to Seniors. Well, there are simple answers to that:

• Skaters moving from Juniors to Seniors keeping their previous season's Junior programmes and just preparing new programmes for Seniors.
  
  
• The ISU changing the rules for the minimums so that Junior records count for Seniors.

But, this is the ISU. They won't change the rules to make things more user-friendly.

It is the skaters that are born during July, August and September that I feel most sorry for. They have reached the minimum age by the time the Senior season starts in earnest in the autumn, but they have to remain in Juniors for another full year because they were not that age at a date during the off-season.

No, doing it event by event is much fairer on everybody.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Amei]

It would be fair if the ISU would determine age not at 01.07, but at the moment when the athlete enters the competition. Then athletes born in the second half of the year would be able to compete with their peers in the same season. I wish our great minds in the delegation would address this issue instead of slogans.

Someone will always be getting short-changed/screwed. If they do it based on being of age at the time of the competition off the top of my head here are situations that would come up of athletes being screwed by the age limit

• Athletes only qualify based on their birthday for 1 GP event so they can't get the GPF
• Athletes age-eligible for Worlds or the Olympics based on their birthday but not able to go to a competition in time to get their TES minimums to go to Worlds/Olympics
• Theoretically speaking if the minimum is set by competition date then the age maximum should as well - an athlete could compete all season as a junior and miss junior worlds due to their age

 

[Supernovaimplosion]

I like that it's July first because it's the same rule for everyone. If they did it by competition, people would say it's unfair for the people who's birthday is like a day after the competition

 

[lariko]

Sounds good. Hopefully, they adjust juniors accordingly.

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Does this rule have any impact at all for men, pairs and dance?

 

[4everchan]

Someone will always be getting short-changed/screwed. If they do it based on being of age at the time of the competition off the top of my head here are situations that would come up of athletes being screwed by the age limit

• Athletes only qualify based on their birthday for 1 GP event so they can't get the GPF
• Athletes age-eligible for Worlds or the Olympics based on their birthday but not able to go to a competition in time to get their TES minimums to go to Worlds/Olympics
• Theoretically speaking if the minimum is set by competition date then the age maximum should as well - an athlete could compete all season as a junior and miss junior worlds due to their age

I totally agree with this... It is unfortunate for some athletes. But it could also be seen the other way around... some juniors are older than the others, because they did miss the senior cut-off so they stay in juniors... and for some, that will be an advantage. A rule like this cannot be done case by case or event by event etc.. it has to be based on a cut-off date that is applied to everyone the same way.

 

[gkelly]

Does this rule have any impact at all for men, pairs and dance?

The same senior age minimums will apply in those disciplines.

There are many fewer male skaters who are ready for seniors before 17 in any of those disciplines, let alone who have already peaked.

For pairs that have relied on a large age difference in order to have a large enough size difference while learning the difficult lifts etc., there will be a longer period of time when teams will not be able to compete at senior level because of female partner's age. A team with a >4-year age difference will have at least one year when they won't be eligible for either junior or senior competition; under the old rules, that only affected teams with >6 year age differences.

 

[el henry]

A change in rules always "negatively" affects someone, and "positively" affects others.

I was in favor of this change (as was 80% of the ISU, evidently) so I do not see them adjusting the new rules. If they had wanted to "grandfather" certain skaters, they would have. Instead, the gradual increase in age is meant to accommodate that.

I believe the ISU knows the issue and has addressed it, by not addressing it. I could be wrong.

 

[Fluture]

Finally some good news. Of course, as with any change, this has good and bad sides, but I think it was a very necessary and very significant first step.

I kind of wish they went along with raising the junior limit to 14 overall, as well, to create some balance. Also, I understand why the particular proposal about Junior 4CC/EC was rejected (it proposed using 60% of the senior 4CC/EC budget for juniors, which … uh) but I do hope they'll end up adding some additional competitions for juniors.

I do feel sorry for the juniors who just miss out. Akatieva, yes, but also Jia Shin and Mao Shimada, arguably the two most promising upcoming skaters for South Korea and Japan.

But I think as fans, we should place importance not just on what's good for the athletes' career but also for them as people. What we saw at the Olympics this year was harrowing and should never happen again (and I'm not just talking about Valieva).

Don't get me wrong - the age limit alone won't do that. But it's a step in the right direction. I only hope ISU won't be patting themselves on the back now, going "oh, we protected the children, everything's fine now" but realise that a lot of pressing, deeper issues remain (in particular about abusive coaching and mental & physical health).