ISU Congress: Age limit to gradually increase to 17

[el henry]

i think it's a bit uncertain what exactly the future of quads will be 10-15 years down the road. for the next few years as the new rule comes into play and adjustments are made we will see them as we have, but many of those who are landing them now are very very young. i'd argue we have seen more below senior than at senior for women. we still don't really know the entire picture of women and sustainable quads yet, its too new. developed bodies (or mid puberty bodies) will have a lot more difficulty learning and keeping them and the amount of ultra si could definitely decrease.

Agreed. Alysa Liu was quite honest that quads were too difficult for her after puberty and she made the wise, mature decision to stop chasing them.

Will some skaters keep them after puberty, able to land them with healthy body image, healthy eating habits and healthy attitude toward sport? I certainly hope so. That is one of the points of raising the age limit, I think.

 

[el henry]

Would be curious to know the age demographics of those athletes, while some may be altruistic, let's be honest any female that will make this new age cut line got a big boost with the age increase (including Russians).

Eric is the athlete representative for pairs and singles (Evan Bates was elected for ice dance), so I presume the survey was at least in part for current athletes. But I would be curious as well. He certainly did not mince words.

Presuming that everyone who wants the age raised is an fossil and that no young skater would ever ever ever want the age raised, well, that's one presumption. Just like the presumption that all younger folks want to watch is quad, quad, quad and no one will ever watch senior skating again after the age limit takes effect.

But a survey, that interests me.

 

[el henry]

Nathalie Péchalat welcomes the decision to raise the minimum age for skaters in competition to 17 years old.

Direct link to article:

Patinage : Nathalie Péchalat salue sur RTL la décision de relever l'âge minimum à 17 ans

DOCUMENT RTL - Pour la président de la FFSG, il "était important de ne pas jeter les athlètes dans le grand bain trop rapidement".

www.rtl.fr

ETA: a snippet, rough translation mine "It was important not to throw them into the deep end too quickly, continues the former two-time European ice dance champion. That is to say, we do not necessarily expect small zebulons, very ephemeral little prodigies, who also leave very quickly, but the building of the skater, so that she may gain maturity in skating, choreography, so that she can ... express herself on the ice".

@4everchan can you help me? I do not know the term "zebulon"

 

[lariko]

i think it's a bit uncertain what exactly the future of quads will be 10-15 years down the road. for the next few years as the new rule comes into play and adjustments are made we will see them as we have, but many of those who are landing them now are very very young. i'd argue we have seen more below senior than at senior for women. we still don't really know the entire picture of women and sustainable quads yet, its too new. developed bodies (or mid puberty bodies) will have a lot more difficulty learning and keeping them and the amount of ultra si could definitely decrease.

Seeing that quads are exploding for men and they start jumping them earlier and earlier, I expect the same to happen in women. Athletes always want to grab and retain the advantage. Figure skating is a tiny sport, so the selection to get into it is natural. Only those who feel they want to jump off the ice and can do it safely are going to go into it and stay. Plus, the move to 17 yo, makes it really tempting to not even have a senior career and get to the Uni after having success in juniors. Well, that what I would do if I were an athlete and that would have been the age brackets. Overall, no, I don't see why women would drop quads, particularly in juniors where they come to women with relative ease and it seems to be easier than 3A. The number of quads per program may vary. Between Malinin doing 4A at 17 and more women retaining quads past 17, I see future with quads rather than quadless. Like, if every woman quadster story was like Tursynbaeva's, sure. I could see quads going away. But it's not like that any longer.

Anyway, I hope so, and looking forward to seeing development of junior division.

 

[lariko]

In French Zebulon is a famous character of an old cartoon 'Le Manège Enchanté'. Zebulon is a red spring, always moving everywhere. It s used now as an expression to describe people like Zell, always in movement, never calm, especially children. So it's not his full name, just a 'good' French tradition with special pop culture references.

 

[Smith16]

Kristi Yamaguchi has shared her thoughts.

 

[el henry]

This appears to be a summary of the the survey referenced by Eric Radford in his speech.

So, from what I can tell, current skaters and coaches responded. ("Former skaters" are a separate category):

https://isu.org/docman-documents-links/isu-files/documents-communications/about-isu/athlete-s-commision/28264-isu-athletes-commission-survey-on-figure-skating-age-limits/file

ETA:

• The target group of the survey was Novice, Junior and Senior aged skaters/pairs/teams and their coaches. They were asked if they agree with amending figure skating age limits to 14 (Juniors) and 17 (Seniors) and why.
• The survey was sent to:
  • Athlete & coach contacts of the AC members.
  • The S&P, ID and SYS TC Appointed Coaches and Skaters.
  • All ISU members with the request to forward it to skaters and coaches belonging to the target group.

 

[Amei]

Kristi Yamaguchi has shared her thoughts.

She makes a good point - all this is guaranteed to do at this point is exclude some great skaters from competing at the top level, some posters already pulled together some lists of titles that would be changed if the age limit at the time was the age of 17 though icybear's is incorrect regarding Trusova and Shcherbakova, both would have been 17 at the start of the ISU calendar for the 2022 season, so those results would still exist. I quoted them below. There's absolutely nothing in this age increase that will emphatically positively impact the issues she mentioned regarding athlete health, doping and leadership issues.

And Michelle Kwan's 1996 world and national title, Sonia Henie's 1st Olympic title and two world titles, two of Tenley Albright's national championships, Carol Heiss's 1st World Championship, 2 of Peggy Fleming's national titles, Linda Fratianne's 1st world and national titles, and Elaine Zayak's World and national titles.

And get rid of Oksana Baiul's world and Olympic titles, Sarah Hughes' Olympic title, Alina Zagitova's Olympic and world titles, and no 2016 world title for Evgenia Medvedeva.

All stripped away. Changes the history of figure skating considerably, doesn't it?

Interesting to see how this will affect the ladies skating. This will take a toll on Eteri pre-pubescent champions the most but with the Russian ban already in place, its hard to see its effect. Had a wonder at how this age limit would have affected previous skaters major tournament medals and the effects are:
Julia - nothing
Evgenia - Olympic silver, Worlds bronze, Euro silver (although with Alina out of the picture she would have easily had olympic gold)
Alina - nothing
Alena - nothing
Anna - Olympic gold, Euro silver
Alexander - Olympic silver, Euro bronze
Interestingly the only Worlds medal Eteri would have had would be Elizabet 2019 silver although it would have been gold because Alina would have been too young.

 

[Mathman]

Plus, the move to 17 yo, makes it really tempting to not even have a senior career and get to the Uni after having success in juniors.

All in all,not a bad idea. In fact, the same is true of all sports. When you get down to it, sports are children's games. Kicking a ball into a goal?

Nyah, nyah, I can run 100 meters faster than you can?

Come on.

Some children never grow up and keep on playing children's games into adulthood (raking in millions of dollars in the process. )

 

[lariko]

All in all,not a bad idea. In fact, the same is true of all sports. When you get down to it, sports are children's games. Kicking a ball into a goal?

Nyah, nyah, I can run 100 meters faster than you can?

Come on.

Some children never grow up and keep on playing children's games into adulthood (raking in millions of dollars in the process. )

Maybe? I dunno, I wouldn’t have wanted to make that call. But as a fan, I can’t wait to get junior division competitions without women siphoned into seniors in women and pairs at 15. It’s gonna be epic. If I could, I would close my eyes, snap my fingers and skip forward two years, so the world is normal again and juniors are out of this world. So tired of awful years. It’s long past time to have a good one.

 

[Szayel008]

Evgenia - Olympic silver, Worlds bronze, Euro silver (although with Alina out of the picture she would have easily had olympic gold)

Medvedeva would have had her first Senior season so no reputation and high PCS = Osmond wins.

 

[Tomadeur]

Medvedeva would have had her first Senior season so no reputation and high PCS = Osmond wins

In this scenario Medvedeva would have entered the olympics as winner of two GP events, european champion and world record holder.

With this kind of success, and a look at Zagitova's actual carrer, being in the first season as a senior should have been no problem for Medvedeva. I don't see any drastic changes in PCS.

 

[macy]

Kristi Yamaguchi has shared her thoughts.

Tara Lipinski shared similar thoughts. Although i understand their points, raising the age was only one puzzle piece out of many. From what i have read, this was mainly to eliminate the loophole of being underage when doping comes into play, like Valieva. By raising the age limit, everyone will be treated the same and under the same rules.

Raising the age limit i don't think was ever supposed to be the end all, be all answer that would fix the whole problem, only a piece of it so certain things won't happen again.

 

[lariko]

Tara Lipinski shared similar thoughts. Although i understand their points, raising the age was only one puzzle piece out of many. From what i have read, this was mainly to eliminate the loophole of being underage when doping comes into play, like Valieva. By raising the age limit, everyone will be treated the same and under the same rules.

Raising the age limit i don't think was ever supposed to be the end all, be all answer that would fix the whole problem, only a piece of it so certain things won't happen again.

TBH, raising the age was on the list before 2022 Olympics. Maybe Oly decided some people, but it wasn’t why the move was put forward in the first place.

 

[Tomadeur]

Tara Lipinski shared similar thoughts. Although i understand their points, raising the age was only one puzzle piece out of many. From what i have read, this was mainly to eliminate the loophole of being underage when doping comes into play, like Valieva. By raising the age limit, everyone will be treated the same and under the same rules.

Raising the age limit i don't think was ever supposed to be the end all, be all answer that would fix the whole problem, only a piece of it so certain things won't happen again.

I share your opinion. But reading the statements of ISU officials and other representatives like Eric Radford ("Is a medal worth risking the health of a child or young athlete?") it seems to me like they think that they adressed problems like abuse, doping, eating disorders as well with the new age minimum and leave these problems unadressed even if it would be so important to more in this regard.

And in 5 years everyone is surprised that nothing has changed at all.

 

[friedbanana]

It's a step in the right direction. I hope this rule change is the start of something - not a band-aid solution.

 

[gliese]

Considering figure skating as an Olympic SPORT, I think it will be very odd for the Junior ladies skaters to be performing athletically more difficult elements than the Senior ladies. It's inevitable that Juniors will become the "real" sporting event for the ladies.

If that tech is no longer the norm, will people be training it?

 

[lariko]

If that tech is no longer the norm, will people be training it?

Well, quads are the norm. The number per program will go up and down, but I doubt we’ll be seeing quadless competitions again. Someone like Malinin will try to load as many as possible, someone like Vasiljevs will rely on one well-executed. Same will happen with women, because 3A is harder for women than their best jump moved up to quad. Change in age will not impact the desire to win whatever competition women enter. There is still plenty of women skating and everyone wants to get advantage.

 

[gliese]

Well, quads are the norm. The number per program will go up and down, but I doubt we’ll be seeing quadless competitions again. Someone like Malinin will try to load as many as possible, someone like Vasiljevs will rely on one well-executed. Same will happen with women, because 3A is harder for women than their best jump moved up to quad. Change in age will not impact the desire to win whatever competition women enter. There is still plenty of women skating and everyone wants to get advantage.

That doesn't change that people won't be training 6 quad programs if they only need 2 or 3 to win (in ladies).

 

[el henry]