Opinion: The brevity of skating careers

[SO2]

I think that's one of the reasons that ice dance is one of the most successful disciplines — the skaters are around for at least two or three Olympic cycles.

It's especially bad in women's. I won't get into why since it will derail the thread. Suffice to say, I hope raising the age limit will have a positive impact.

It's what I worry about with the men now doing so many quads. How long can their bodies hold out? I think we're going to start seeing shorter and shorter careers, which is one of the reasons why I'm a proponent of limiting the number of quads (unpopular, I know).

I totally agree.

 

[chepe]

Just like Canadian Nationals having a Patrick Chan who wins it 10 times in a row (he took a year off)...

Look at tennis... there are one hit wonder stars but the big guns, the ones who play in their 30s, fans are crazy about these folks. (not imagining one bit that women will start skating until they are 30 but then Butyrksaya won worlds at 26 didn't she? )

Tennis used to have a problem of rapidly burning out child stars, particularly with women (examples: Andrea Jaeger, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and so on). How it was fixed - it was many things too numerous to list here (some coincidental) but most notably, length of the Tours were shortened. Up until early 2000s, pros were expected to play almost through entire year. Now there are proper offseasons. Back in the day, players over 30 winning anything significant were considered complete aberrations. When Agassi won French Open at age of 29, it was considered a marvel. Nowadays, player is considered 'young' at 28.

Now tennis actually has bit of an opposite problem, as the Tours don't attract enough good young athletes, and there is a serious dearth of new stars! But that is another story...

 

[skatingguy]

Tennis used to have a problem of rapidly burning out child stars, particularly with women (examples: Andrea Jaeger, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and so on). How it was fixed - it was many things too numerous to list here (some coincidental) but most notably, length of the Tours were shortened. Up until early 2000s, pros were expected to play almost through entire year. Now there are proper offseasons. Back in the day, players over 30 winning anything significant were considered complete aberrations. When Agassi won French Open at age of 29, it was considered a marvel. Nowadays, player is considered 'young' at 28.

Now tennis actually has bit of an opposite problem, as the Tours don't attract enough good young athletes, and there is a serious dearth of new stars! But that is another story...

The tennis tours are not any shorter than they were a few decades ago, and there is now a lot more travel because players didn't go to Asia, or Australia on a regular basis until the 1990's. The women's tour championships were held the first week of November, and the men's were held in the 3rd week of November, and both tours start again in the first week of January.

I also don't know where you're getting the idea that tennis is lacking in young stars. The men's tour has Carlos Alcaraz at world #2 (20 years old), Jannik Sinner at world #4 (22 years old), and Holger Rune at world #8 (20 years old). The women have Iga Swiatek at world #1 (22 years old), and Coco Gauff at world #3 (19 years old).

There are several factors that have led to longer careers:

• more money available to more players allowing players to have access to physiotherapy, and coaching
• age restrictions that limit tournaments for players 16 & younger
• the game is more physical requiring more mature athletic bodies that young teenagers don't tend to have
• depth of competition has increased as the number of countries that have players at the top of the game has increased

 

[icewhite]

The tennis tours are not any shorter than they were a few decades ago, and there is now a lot more travel because players didn't go to Asia, or Australia on a regular basis until the 1990's. The women's tour championships were held the first week of November, and the men's were held in the 3rd week of November, and both tours start again in the first week of January.

I also don't know where you're getting the idea that tennis is lacking in young stars. The men's tour has Carlos Alcaraz at world #2 (20 years old), Jannik Sinner at world #4 (22 years old), and Holger Rune at world #8 (20 years old). The women have Iga Swiatek at world #1 (22 years old), and Coco Gauff at world #3 (19 years old).

There are several factors that have led to longer careers:

• more money available to more players allowing players to have access to physiotherapy, and coaching
• age restrictions that limit tournaments for players 16 & younger
• the game is more physical requiring more mature athletic bodies that young teenagers don't tend to have
• depth of competition has increased as the number of countries that have players at the top of the game has increased

I would think there are also other factors which I'm not sure are allowed to be discussed here.

 

[Skating91]

Tennis used to have a problem of rapidly burning out child stars, particularly with women (examples: Andrea Jaeger, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and so on). How it was fixed - it was many things too numerous to list here (some coincidental) but most notably, length of the Tours were shortened. Up until early 2000s, pros were expected to play almost through entire year. Now there are proper offseasons. Back in the day, players over 30 winning anything significant were considered complete aberrations. When Agassi won French Open at age of 29, it was considered a marvel. Nowadays, player is considered 'young' at 28.

Now tennis actually has bit of an opposite problem, as the Tours don't attract enough good young athletes, and there is a serious dearth of new stars! But that is another story...

A lot of men would have broken bodies at age 30.

Compared to the 90's, how do I say it sports science has improved.

It's extraordinary with these sports where athletes play deep into their 30's and maintain as high a physical level as someone in their mid to late 20's. You see it in many domestic US sports as well. This is only a recent phenomenon.

They all have incredible powers of recovery between matches, recover from serious injury, boundless energy, seemingly no fatigue. Let's not forget that modern tennis is much more brutal on the body compared to when people like Laver or Connors played deep into their 30's.

To me, this is impossible through nutrition (Djokovic going gluten free I think it was changed everything ),through improved training programs.

The sports scientists are incredible .

Let's not forget these are people worth hundreds of millions, the organisations they belong to worth billions. They'd have the best of what money can buy when it comes to everything. They must be getting the nice grass fed steaks, the salmon you catch in a lake, the organic vegetables.

Not exactly like figure skating where you might get $40k for winning the world championship, and some of the athletes are still children (naive children too all they have known is figure skating training).

 

[chepe]

The tennis tours are not any shorter than they were a few decades ago, and there is now a lot more travel because players didn't go to Asia, or Australia on a regular basis until the 1990's. The women's tour championships were held the first week of November, and the men's were held in the 3rd week of November, and both tours start again in the first week of January.

In 1990, ATP Tour began late December with Hopman Cup, and ended Dec 10 with Grand Slam Cup. (In early 80s, Tour Finals were actually played in January or February next year). There were also more events - ATP had 80 tournaments in 1990, compared to 68 this year. Finally, there were more 5-set matches, as Super9 (or equivalent) events had best of five finals, as did many regular Tour events - and also, in Davis Cup. WTA Tour was practically year-round in the '80s.

Players also generally played more in days of old. For example in 2000 ATP Tour, top10 average was 24.3 tournaments. In 2022, it was 20.3.

Part about travel is probably true - there were Asian events, but less than today, and the tours contained more 'mini-Tours' where players could spend weeks/months at geographically quite compact area (European clay season, American clay season, European indoors season etc).

I also don't know where you're getting the idea that tennis is lacking in young stars. The men's tour has Carlos Alcaraz at world #2 (20 years old), Jannik Sinner at world #4 (22 years old), and Holger Rune at world #8 (20 years old). The women have Iga Swiatek at world #1 (22 years old), and Coco Gauff at world #3 (19 years old).

Last year, three out of four Grand Slams were won by Djokovic and Nadal. In the fourth one, Djokovic didn't play and Rafa was injured. This year, Djokovic won 3 out of 4 Slams. Djokovic also won ATP finals both years. So yeah, when two players eligible for Champions Tour win majority of Majors, I'd say Tour is lacking new stars. Alcaraz, I agree, is a proper star, but before he came along, ATP was looking about as credible as WWE or boxing.

There are several factors that have led to longer careers:

• more money available to more players allowing players to have access to physiotherapy, and coaching
• age restrictions that limit tournaments for players 16 & younger
• the game is more physical requiring more mature athletic bodies that young teenagers don't tend to have
• depth of competition has increased as the number of countries that have players at the top of the game has increased

No disagreement (except the last point, I believe depth of the Tours is susbtantially less now than it was 20 years ago, as young athletes tend to go to team sports).
One factor is that balls and courts are slower nowadays: many people (including myself) thought more grinding playstyle would lead to more injuries, but turned out it was the opposite. It was explosive movements required on fast courts which caused more injuries.

Nowadays, tennis has also tried to root out "tyrant parent coach" phenomenon, which produced many famous teenage wonders. I won't name examples.

Lot more attention is put to physiotherapy and muscle maintenance, as you say. There are also persisent rumours that hormone use to heal small injuries is very prevalent nowadays, but that is just a rumour.

Is any of that applicable to figure skating? I don't know...

 

[chepe]

To me, this is impossible through nutrition (Djokovic going gluten free I think it was changed everything ),through improved training programs.

I have heard many people to use term 'gluten free diet' as euphemism for something else. I have no opinion on the matter....

(You don't want lake salmon, that's the one which has flatworms...)

 

[Skating91]

I have heard many people to use term 'gluten free diet' as euphemism for something else. I have no opinion on the matter....

(You don't want lake salmon, that's the one which has flatworms...)

Okay just not the farmed one.

 

[skatingguy]

In 1990, ATP Tour began late December with Hopman Cup, and ended Dec 10 with Grand Slam Cup. (In early 80s, Tour Finals were actually played in January or February next year). There were also more events - ATP had 80 tournaments in 1990, compared to 68 this year. Finally, there were more 5-set matches, as Super9 (or equivalent) events had best of five finals, as did many regular Tour events - and also, in Davis Cup. WTA Tour was practically year-round in the '80s.

I had forgotten about the Grand Slam Cup. It technically wasn't a tour event - ITF special invite event. I think we can argue that players today are still playing well into December just doing it at special exhibition events like the World Tennis League in the UAE, but those events don't get the same attention.

Players also generally played more in days of old. For example in 2000 ATP Tour, top10 average was 24.3 tournaments. In 2022, it was 20.3.

That's true, but the tournaments were shorter. Usually just 4 rounds, and because there were no mandatory tournaments the fields were not as deep.

Last year, three out of four Grand Slams were won by Djokovic and Nadal. In the fourth one, Djokovic didn't play and Rafa was injured. This year, Djokovic won 3 out of 4 Slams. Djokovic also won ATP finals both years. So yeah, when two players eligible for Champions Tour win majority of Majors, I'd say Tour is lacking new stars. Alcaraz, I agree, is a proper star, but before he came along, ATP was looking about as credible as WWE or boxing.

Well WWE is a staged athletic event, so I don't think that's a fair comparison, but yes there was a period of time where the veterans dominated the sport. The players you mentioned are among the legends of the sport so I think it was doing okay, but I take your point that younger players had a hard time breaking through.

No disagreement (except the last point, I believe depth of the Tours is susbtantially less now than it was 20 years ago, as young athletes tend to go to team sports).
One factor is that balls and courts are slower nowadays: many people (including myself) thought more grinding playstyle would lead to more injuries, but turned out it was the opposite. It was explosive movements required on fast courts which caused more injuries.

Injuries seem to go hand & hand with sports - the only difference now might be the ability to treat, and repair.

Nowadays, tennis has also tried to root out "tyrant parent coach" phenomenon, which produced many famous teenage wonders. I won't name examples.

Good riddance, and those parents got enough publicity already.

Lot more attention is put to physiotherapy and muscle maintenance, as you say. There are also persisent rumours that hormone use to heal small injuries is very prevalent nowadays, but that is just a rumour.

Always hard for fans to know how to respond to those rumours. I feel like what we've learned from other sports is that there probably is something there, but until the evidence is presented we'll never be certain.

s any of that applicable to figure skating? I don't know...

That's a question I don't think we can answer yet. We'll see what happens to the sport in a decade or so, and whether athletes will have the opportunity to deal with injuries, and come back to their sporting careers. It will be interesting to watch the next round of juniors, particularly the women, when they start moving into seniors in the 2025/26 season, and what impact the extra years in junior has had on them as athletes, and performers.

 

[rabidline]

Last year, three out of four Grand Slams were won by Djokovic and Nadal. In the fourth one, Djokovic didn't play and Rafa was injured. This year, Djokovic won 3 out of 4 Slams. Djokovic also won ATP finals both years. So yeah, when two players eligible for Champions Tour win majority of Majors, I'd say Tour is lacking new stars. Alcaraz, I agree, is a proper star, but before he came along, ATP was looking about as credible as WWE or boxing.

But you have to consider that Djokovic and Nadal have a lot more experience in the best-of-5 format compared to the younger guys, which to me gives them significant mental advantage in slams. But physically they're not what they used to be. Djokovic makes good use of a limited schedule (Federer was also good at this before he retired) so he only enters the tournaments that are useful to him, making it easier for him to peak at slams while letting his younger competitors burn themselves out in the preceding tournaments. I do think his Wimbledon loss to Alcaraz signifies that he's not as insanely invincible as he used to be (the tour has let Djokovic win Wimbledon 4 years undefeated without him ever entering any warmup grass competitions pre-Wimbledon), but Alcaraz still has things to figure out himself, being that young. Djokovic was able to miss the entire Asian swing after US Open and let Alcaraz run himself ragged in China, and did just enough to clinch the Year-End No. 1.

If you don't only pay attention to grand slams, ATP is finally getting a pretty promising and consistent younger generation. But I understand your skepticism because there have been a lot of talented players between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic to the current Alcaraz, Sinner and Rune, and they all end up as this "lost generation" of guys in tennis. But I think some of them are pretty good (Thiem, Medvedev), it's just that we're too used to the insane standards of the Big 3. Like... they were/are monsters and I tend to treat them as the anomaly of the sport instead of what the younger guys should aspire to be.

I also think that the Big 3 method of only peaking at slams create this "illusion" as if the younger players are not breaking through, because they maintain this stranglehold on the grand slams. But the reality is that tennis isn't just 4 grand slam competitions, it's played all year long and neither Djokovic nor Nadal can keep up with that anymore.

 

[4everchan]

I am on team Félix !!!!! But he had such a bad year oh well and he is also a super young star... he won a bunch of tourneys back to back last season. It was super impressive.

 

[rabidline]

I think the similarities of tennis and figure skating can be seen at how the top older skaters manage their competition schedules these days. Take Shoma for example, who just turned 26 yesterday and leads the circuit in the number of quad attempts. Both his last challenger competition (Finlandia Trophy) and 4CC were back in 2019, and his last local competition that's not Japan Open was back in 2014, because once he started podiuming at Japanese Nationals, he stopped going to Regionals and Sectionals. Shoma now averages 4-6 competitions a season, which is a big decrease compared to when he averages 9-11 competitions a season, when he was around 19-21 years old, around the same age the Yuma - Shun - Kao trio are now. And just like how Big 3 focuses on grand slams and ATP finals, Shoma focuses on GP series, Nationals and Worlds, should he be named to the team.

Similar to tennis, I think Shoma maintains his competitive advantage by not exerting himself too much physically compared to the younger skaters, but he also risks being caught unprepared when the younger skaters are highly competitive (similar to unprepared Big 3 members facing players who redlined randomly in the first or second rounds of a slam- this happened to Nadal quite a few times) and sliding down the World Rankings and skating earlier than other competitors (similar to how Big 3 members can get lower seeds at slams due to selectively doing tournaments). Shoma's competitive experience shines when facing a group of talented but inexperienced skaters, but as he winds down and lets go of a quad in his arsenal, there are limits to where experience can take him. I think the way he approaches his season as someone who is older, but has it easier with injuries than his predecessors, is interesting to observe when we discuss about longevity of skaters.

 

[icewhite]

I think the way the athletes are supported by science and a background team with medical, nutritional etc. expertise is not at all comparable in figure skating to some pro sports. I don't know about tennis, but just in general...

 

[rabidline]

I think the way the athletes are supported by science and a background team with medical, nutritional etc. expertise is not at all comparable in figure skating to some pro sports. I don't know about tennis, but just in general...

I do agree that figure skating is not as advanced as tennis in that area, but I don't see any reason why they can't strive to be, when the skaters are financially empowered to access those resources. Recently, Japanese skaters of various levels have maintained contracts with physical trainers who are in charge of their physiotherapy and specialized physical training, regardless of their injury levels (before, the skaters seem to maintain physical trainers during the period when they are dealing with injuries, not as a preventive measure). Even using statistical data to help improve their performance- a lot of skaters now have their coaches record jumps during practices for them to analyze further on what is working and what is not working, and what to do about it. Experience also plays a part here- seasoned competitors even know better on how to deal with different ice and venue conditions, what seems to be a reduction in skating speed and ice coverage is actually strategic play to increase landing probability on certain jumps, and so on.

I think the more demanding skating becomes as a sport, the more the skaters approach it and analyze it like a sport. We have our technical prodigies who are blessed with natural advantage in jumps, we have our performance prodigies who just have the X factor on ice, but the sport as it is right now is not just about jumping, or even about gliding beautifully for that matter. It's about maximizing what you have on competition day to gain the most points according to the current rules, and while the ones who are able to do that may not necessarily be the GOAT of skating, I think they can hang around in the sport longer than the ones who can't.

It's like tennis- at the end of the day it's not about beautiful play or even superhuman stamina, but it's about how the player who wins the last point, wins the match. And its current top players in both tours understand that very, very well.

 

[KiraraChin]

I think Japanese Men are interesting to look at because actually the oldies Shoma and Kazuki are the ones who seem to be most physically resilient - Yuma, Kao and Shun are young but already had to take time off with serious injuries at some point, and we know Sota has come back from horrific injuries. Koshiro had to take time off due to injuries in the past IIRC.

So why is that? I think it comes down to a series of factors:

1- Being naturally small means less wear and tear
2- They didn't have to land loads of quads when they are like 15-16. They had time to build their arsenal later.
3- Good management - both of them work closely with physical trainers
4- Self-preservation - Shoma has reduced the amount of competitions, whilst Kazuki doesn't try to bite more than he can chew (e.g. he has landed the 4lo in practice but didn't include in his layout)

Of course, luck also plays a huge part! I'm not saying everyone else is mismanaged, but I think it's undeniable both Shoma and Kazuki have managed themselves very well so far in terms of health.

 

[Skating91]

I think Japanese Men are interesting to look at because actually the oldies Shoma and Kazuki are the ones who seem to be most physically resilient - Yuma, Kao and Shun are young but already had to take time off with serious injuries at some point, and we know Sota has come back from horrific injuries. Koshiro had to take time off due to injuries in the past IIRC.

So why is that? I think it comes down to a series of factors:

1- Being naturally small means less wear and tear
2- They didn't have to land loads of quads when they are like 15-16. They had time to build their arsenal later.
3- Good management - both of them work closely with physical trainers
4- Self-preservation - Shoma has reduced the amount of competitions, whilst Kazuki doesn't try to bite more than he can chew (e.g. he has landed the 4lo in practice but didn't include in his layout)

Of course, luck also plays a huge part! I'm not saying everyone else is mismanaged, but I think it's undeniable both Shoma and Kazuki have managed themselves very well so far in terms of health.

I think size is the big one he's 158cm tall, low centre of gravity, normal proportions, powerful legs but upper body not oversized. Would he even weigh 50kg? He's muscular in the right places, does not carry excess muscle in the wrong places. 158cm and 50kg would be similar to the female skaters, but they don't have the benefit of Shoma being male which gives him stronger bones, stronger joints, far less body fat, more fast twitch muscle. To me he's the right size and shape if you want to create a durable male figure skater.

 

[Mathman]

I think size is the big one he's 158cm tall, low centre of gravity, normal proportions, powerful legs but upper body not oversized. Would he even weigh 50kg? He's muscular in the right places, does not carry excess muscle in the wrong places. 158cm and 50kg would be similar to the female skaters, but they don't have the benefit of Shoma being male which gives him stronger bones, stronger joints, far less body fat, more fast twitch muscle. To me he's the right size and shape if you want to create a durable male figure skater.

To me, it is not so easy to generalize. Yuzuru Hanyu is tallish for a male Japanese singles skater, very thin, his leg muscles are not visibly bulging, though his thighs are well developed. His career lasted through three Olympics.

 

[Skating91]

To me, it is not so easy to generalize. Yuzuru Hanyu is tallish for a male Japanese singles skater, very thin, his leg muscles are not visibly bulging, though his thighs are well developed. His career lasted through three Olympics.

There will be outliers where talent can compensates optimum build, and you're correct. Look at Ilia too. If a skater is going to be taller they need to be a really strong, efficient ectomorph.