Opinion: The brevity of skating careers

[TT_Fin]

All rules are open. I am not sure how much judging does affect how long skaters stay competitive. It is not only skating, thousands of young people stop competing at quite young age just because they want to do other things. I remember some local ones, who announce after olympic medal that my career is now over. One combined skiing guy did this after Olympic win at the age of 24. He wanted to concentrate to studies and after three years he graduated.

If people want to see how judging works, all rules are open at ISU's homepages. Good jumper who gets level2 from spins is not robbed. He/she does not fill all the rules. It is not opinion thing, it is a rule book thing. If you think somebody should get better level, does it base to opinion of how spin looks or have you counted how many turns the skater does in each position? It does not matter how difficult entry is or how the spin looks, if there are not enough turns and position changes (combination spins), level 4 cannot be reached. They do rewatch also spins, not only jumps. Skaters know that. If ISU rule book is too thick, many of rules are separately told in Wikipedia and one of the sources used is ISU's rulebook. Fanatic people often forget that skating rules is very much math and each element are invidual ones. Why a good jumper should be rewarded in elements where he/she needs to develop? But should judging rules be a topic of it's own? Skaters do know the rules much better than us, who have never been skaters ourselves. I read interviews and here some say she/he was robbed, but what the skater him/herself says "I must improve that side in my skating". Quite often some say "I am technically better than artistically, we are working on that". Instead of quitting skating because of being robbed they start to improve that side of the skating. And if they are not pleased to scores, they say "I must look what went wrong, we must look my jumps landings from videos and work with it". I have read very few critics towards judges from skaters themselves, 99 % are from fans.

 

[TT_Fin]

As one of our commentators - when not judging - is this guy: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mika_Saarelainen , sorry I could not find English page, but you can translate it, but a one pick translated: "Saarelainen is the world's only chief referee of the highest referee category of all figure skating sports. He is also a trainer for international judges of the International Skating Union (ISU). In the years 2010–2018, he served as a member of the ISU's formation skating technical committee". I have learned a lot. He has told what kind of critics feedback judges get. Yesterday he told are sometimes blamed of collusion but it is not possible, as everything they say during competitions is recorded.

 

[4everchan]

I think it is thus in every endeavor. In my field , I submit a research article to a scholarly journal. It is rejected (after all, the journal gets dozens of submissions each month -- they can't publish them all). Once in a blue moon the referees point out an actual error or insufficiently supported claim (very rarely, in the case of mathematics -- a mathematicqal proof is either correct or it isn't. This is the TES). Now comes the PCS and GOE. Is my paper more interesting and more substantial than someone else's submission?

Naturally when the journal comes out, I am mad. How could they publish this stupid article on an obscure topic that no one gives a hoot about, while rejecting my insightful and weighty contribution to knowledge?

Oh well. At l;east I had a lengthy career (40 years -- longer, counting juniors).

Glad you had a long career and that you can now rest and use your creativity in your posts on GS

 

[TallyT]

I think it is thus in every endeavor.

Hey, it is even in the extremely inartistic and unsportslike field of... office work. Applying/interviewing for new positions is quite often a "these are the position requirements which we will pretty much ignore and only use creatively to justify the choice we made" (and I speak as someone whose last place of employment, in a period of turmoil, made us all reapply and recompete for our own flippin jobs - by pretending they were 'reclassified' - three times in two years. Good times. Great for moral, folks. And yes, some people were deemed to not meet the criteria for the job they had already been doing.)

I am no fan of the judging in figure skating, but it's not that wonky.

Maybe.

Yet.

 

[surimi]

is what hurts the sport the most.
That's what I'm thinking more and more often.
Skaters who actually have a "career" with ups and downs, a journey to follow, are so popular. But there just aren't many skaters like that.
To grow the sport the most effective measure would be to try and keep people in the sport for a longer time.

You make many good points here, and I agree that career length plays a role in retaining emotionally invested audience. Skaters with interesting personalities, programs and overall skills, is what makes many fans travel to see competitions live. The more years a skater is active on the international stage, the more exposures to the public eye, the bigger the chance someone notices and starts enjoying their skating, and maybe also skating in general by extension.

However, IMO the #1 thing that hurts the sport is the difficulty in watching FS. Geoblocks, paid streams, no streams, Youtube video deletion. So many videos that were viral and had the potential to keep gaining new fans, have been removed. Others have been set to private. You cannot become a fan of something you cannot see, so in terms of expanding the fanbase, the monetizing is a disastrous idea, and music rights strikes hurt the sport also (I wish that particular legislation was changed for sports that require music, and for dancing).

Fair judging would be nice, but IMO it's a pipe dream, not in the least because any given group of people usually have difficulties reaching a consensus even on 'objective' items like underrotation, jump height, edges etc. I sincerely doubt even AI would settle debates over that; some would suspect tinkering with AI tools, others would find issues with camera angles. And then there's PCS, which is, and should, remain an integral part of FS. Should judging change to heavily favor technical elements, it becomes athletics on ice and not figure skating, and I'd stop watching.

 

[TT_Fin]

I never buy tickets to see a certain skater. I bought GP Espoo ticket a couple of months before the spots were announced at all. Well I could not go because got ill, but it is another story. But to be honest, if all skaters were 16-17 - year old teens, I probably would loose my interest not just to go to live events but watch seniors at all. As there are few it us ok, but too many teens is children's sport to me and I don't care about the ultra elements skills.

 

[lariko]

One judge saw things to admire in the jump, another didn't. Even in a court of law, one judge finds the guy guilty, the appeals judge overturns the verdict. Same evidence, same laws and rules of procedure, different judges.

Actually, nope. You can measure anything, including quality of professional judgment. The due diligence test in professional judgment, the way professional bodies decide if the professional exercised due diligence is if a certain percent of professionals would have been reasonably expected to make the same call. In case with bias judgment, Ms. Florence didn't pass the test for due diligence, because 100% of judges disagreed with her call. In case of a dispute, in a court of law, she would have been found guilty of unprofessional behavior.

In other words, you signed off on it, you are responsible.

This brought to you by my experience as a regulator and a member of a professional association of engineers and geologists.

Honestly, I wish I could restructure the whole ISU and judging system to get them to some sort of semi not embarrassing state. There is basically no transparency and accountability. It's bad.

 

[lariko]

You have stated that you don't see anything special in someone like Brown or Kagiyama, that you think Kolyada's and Hanyu's last years were not worth it, that you think Shaidorov, Gubanova (and Malinin?) are underscored, that you don't see that much in Aymoz etc.

Tbh, the only skaters I don't like are Valieva, Brown, Hanyu after 2019, Satoko M, Vasilievs since 2022, Higuchi, Kagiyama, Aymoz, Khromykh, P/C and S-D/D. The ones I really strongly like are Uno, Grassl, Rizzo, Chen, Malinin, Aliev, Mozalev, Trusova, Murav'eva, B/K, H/D, La/La and M/M.

And, yeah, lots of juniors, but since you don't count juniors as athletes worth watching...

 

[lariko]

I am still far from being bored with skating If I get there one day, I will take a break and watch tennis

I am bored. If Russians are not back next season...I dunno. There isn't much to look forward to withiut them imo. And I don't like watching Russians separately despite them loosing steam slower. Basically, everything sucks in FS. Wish they didn't change the scoring system from +3/-3 and when Goe was % of Base value... I don't really like other sports, so it's writing and gardening for me.

 

[4everchan]

I am bored. If Russians are not back next season...I dunno. There isn't much to look forward to withiut them imo. And I don't like watching Russians separately despite them loosing steam slower. Basically, everything sucks in FS. Wish they didn't change the scoring system from +3/-3 and when Goe was % of Base value... I don't really like other sports, so it's writing and gardening for me.

I, for one, do not miss the Russians in general. Some of my faves yes, but the Russians in general, no. I prefer clean and fair sport. YMMV. I actually do not agree with you that everyone sucks. It's still the first half of the quad cycle. It will peak for Milano.

 

[lariko]

I, for one, do not miss the Russians in general. Some of my faves yes, but the Russians in general, no. I prefer clean and fair sport. YMMV. I actually do not agree with you that everyone sucks. It's still the first half of the quad cycle. It will peak for Milano.

And I just not seeing anything clean and fair without Russians, so I feel might as well...at least we can have ultra-c and some fresh air back in women and, like, pairs who can do decent twists and throws. If...I want some news early next year.

 

[lariko]

Malinin is super young and will get big rewards. Why should it be instant crowning?

Because he is the only one who can do what he does, not simply slightly better at what everyone else can also do.

 

[4everchan]

Because he is the only one who can do what he does, not simply slightly better at what everyone else can also do.

You know, the history of the sport is filled with skaters achieving something nobody else had ever done before. The ones who managed to be well-rounded ended up winning the biggest crowns. The others, had decent success at times... some even no accolades.
Figure skating is not a jumping show. So being the best jumper ever is not enough. And I say this as someone who gets very excited by the big tricks... mind you, if Malinin is the only one doing what he does, maybe he should not water down his content. He decided not to do the quad axel so far this year. So, as far as jump content is concerned, there are other skaters doing exotic quads and many of them in their programs.... unless he brings back his full arsenal, he is not better even in planned content than other guys like Adam or Shoma and he is very far from an all-around skater. I say this as someone who has seen him skate live and from very close at ACI. He comes to life in the last 30 seconds of his program but the rest is jump/empty skating/ jump. I don't want to sound harsh because he is an exciting talent and I was happy to see his great ease in the jumping department. However, I am not willing to dismiss the other skaters who also have big jumps and are able to demonstrate all-around skating. In many ways, when Malinin manages better skating skills and presentation, and wins it all, he will gain a very widespread admiration from skating fans of all kinds. That's what some of his already convinced fans should wish for him. To me, he is not ready for the biggest prizes yet.

 

[Mathman]

The due diligence test in professional judgment, the way professional bodies decide if the professional exercised due diligence is if a certain percent of professionals would have been reasonably expected to make the same call. In case with bias judgment,

I for one would not be comforted if all figure skating judges delivered exactly the same marks in lockstep unison. Be they ever so duly dilligent, judges are, in fact, expected to submit "opinions."

When Dick Button was criticised along the the lines, "but that's just your opinion!" he replied. "Of course its my opinion. I wouldn't say it if it weren't ny opinion."

(He also said, "I have done eeverything in figure skating that there is to do, except serve as a judge. I wouldn't touch that with a tyen-foot pole.")

 

[TT_Fin]

People often criticize without knowledge. Matteo's invalid choreo seq in Espoo is a good example. People don't understand it, because they do not know the rule two visible different moves. I learned that from local commentators already some years ago. We have two commentators, Mika, and the other one, Sara, is professional commentator also outside of FS arenas and former figure skater. Sara did not see immediately what went wrong in that choreo seq but Mika said when Matteo went to steps "I did not see him to do two moves, but judges will rewatch this and check if they can find it". But people in social media keep giving critics, just because they don't know the rule. They have all access to rules, but most are too lazy even to ask, they criticize just because they just saw him doing the same. The same in spins. Why did he/she get only level 3, that looked so difficult. But diffulty is not the only thing which gives levels, they are certain demands which must be filled, amount of rotations in every spin is one.

But Matteo for sure will not retire because forgetting one small - but costly - part of his choreo. He will learn and be more accurate next time. A skater who gets level2 from spin when used to get 4s probably won't first go to judges panel to tell wrong level. Instead the skater will watch from video, did he/she keep the position long enough and did he/she rotate enough in each position. And getting sometimes lower levels than usual it is not the end of the career.

I am 100 % sure, if the forum members started to judge with the knowledge they have, then skaters would retire. The judging would be much more emotional and everybody would give good scores to their favs. Some would give good PCS to skaters who can jump quads but deliver empty programs. And that for 100 % sure would make that already marginal sport in many countries would be even more in the marginal. GP in Espoo, if there are ice hockey games, just local, in the same arena, there will be more people. The team in my town is playing on highest national level, but is not a medal candidate or play-off-candidate. But there are usually more people when they play home in audience than I saw in Espoo. I have lived next to that arena and have seen how much people there go this season there have been audience record, almost 4000 people. Juulia and Mattias got first GP medal in history last year. Media wrote about it almost nothing, if did, it was just one sentence combined to small article of the competition. Ice hockey comparision just to show you how marginal FS is - and still it is more popular in Finland than in central Europe. If you don't have all-season-card to you home arena, those tickets are prizy. Worlds ice hockey in Finland, much more expensive tickets than individual tickets for Euros in FS. The bigger arena in Tampere than Metro Arena in Espoo was sold out when home team was playing. Ice hockey teams hear are mostly not federations, they are companies.

 

[lariko]

People often criticize without knowledge. Matteo's invalid choreo seq in Espoo is a good example. People don't understand it, because they do not know the rule two visible different moves.

That's NOT the problem. Actually, in my suggestions, I want the GoE, inconsistent calls on q/UR between skaters and PCS to be as clear as the levels on spins to grade. Those are open to manipulation so much, that imo they need to be tightened with:

a. measurable and verifiable metrics
b. more rigorous striking out of the out layers on the professional calls and improvements in professional ethics

At the moment, the leeway is too great to fix the results. It can be corrected.

 

[lariko]

I for one would not be comforted if all figure skating judges delivered exactly the same marks in lockstep unison. Be they ever so duly dilligent, judges are, in fact, expected to submit "opinions."

Yes, there is a room for some reasonable variability in judgment, but striking out layers indicating strong bias and selectively auditing bad players is absolutely necessary to ensure the integrity of the collegial decisions and the results that are not discriminating against athletes.

 

[lariko]

You know, the history of the sport is filled with skaters achieving something nobody else had ever done before. The ones who managed to be well-rounded ended up winning the biggest crowns. The others, had decent success at times... some even no accolades.
Figure skating is not a jumping show. So being the best jumper ever is not enough. And I say this as someone who gets very excited by the big tricks... mind you, if Malinin is the only one doing what he does, maybe he should not water down his content. He decided not to do the quad axel so far this year. So, as far as jump content is concerned, there are other skaters doing exotic quads and many of them in their programs.... unless he brings back his full arsenal, he is not better even in planned content than other guys like Adam or Shoma and he is very far from an all-around skater. I say this as someone who has seen him skate live and from very close at ACI. He comes to life in the last 30 seconds of his program but the rest is jump/empty skating/ jump. I don't want to sound harsh because he is an exciting talent and I was happy to see his great ease in the jumping department. However, I am not willing to dismiss the other skaters who also have big jumps and are able to demonstrate all-around skating. In many ways, when Malinin manages better skating skills and presentation, and wins it all, he will gain a very widespread admiration from skating fans of all kinds. That's what some of his already convinced fans should wish for him. To me, he is not ready for the biggest prizes yet.

And that's fine with me, when Adam won over Malinin in France. I know and could see that Adam had a skate of his lifetime there and similar tech. Fine and good. But! When the same Adam doesn't deliver in China, he shouldn't be where he was in the SP. Same with Uno. I adore Uno. I think nobody moves like him. But he lost so many jumping passes in China, that he should have been in 3rd. When I saw Chen take his only 3rd place in SkAm, I also knew why and was in complete agreement. Zhou was spectacular in that competition, just sublime, and Uno was also better.

So, yeah, I am not unhappy when my favs tank when they clearly tank, and I can see why.

Some calls, like P/M vs the Germans in America I am fine with, because that's really was on balance. I liked P/M better, but I can see why judges went with the Germans.

But when one athlete is just overall so much better than those placed ahead of them...it doesn't work for me.

So, yeah, I am NOT fine with, is Shaidorov's judgment in Skate Canada and China, I am not fine with Sato's judgment in Finland, Rino's in Canada, C/B in Finland (like, why M/M have to be dinged so hard for stumble on steps, and C/B can screw up with no penalty when FB/S where the best on balance in both programs?) and other similar things when content was there, cleanliness was there, components were checked off, but other skaters with worse mistakes were positioned higher, particularly when it cost them an opportunity to go into the final, like with Sato or be a sub like Shaidorov...

On the other hand, I also find iffy with Rino getting her medal and place in GPF sort of given to her on the strength of her skate in a competition where she didn't medals and imo should have. Imo, fair would have been her in 3rd in her first GP and in 4th in her second one.

Basically, if I can see a clear rule as to why there was a loss (like Rizzo losing his steps) I am fine, but when a loss is inexplicable (both of Shaidorov's placements) I am not fine. No, Shaidorov is not my absolute fav, but I followed him from juniors and I don't like him being treated like that.

 

[el henry]

Most posters comment without bias. Jason's short at Warsaw had lots of little silly errors, he doubled jumps in his long, his score ws deserved. (Except the PCS should have been higher, but placement would not have ben affected). I have not seen many posters, no matter their fandom, who do not acknowledge clear issues.

But many issues are not clear. Shaidorov has pedestrian skating skills, he really needs to up his transition game, he's not there yet, and his scores were just fine. (He has good qualities which were rewarded, which is why he scored as highly as he did). Sato was rightfully placed in second in Finland as he made an error.

And I say that viewing without bias. I have no particular love for, or dislike for, Mikhail or Shun. So the scores are explicable. That doesn't mean other posters can't disagree with me. They can and they should. But the scores are not indicative of some deep issue with figure skating judging.

Getting back to the OP, I think skaters are fine with that, they know that, and it does not stop them from long careers ( a different topic than a fed favoring one skater over another). They are not as impassioned as their fans, in fact, they support each other (Warsaw gold medalist Lukas Britschgi's biggest fan this weekend is Jason, posting all over his IG with compliments and good wishes),

So if judging isn't stopping skaters from long careers, what is?

 

[lariko]

he really needs to up his transition game

According to Mark the Commentator Shaidorov has one of the most complicated transitions this year, plus he doesn't do much of hands down or hands out to the sides skating, which is pretty clear. What specifically you want to be improved on his transitions? Speed and glide, sure, he needs higher. But transitions? He is more than adequate there. And, he made by FAR less mistakes than other skaters in the same competition--which defines placement in order.

So did Sato. Yeah, he made a mistake. Other skaters did more of them. Hence, he should have been first. Simple logic.