Opinion: The brevity of skating careers

[TallyT]

Then, please explain what kind of skaters you feel have "earned" your respect, and what kind of skaters who don't (unless they're doping or suspected of doping or have committed crimes or are suspected of committing crimes).

This could be useful too for the thread as this can be how other skaters can be more loved.

No, I won't name names in a 'who would I rather watch fungus grow than' piece of bashing when I've just complained about someone else bashing. What I can do is move sideways: there are plenty of pop/rock/easy listening stars whose (to me) undulcet tones assaulting my eardrums will induce shrieks and curses and scrabbling for the mute button. And quite a few are good or bad musically speaking, but have opinions and politics (especially some of the dead white male ones, classical music being what it is) that I cannot be doing with, or are imo not anywhere near as good as popular opinion insists, or are/were just deeply unpleasant human beings. We all have lines in the metaphorical sand after all, and they are all different.

And some of them are wonderful people who just make chalk on blackboard sound good!

Nevertheless I respect their right to make (to me horrible) music, but not their music or the unpleasant ones themselves. And I respect their many many fans' right to love the music, if not their taste. (I also try to remember that like every human being ever, I could be wrong.)

 

[Magill]

See, this is exactly what I mean when it's not possible to expect people to like and support all skaters, when even respect to athletes and competitors (not as a person you know personally) is given conditionally. "Earning" respect in sports is also a taste and perspective issue, when to me it's just a basic decency granted for everyone who enters competitions and is willing to play by the rules to compete and accept all risks and rewards that comes with competing*. You don't have to like them as people to respect them as competitors. You don't even know them personally (unless you do).

*) obviously different with people who are charged or under an ongoing legal investigation for committing a crime or suspected of committing a crime.

Ok, let me explain how I understand it. You basically respect everyone but respect is also something that can be won or lost.
So you give some basic level of respect to everyone not asking questions. But then, as you get to know them, you just can't help it but respond to what you see as their noble or shameful acts, words and behaviours.
Still, even if you don't respect someone much because of what you see as their shameful behaviour, it does not mean you treat them in a disrespectful, derogatory way. Yet your attitude, the way you feel about them, is different. Sometimes, very different.
I'm not sure if that is clear but that's how I feel about it, not just in sports but in general.

 

[rabidline]

No, I won't name names in a 'who would I rather watch fungus grow than' piece of bashing when I've just complained about someone else bashing. What I can do is move sideways: there are plenty of pop/rock/easy listening stars whose (to me) undulcet tones assaulting me eardrums will induce shrieks and curses and scribbling for the mute button. And quite a few of them have opinions and politics (especially some of the dead white male ones, classical music being what it is) that I cannot be doing with, or are imo not anywhere near as good as popular opinion insists, or are/were just deeply unpleasant human beings. We all have lines in the metaphorical sand after all, and they are all different.

Nevertheless I respect their right to make (to me horrible) music, but not their music or the unpleasant ones themselves. And I respect their many many fans' right to love the music, if not their taste. (I also try to remember that like every human being ever, I could be wrong.)

Again, you don't have to like the output of the product to respect that it exists...

 

[rabidline]

Ok, let me explain how I understand it. You basically respect everyone but respect is also something that can be won or lost.
So you give some basic level of respect to everyone not asking questions. But then, as you get to know them, you just can't help it but respond to what you see as their noble or shameful acts, words and behaviours.
Still, even if you don't respect someone much because of what you see as their shameful behaviour, it does not mean you treat them in a disrespectful, derogatory way. Yet your attitude, the way you feel about them, is different. Sometimes, very different.
I'm not sure if that is clear but that's how I feel about it, not just in sports but in general.

Oh yeah, that just means I disagree with their views, but I respect them as competitors and athletes and the results they have achieved. (Unless, doping and crime.) Because I don't know them personally. Even the people who remains "unproblematic" and are never caught saying things they would later have to apologize for, I don't know them personally.

It's why my basic decency to athletes is respect, and it's not given because they're "everyone not asking questions".

 

[TallyT]

Again, you don't have to like the output of the product to respect that it exists...

Again, agreed.

 

[rabidline]

Again, agreed.

And yet you still say "nevertheless I respect their right to make (to me horrible) music, but not their music" .

I understand not respecting unpleasantness, but again, terms and conditions still applies for respect for the product itself it seems.

 

[Magill]

Oh yeah, that just means I dislike and disagree with their views, but I respect them as competitors and athletes and the results they have achieved. (Unless, doping and crime.) Because I don't know them personally. Even the people who remains "unproblematic" and are never caught saying things they would later have to apologize for, I don't know them personally. It's why my basic decency is respect, and it's not given because they're "everyone not asking questions".

Oh, I do not think you understand me but that's alright.
I have no different rules for skaters than for everyone else. Of course, I do not know them personally, but I am just human, I have my opinions on public persons even though I do not know them in person.
"Not asking questions" means some basic level of respect is just what you give to other humans just because they are human, no matter who they are, what they have achieved or not, and whether you personally like them or not.
Then... a "relationship" evolves, so to say, and actually when you are a public person your public behaviour does affect how the public feels about you so it is to certain extent like in any other relationship. That I do not know them? But of course. But you might be surprised what you do not know about people you actually do know in person
So, again, in a way, it is like in any other relationship...

 

[rabidline]

Then... a relationship evolves, so to say, and actually when you are a public person your public behaviour does affect how the public feels about you so it is to certain extent like in any other relationship. That I do not know them? But of course. But you might be surprised what you do not know about people you actually do know in person
So, again, in a way, it is like in any other relationship...

Yes, I don't understand you. Because I never think of my interest on athletes and sports as a relationship.

 

[Magill]

Yes, I don't understand you. Because I never think of my interest on athletes and sports as a relationship.

Oh, it is not a romantic relationship, if that's what you're at, maybe I should put it in comas And I do not know about you, but I am not a native English speaker. And, yet, if you like or dislike someone, it is a relationship, at least in my native tonque. In my native tonque, you have a relationship to the music you like, to the city you live in, to anything to which you relate. You do not know posters here but you read their posts and communicate to them, so yes, you develop some kind of relationship, and public persons do develop some kind of relationship with the public, and vice versa. I do not know how to say it differently. If any native speaker is here and understands my intention, can you help here, please?
Anywhere I have to go so I will please bow out from here. Have a good day.

 

[rabidline]

Oh, it is not a romantic relationship, if that's what you're at, maybe I should put it in comas And I do not know about you, but I am not a native English speaker. And, yet, if you like or dislike someone, it is a relationship, at least in my native tonque. In my native tonque, you have a relationship to the music you like, to the city you live in, to anything to which you relate. You do not know posters here but you read their posts and communicate to them, so yes, you develop some kind of relationship, and public persons do develop some kind of relationship with the public, and vice versa. I do not know how to say it differently. If any native speaker is here and understands my intention, can you help here, please?
Anywhere I have to go so I will please bow out from here. Have a good day.

I understand that you're not talking about a romantic relationship at all. I just don't think my interest in sports and athletes as a relationship at all. I don't consider any feelings, investments or attachments I have about people I don't know personally a relationship.

It's of course different to when I build a rapport with posters here by writing to them and then continue speaking and sharing thoughts, and meeting each other in real life, and continue talking to each other after. I consider those relationships (platonic or otherwise).

 

[Magill]

I understand it's not a romantic relationship. I just don't think my interest in sports and athletes as a relationship at all. I don't consider any feelings, investments or attachments I have about people I don't know personally a relationship.

It's of course different to when I build a rapport with posters here by writing to them and then continue speaking and sharing thoughts, and meeting each other in real life, and continue talking to each other after. I consider those relationships (platonic or otherwise).

Guess I used a cliche from my native tonque and it was out of place here. So be it. Have a good day.

 

[TallyT]

And, yet, if you like or dislike someone, it is a relationship, at least in my native tonque.

There's a word for it - parasocial. Most people have them in one way or another, from a movie star to a Tv weatherman they listen to, parasocial relationships are considered normal and for the most part perfectly healthy. If you follow someone and are interested in their off-purpose lives and interviews (Shoma's dog, for instance? he and Trusova have dogs I believe) or them as people it comes under this.

 

[Magill]

There's a word for it - parasocial.

Yes, parasocial relationships. Thank you!
But maybe what I mean is really not a relationship in English at all, parasocial or not, maybe it is just a different word.
Cause I did not mean I follow someone. I meant, I have a basically neutral attitude to some public person but they are public enough for me to know them, without me being interested, and then I learn of something they did or said, again, not seeking this info, just getting it because they are a public person and I do not live on a desert island so lots of information reaches me just because it is out there in the information space, and I respond to it with like or dislike or whatever, and my attitude towards this person is changing, then again, and it keeps changing and evolving like in a real relationship, without me following them or anything, just responding to public information I receive. It is just that in the age we live in we receive so much info on so many people whether we seek it or not, and obviously we respond with emotions and opinions, however unimportant they are to us. And a set of such opinions, emotions and attitudes evolving in time creates a "relationship"...? That's what I meant. Is that parasocial or not?
Anyway, who cares. I really have to go now, Have a great day.

 

[streams4dreams]

I think just streaming competitions, with some extended background info and an interview here and there, would be much more needed.

I had no idea there were that many sports documentaries, so I only thought of Netflix as a platform to make figure skating competitions more accessible. I guess that would be similar to what we have with YouTube, just ideally not geoblocked. So yes, fully agree more readily available streams would be great!

 

[SmileHappy34]

Especially for the United States push the sport Figure Skating ( not just winners or names) even in this forum the sport names us listed ( tennis, basketball , golf, football). Only in figure skating u state name and not sport. O the fans are the only ones who know the name belongs to the sport.

 

[SmileHappy34]

Especially in the United States they lost many young great skaters and teams due to it. They push certain named stars no Michelle Kwan wasn't one of them. It was Nicole and layer on others that won okay medals
I wondered what happened the young oair teams coming up or dance not name D/w B/ S.
I remember them stating no brother abd sister public ask why
Also the injury Vanessa lam, gao, wheat, kaiser the men.
I went back and saw how many good young skaters we had in junior gp or jgp finals and went to senior stalled or injured.

The brevity in part some blame had to be in bed USFSA and promoting certain junior over others . ( Ex Scott ask a young Nathan Chen to skate in show or favoring the winners in domestic over others. It seems only certain skaters that are named in novice junior gets push in senior.
U.s.a. left alot of young skaters fall by wayside. Competition.

Now u have so very few and very little viewership.
I wonder why.

Talk about brevity of skaters careers.

Cause and effect.
Push certain named stars not t sport and ignore others.
Those named stars don't fulfill promise or injured.

 

[lariko]

There is this story. When Yuzuru performed in Sochi OG, he was performing against Plushenko, first in the team competition. Russian audience, and there were plenty of them, of course, as it was in Russia, saw him as a threat. When he came out on the ice, they were shouting "Russia, Russia" and some derogatory words to distract him and make him fall. In Russian, so luckily he did not understand.
Later he was told what it really meant so, he said, he came out on the ice prepared mentally they would boo him. But Plushenko withdrew earlier and those most fanatical Russian fans left the venue leaving empty rows, and they were not there when he skated which, he said, was better for him.
I wonder, why this behaviour does not get mentioned so often when talking about toxic fans?
When Yuzuru first won Japanese Nationals, Dai fans booed him. Booed him. That was awful.
Dai was smiling triumphantly.
You can see the footage for yourself.
I wonder why it does not get mentioned so much when talking about Dai?
And protesting in Valieva case does not count here. It is a completely different matter indeed.

Exactly, it doesn't matter which skater we are talking about and which nationality, includingg Dai and Valieva--Valieva is the same thing, she enjoys artificllay prolonged career, inflated scoring, and even blatant disregard of all rules, because of her idolizarion and popularity in Russia. Idolization that leads to extended longevity and prestige scoring is directly related to toxic behavior.

When fans demand longevity and insists that it is good for sport, imo, it is a false assertion. They specifically seem to rely on the dangerous mechanism for keeping people interested in sport: being over-invetsed into an idol, not the sport, demanding that they continue skating and winning contrary to the fair athletic principal. And the second-hand kind of delusions of grandeur, when fans can't seem to separate themselves from success of an athlete. Worse is when they demand it from the judges at the expense of other skaters. And the top of this pyramid is when judges and tech panels oblige.

Shifting focus to being interested in sport instead and welcoming young challengers, encouraging high turn around, glorifying the randomness ofbthe results and highlighting that someone unexpected always can win if they have a good day, letting competition to unfold in fair way not impacted by prestige, looking at their routines without bias and having no problems with them leaving if they need to is the way to make the sport thrive. JGP does it better than senior competition.

Studies in how people percieve success of a song/ranking of works of art, such as music and paintings, actually show that the bias is a leading cause of popularity. People simply download and upvote the songs that in each selection already has more votes and uploads. Popularity is created, as it was created since the 1940s, when mafia loaded songs by the singers they wanted to promote into juke boxes or whatnot.

And to answer your personal question to me, no, I don't go to rock concerts or football games. Or hockey. But as far as i know, in football and in hockey, the team that put the ball or the pack in the oppositions' net more times, wins. Not the team who has been there longer or have more adoring fans. And nobody, no matter how upset they are, wants a scoring table after the game suddenly change dramatically after the match because the referee really wants the other team to win.

There you go. I mean, if you prefer to assign my thoughts to any number of percieved character flaws, I can't really do much about it. One can only change oneself.

 

[DancingCactus]

I have no idea how I should be invested in a sport like figure skating without there being any investement in individual skaters. It is a highly individualistic sport at its core, mixed with artistic elements (let's not get into this discussion again). The person on the ice is not just an abstract "vehicle" for the sport, and some skaters defined whole figure skating eras wth their power as individual athletes. And if you have someone that great and fantastic, to me it seems only natural to want them to stay in the business for as long as they can and want to.

Btw even in more team-oriented sports like football, people get invested in people. I used to be a Bayern fan. But then they completely removed matches from free TV for a few seasons and since I didn't want to pay for a bazzilion different streaming services just to watch Champions League. So my favourite players retired, I didn't have a chance to get to know the new ones and now I'm not invested in the team anymore at all. I still enjoy watching a good football game if I catch one, but my emotional investement is pretty much gone because I don't really know the individual players. Also, Bayern management sucks.

 

[Skating91]

Exactly, it doesn't matter which skater we are talking about and which nationality, includingg Dai and Valieva--Valieva is the same thing, she enjoys artificllay prolonged career, inflated scoring, and even blatant disregard of all rules, because of her idolizarion and popularity in Russia. Idolization that leads to extended longevity and prestige scoring is directly related to toxic behavior.

I haven't seen any toxic behaviour from her. I think she is also scored adequately and always has been. Her short program on the weekend was one of the best programs I have ever watched. I don't understand the comment

 

[gkelly]

Shifting focus to being interested in sport instead and welcoming young challengers, encouraging high turn around, glorifying the randomness ofbthe results and highlighting that someone unexpected always can win if they have a good day, letting competition to unfold in fair way not impacted by prestige, looking at their routines without bias and having no problems with them leaving if they need to is the way to make the sport thrive.

Agreed. But...

as far as i know, in football and in hockey, the team that put the ball or the pack in the oppositions' net more times, wins.
However, in figure skating, much what is being rewarded is a lot more qualitative/subjective than putting a ball or puck in the oppositions' net, or even than landing the most/hardest jumps.

So the tricky part is getting casual fans who may come for the stars to stick around and learn the nuances rather than believing that if the most successful jumper on the day didn't win the sport must be rigged.

I have no idea how I should be invested in a sport like figure skating without there being any investement in individual skaters. It is a highly individualistic sport at its core, mixed with artistic elements (let's not get into this discussion again). The person on the ice is not just an abstract "vehicle" for the sport, and some skaters defined whole figure skating eras wth their power as individual athletes. And if you have someone that great and fantastic, to me it seems only natural to want them to stay in the business for as long as they can and want to.

Ideally, there would be opportunities for skaters to stick around as long as they like, doing their best to compete against their contemporaries and younger challengers without being pushed out by scoring rules designed to favor younger bodies, or by officials manipulating results or international selections/invitations to intentionally push out older skaters, or alternatively by holding up the veterans at the expense of newcomers.

Not to mention injuries and financial burdens.

If the competition structure were structured differently so that more skaters could have opportunities to shine and earn prize money (and earn fans who want to pay to see them in shows), then there would be more room in the top ranks for skaters to continue competing and earn a living doing so.

But in order to fund such a structure, there would need to be more money coming into the sport from outside -- directly from fans, and from broadcast/streaming rights and from sponsorships.

And in order to bring in that more money to the ISU, there would need to be more interest from fans/the public at large.

So it's a vicious circle. Hard to fund careers that would be more fan friendly without the financial resources to support those careers.

As long as the sport continues to be a largely amateur endeavor with funding available through federations based on recent or anticipated results, it's a lot easier for those who come from wealthy families or who represent small federations with few rivals for international assignments to maintain longer careers. If those individuals also happen to be successful/appealing enough develop large fan bases, that's a win-win.