Skate Canada to allow any 2 athletes to compete together in ice dance, pairs

[4everchan]

It seems like there is a gender revolution at the Olympic movement... If anything, Skate Canada is just slightlhy ahead of its time

Artistic swimming is now open to men. 2 men maximum per team for Paris 2024 games. In Canada, very few men practice that sport. In some countries, it's much more popular, especially the mixed duo.

Artistic swimming is a crazy hard sport. Men have often been told they do not have the body type to succeed in that sport... yet some do very well.

I just thought I would drop this here because even sports deeply rooted in a tradition can evolve and do so... I am looking forward to seeing what a couple men can bring to a team of artistic swimmers !

Le programme olympique de natation artistique s’ouvre aux hommes

Les hommes sont admis aux épreuves de natation artistique depuis les Championnats du monde de 2015.

ici.radio-canada.ca

 

[Seven Sisters]

Russian pairs skaters comment on this development, with perhaps more wit and sensitivity than might be expected:

Anastasia Mishina: It’s too early to discuss this. But I won’t give Sasha to anyone’s pair.

Aleksandr Galliamov: I think the authors of this idea were inspired by the movie Blades of Glory.

Vladimir Morozov: We skated for 1.5 years in America and saw what was happening there. There is a shortage of male partners. Girls from pair skating often skate alone, there are even special competitions for them. I think that’s why they found such a solution. It’s not related to sexual orientation, it’s caused by a lack of boys. Especially in Canada, where everyone plays hockey.


Source: FS Gossips. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

 

[zanadude]

Artistic swimming is now open to men.

Thanks to these brave pioneers.

https://m.facebook.com/TheSingleHilarity/videos/synchronized-swimming-snl-s10-ep1-1984/189427659893211/

 

[jersey1302]

Artistic swimming is now open to men. 2 men maximum per team for Paris 2024 games.

Oh I had no idea..very cool. If anything it’s going to make things far more entertaining. How is synchronized skating not part of worlds as a discipline or olympics.. synchro swimming is ..

 

[skatesofgold]

Oh I had no idea..very cool. If anything it’s going to make things far more entertaining. How is synchronized skating not part of worlds as a discipline or olympics.. synchro swimming is ..

Well, synchronized swimming has been an Olympic sport since 1984. Apparently, it has history going back to Ancient Rome.

Synchronized Swimming Has a History That Dates Back to Ancient Rome

Before it reached the Olympics, the sport was a spectacle of the circus and vaudeville

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[gkelly]

How is synchronized skating not part of worlds as a discipline or olympics..

It has its own world championships.

The reason why it is not part of the existing world championships is undoubtedly the large number of athletes involved. That is also why the IOC has been reluctant to add it to the Olympics.

 

[jersey1302]

It has its own world championships.

The reason why it is not part of the existing world championships is undoubtedly the large number of athletes involved. That is also why the IOC has been reluctant to add it to the Olympics.

Oh I know it has its own world championships.. yes big number of athletes .

 

[zanadude]

Oh I know it has its own world championships.. yes big number of athletes .

That can't be the only reason the sport is not in the Olympics. Ice hockey teams consist of 25 players.

 

[4everchan]

That can't be the only reason the sport is not in the Olympics. Ice hockey teams consist of 25 players.

The IOC aims to
1) make the Olympics equal in terms of gender participation
2) present the best possible show without bringing more and more athletes. It actually would like to have less and less athletes.

In light of that, things like mixed relays (various sports), figure skating team event or adding up an event that athletes can do and are already present at games (for instance moguls get to do parallel moguls next games), have been favoured because they combine men and women and use athletes already present at the games... more opportunities, more revenues, not much more resources needed.

Adding synchro skating is an issue in terms of the number of skaters required to sport a team. It is also an issue with the usage of the rink as traditionally, half the games is figure skating and the other half is short track speed skating.

Ice hockey has been at the games forever, and women hockey is also there now. It is one of the most popular winter sports. It's hardly a good comparison.

 

[zanadude]

Like I said, there are probably many reasons for the sport's exclusion, team size certainly not being the only one.

 

[NanaPat]

Artistic swimming started in the Olympics with only solo and duet, not teams, to keep the number of athletes relatively small. It took a while to convince the Olympics to replace the solo event by team.

Note that a fully artistic swimming team has 8 athletes (though they probably take an alternate to competitions, so 9 total). I believe synchronized skating is teams of 16 (plus alternates?), though there may be a new event with teams of 12 (someone correct me if I am wrong here).

 

[4everchan]

Artistic swimming started in the Olympics with only solo and duet, not teams, to keep the number of athletes relatively small. It took a while to convince the Olympics to replace the solo event by team.

Note that a fully artistic swimming team has 8 athletes (though they probably take an alternate to competitions, so 9 total). I believe synchronized skating is teams of 16 (plus alternates?), though there may be a new event with teams of 12 (someone correct me if I am wrong here).

I am not entirely sure of the historic of artistic swimming. I used to watch it when it was indeed, solo and duet. The way I vaguely remember it happening is that FINA wanted the team event to be at the games. They sacrificed the solo and duet in the hope that once teams are at the games, they could always extract the athletes from the team event, to do the solo and duet... so the same number of athletes but the three events... The sacrifice has not really worked out yet at the games... the solo and duet are still not presented. The problem with this is that sport needs stars to be popular. With events like these, a collective effort (synchro is the same) it's hard to market stars... unlike team players in other sports who do score goals or spike the ball over the net. What the solo and duet provided in artistic swimming was the star system. Unfortunately, the sport now is much more niche than ever. No idea if bringing men in will change that... perhaps having the mixed duet would be something to promote the sport a bit more.

 

[el henry]

Like I said, there are probably many reasons for the sport's exclusion, team size certainly not being the only one.

But team size is the primary one, I have no doubt. (given that synchro teams and so large and have no history, such as team sports like hockey or women's hockey to back it up for inclusion).

For me, follow the money. Too much financial pain, not enough gain, to include synchro.

ETA: jumping off, and having contributed to the thread drift myself, maybe this could be a separate topic?

 

[Andrea82]

I am not entirely sure of the historic of artistic swimming. I used to watch it when it was indeed, solo and duet. The way I vaguely remember it happening is that FINA wanted the team event to be at the games. They sacrificed the solo and duet in the hope that once teams are at the games, they could always extract the athletes from the team event, to do the solo and duet... so the same number of athletes but the three events... The sacrifice has not really worked out yet at the games... the solo and duet are still not presented. The problem with this is that sport needs stars to be popular. With events like these, a collective effort (synchro is the same) it's hard to market stars... unlike team players in other sports who do score goals or spike the ball over the net. What the solo and duet provided in artistic swimming was the star system. Unfortunately, the sport now is much more niche than ever. No idea if bringing men in will change that... perhaps having the mixed duet would be something to promote the sport a bit more.

Duet has been back at Olympics since 2000.1996 was the edition with only the team event.
They had 22 duets at Tokyo OG.

Lack of deepness of the field plays against the inclusion of mixed duet. Yes, now there are 13-14 teams at Worlds (plus Russia which usually does it) unlike the 3-4 of some years ago.....but in many of these countries the World partecipants are basically the only ones doing it.

 

[4everchan]

Duet has been back at Olympics since 2000.1996 was the edition with only the team event.
They had 22 duets at Tokyo OG.

Lack of deepness of the field plays against the inclusion of mixed duet. Yes, now there are 13-14 teams at Worlds (plus Russia which usually does it) unlike the 3-4 of some years ago.....but in many of these countries the World partecipants are basically the only ones doing it.

shows how i am no longer watching the sport... since they removed the solo... which was the one with the star athletes... oh well...

Thanks for the info. Happy that they managed to get the duet back after the Atlanta games... I did watch the team in Atlanta...because Canada had recruited stars of the sport from previous games, including Sylvie Fréchette, to be on the team event. I agree that the mixed duet is a long shot... but I could see this picking up some fans.

 

[yesterday]

They sacrificed the solo and duet in the hope that once teams are at the games, they could always extract the athletes from the team event, to do the solo and duet...

Hmm.. I don't think this would work well cause it's a bit like 5x5 and 3x3 Basketball (and I'm sure there are other examples). You have to train a lot as the duo and a lot with the ones in the team and at this level there won't be lots of athletes being able to do both.

They are just not Japanese figure skaters

 

[4everchan]

Hmm.. I don't think this would work well cause it's a bit like 5x5 and 3x3 Basketball (and I'm sure there are other examples). You have to train a lot as the duo and a lot with the ones in the team and at this level there won't be lots of athletes being able to do both.

They are just not Japanese figure skaters

well it did work out because the duet is back and the team too as @Andrea82 pointed out... of course, they have to train hard.... 3X3 basketball is a completely different game... it's like rugby 7 or traditional rugby.. you would be surprised how many people in canada represent both teams...for world cup for instance, yet only sevens is at the olympics.

 

[yesterday]

well it did work out because the duet is back and the team too as @Andrea82 pointed out... of course, they have to train hard.... 3X3 basketball is a completely different game... it's like rugby 7 or traditional rugby.. you would be surprised how many people in canada represent both teams...for world cup for instance, yet only sevens is at the olympics.

Well it does not work as good in smaller countries.
But I'm sure there's more examples.

I did not say that they are not held, but I don't think there's a lot of athletes easily doing both.

 

[beachmouse]

It’s my understanding that each international governing board has a fair amount of leeway to distribute their Olympic quota spots across different sports and disciplines they govern, and FINA has a lot of quota spots that can play with because of pool swimming- they can pretty easily allocate 8 countries for a team artistic swimming event pretty much solely by cutting the number of B standard qualifiers for pool races.

Skating doesn’t seem interested in going after additional quota spots for a synchro event, which is unfortunate because it’s way, way easier for an international federation to get new quota spots for winter games than summer games.

I’d enjoy seeing distinct two men, two, women, and mixed pair in each of skating an artistic swimming because I think each discipline would have something unique and interesting about that kind of pairing.

 

[NanaPat]

I believe Skate Canada's idea is NOT to introduce 3 or more "kinds" of pair or ice dance duos, but to ignore sex/gender and let everyone compete together.

Some people are worried about certain "types" of duos having an edge over others; my personal thought is that absent rule changes, the traditional duos will have an edge over the newer ones, especially in pairs.