Synchro9 Earns Its Place at the Alpes 2030

[4everchan]

Let me start by stating, boy am I glad there will be more figure skating at OLYs...(This might force the host to separate the venue the short track from FS, as it should be!)

As a very casual fan of synchro, I don't feel equipped to state an opinion on a discipline like synchro9(which so far has not been shown in a competition setting!!! How crazy is that)
However I can aknowledge the 'logistical' problems that gave birth ultimately to this 9 person format.

What I am unable to wrap my head arround is that they plan to make it a brackets style competition!!!!! WHY!!!!!
Not counting the inherent akwardness of an uneven number of contestants( bye system?, or group stage?, or even a found robin???), 9 is just to small as a number of teams for a good tournament setting....at least make it 16! There is a reason why major team tournament have top 32, top 16, top 8, etc)

How do you judge brackets ? still with points ? so only long programs ?
who said there would be only 9 teams though ? it's 9 skaters per team but we don't know yet how many teams.

I guess it will be 8 to be honest . but it could be 16 or 12 with the top 4 having byes.

I think they would want a maximum of 3 rounds

so quarter finals (8 teams). go to semi finals (4 teams ). from there, two more brackets, one for the gold/silver and one for the bronze.

I hate this format to be honest. I find it a bit redundant. Do I want to see the same program from the same teams, over and over again, and, in an ideal world, they all skate well and every team will get more or less the same kind of scoring as they did in their quarter finals ?

In other words, we would know right off the bat, who will win after the quarter finals based on the score sheets.

This is why I like the short program/long program formats better. There is movement and in synchro there is a lot of movement because mistakes are very costly. In this format, a costly mistake would take a team off right away. That's a lot of pressure.

 

[bckabck]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. It might be a language thing, or it might be because I simply do not understand Synchro and how competitions are structured.

To clear things up, I want to ask some basic questions that might help the novice (like me) understand the proposed competition.

How many teams will be admitted to the Olympics? And how will the ISU decide which teams make the cut for the Olympics?

At the Olympics, how will the teams compete? Is there a short program and a long program?

I'm really not understanding the concept of a bracket competition. Are you saying the teams go head-to-head with others to reach a knock-out stage, where they then continue to go head-to-head? Like in the World Cup? That seems like a lot of skating.

Hello! I can try to answer some questions, but I'm also still trying to figure out the Synchro 9 competition format as well.

Traditionally synchro uses the same competition format as the rest of the skating disciplines, short program and long/free program. There are 9 judges, a tech panel, etc. So everything in that aspect is familiar for skating fans. The short and long/free programs have a certain amount of elements and sometimes more specific elements that the teams need to do. Elements have a scale of values as well. Some elements are lifts, intersections, blocks connected with people and some not connected for the step sequences. For the most part everything is supposed to be done synchronized (haha), and if not that person or persons tend to stick out and results in lower scores.

Some countries have clubs and some have nationally created teams, depending on country size and overall skating involvement. For example, Canada, Finland, USA, Italy, etc. have clubs that compete nationally to determine who gets sent (again nothing really different from the other disciplines). A nationally created team would be China years ago. They created a national team who competed at the ISU synchro worlds a couple times. Each team is comprised of 12-16 skaters on the ice at a time, but can have up to 4 alternates (20 max in total). There can be a maximum of 4 male skaters on a team.

Just like the other figure skating disciplines there are minimums and previous Worlds competition standings determine how many teams a country can send. As of right now it's only a maximum of 2 for the top 5 or 6 countries (someone else might remember the actual number)?

The communications from the ISU regarding Synchro 9 have changed that a bit. The ISU has stated that the Synchro 9 "reimagines" the current format. The performances are supposed to be shorter, but I have not heard yet if that means they are scrapping the short/free programs and also how short are these performances? The competition style is stated as having head-to-head battles with elimination rounds and themed performances? Are they formatting the competition more like break dancing competitions? I don't know but that's what it almost sounds like. Also, the themed performances, are these themes something that they (ISU) choose or just the programs themselves being themed liked normal? The competition format is what makes me not as thrilled about Synchro 9. I realize that synchro isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm happy it's finally an Olympic sport as I used to skate synchro. I just don't have the warm fuzzies right now about the Synchro 9.

Not sure if I helped you or not, but I hope I did a little bit at least.

 

[Mathman]

That's not what I am talking about at all.

Right now, the teams that are selected for synchro worlds (16) are coming from "clubs". In Canada only, there are 3 top notch club in both junior and senior and a bunch of less competitive clubs. Skaters train at their club, get selected by their home coach to make the team etc.

When a sport is then shifting gears to be included at the Olympics, National Federations have 2 options.

1). They can ask the clubs to earn their berth by competing at nationals, but in the Synchro 9 format. Then, the best club gets sent to the games.

This is how they do in Canada for curling for instance. The best curling provincial team gets sent to the O games.


In comes countries, they do not do this at all. They evaluate from the entire pool of curlers who are the best player at each position and then, they form a national team.
In artistic swimming, that's what happened in Canada a long time ago and created a lot of turmoil. We are talking about young athletes asked to move across the entire country to train in another province, at times, in a language they do not master. A lot of issues came out of that. It took a cycle or two before it got better. By then, Canada was no longer at all a powerhouse in artistic swimming.

So that model would be :
2). Select the best synchro skaters from all the clubs... uproot and relocate them into ONE national team.

If option 2 is selected, there will be many issues for quite a while because the traditional way of doing things right now is not aligned with option 2.

I hope this clears it up for you.

Thanks for the analysis.

I hope they go with option 1. Not so much because option 2 might cause confusion, but simply because of the nature of the discipline. Unlike singles skating, in sychro the unit is the team, not the individual. The criteria for excellence is -- well, synchronization (duh). The skills of the individual take a back seat to group precision, unison, straight lines. etc. A thrown-together group of of individual all-stars is not a team. (That is what is wrong with the concept of the current Olympic "Team Event.")

Let each club put forward its best Sychro9 team, and the winning team goes to the Olympics to represent their country.

 

[Diana Delafield]

How do you judge brackets ? still with points ? so only long programs ?
who said there would be only 9 teams though ? it's 9 skaters per team but we don't know yet how many teams.

I guess it will be 8 to be honest . but it could be 16 or 12 with the top 4 having byes.

I think they would want a maximum of 3 rounds

so quarter finals (8 teams). go to semi finals (4 teams ). from there, two more brackets, one for the gold/silver and one for the bronze.

I hate this format to be honest. I find it a bit redundant. Do I want to see the same program from the same teams, over and over again, and, in an ideal world, they all skate well and every team will get more or less the same kind of scoring as they did in their quarter finals ?

In other words, we would know right off the bat, who will win after the quarter finals based on the score sheets.

This is why I like the short program/long program formats better. There is movement and in synchro there is a lot of movement because mistakes are very costly. In this format, a costly mistake would take a team off right away. That's a lot of pressure.

I was baffled by that choice of formats, and wondered if anyone had actually thought that through. It works for game sports, where each game is different, but not for this where the team does the same program in each round and the main deciding factor is whether someone falls during one of the repeated performances and knocks their team out of the running. I can see the stress for each individual skater ratcheting up with each repeat, worrying that this time they're going to be the one to ruin it for the others. (Which was why I never wanted to skate synchro myself. In pairs the effect of one skater falling is not usually as costly.) I think I'd tend to watch the first round and see everyone's program. Then I'd give the repeats a miss until they'd got down to the gold-silver match and watch just that.

 

[midori green]

Thanks for the analysis.

I hope they go with option 1. Not so much because option 2 might cause confusion, but simply because of the nature of the discipline. Unlike singles skating, in sychro the unit is the team, not the individual. The criteria for excellence is -- well, synchronization (duh). The skills of the individual take a back seat to group precision, unison, straight lines. etc. A thrown-together group of of individual all-stars is not a team. (That is what is wrong with the concept of the current Olympic "Team Event.")

Let each club put forward its best Sychro9 team, and the winning team goes to the Olympics to represent their country.

I can also see, in the US, them having tryouts and selecting a team or pool of skaters (maybe after having multiple camps over the preceding seasons). Selected skaters could then be invited to live and train at one of the Olympic Training Centers for the Olympic season. Their club/university teams would miss them, but it would be a cool opportunity for those selected.

 

[4everchan]

Thanks for the analysis.

I hope they go with option 1. Not so much because option 2 might cause confusion, but simply because of the nature of the discipline. Unlike singles skating, in sychro the unit is the team, not the individual. The criteria for excellence is -- well, synchronization (duh). The skills of the individual take a back seat to group precision, unison, straight lines. etc. A thrown-together group of of individual all-stars is not a team. (That is what is wrong with the concept of the current Olympic "Team Event.")

Let each club put forward its best Sychro9 team, and the winning team goes to the Olympics to represent their country.

well... that's what artistic swimmers thought would happen . and it didn't.

too much unknown for now for me to speculate any further but in some ways, Canadian curling is "suffering" from not having a "team Canada" made of all best players in the country. It is suffering once every 4years during the Olympics but at the same time, the provincial format remaining helps keeping the sport very much alive.

The simplest thing would have been for the IOC to just plainly accept synchro 16 so the current infrastructure could have remained the same ... but.. why do something simple when you can mess with it ?

 

[saine]

Olivia Smart interviewed Olivia Di Giandomenico (co-captain of Les Supremes) about Synchro 9 (they get into it about 25 minutes in):

 

[4everchan]

thanks for sharing this @saine

I don't think we've learned a lot

of course, if synchro 9 works out well and then people understand how much better it could be for 12 or 16, it could change and we could get larger teams.. so that's a victory and I quite agree with this sentiment.

they didn't really talk much about my main concern : national team vs club

and then, the boys exclusion... it's not like having a boy or two in a team would have nixed the gender equity. I find this very counterintuitive for a lot of reasons, especially since they like to promote coed sports and have created all these mixed events to achieve that.

shout out to Xavier, the boy in Les Suprêmes. I share this sentiment. I feel terrible about him being discriminated against,

 

[4everchan]

Also, I am not going to make any friends but I want synchro to be included in the team event ... Go Canada

 

[4everchan]

Olivia talking about intersection... well that will be less of an excited element with only 9 skaters but yeah . I love them too