The Lost Edge

[AwesomeIce]

It's my understanding that for MITF a skater has to do turns 'good enough' to pass onto the next level and there's no micro-examination of technique, which works for young skaters but which can have serious repurcussions later.

Thats exactly it. I know kids who pass tests with brackets and rockers and whatever else (I'm not sure of the levels because I test the adult track , and the levels are different there), but they don't do the moves well enough to make them flow nicely in a footwork sequence in their programs, for example. And six months after the test if you ask them to do the brackets or the rockers, they look at you like they have no idea what you are talking about, and they sure as heck can't do the moves! With figures, the skaters had to have the moves down so solid, and with all the repetitions they could probably still do the figures years later.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

After the 2002 Olympics, it was decided that the judging system needed to be more objective and transparent . The only way to make a judging system more objective and transparent is to make the scores more quantifiable. That requires defining specific elements and difficult variations of those elements and assigning a value to each, which is exactly what IJS does.

I think that was the answer to make fs fairer to which I agree, but what has happened? The actual judging is anonymous; the judges have to rush their scores for the audience; the audience is totally unprepared for these scores when they see them posted outside the main hall; the fans have to search for the protocols and understand what the symbols mean and not till days later.

What it all has accomplished is that there will be no audience clash at the competition site as there was in 2002. There hasn't been any since that time, but questions of the nitty gritty still arise with the fans as to the Tech panel's calling URs and wrong edge takeoffs. Forums are full of this and only playbacks will solve those matters. Something every Sport has except figure skaiting.

As for the PC scores and the PC stands for Program Component and does not mean Presentation Component (I learned that in golden skate). Quads and exotic spin cominations will carry over in PCs. At least half of the many items that the judges have to score are subjective, and they have to rush those too, for the audience, so why not let them use the 6.0 system for PC?
The value earned should be decided by the ISU.

Whenever you define levels of difficulty and assign points to them, you will get athletes doing whatever they can to perform the element/variation that gets them the highest point value (the same is true in gymnastics). Of course skaters are more likely to injure themselves if they are attempting more difficult elements and/or positions.

If the most dangerous/difficult elements were disallowed in order to reduce injuries, the focus would shift to presentation, which is less objective and much less quantifiable. That would bring us right back to the accusations of biased judging that prompted the development of IJS in the first place.

Injuries occur in every sport. The CoP demands difficulty. It should have it.

 

[Mathman]

Whenever you define levels of difficulty and assign points to them, you will get athletes doing whatever they can to perform the element/variation that gets them the highest point value (the same is true in gymnastics). Of course skaters are more likely to injure themselves if they are attempting more difficult elements and/or positions.

I don't think that gymnastics is a sport that figure skating should emulate. Gymnastics has a scoring system that no one outside the sport has sufficient interest to try to understand; gymnastics attracts essentially zero TV viewing audience except once every four years and for live competitions attracts only other gymnasts and the families of the competitors; and athletes, especially young girls, who excel in the sport and aspire to elite levels typically inflict serious and permanent physical damage to thier bodies.

About injuries in figure skating, I don't think Ms. Daniker Rusch is speaking about the ocassional and unavoidable accidents that happen in all vigorous physical activity. I think her concern is, as GSRossano discusses above, that the ceaseless pounding that young bodies endure in training triple and quadruple jumps necessarily ends up producing young adults crippled by hip, knee and back problems that most people hope at least to put off until old age.

Sure we can say, that's life, that's sport, too bad, you knew the world was dangerous going in.

But who are the adults here? Should we really be in the business of encouraging children to practice 1000 repetitions of a quad so that they can win a medal and spend the rest of their life with a painful disability?

However, I am not convinced that the solution lies in restricting the number of jumps in a program, in requiring skaters to train figures, or in changing the judging system. If we appeal to the football analogy (as Rossano did above), the main way in which foot became "safer" (relatively so) was in the introduction of pads and helmets. As the cliche goes, if we can put a man on the moon why can't we come up with skating equipment that minimizes the pounding that destroys the joints and skeletal structure of skaters?

I haven't heard anything about the hinged boot recently. I think Alissa Czisny has given it up for a conventional and stiffer boot. Well, her jumps seem to be more reliable this season. On the other hand, with the hinged boot she made it to age 21 without having to go for hip replacement surgery.

 

[antmanb]

I think that was the answer to make fs fairer to which I agree, but what has happened? The actual judging is anonymous; the judges have to rush their scores for the audience; the audience is totally unprepared for these scores when they see them posted outside the main hall; the fans have to search for the protocols and understand what the symbols mean and not till days later.

What it all has accomplished is that there will be no audience clash at the competition site as there was in 2002. There hasn't been any since that time, but questions of the nitty gritty still arise with the fans as to the Tech panel's calling URs and wrong edge takeoffs. Forums are full of this and only playbacks will solve those matters. Something every Sport has except figure skaiting.

DING DING DING DING!

That is exactly what has happened - the new scoring system was all about saving Cinquanta's a$$ and making sure he could keep Figure Skating in the winter Olympics, not by cleaning up his house but by ensuring a public outcry would never come up again while the event was still running.

I accept that COP has its fans, and that it was being worked on before the SLC scandal but i think the best thing for the future of the sport is that Annoymous judging is abolished immediately - the judges should be accountable for their judgments.

Secondly a COP commission made up of skaters, coaches and technical officials is set up immediately and that commission is tasked to write amendments for the COP which are to be published on the date of the final competition (worlds?) of the Olympic season setting out the changes tot eh COP which are to be in effect for teh next quadrennial. Doing this means that everyone is clear exactly where they stand for the next four years - the scale of values, the reductions for e.g. change of edges etc etc.

Any proposals that the committee make could be applied in dummy runs at competitions throughout the four years period to see how implemnting the change woudl affect the staus quo. Actually have a thought out plan over a number of yeas rather than knee jerk changes, like the no repeating triple toes by the pairs unless it's in combination with itself that caused Hongbo's injury prior to Turin.

Ant <who in hinsight maybe shoudl ahve started a new thread!>

 

[mskater93]

I haven't heard anything about the hinged boot recently. I think Alissa Czisny has given it up for a conventional and stiffer boot. Well, her jumps seem to be more reliable this season. On the other hand, with the hinged boot she made it to age 21 without having to go for hip replacement surgery.

Alissa only wore the Jackson Hinge boots for 2 seasons when she was struggling with pain from ill fitting conventional boots. Before and after, she's been in SP Teris.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

About injuries in figure skating, I don't think Ms. Daniker Rusch is speaking about the ocassional and unavoidable accidents that happen in all vigorous physical activity. I think her concern is, as GSRossano discusses above, that the ceaseless pounding that young bodies endure in training triple and quadruple jumps necessarily ends up producing young adults crippled by hip, knee and back problems that most people hope at least to put off until old age.[/QUOTE[

If we insist on making this a children's sport, maybe we should just let the rules say don't do anything innovative and no more than single jumps We can then stop complaining about the dangers of this little children's sport. As far as I've noticed, only occasional accidents happen in figure skating. I believe there is much more in little soccer players.

 

[gkelly]

As far as I've noticed, only occasional accidents happen in figure skating.

If you count falls as "accidents," they happen all the time in skating practice. It's part of the process of mastering new skills.

But the concern is less about traumatic injuries that result from accidents and more about repetitive stress injuries. Similar to concerns about children practicing certain kinds of baseball pitches, or preadolescent ballerinas dancing en pointe.

 

[Buttercup]

If we insist on making this a children's sport, maybe we should just let the rules say don't do anything innovative and no more than single jumps We can then stop complaining about the dangers of this little children's sport. As far as I've noticed, only occasional accidents happen in figure skating. I believe there is much more in little soccer players.

Just to add to this, many sports, if done at high levels of competition over time, will eventually take a toll on one's body. Football players (the American kind) have all sorts of awful injuries and accumulated damage to their bodies. Baseball players, especially pitchers, often end up with so much damage to their elbows that they require ligament replacement surgery; this injury is becoming increasingly common with very young players, even high schoolers.

There are certain things that the human body just isn't meant to do over time. The question is, should athletes be allowed to decide on their own what they wish to risk? Should certain safeguards that could make it less dangerous be mandated (e.g. in figure skating, easier jumps) at the expense of the level of competition? After all, while many skaters suffer from serious (even career-ending) injuries due repetitive stress, others do not. Having had neither the talent nor the inclination to pursue a career in any sport, I have no idea how someone might go about weighing the risks vs. the rewards.

I do think one of the problems with skating is that in order to achieve elite level, one has to start training at an extremely young age. So maybe they should make the age cutoff higher?

 

[gkelly]

I do think one of the problems with skating is that in order to achieve elite level, one has to start training at an extremely young age. So maybe they should make the age cutoff higher?

I'm not sure how that would help. SOME kids are going to start skating at very young ages just because they like to go to the rink (or pond) and skate around, and they want to take lessons to learn to do crossovers, skate backwards, etc. And a very tiny minority of those kids will turn out both to pick up the basic skills very quickly and also to love the sport and want to keep learning new skills.

There's no need for coaches to rush them, but talented 7- and 8-year-olds landing axels and learning double jumps, 9-year-olds landing multiple doubles, is nothing new; it happened when school figures were required as well. Not all preliminary/pre-juvenile-level kids, or even juveniles, did double jumps, but the best jumpers among them did.

What did increase throughout the 1970s-1990s was the expectation that senior and junior level skaters would be landing multiple triple jumps. So you had kids starting to work on double axels and triples as soon as they mastered all their other doubles, and the most talented jumpers who picked them up quickly would put them in their programs at novice, intermediate, or even juvenile levels (US levels; they have different names in other countries). And as school figures were phased out in the 1990s, there started to be more of jump arms race at these middle levels. The best jumpers at these levels could land clean double axels and triples, so all the kids who hoped to compete with them, and who might have been better skaters in other areas, started attempting these jumps, with many falls and cheats and even more injuries among kids who only hoped they could make it to the elite levels than among those who actually could make it.

Age limits were one solution to the problem, to discourage 12- and 13-year-olds from moving up to senior or even junior level, where they would need double axels and triples.

At the lower levels, around the turn of this century the US at least put some limits on the jump content allowed at lower levels, most notably outlawing triples at juvenile level.

The IJS has further discouraged preteen mid-level skaters from pounding away at triples because of the severe penalties for underrotation. Look back at an intermediate competition from 5 or 10 years ago and you'd see a lot more attempts at double axels and triples than you would see today. Then, making the attempt was a way to get noticed. Now, for the most part, the only kids who try them are the ones who can actually rotate and land on one foot more often that not.

Of course the kids who can't land them cleanly yet are still working on them in practice, but there's much less sense of urgency to add those jumps before they're ready.

So I would guess that there are fewer specifically jump-related injuries among kids at that level than there were 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, however, the IJS also encourages very busy programs and encourages skaters to perform positions requiring extreme flexibility in their spiral and spin positions. Forcing or overtraining too many of these positions without gradually building up the required strength and flexibility can also lead to different kinds of injuries. I would guess that there are a lot morecontortion-related injuries now than there were 10 years ago.

The way I see it, the best way to address the problem of injuries would be to adjust the IJS rules in ways that reward and encourage skaters to develop core strength, edge control, and high quality of simple elements at least as much as they encourage flexibility, rotations in the air, and complexity. I have plenty of ideas about how this could be done.

 

[Blades of Passion]

But (and i also agree with this on back camels) a change of edge on a camel spin I think can look really beautiful. We used to see them pre COP and i think a beautiful long camel spin where the edge changes in time to the music is a thing of beauty.

Agreed, edge changes should mainly only be done in the Camel spin. In any other position they usually don't have a positive effect.

It really comes down to what the skater can do well. If they can do a change of edge attractively in the sit or upright position, then go for it. Otherwise, STOP IT.

 

[Mathman]

If we insist on making this a children's sport,....

To tell the truth, Joe, I think all sports are children's sports. Pro ballplayers are children who never grew up (that's why they act the way they do.) Adults involved in recreational sports are largely trying to be kids again -- and more power to them.

 

[vlaurend]

(entire post)

Very thoughtful and intelligent post. :thumbsup:

 

[Buttercup]

The way I see it, the best way to address the problem of injuries would be to adjust the IJS rules in ways that reward and encourage skaters to develop core strength, edge control, and high quality of simple elements at least as much as they encourage flexibility, rotations in the air, and complexity. I have plenty of ideas about how this could be done.

gkelly, thanks for your post - you've brought up some very interesting points. I think you may be quite right about the nature of the injuries more likely to be suffered under the current system.

I don't believe there's a perfect solution that will eliminate all stress injuries, but certainly young skaters should be encouraged to learn sound fundamentals before they start doing triples and 2As.

 

[asparaguss]

I don't think that gymnastics is a sport that figure skating should emulate. Gymnastics has a scoring system that no one outside the sport has sufficient interest to try to understand; gymnastics attracts essentially zero TV viewing audience except once every four years and for live competitions attracts only other gymnasts and the families of the competitors; and athletes, especially young girls, who excel in the sport and aspire to elite levels typically inflict serious and permanent physical damage to thier bodies.

Exactly. The more skating tries to become like gymnastics, the narrow and more marginal its audience will be.

It's easy to understand the attraction to the gymnastics approach by those who feel skating must be justified as a macho sport, and therefore, the more physically crushing it is, the more brutal, the better. But that will not necessarily make skating more beautiful or appealing. The increased "athleticism" of skating has hardly expanded its audience, has it?

As far as I've noticed, only occasional accidents happen in figure skating. I believe there is much more in little soccer players.

Accidents? Eating disorders, for example, generated by young girls trying to artificially delay the natural effects of puberty by starvation, are just a bit more consequential than "accidents," just a bit more devastating than a skinned knee (and are another unwanted inheritance from the gymnastics approach).

 

[antmanb]

To tell the truth, Joe, I think all sports are children's sports. Pro ballplayers are children who never grew up (that's why they act the way they do.) Adults involved in recreational sports are largely trying to be kids again -- and more power to them.

You are so right MM - certainly this adult skater feels like a big kid when he skates. Even though my reluctance to fall and slide on my butt is certainly different to when i was a child!

Ant

 

[Buttercup]

To tell the truth, Joe, I think all sports are children's sports. Pro ballplayers are children who never grew up (that's why they act the way they do.) Adults involved in recreational sports are largely trying to be kids again -- and more power to them.

I actually diasgree. Some professional athletes may act in an immature manner, but really, to them it's their job, and the ballpark/stadium/rink is their workplace. That's why many of them are not as upset by losing as the fans are, and why players often leave once they are free agents: they are not nearly as emotionally involved as the fans. Recreational sports are really another matter. But the possible underlying psychological and sociological reasons for people's interest in (obsession with?) sports, both as participants and as fans, are really subject for a much longer discussion.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

To tell the truth, Joe, I think all sports are children's sports. Pro ballplayers are children who never grew up (that's why they act the way they do.) Adults involved in recreational sports are largely trying to be kids again -- and more power to them.

MM, your defence of Figure Skating in calling all sportsmen as children who never grew up is quite alarming. Need I list the names that went on to be President, Professional Government Employees? Could it be you are profiling a large group of Pro Sportsmen? Do you think only academic chidlren can grow up to be proper adults? Maybe we should ban all sports if we are worried so much about the dangers, both physically and apparently, pyschologically.:confused

The CoP has taken away the freedom Figure Skating had. That's how I read the Rusch article. It has merit, imo. If it is causing dangerous accidents more than before CoP then do away with it. If no more than before, then, let it be.

:

 

[antmanb]

MM, your defence of Figure Skating in calling all sportsmen as children who never grew up is quite alarming. Need I list the names that went on to be President, Professional Government Employees? Could it be you are profiling a large group of Pro Sportsmen? Do you think only academic chidlren can grow up to be proper adults? Maybe we should ban all sports if we are worried so much about the dangers, both physically and apparently, pyschologically.:confused

Forgive me and correct me, MM, if i have got this wrong but, Joe i don't think you could have miscontrued MM's post more if you tried! The point wasn't how the sports stars go on to achieve things after sports - it's that doing them is a child's game - they learn them as children and grow up in them into adulthood. You need only look at figure skating as one example where elite skaters as the same age as their "ordinary" counterparts aer more naive, child-like, etc having only known - school-rink-school-rink.

In any event i think there was a certain tongue-in-cheek point of MM's post!

Ant

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Forgive me and correct me, MM, if i have got this wrong but, Joe i don't think you could have miscontrued MM's post more if you tried! The point wasn't how the sports stars go on to achieve things after sports - it's that doing them is a child's game - they learn them as children and grow up in them into adulthood. You need only look at figure skating as one example where elite skaters as the same age as their "ordinary" counterparts aer more naive, child-like, etc having only known - school-rink-school-rink.

In any event i think there was a certain tongue-in-cheek point of MM's post!

Ant

Yes, Ant - I did get the underlying tongue in cheek remark. I think the point was that all sportsminded children never grow up. Maybe my implication that children involved in academics alone do grow up healthier was questionable. Although that was not mentioned, I just think it should have been. Tenley Albright went on to be a surgeon, she is still interested in figure skating. I don't think that interest is childish.

What gets sportsminded people at any age, is the challenge it presents. Overcoming obstacles is inherent in all we do. How dangerous is it? Thats a moot question.

It could be I found the topic going from the sublime to the ridiculous, and wanted to keep it active.

 

[antmanb]

Yes, Ant - I did get the underlying tongue in cheek remark. I think the point was that all sportsminded children never grow up. Maybe my implication that children involved in academics alone do grow up healthier was questionable. Although that was not mentioned, I just think it should have been. Tenley Albright went on to be a surgeon, she is still interested in figure skating. I don't think that interest is childish.

No still think that point was never made by MM - it was a leap you made. I think the only point was they are child like for as long as they remain in the sport without ever having a break from it until they get out of it. They may, once they leave the sport (i.e. stop competing at that level) then go on to learn to have a "normal" life and grow up a little, which may or may not include having a successfull career outside of that sport, that was never considered in MM's post though.

Ant