Which era of figure skating was the best?

[gsk8]

Which era of skating was the best for you? Do you prefer the artistic storytelling of the past or today’s technical aspect?

Here are the decades and some examples. Feel free to add more!

1980s: The Age of Drama and Personality
Big characters, emotional programs, and unforgettable Olympic moments.
(Katarina Witt, Brian Boitano, Torvill & Dean)

1990s: The Perfect Balance
Artistry met athleticism in a way many still call the sport’s “golden era.”
(Michelle Kwan, Alexei Yagudin, Midori Ito, Gordeeva & Grinkov)

2000s: The Technical Shift
The new judging system changed everything — more precision, more detail, more quads.
(Yuna Kim, Mao Asada, Plushenko, Shen & Zhao)

2010s: The Quad Revolution
Athleticism reached new heights while artistry evolved with it.
(Yuzuru Hanyu, Nathan Chen, Evgenia Medvedeva, Virtue & Moir, Papadakis & Cizeron)

2020s: The Era of Innovation
New stars, new ideas, and a global mix of styles shaping the sport’s next chapter.
(Kaori Sakamoto, Ilia Malinin, Chock & Bates, Adam Siao Him Fa)

 

[4everchan]

For me it came with the IJS first Olympics in 2006 until mid 2010s before the Quad Revolution.

So if I were to put a decade, I'd be putting it from 2005-2015. I feel that after that, the emphasis on quad has prevented from developing true skating skills.

 

[Kimmadigan]

1980’s

 

[gsk8]

The poll for this thread is active now

 

[noskates]

The perfect balance sums it up for me. On top of some wonderful skating there were also 2 touring shows where you could actually see the skaters in a "live" performance. I really disliked it when quads became so important and thought it detracted from the beauty of the sport. I do think with skaters like Jason Brown we're coming back to that balance again. Interesting poll Gsk8. Thanks.

 

[teddycat]

The 1990s may have been the best in terms of skating quality and media prominence. There have been excellent skaters in all eras, but there is too much emphasis on quads now IMO. Not that they aren't exciting to see when done well, but it slants the scoring and we don't see nearly as many balanced skaters and programs.

There seemed to be a lot more TV coverage several decades ago, including pairs and ice dance which isn't featured much now except for the top US teams. They also had televised professional skating competitions in which you could see Boitano vs. Orser among other names, so they didn't just fade away when they turned pro as seems to be the case now with the exception of the few who make it on Stars on Ice.

 

[Baron Vladimir]

I think you can find personality on ice, art and innovation, technical brilliance and revolutions in all of those decades. For that reason I don't personally have my favorite decade, but I can say the current one is definitely my least fav, for the fact it is based on recycling (even that was happening before, but not in that capacity) of the things we already saw before. You can find more of 'interesting ways' to recycling those former decades, so it is not the innovation type of a thing. I mean, Loena is 'Katarina Witt wannabe', Ilia is 'Yagudin wannabe', Trusova is 'Nathan Chen wannabe' etc etc There is nothing innovative in Kaori and Adam's skate, Surya Bonally did a backflip, plus landed it on one foot at Olympics almost 30 years ago.

 

[Diana Delafield]

Which era of skating was the best for you? Do you prefer the artistic storytelling of the past or today’s technical aspect?

Here are the decades and some examples. Feel free to add more!

1980s: The Age of Drama and Personality
Big characters, emotional programs, and unforgettable Olympic moments.
(Katarina Witt, Brian Boitano, Torvill & Dean)

1990s: The Perfect Balance
Artistry met athleticism in a way many still call the sport’s “golden era.”
(Michelle Kwan, Alexei Yagudin, Midori Ito, Gordeeva & Grinkov)

2000s: The Technical Shift
The new judging system changed everything — more precision, more detail, more quads.
(Yuna Kim, Mao Asada, Plushenko, Shen & Zhao)

2010s: The Quad Revolution
Athleticism reached new heights while artistry evolved with it.
(Yuzuru Hanyu, Nathan Chen, Evgenia Medvedeva, Virtue & Moir, Papadakis & Cizeron)

2020s: The Era of Innovation
New stars, new ideas, and a global mix of styles shaping the sport’s next chapter.
(Kaori Sakamoto, Ilia Malinin, Chock & Bates, Adam Siao Him Fa)

Oh, definitely my own competition era . Well, broadly speaking, my 1980s and the next generation in the 1990s.

 

[lariko]

The quad era for me. Basically, for me, with pandemic, with cancelling of the Montreal WC, that was the begining of the end. I would call 2020s era Age of Division or Acrimony or Schemes rather than Innovation -- with all the love to Malinin and Shaidorov. Hopefully, 2030s will be some kind of actual Balance or Reunification or Quiet era. I am sure sick and tired of the direction of the 2020s in figure skating.

 

[lariko]

I think you can find personality on ice, art and innovation, technical brilliance and revolutions in all of those decades. For that reason I don't personally have my favorite decade, but I can say the current one is definitely my least fav, for the fact it is based on recycling (even that was happening before, but not in that capacity) of the things we already saw before. You can find more of 'interesting ways' to recycling those former decades, so it is not the innovation type of a thing. I mean, Loena is 'Katarina Witt wannabe', Ilia is 'Yagudin wannabe', Trusova is 'Nathan Chen wannabe' etc etc There is nothing innovative in Kaori and Adam's skate, Surya Bonally did a backflip, plus landed it on one foot at Olympics almost 30 years ago.

Well, apparently, Trusova wasn't a part of quad revolution. Medvedeva was. Not sure how, since she didn't jump quads.

 

[Isk]

The worst time for me for various reasons was 2002-2006, I didn't really watch except 2006 olympics. I rewatched later some of the competitions from this period and liked some programs very much. Overall, the best time under IJS was around 2007 - 2016, I think.

 

[Mathman]

1980s for men. Innovative artistry and attention to detail. Robin Cousins for grace of movement, Jan Hoffman for figures. John Curry and Toller Cranston had "graduated" in 1976 and in the 80s were leading the way in profession shows and ice theater.

For ladies, the 1990s was the golden age both for competitions and for touring shows, at least in the United States. Stars on Ice and Champions on Ice had 60 to 80 stops per year, playing to mostly full-ish houses.

 

[Mathman]

The worst time for me for various reasons was 2002-2006, I didn't really watch except 2006 olympics. I rewatched later some of the competitions from this period and liked some programs very much.

Shen and Zhao, 2003 Worlds. Shizuka Arakawa, 2004 Worlds. Irina Slutskaya, 2005 Worlds,

 

[Magill]

I'm surprised not surprised to see so much North America bias in the posts above. Shows are thriving in Japan, and I think in Russia, too, though I am not very familiar with the latter, and pro careers are shining and abundant there for former competitive greats, of course not for everyone, but then they never were truly for everyone. Even Europe is trying to revive ice shows, with Art on Ice, Caroline Kostner's and Stephane Lambiel's efforts to do the same. I understand they are mostly dead in US, and SOI is getting more and more out of date and lagging behind the competition everywhere, but this is by far not the whole world. And I guess they just need to catch up with the others, or give space to more modern forms and formats which are so successful elsewhere.

As for the best era, I guess everyone picks the time when their most beloved skaters were up and about, but I do not think this is the only reason for me to pick up the 2010s as the best era, reaching up to technical heights and not losing the performance, the thrill and "artistry" factor just yet. For me, that was the dreamy balance era which I will always look back to with utmost sentiment

 

[TallyT]

I find the question difficult - even for me a little irrelevant - maybe I watch figure skating in a very personalised and individualistic way for personal favourites and individual skaters, there's no time-based commonality holding them together, it's like asking what era of music is my favourite. I look at the thousands of videos I've harvested and they're scattered all over the decades (and even more so when I consider that pre2000 videos are rarer and lower quality, but in ice dance I have more 1990s than other decades. Not many more.)

I voted for the 2010s simply because relatively more of the male skaters I love (good and not so good), collect and rewatch were then, but for women (barring two or three names) it might be any time except 2015-22...

I suspect that most of us pick out of sheer sentiment and then find more rational reasons, just like many people do for any recreational joy.

 

[Jhar55]

80’s & 90’s

 

[Mathman]

I suspect that most of us pick out of sheer sentiment and then find more rational reasons...

Or not. Sometimes we make our picks out of sheer sentiment and never get around to the rational part. To me, figure skating is an escape and a vacation from rationality.

 

[lariko]

The worst time for me for various reasons was 2002-2006, I didn't really watch except 2006 olympics. I rewatched later some of the competitions from this period and liked some programs very much. Overall, the best time under IJS was around 2007 - 2016, I think.

I can't really imagine anything at all, whatsoever, to be worse than now, no matter how bad programs might have been. The worst choreography, the poorest TES are wonderful next to what is happening. Like, they can all have jumped doubles with sweet smiles and laboriously skated in a circle with plastered smiles and it still wouldn't be as horrible as now. It's just can't be out-badded. In my humble, obviously. And the worst thing, it could have been an incredible age of skating.

 

[Isk]

I can't really imagine anything at all, whatsoever, to be worse than now, no matter how bad programs might have been. The worst choreography, the poorest TES are wonderful next to what is happening. Like, they can all have jumped doubles with sweet smiles and laboriously skated in a circle with plastered smiles and it still wouldn't be as horrible as now. It's just can't be out-badded. In my humble, obviously. And the worst thing, it could have been an incredible age of skating.

I was busy doing other things. It's difficult to explain, but after 2002 it didn't feel the same. I never was too fixated on watching figure skating to begin with, I preferred doing things myself to watching them. I watched for aesthetics, speed, interesting choreography, flow, fun. To me it was a show and if my favourite skaters weren't the last, I was OK with others winning. To me it was a revelation that someone could be unhappy with a silver medal. Later I understood that in our competitive world your future income for years to come and ability to retire well may depend on placing just one placement higher.

Replacing the old familiar judging system with a new one felt to me like a fraud. I personally as a spectator didn't need this, I was pretty happy with what was already there. The second set of gold medals felt like a profanation. I had an instinctive feeling that we were being duped, and nobody could explain convincingly why we need this change. Later I understood it logically. Also, 1998-2002 was a quad race too. Not everyone "survived": Todd didn't, neither did Elvis Stojko. It was very sad to see long-time veterans limping away and loosing to Yagudin who was on limping legs trying to overcome still relatively fresh and uninjured Pluschenko. Plu didn't last long either, by 2004 he was already having a hard time with injuries. An increase in technical difficulty always leads to a drop in the artistry among the top skaters, even the artistic ones. The new system allowed such skaters as Stephane and Jeffrey to come forward, but I thought it over later and came to the conclusion that one way or another they'd not get lost under 6.0 either. They learned to skate under 6.0, which is quite amazing. Looking at some late 6.0 programs you'd never think this possible. But the 1998-2002 quad race also brought about skaters like Brian Joubert. I felt sorry for Brian. It didn't feel right that he should need 3 quads to be competitive. It was much more profitable to be a better skater than an advanced jumper in the 2000s, but judging by old videos, it seems the case also in 1970-1980s. Then Patrick proved you could both skate and have a quad, and the new quad era began. I just never thought jumping progress would be so fast that in 2017 I would be feeling sorry for Misha Ge.

 

[lariko]

I was busy doing other things. It's difficult to explain, but after 2002 it didn't feel the same. I never was too fixated on watching figure skating to begin with, I preferred doing things myself to watching them. I watched for aesthetics, speed, interesting choreography, flow, fun. To me it was a show and if my favourite skaters weren't the last, I was OK with others winning. To me it was a revelation that someone could be unhappy with a silver medal. Later I understood that in our competitive world your future income for years to come and ability to retire well may depend on placing just one placement higher.

Replacing the old familiar judging system with a new one felt to me like a fraud. I personally as a spectator didn't need this, I was pretty happy with what was already there. The second set of gold medals felt like a profanation. I had an instinctive feeling that we were being duped, and nobody could explain convincingly why we need this change. Later I understood it logically. Also, 1998-2002 was a quad race too. Not everyone "survived": Todd didn't, neither did Elvis Stojko. It was very sad to see long-time veterans limping away and loosing to Yagudin who was on limping legs trying to overcome still relatively fresh and uninjured Pluschenko. Plu didn't last long either, by 2004 he was already having a hard time with injuries. An increase in technical difficulty always leads to a drop in the artistry among the top skaters, even the artistic ones. The new system allowed such skaters as Stephane and Jeffrey to come forward, but I thought it over later and came to the conclusion that one way or another they'd not get lost under 6.0 either. They learned to skate under 6.0, which is quite amazing. Looking at some late 6.0 programs you'd never think this possible. But the 1998-2002 quad race also brought about skaters like Brian Joubert. I felt sorry for Brian. It didn't feel right that he should need 3 quads to be competitive. It was much more profitable to be a better skater than an advanced jumper in the 2000s, but judging by old videos, it seems the case also in 1970-1980s. Then Patrick proved you could both skate and have a quad, and the new quad era began. I just never thought jumping progress would be so fast that in 2017 I would be feeling sorry for Misha Ge.

And they still all had a chance to compete together regardless of what their individual strengths and weaknesses were. As far as I know, this decade is the only period in figure skating when it's not the case.