ISU Congress 2022 (6-10 June)

[Paskud]

#important

 

[Pammi]

15 minutes ago, Paskud said:

#important

 

Ugggghhhhh There really is no hope for this sport....

 

.....then there is this in an Italian National Newspaper (I used google translate, it was fine)

The OP says

Italy's major national newspapers bitterly criticize the figure skating world "American-Russian conflict: corruption and new rules are trying to ruin this sport"

 

 

 

Translation of article to English is under the spoiler

Spoiler

This is an article by Costanza Ritza Casa, the author, writer and journalist of a column recently translated from yesterday's newspaper of Corriere della Sera, a major Italian national newspaper . He criticizes the current figure skating world.

Costanza Ritza Casa
(June 5, 2022)

Original (digital version) >>

The United States is considering a jump incentive rule that takes advantage of Russia's absence and eliminates artistic expression

Alexander Zhulin, coach of Russian pair Victoria Sinitsina / Nikita Katsalapov, who took the lead in rhythm dance after the disappointing performance of the short program of then-current world champion Nathan Chen at last year's Stockholm World Championships. Slipped his mouth and made a very serious mistake. He said: " If the United States wins the gold medal in the men's single, there is no need to worry about the American pair being given preferential treatment in ice dancing . " Welcome to the
figure skating world . Here the United States and Russia are sharing gold medals with the consent of the ISU and other federations .

If corruption is the oldest problem in figure skating, Russia's immense power is one of the biggest scandals in history at the Salt Lake City Olympics (a pair of French judges pressured by the president of their own United Nations). We scored in favor of the Russian pair and against the Canadian pair, and in return they were given preferential treatment to their own pair in ice dancing. The Russian mafia was involved in all the work, as revealed by the FBI). The situation has changed significantly since 20 years ago.

The dramatic edition of the ISU Conference, scheduled for June 10th in Phuket, kicks off today. Corruption in the figure skating world is always serious, but power relationships are changing . With the geopolitical situation that Russian players are banned from participating in official competitions due to the invasion of Ukraine, it is the United States that is dominated by the power of the dollar and public relations .

NBC , the official Olympic broadcaster , has paid $ 7.75 billion to broadcast the Olympics for the sixth Olympic Games since Beijing . That 's 40% of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) revenue, and in effect acts as an IOC partner. In addition, there is IMG, a huge sports / PR agent that dominates the figure skating world.

And now, for the first time, an American ISU president could be born . Patricia St. Peter, a former lawyer and former federation president who conducted an ABC News investigation in 2019, is said to have been involved in concealing the sexual harassment case against former skater Craig Maurigi (). Exactly last year, the American Federation negotiated with former skater Adam Schmidt for $ 1.45 million to end a lawsuit over teenage obscene acts by coach Richard Callaghan, the same coach Maurigi sued).

There is also a different concept of figure skating in the background . Historically known as "figure" skating after the figures drawn on the ice, this sport is now getting closer and closer to the "jump championship" . It's no coincidence that people say "let's call it ice jumping" ironically. Beijing's gold medalist Chen himself said, "If you want art, look at ballet."

While technical analysis has questioned the judges' scoring at the last Olympics , the United States, Russia, and the ISU seem to have found a golden boy that suits them all. The player, 17-year-old with Russian parents (former skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov) and an American passport, Ilia Malinin has never won a senior tournament, but the "Quad G0d" He calls himself (the god of quadruple jumps).

Marinein is currently a quadruple axel whose base score was lowered from 15 to 12.5 by the ISU in 2018 (at the same time the GOE to evaluate the performance of each element was raised from + 3 / -3 to + 5 / -5. The range in which the judges can manipulate the score in a subjective and discretionary way has been greatly expanded), and the coach of the International Skating Union, Tom Zakradisek, wrote on Twitter a few days ago: " ISU must raise the base point of the 4 Axel significantly. "

The two proposals being considered at the Thai conference (in any case, Russian officials continue to attend to avoid proceedings against the ISU) by a rule that is twisted to favor the favorites at that time are : There is a danger of completely eliminating the beauty of this sport: step sequences, difficult jumps in and out, and even interpretations of music ...

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☆ This is a very strong article that raises a serious problem in the figure skating world, which has been going on for several years now.
The important thing is that this is not a fan's personal blog, but an article published in one of Italy's two major national newspapers.

It's nothing new for the ISU to modify the rules to win a player in a particular country or not to win a particular player.
It has happened many times in the history of figure skating competition over 100 years.
After the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, the "solo jump from the step", which has long been an integral part of the short program, has been abolished. As a result, even in a short program with only three jump elements, players will not be deducted even if they jump all jumps from a long run (actually a long run is a GOE minus matter, but in some cases it is actually deducted. (I have rarely seen it), so that the 4 Lutz and 4 flips, which were carried out from the long run and the jump quality itself is not good, can earn higher scores than the 4 Salchow and 4 toe loops that were beautifully carried out from the difficult entry. became. It is clearer than looking at the fire who this amendment has benefited.

If you read the rule guidelines, the three scores, the basic score (BV) for assessing the difficulty of jumping, the GOE for assessing the quality of each element, and the PCS for assessing skating and programming are evaluated independently of each other. Should have to be done.
Probably until the time of Sochi. That's why Patrick Chan, who is overwhelmingly superior in GOE and PCS, has become the world champion for the third consecutive year.
However, when a player jumps 4 flips or 4 lutz, +4 or +5 will be generously lined up just by saying that these difficult jumps have just landed, regardless of the quality of the jump. I did. In the rules, the plus requirements of GOE are specifically determined such as jump width and height, icing flow, aerial posture, ingenuity of entry, sound fit, etc., and the number of rotations and type of jump should not be considered. ..
To make matters worse, the mysterious tendency that each item is automatically raised to the 9-point range when many quadruple jumps are decided, that is, the performance composition points that should be evaluated for the program, has become firmly established in the last few years. It's gone.
Why does the success of five quadruple jumps raise the bar for transitions, composition, and interpretation of music?
Perhaps because of this flood of criticisms, the new rules seek to exclude transitions and musical interpretations from the PCS section.
The ISU's thinking circuit hasn't changed at all from four years ago, when the requirement itself was abolished as a result of continued criticism of the solo jumps of short programs with no steps.

Where does the ISU want to go for figure skating, which was born as an artistic skate?

 

[Sun_Rise]

So it's done.

 

[meowmeownyan]

Proposal 158/201 passed. Long live figure skating 

 

 

[LiaRy]

10 minutes ago, Sun_Rise said:

So it's done.

 

They are idiots. Maybe I shoud move this to the venting thread, but I think people should see this. All my life I've liked figure skating even if I didn't follow every competition, every season and did not know skaters. This year I was so happy to finally get into it as a fan. And everything is upside-down. FS next season is not even going to be FS anymore.

[JanMary]

I was writing an essay about the sequence amendment and now we have this... more ambiguity, more subjectivity, less and less credibility (if any)... when more than 150 marks will be given this way, why should I even care about the BV difference of 2A and 2T...

[JanMary]

One judge says in the congress that he cannot decide 27 criteria for PCS in a few seconds, then why do they think they can just give 150 marks out in a few seconds…? and how about GOEs, he also decides tens of criteria for GOE judging in a few seconds with no problem there? How do they even convince themselves?

[JanMary]

Yeah you can argue they were not judging according to the rules anyway, making this rule change actually meaningless. But they chose to take out transitions, one of the most objective PCS criteria, and then interpretation, one even non-FS fans can understand. They are very smart. 

[ImmortalBeloved]

Just want to cry. I bet Yuzu is seeing all this and thinking why should he bother trying to compete   This is indeed a terrible day.... 

[Paskud]

Fun fact: at ISU novice A competitions stsq is required in both SP and FP. Novice have more difficult FPs than juniors now.

[JanMary]

I really don’t understand… to be honest nowadays many if not most men’s single skaters use chsq as an opportunity to rest and with the right passports they get +4+5s just by doing two spread eagles. 

[airi]

Eh, time to calm down and be happy that Yuzuru won everything at a time when figure skating still resembled a sport 

[Anni]

It just makes me sad to see how FS has developed... Yuzu loves the skate ....but will he continue skate with these rules? No matter how he decides he has our support.

[Mona_Melissa]

6 hours ago, LiaRy said:

They are idiots. Maybe I shoud move this to the venting thread, but I think people should see this. All my life I've liked figure skating even if I didn't follow every competition, every season and did not know skaters. This year I was so happy to finally get into it as a fan. And everything is upside-down. FS next season is not even going to be FS anymore.

As a member who hasn't posted enough to see the vent thread apparently, I appreciate being able to read honest opinions and conversations about things that will directly affect Yuzu's decision to continue to compete, and has affected his career over the last quad.  New members, and those of us who are uneducated about FS scoring need to be able to see these things.  Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts with all of us.  I feel the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anabel]

1 hour ago, Mona_Melissa said:

As a member who hasn't posted enough to see the vent thread apparently, I appreciate being able to read honest opinions and conversations about things that will directly affect Yuzu's decision to continue to compete, and has affected his career over the last quad.  New members, and those of us who are uneducated about FS scoring need to be able to see these things.  Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts with all of us.  I feel the same.

I understand what you say, but sometimes it's difficult to know when the words used or the way of expressing yourself may hurt the sensitivity of others.