General Skating Chat

[rockstaryuzu]

5 hours ago, Fay said:

Never mind the presence of everyone here, just do it! 

Pretty much. Considering how invasive the drug testing regimens are in some sports, it astounds me that people still manage to cheat.

[rockstaryuzu]

5 hours ago, TallyT said:

I don't think we will get a media day this year, when's the latest we can hear about his programs?

Depends on where the season starts but if worst comes to worst, probably whatever is the earliest local Japanese competition he's eligible for...sectionals I guess? If ACI happens, then probably there.

[rockstaryuzu]

6 hours ago, Henni147 said:

 

For some reasons I have my doubts that the ISU is capable of arranging online judging. That means, every dinosaur of a judge and technical specialist needs a computer at home, fast internet and a judging software that sends the scores to the ISU in realtime. Ewn... 

 

Not to mention that US and Rus fed can't wait to fight out, who has the better software hackers to manipulate the online scoring. Poor Yuzu might end up with a negative total score in that virtual fed war.

Now you're just underestimating the hacking power of millions of fanyus.

[Songster01]

17 hours ago, SitTwizzle said:

A very bad sign I think. Yes it is in August but I do think it would have been manageable, should Skate Canada have taken advice from the Korean federation, and of course, with only local attendance (and maybe one dedicated hotel for all people coming from abroad). Unless Canadian government refused them to let athletes ant their teams compete without quarantine? But then, what about September and ACI? And what about SC?

 

Remember that other countries have different experiences with COVID-19 and even within a country different regions have differences on when cases appear, things peak, new peaks happen, level of health care, etc., etc., so what you perceive in your own locale as doable may be beyond reckless and logistically non-viable elsewhere.  Also see racism and perceptions of Western superiority on the part of Westerners being a barrier to conservative institutions (like most skating feds seem to be) on asking the advice of Asian institutions.  The BC government at least moved early compared to other Canadian provinces and those results showed, but that just underlined to BC's provincial public health team that being proactive works.  Hence, cancelling public events months from now makes perfect sense.  In general Canada isn't through its first wave yet, and easing up (as showed here in Ontario) may lead to more cases and later on more deaths. There are murmurs about a second big wave in the fall, perhaps even starting in late summer in North America.  Remember too that indoor settings are far more dangerous in regards to transmission, especially in events that last hours or more involving people yelling and screaming and no open windows to ventilate rinks.  Finally, consider that so far we've seen few requirements about mask-wearing in non-medical settings for consumers/visitors here in much of Canada.  Generally at most masks are "highly recommended" and only very recently.  Here in Toronto (Ontario) at most maybe half of customers appear with them in the stores I've visited.  To be fair cloth masks sell out very fast and take more time to ship (taking a week or two from locations maybe 45 minutes drive from my place), so accessibility to even cloth masks is still a challenge.  So would public health force local fans to wear masks?  What if COVID-iots appear and a fight breaks out?  Since ACI and SCI are in Ontario, it's best to pay attention to what is going on there, since the provinces have much of the power in determining things like public health rules.  Right now, especially as cases have begun to rise again, at most I see the few indoor sports events that happen for the next while (summer at the very least) will not have fans according to provincial rules.  No one wants to be the site of a new cluster.  Even the plans for popular pro sports like hockey do not allow for fans.  That may be a mix of safety and economics.  Tickets would have to be much higher to compensate and I'm not sure enough people would want to risk it even if they had the chance.   If a new surge is expected in the fall alongside or just before influenza season, then I doubt these rules would change much. 

 

As to the border: The US most especially is a huge danger to Canada and yes Canada could be a danger to the US in regards to transmission, and almost no country has escaped getting cases, so quarantining is a must for those few (if any) allowed to cross the border for non-essential reasons in the future.  The US-Can border is shut to non-essential travel until late June, and I'd be 1000000000% in favor of it remaining so until after a vaccine is rolled out, or some similar thing happened to make most travellers not a danger to others.  ACI and SC often get American skaters as well as American-trained skaters, as well as skaters from other present and former (and future?) COVID-19 hotspots.  Racism against people of East Asian heritage is a tragic part of the equation too.  There's a lot of vitriol and worse aimed at Chinese folks (and anyone thought to be Chinese) here, so I don't know if Chinese skaters would be barred.  Or selected countries may be barred.   

 

There would have to be major changes to the way competitions were set up to make Challengers and/or the GP series logistically viable and safe as "series".  Nationals (and potentially other domestic events) seem more feasible because there you wouldn't have to worry about foreign teams or fans.  You can use them to pick teams in case the championships take place.  But even those might happen without fans permitted after the summer passes.  If the disease comes back in a big way inter-province travel might be shut down like it mostly is at present in Canada. 

[Paskud]

6 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Depends on where the season starts but if worst comes to worst, probably whatever is the earliest local Japanese competition he's eligible for...sectionals I guess? If ACI happens, then probably there.

Regionals are first. But to go to regionals first of all he needs to be in Japan. So a big question is: Where the F is Yuzuru?

ultimate fanyu question XD

[SitTwizzle]

6 hours ago, Songster01 said:

 

Remember that other countries have different experiences with COVID-19 and even within a country different regions have differences on when cases appear, things peak, new peaks happen, level of health care, etc., etc., so what you perceive in your own locale as doable may be beyond reckless and logistically non-viable elsewhere.  Also see racism and perceptions of Western superiority on the part of Westerners being a barrier to conservative institutions (like most skating feds seem to be) on asking the advice of Asian institutions.  The BC government at least moved early compared to other Canadian provinces and those results showed, but that just underlined to BC's provincial public health team that being proactive works.  Hence, cancelling public events months from now makes perfect sense.  In general Canada isn't through its first wave yet, and easing up (as showed here in Ontario) may lead to more cases and later on more deaths. There are murmurs about a second big wave in the fall, perhaps even starting in late summer in North America.  Remember too that indoor settings are far more dangerous in regards to transmission, especially in events that last hours or more involving people yelling and screaming and no open windows to ventilate rinks.  Finally, consider that so far we've seen few requirements about mask-wearing in non-medical settings for consumers/visitors here in much of Canada.  Generally at most masks are "highly recommended" and only very recently.  Here in Toronto (Ontario) at most maybe half of customers appear with them in the stores I've visited.  To be fair cloth masks sell out very fast and take more time to ship (taking a week or two from locations maybe 45 minutes drive from my place), so accessibility to even cloth masks is still a challenge.  So would public health force local fans to wear masks?  What if COVID-iots appear and a fight breaks out?  Since ACI and SCI are in Ontario, it's best to pay attention to what is going on there, since the provinces have much of the power in determining things like public health rules.  Right now, especially as cases have begun to rise again, at most I see the few indoor sports events that happen for the next while (summer at the very least) will not have fans according to provincial rules.  No one wants to be the site of a new cluster.  Even the plans for popular pro sports like hockey do not allow for fans.  That may be a mix of safety and economics.  Tickets would have to be much higher to compensate and I'm not sure enough people would want to risk it even if they had the chance.   If a new surge is expected in the fall alongside or just before influenza season, then I doubt these rules would change much. 

 

As to the border: The US most especially is a huge danger to Canada and yes Canada could be a danger to the US in regards to transmission, and almost no country has escaped getting cases, so quarantining is a must for those few (if any) allowed to cross the border for non-essential reasons in the future.  The US-Can border is shut to non-essential travel until late June, and I'd be 1000000000% in favor of it remaining so until after a vaccine is rolled out, or some similar thing happened to make most travellers not a danger to others.  ACI and SC often get American skaters as well as American-trained skaters, as well as skaters from other present and former (and future?) COVID-19 hotspots.  Racism against people of East Asian heritage is a tragic part of the equation too.  There's a lot of vitriol and worse aimed at Chinese folks (and anyone thought to be Chinese) here, so I don't know if Chinese skaters would be barred.  Or selected countries may be barred.   

 

There would have to be major changes to the way competitions were set up to make Challengers and/or the GP series logistically viable and safe as "series".  Nationals (and potentially other domestic events) seem more feasible because there you wouldn't have to worry about foreign teams or fans.  You can use them to pick teams in case the championships take place.  But even those might happen without fans permitted after the summer passes.  If the disease comes back in a big way inter-province travel might be shut down like it mostly is at present in Canada. 

Oh yes. I may be seen as naive here, but this Covid-crisis at last opened my eyes upon a racism, at least in France, against Asians, which until now I believed to be limited to some "outlaw zones". At least a strong bias. I discovered that I was lucky to love (Jap')anime that much since childhood, to have had the occasion to read "La Chine en Construction" in the 80s, I knew it was propaganda but it opened so broad horizons (and the official editor was the legendary Soong-Ching-ling, widow of Sun-Yat-sen and daughter of Charlie Soong, who appeared in Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese adventures). (And media and government try to push in this direction of racism, to please Big Pharma. But here we are entering politics, I fear.)

Of course there should be a mask policy for the attendance, I understand it may be a problem? But cannot it be considered in the reverse, that a figure skating Junior trophy may be the best, most innocuous test, because attendants are more likely to be more compliant, both towards a compulsory mask policy (and contrary to a plane, where a P95 mask may be a minimum, a skating rink has a large volume of air for each attendant, allowing any mask) and a request not to shout with open mouth, even with the mask on? May not we start to have humming encouragements? Of course attendance may be denied access to the practice, in order to have time enough to renew air.

And it is, by the end of August, that is in three months.

[rockstaryuzu]

2 hours ago, Paskud said:

Regionals are first. But to go to regionals first of all he needs to be in Japan. So a big question is: Where the F is Yuzuru?

ultimate fanyu question XD

Come on, why do people keep wondering this? There's absolutely no reason for him to be anywhere else except for at home in Japan. 

 

The question is whether or not the restrictions on travel to Canada will be lifted in time for it to make sense for him to come back here before the season starts or not. 

[Lunna]

43 минуты назад, rockstaryuzu сказал:

Come on, why do people keep wondering this? There's absolutely no reason for him to be anywhere else except for at home in Japan. 

 

The question is whether or not the restrictions on travel to Canada will be lifted in time for it to make sense for him to come back here before the season starts or not. 

I hope Yuzu was with family at these times, but I would worry less if he can train at TCC under his coach eyes, cuz he may be adult and all, but at the same time we all remember that one GPF practice...

[Paskud]

42 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Come on, why do people keep wondering this? There's absolutely no reason for him to be anywhere else except for at home in Japan. 

 

The question is whether or not the restrictions on travel to Canada will be lifted in time for it to make sense for him to come back here before the season starts or not. 

Coming back to Japan means going through airports and planes - no 1 place where people get infected. And he is in high risk group.

[TallyT]

58 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Come on, why do people keep wondering this? There's absolutely no reason for him to be anywhere else except for at home in Japan.

 

People are still wondering because [a] we are going stir crazy without any watering of the cactii during the drought and the few drops we have received, he has gone to such pains to hide any clues that we go more crazy.

 

It's going to be a looooong off-season.

[Paskud]

1 hour ago, SitTwizzle said:

Of course there should be a mask policy for the attendance, I understand it may be a problem? But cannot it be considered in the reverse, that a figure skating Junior trophy may be the best, most innocuous test, because attendants are more likely to be more compliant, both towards a compulsory mask policy (and contrary to a plane, where a P95 mask may be a minimum, a skating rink has a large volume of air for each attendant, allowing any mask) and a request not to shout with open mouth, even with the mask on? May not we start to have humming encouragements? Of course attendance may be denied access to the practice, in order to have time enough to renew air.

You want to jeopardise juniors? For what?

[SitTwizzle]

6 minutes ago, Paskud said:

You want to jeopardise juniors? For what?

Oh no, I don't want to jeopardise anybody.

I am convinced there is way to secure their safety in such a competition.

I was relieved Skate Canada cancelled Worlds because they had not even tried to implement a safety policy, but upset by the fact they had not done so. Even launched stupid ideas (Awards and, worst of all, that crowd bath for athletes) during the explosion phase of the epidemic, instead.

And I don't know what they have done to this date. I am afraid, very little.

But they may start now, isn't it?

The advantage of a Junior trophy is not directly that the athletes are Junior, it is that this is a real international trophy and at the same time, wouldn't attract the same crowds as better known competitions. Plus, I think there is only one rink involved? This is why it is a perfect test. Should I be a Junior athlete, therefore fearing any lung damage (such as even an asymptomatic infection can give), or a coach, I would check attentively all safety policies (travel, accommodation, practice and competition) and, if they are correct, go enthusiastically.

[SparkleSalad]

 

 

[Lunna]

7 часов назад, Songster01 сказал:

The US-Can border is shut to non-essential travel until late June, and I'd be 1000000000% in favor of it remaining so until after a vaccine is rolled out, or some similar thing happened to make most travellers not a danger to others.

I think in regards to travel every country will behave differently, cuz some economics depend on travel industry a lot, some less (Canada is in much less category I guess) and as vaccine can take a couple of years I just can't see borders shut for that long (I personally will be very depressed without being able to spend a vacation with travelling) . The same goes to sport industry.

But we will see what happens, I'm sure ISU will want as many comps as possible but they depend on local officials anyway.

[lajoitko]

1 hour ago, SparkleSalad said:

 

 

 

I read this as "we would love to hold the event if it is possible". Situation is quite calm right now and things are starting to open in the beginning of June (restaurants with limitations, sports leagues, gatherings of max 50 people). But the atmosphere is quiet and everybody is like "let´s wait and see".  Events of 500 people and over are forbidden until the end of July and it can continue still. Some say that the second wave is coming sometime in autumn, some say it won´t come, but we just have to wait and see.