General Skating Chat

[Fay]

Finland Trophy Espoo is cancelled 

 

[Sombreuil]

Watched a lot of cricket the last few days - bores me to sobs but we’re trying to socialise the kittens and the easiest way is lots of playing and noise.  Cricket isn’t as weird without sound as football but empty grounds are still a bit eerie.  Anyway. The point is technology.  I understand the lbw rule even less than I do the offside rule in football, but the tech is awesome - the voice booms across the arena and explains the replay, the points in issue and the result plus the reason  for the result , all in a few moments.  The slo mo, the graphic of what the ball is actually hitting on its trajectory through the wicket- it’s all brilliant.  If a sport as hidebound as cricket can embrace tech like this wtf is stopping the ISU?  

[rockstaryuzu]

4 hours ago, Sombreuil said:

Watched a lot of cricket the last few days - bores me to sobs but we’re trying to socialise the kittens and the easiest way is lots of playing and noise.  Cricket isn’t as weird without sound as football but empty grounds are still a bit eerie.  Anyway. The point is technology.  I understand the lbw rule even less than I do the offside rule in football, but the tech is awesome - the voice booms across the arena and explains the replay, the points in issue and the result plus the reason  for the result , all in a few moments.  The slo mo, the graphic of what the ball is actually hitting on its trajectory through the wicket- it’s all brilliant.  If a sport as hidebound as cricket can embrace tech like this wtf is stopping the ISU?  

That's simple enough. The difference is audience size, which of course equates to money, and (this is my opinionated guess) the perception of figure skating as a sport only women care about. If figure skating had a mainly male audience, there would be a lot more invested in it, full stop. 

[SitTwizzle]

15 hours ago, Sombreuil said:

Watched a lot of cricket the last few days - bores me to sobs but we’re trying to socialise the kittens and the easiest way is lots of playing and noise.  Cricket isn’t as weird without sound as football but empty grounds are still a bit eerie.  Anyway. The point is technology.  I understand the lbw rule even less than I do the offside rule in football, but the tech is awesome - the voice booms across the arena and explains the replay, the points in issue and the result plus the reason  for the result , all in a few moments.  The slo mo, the graphic of what the ball is actually hitting on its trajectory through the wicket- it’s all brilliant.  If a sport as hidebound as cricket can embrace tech like this wtf is stopping the ISU?  

Oh, so there does exist a British subject not understanding cricket rules? 

 

11 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

That's simple enough. The difference is audience size, which of course equates to money, and (this is my opinionated guess) the perception of figure skating as a sport only women care about. If figure skating had a mainly male audience, there would be a lot more invested in it, full stop. 

Yet, I understand ISU have lots of reserves (and may have to dig in to survive CoViD crisis, by the way). Much more than needed to set up a way to judge fairly the most technical points, and let judges more free to collect on those less easy to be scored by a set of cameras, a small computer and a little software.

[rockstaryuzu]

3 hours ago, SitTwizzle said:

Yet, I understand ISU have lots of reserves (and may have to dig in to survive CoViD crisis, by the way

That's irrelevant if they're not the ones who foot the bill for competition costs, which are usually recouped from ticket sales and TV rights, as far as I know. Also, are you talking specifically ISU Figure Skating, or the ISU as a whole, which has other sports to look after, namely speed skating and short track, which have different financial considerations altogether. I mean, there's only one country in the entire world where speed skating could even remotely make money, and that'd be Holland.

[SitTwizzle]

1 hour ago, rockstaryuzu said:

That's irrelevant if they're not the ones who foot the bill for competition costs, which are usually recouped from ticket sales and TV rights, as far as I know. Also, are you talking specifically ISU Figure Skating, or the ISU as a whole, which has other sports to look after, namely speed skating and short track, which have different financial considerations altogether. I mean, there's only one country in the entire world where speed skating could even remotely make money, and that'd be Holland.

They would foot the bill for the software, and probably for some sets of cameras and computers, and the others, being rather inexpensive (with the installation and commissioning engineer) would get them savings as they would need much less people on the tech panel (volunteer but their expenses have to be reimbursed). Do you remember what a member of the Ice Dance tech panel said after Europeans? 80% of their time goes to counting turns in spins! In 2020!

As to speed skating, it would make money should Yuzuru Hanyu do some, in spite of what Kikuchi-san wrote about his highly specialised muscles. 

[sallycinnamon]

Nebelhorn Trophy will be held without spectators but it'll be live streamed worldwide.

 

 

[rockstaryuzu]

2 hours ago, sallycinnamon said:

Nebelhorn Trophy will be held without spectators but it'll be live streamed worldwide.

 

 

I'm guessing it'll be only skaters who are already in Europe competing... anyone coming from this side of the Atlantic is still facing quarantine restrictions. 

[Lunna]

7 минут назад, rockstaryuzu сказал:

I'm guessing it'll be only skaters who are already in Europe competing... anyone coming from this side of the Atlantic is still facing quarantine restrictions. 

Isn't Europe open to South Korea? Though I don't think anyone will take a long flight for this comp, still not bad for Europe, cuz there's no much internal comps in most countries I think.

[EisElle]

Idk if I'm really happy that Nebelhorn is, after all, going on, even if without spectators.

I should trust organizers and teams to take all the necessary precautions, I guess, but right now I don't really have much trust in individual responsibility   not when people have been selfishly throwing caution to the wind just so they could "have fun" as usual this summer(and make money out of that)

Many european countries are experiencing the second wave right now (despite the expectations that summer + less indoors activities would significantly reduce the spread of the virus). Even if afaik most cases are young people (hence, hospitals aren't being overhelmed...yet), in response to this spike, some travel restrictions have been brought back (like requests to people from certain countries to quarantine).

So, it looks like travelling, even within Europe, might not be as "easy" as it looked back in June/July (an aside, I hope that this second wave will at least remind goverments and general population that they must avoid other dangerous missteps). Still, it will be a chance for skaters from small european countires to take part in an international comp. I'm guessing many skaters training in Champery might head there, for example.

(wondering if Asahi streaming is partly because they know Koshiro and maybe, who knows, Rika or Shoma, too, might be there too)

 

Anyway, the radical choice of cancelling Finlandia throphy entirely actually surprised me more than the news of Nebelhorn taking place. I expect other comps will take place like Nebelhorn, even if without audience and only with a limited pool of skaters.

Still waiting to see what the heck will happen with GPs, and still hoping no "GPF" will be taking place

[Lunna]

48 минут назад, LadyLou сказал:

Anyway, the radical choice of cancelling Finlandia throphy entirely actually surprised me more than the news of Nebelhorn taking place. I expect other comps will take place like Nebelhorn, even if without audience and only with a limited pool of skaters.

From the news I've got the impression that Finland is more strict in terms of travelling even within Europe, so maybe that's why it got cancelled.

[ralucutzagy]

Damn virus, guys ... if it were normal times we would been enjoying JGPs and all the other skating events now ... we would have know Yuzu's new programs by now ... damn virus, man ...  sigh

[lajoitko]

3 hours ago, Lunna said:

From the news I've got the impression that Finland is more strict in terms of travelling even within Europe, so maybe that's why it got cancelled.

 

Yes, you are right. The government is looking at the situation every two weeks and right now the restrictions are really tight and changes happen very fast. It is impossible to know from which countries to get here in October. I believe this is the main reason for cancellation.

[EisElle]

3 hours ago, Lunna said:

From the news I've got the impression that Finland is more strict in terms of travelling even within Europe, so maybe that's why it got cancelled.

yeah, and such a different attitude compared to neighboring Sweden. I hope finnish skaters will manage to get some training and comp experience all the same though

 

13 minutes ago, lajoitko said:

 

Yes, you are right. The government is looking at the situation every two weeks and right now the restrictions are really tight and changes happen very fast. It is impossible to know from which countries to get here in October. I believe this is the main reason for cancellation.

thank you for the info

[Fay]