Let's talk figure skating!

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I’m sure this thread will end in about three posts. Sigh. No one really cares anymore about this sport.
And since the COVID-19 pandemic, most rinks have pretty much closed down–a small number of determined athletes serious about the sport continue to practice in the early morning hours–you have no idea how comforting it is to Peeps to know that skaters are still getting up in the dark and working on their MIF and Freestyle tests, and on weekends, the synchro teams are still working out (and actually touching each other!).

Up until the IJS was adopted by the ISU, almost everyone, even…gasp!..men!..watched figure skating on TV and rooted for the U.S. team!

Did you know that in the 1990s, figure skating was the 3rd most watched television sport, after NFL and MLB? It even beat out basketball!

Now…most people have no idea who our current National champions are, let alone the World champions, and really don’t care.

And I would venture to say that most people have no idea what I mean when I say, “IJS.” How about if I say “CoP system?”

Still no clue? How about “6.0!”

SO…does anyone else still love the sport? What do you think of the IJS? Do you think that synchronized skating should be “allowed” at this time (COVID)? Why do you think our U.S. ladies have failed to get on the medal podium for years now? Do you think SafeSport has been a factor in the decline of U.S. figure skating prowess? Would you encourage your sons to get involved with the sport, and if not, why not? As an adult, would you ever take Learn To Skate classes or lessons? Does your town or city have a skating rink? Have you ever attended a local ice skating show or competition? How about a professional ice show or competition? What do you think of the school figures–good or bad for the sport and for the skaters?

Let’s talk…figure skating!
 
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I’ll bite. 🙂

I used to watch figure skating both on TV and in person (sectional and regional competitions). Now, to be honest, I don’t watch. It’s not on TV very much and I don’t live close to a rink that hosts competitions.
 
I used to enjoy the individual men’s and women’s competitions, and the pairs free skate. I don’t much care for the ice dancing, I like to see the skaters jump and fly through the air. The Olympics has gotten too boring and political, so I don’t watch it any more for decades now, but will watch individual performances on Youtube.

I’ll admit I was really turned off by the whole Tonya Harding/ Nancy Kerrigan business. One wanted to feel sorry for Nancy but she came off like kind of a pain in the neck. Also I wasn’t too jazzed when she married her agent who’d already been married twice. Then the later scandals with many young girl skaters being sexually abused, and having to hear about how they were sent to live at young ages in bad conditions at these training camps where they were emotionally, physically, and sexually abused, was a turnoff.

From a pure sports standpoint I have also found a lot of the music used by skaters boring in the past, although that’s improved somewhat.

Here is a great performance from a few years ago that has music I enjoy and a skater at the top of his game.

 
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With the exceptions of “NFL” and “MLB”, I have no idea what the abbreviations in the OP mean?

I used to enjoy watching televised figure skating, but in recent years it has become too envelope-pushy (Somewhat the same for international gymnastics). For example:
Commentaor: Here comes Sonja Button. She’s going to try to set the world record by peforming the first ever quintuple loupe-de-loo… Oh no! She’s fallen on her kiester!

Scotty Hamilton: That’ll be a tenth of a point deduction!
A tenth of a point!?!? I could go out there and fall on my dupa! I want to see people perform, but not beyond their abilities!

2️⃣ ©️ ©️
 
I used to ice skate and take lessons.

The boys from the hockey team grabbed a line of girls to make them fall. I just cut and spun. Hee hee.

Now my youngest daughter is a whizz on blades.
Thank you mom 😊 I still love roller blading
 
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I fell in love with watching ice skating when Dorothy Hamill was the champ. She had the most perfect haircut for an ice skater! However, I grew up in Florida and it just wasn’t a popular sport there so I never learned to ice skate.

Other than loving to watch it in the Olympics, I never see it on TV and I know little about what makes one performance better than another other than falling isn’t good! 😂. I will say it has become much more athletic and less about pure grace on the ice. It gained with the abilities these folks have and the amazing aerial moves they can do, but it lost something when the gracefulness was rated lower than the athletics.

I will still watch the Olympic competitions! I love rooting for the USA even if I’m clueless as to scoring. We do have a rink in my town and I know there are completion issues with the hockey practice vs the skaters for ice time. A few years ago, the local paper ran a few articles when the two groups were battling over time issues and the hockey teams kept pointing out that their organizations helped build the rink…I think that meant they won the battle for the best times for practice.

Oh, and I love watching the men as well!
 
Titivillus said:
A tenth of a point!?!? I could go out there and fall on my dupa! I want to see people perform, but not beyond their abilities!
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You’ve got it!

The IJS (International Judging System), also called CoP (Code of Points), is what figure skating is currently all about…points.

Many fans blame the new judging system for the decline of “artistry” and onset of programs that all look alike (except for whether the competitor completes their elements). In the last few years, the five disciplines have been required to include an “artistic element” in their programs.

But it’s still not the same as Katerina Witt’s “Carmen” (Calgary Olympics). Of course, she was a fine enough technician that she still would have won. It’s still amazing to me that a lady with a “figure” could still land those triples, and is still joint-healthy today. It’s all about proper technique, and according to Janet Lynn (Olympic Bronze Medalist 1972 Olympics) about developing the fine muscles by working on the school figures.

However, coaches LOVE the IJS because they receive not only the scores, but the evaluation sheets that tell them what elements got “called” and which didn’t, and the “grades” of each element. This is of immense help, and gives the coaches a guide as to what the skater or team needs to do to raise their scores in future competitions. In the past, with the old 6.0 system, many coaches, skaters, teams, and FANS were left totally confused about the results, and there were probably a lot of politics.

Coaches like my younger daughter, who have essentially grown up with IJS, make good use of the points system to choreograph their programs. E.g., the coach has to decide whether the skater/team is going to go for an element worth lots of points, or an element with less points. If their team nails the high-level element, they will receive many points, but if they miss it, they will receive no points–the element won’t even get called. But if they nail a low-level element and get the maximum number of points, they could beat a skater/team with a higher-level element who did not get that element called, or who got downgraded on the element.

I think the IJS has definitely made it necessary for the coaches to stay up with their game! Every year, the rules for programs change, and the coaches have to stay current.

Nowadays, it’s not about 'artistry" or “audience appeal”–it’s about “getting it called.”
 
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My late mother used to love watching the Winter Olympics for the figure skating events. She especially loved the Ice dancing competitions. She was a huge fan of Torvill and Dean, the English ice dancers who won the gold at the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics.
 
Their costumes are so nice and simple, it makes it easy to focus on their skating.

Some of the stuff skaters wear looks like it’s a runway show or the Ice Follies.
 
I loved them. They seemed so much in love. I was so sad when he passed away.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Then one can’t expect the audience, who aren’t all up on the point system, to care about watching skating any more.
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I think if the IJS were explained more clearly, which it has been on some broadcasts, that people would enjoy watching skating. After all, one of the joys of watching American football is the discussion and debate among fans who try to predict what plays their team will try, and why their choice turned out well or badly. The various strategies in sports are one of the reasons why sports are so enjoyable to watch (or play if you are inclined).

And it is nice to see the little display in the corner of the TV screen that shows the points accumulating, and the yellow (replay) or red (no call) when the skaters are on TV–that has been very helpful.

And I like seeing skaters who do well win, while skaters who have “good political connections” don’t win unless they skate well. It used to be frustrating, especially at in-person local and regional competitions, to see skaters winning who obviously didn’t deserve to win, but garnered the judges’ support because of their seniority in the sport, or their elite coach.

Sometimes that worked in favor of skaters! Our daughter competed at Regionals when she was about 14 years old, and she didn’t have the jumps to come close to winning, but she was hoping to at least not be last, and of course, she wanted to skate well. She did skate well, and landed the three doubles that she had in her arsenal. However, another girl from our skating rink was in her group, and skated well, landing more jumps (although they were rather cheated–that means they were not landed on a clean edge).

Afterwards, the girls were in the lobby, and this other girl was throwing a major temper tantrum (14 years old!) and making a huge fuss and generally behaving badly. Our daughter (and all the other skaters in the group) were just being quiet and talking amongst themselves in a friendly fashion.

We were quite surprised that our daughter beat this girl by three places–she was 11 out of 14, which was thrilling for her! Guess who placed 14th?

Our coach told us that there was a good chance that this other girl earned that last place by showing her bad attitude and temper in sight and hearing of the judges. She told our girls to never, ever lose your temper or say anything nasty or unfriendly in the rink–wait until you are in the car with the doors and window shut, and several miles away from the rink–THEN blow up! But never around the judges!
 
I love watching figure skating. I call it ice ballet. It’s amazing some of the axels and spins and jumps they can do so gracefully, and the music they choose is usually awesome. Even when they fall, it’s better than I could ever do. I’ve never skated on ice in my life, and were I to try, my rump would spend more time on the ice than my skates.
 
If you like Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” watch this: (Marigold Ice Unity is Finland’s Senior Synchronized Skating Team–Senior is the most advanced level, not the age!)

Peeps was in the audience during this! And this was the 2nd place team–they were beaten by their arch-competitors, the Russians! Our U.S. team was 3rd, I believe, but we have not won a World Synchronized Skating medal since this year. Sigh.

 
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Oh, gosh that was beautiful. I know in the past, Russians always had a strong training in classical ballet and it shows!
 
I’ve never seen this type of competition before. Reminds me of synchronized swimming! Lovely to watch!
 
I still love watching ice skating, but I seldom see it on tv anymore. I love the costumes and watching how skilled the skaters are.

Yes, the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal
tarnished the skating competition. I was not a fan of either girl.

The Senior Synchronized skating did not appeal to me.
Too many skaters to watch!! It is easier to focus on just 1 or 2.
 
It’s just funny to me that everyone is talking about Nancy/Tonya, Gordeev and Grinkov, Torville and Dean, etc. and not Nathan Chen and Alysa Liu, our current National Champions, or Mariah Bell (my husband’s current favorite skater!) or Jason Brown (the best artistic skater of all time, IMO! and he’s from my backyard!)–our two current U.S. Silver medalists, or the Knierems (current Pairs champs–I’ll give this to you, since their names are hard to remember and pronounce!), or Chock and Bates, and Hubbell and Donahue, the two ice dance teams that keep switching back and forth between Gold and Silver in the U.S.

The Nancy/Tonya debacle happened in 1994. Gordeev and Grinkov won Olympic Gold in 1988 and 1994. And Torville and Dean did their Bolero program (6.0s across all judges) and won Olympic Gold in 1984.

That’s over 30 years ago!

But that’s what I see all the time. That’s what I’m talking about–it seems that no one is watching figure skating now. We don’t even see the results in the paper or on the national television broadcasts nowdays, unless there is a scandal!

Good heavens, Johnny Weir, who skated in the Olympics in 2006 and 2010, has been out of the sport for ten years!–but wow! has he mananged to keep his name and face in the public eye (he will be on Dancing with the Stars this season, and I think he could win if he stays healthy–artistry is his specialty and also his downfall in skating–he paid more attention to the artistry than the athleticism).

What bothers me is that the International Skating Union (ISU) and our own United States Figure Skating don’t seem to have any idea that people don’t watch the sport anymore. U.S. Figure Skating keeps telling us that there are record numbers of children enrolling in Learn To Skate, but…what they don’t tell us is that most of the kids quit after passing their Snowplow Sam tests and perhaps a few Basic Tests. They don’t keep skating, and that means that our talent pool is really really low in the U.S. It’s no wonder our skaters don’t do well internationally. And when there are no medals at Worlds or Olympics, Americans stop watching. We like winners.
 
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