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The real tragedy of figure skating is that there is no figure skating anymore. It's called "figure skating" because the primary skill was "skating" and skaters
by divan 5y ago
The real tragedy of figure skating is that there is no figure skating anymore. It's called "figure skating" because the primary skill was "skating" and skaters were drawing "figures". It was called "compulsory figures" and it was a big part of competition. The fraction of overall score for figures has changed from 60% to 40% and then to 0% (in 1990). While "free skating" part became mostly a competition of the jumps.
The problem with jumps is that it discrimnates heavily by body type, while "figure skating" does not. I mean in compulsory figures the one who practiced longer and better wins. In jumps – the one who has smaller body wins. Kamila Valieva at age 20 will be 5 years more experienced and stronger than Kamila Valieva at age 15, and as much as talented, but she will not have a slightest chance to win herself at 15. How does it even make sense to people?
To rotate 4*360 degrees in 0.6 seconds you really benefit from smaller sum of radiuses of mass distribution. This is how female figure skating became competition of 15 pre-puberty girls.
With this overfocus on number of rotations, international figure skating losing fans and members like crazy. Arenas are half empty even on major competitions and international federation is wondering why revenues are plummeting.
But the tragedy is even deeper. Most older coaches in many countries are still from the generation who did "compulsory figures". They remember it, they remember how to teach the basics, although rarely do because everyone wants jumps as instructed by ISU rules. But new generation of coaches don't even know about figures, let alone how to tech them. And the older coaches already, you know, are dying. And we losing this knowledge. We're loosing roots of figure skating as a community.
But figures are instrumental part of figure skating, and really important to perform jumps efficiently.
- jfengel 5y agoI was discussing this with a figure skater the other day, who had never even heard of the compulsory figures. We looked it up, and in her opinion there was no point to them because they were far, far, far below the level of any even moderately competitive skater. Sports progress. As a marathoner myself, I find it interesting that the world records at the time that they ditched compulsory figures wouldn't even get you into the Olympic trials today. The compulsory figures just wouldn't be of any interest any more. Perhaps the compulsories could be re-invented for today's more skilled competitors. But they still wouldn't be very interesting to watch: they show precision but aren't dynamic or creative. You're right that the focus on strength-to-weight ratio does skew the sport weirdly. Gymnastics suffered the same problem, and had to put in age limits which substantially altered the way the sport is practiced. (And if I remember correctly there was still a controversy recently about the exact age of a top-placed competitor.)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> Perhaps the compulsories could be re-invented for today's more skilled competitors. But they still wouldn't be very interesting to watch: they show precision but aren't dynamic or creative. Are jumps?
- divan 5y ago> We looked it up, and in her opinion there was no point to them because they were far, far, far below the level of any even moderately competitive skater. It wasn't hard for skaters in 1930s to do all figures too. The hard part was to skate the same figure 3 times so perfectly that judges would see only one trace instead of 3 and no snow at the turn points. Mastering art of skating to that level required tons of dedication and concentration and skill. That skill later could be used for other "free" elements like jumps or spin entrances or spirals. But figures were the building blocks. What I'm saying that modern skaters almost skip this part, dismissing it as "too easy" right off the bat. As a result if you look at top skaters in 80s and top skater in 2022 – they're skating skills hard to compare. Also, people were trying some crazy jumps back then. Here is a practice video of Tiffany Chin doing triple axel in around 1982. [1] But I do agree that format of compulsory figures competition is not set in stone. I'm actually working on the IMU sensor embedded into the skate and exploring different on ice visualization tech. Idea is to make figures skating sexy, find new ways to visualize/augment it and experiment with a new ways to compete in figures that is watchable and exciting. By the way, the progress in skaters' levels was largely due to new scoring system (IJS) in 2006, and not from abolishing figures. Also this "progress" led to rapid increase of jump attempts needed for success (especially in quads), which led to dramatic increase of repetitive stress injuries in skaters. I'm not sure how to design incentive system for scoring in a way to incentivie skaters to explore limits, while keeping them in a sane zone so they don't break their bodies all the time. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE9pApU53W0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE9pApU53W0