Crash Test Dummies - People Don’t Fail, Leaders Do, Part III

Crash Test Dummies

People Don’t Fail, Leaders Do, Part III

Originally published Nov. Dec. 2014 PS Magazine

I had a conversation early this past summer with an international judge in Sun Valley, Idaho. The discussion centered on my editorial People Don’t Fail, Leaders Do, Part I. While I thought I was pretty thorough, the judge pointed out some other ISU/Cinquanta issues that I neglected to call attention to. One glaring omission was that I said I would rectify was the introduction or lack thereof, of new rules by the ISU. As it stands currently, before the introduction of a new rule, it is held as a state secret. While bits and pieces do filter out at certain events, it is very similar to the unveiling of a new Apple product. The rules for singles and pairs are written under the chairmanship of Alexander Lakernik of Russia. Mr. Lakernik was voted the chair of the technical committee following the 2002 judging scandal in Salt Lake and has held the position ever since. Interesting to note, Lakernik was the assistant referee of the pair’s panel in Salt Lake and was the technical controller for the women in Sochi… arguably two of the most controversial events in skating history.

Each technical committee – singles, pairs, dance, and synchro, is made up of six members; a chair, three voted members, one athlete, and one coach. A simple majority is needed to adopt a rule. The current members live in geographically distant locations, making it difficult to communicate by any other way than by e-mail. Generally, the committees meet in the summer in Frankfurt and shortly thereafter adopt the rules for the season.

For several years, Lakernik has traveled to Skate Milwaukee just prior to Frankfort. It has given him the opportunity to see how these new rules may work. If you are lucky enough to be one of the “Crash Test Dummies”, you get a real advantage for the competitive year. Earlier in the summer is the Broadmoor open, a competition where the rules are a mix of the previous year’s and what our technical committee “believes” the new rules will be. To be fair, our technical specialists here in the United States work very hard to understand the new rules and to educate our skaters and coaches. My issue is not with our crew. To be honest, based on public opinion the dance and synchronized committees seem to be getting it right. But for singles and pairs, we are trying to make the best of a system growing out of control. New rules this year only exacerbate the growing confusion of the system. Something has to give….but how?

Rules can only be passed once a year and once they are a rule, only clarifications of the interpretation of the rule are allowed. This means we are stuck with bad rules for the whole season. Lakernik himself said in an interview in a Russian magazine in 2011, “…several years ago, we added a difficult variation for the lady as a death spiral feature, and all the ladies started to do the catchfoot. As a result, death spiral was no longer a death spiral, and the last Olympic Games have passed under the sign of that awful back out death spiral. Now this feature was removed since we realized that this was a road to nowhere.” This is the most frustrating part of the ISU rule process. Cinquanta, the supreme ruler of all things frozen, and who by his own admission knows next to nothing of our sport, allows rules to be made without any organized vetting. As a leader, if direction is not given, those below will make up their own direction.

Why do the IJS rules change so much every year? Because they are never given an adequate amount of time to be tested. The process seems to never see the unintended consequences of the rule until it’s too late.  But because of the very nature of the process and to minimize confusion of disseminating rules that are not yet official, only a minority of officials, coaches, and skaters on the inside know what’s coming.

Here is the problem as I see it. First there is only one coach on the 6 member technical panel that helps write the rules and attempts to figure out all the possible issues each rule will create. Once the rule is written, in the United States alone, there are 6000 coaches who are paid to find the loop holes and the easiest way to achieve the most difficult levels. When a rule is kept so closely guarded before its inception, should we be surprised when all heck breaks loose when thousands of us attack it? Again for the whole year we are subject to a plethora of clarifications until the next summer when they rewrite the rules. While I don’t know if the same problem exists anywhere else in the world, parents continually complain about the costs, and the coaches agonize while figuring out how to change programs to fit the yearly adjustments to the rules.

Here’s one thought on how we could possibly fix the problem. First, the week following the World Championships, the different Technical Committees meet and discuss the adjustments needed to make the competitions more competitive and efficient. A set of provisional rules are set and published, available for the spring completion season. Prior to the Frankfort meeting, survey as many judges, coaches, and skaters in all member countries and see what the consensus is regarding the provisional rules. The Technical Committees can then evaluate the survey and adjust or remove rules as necessary. If the rules are properly vetted, major changes to programs should not be necessary.

While I think that would work in utopia, the reality is that Mr. Cinquanta would never give the public that much power. He will continue to run ice sports into the ground on his terms and even more unfortunate, the issues he has created will most likely outlast his presidency.