Which is it?

Which is it?

Originally published Mar/Apr 2016 PS Magazine

Phil Hersh has been covering skating for thirty years. He often criticizes judging in his stories, or more accurately, is always criticizing judging. Another favorite target is the ISU leadership (one of my favorites too!). As of this writing, Hersh’s latest shot came via Twitter from the U.S. Championships in St. Paul.  “For the second straight year, @USFigureSkating has crowned men's champ who didn't land quad. Rest of world is laughing.” Attention-getting for sure, but unfortunately accurate… Christine Brennan wrote in USA Today on the 23rd of January, “Given the chance to make a grand statement about America’s future in this sport, to celebrate the athleticism that has allowed other nations to leave the U.S. men in the dust, they put Chen not first, not second, not third, but fourth.” She was referring to the two quads landed in Nathan Chens short. Last year’s PSA and U.S. Figure Skating Coach of the Year, Rafael Arutyunyan, who coaches both Chen and U.S. champion Adam Rippon, said, “The message is, ‘Guys, don’t jump quads...’” Regrettably, overemphasizing the program component marks at U.S. competitions are hurting us on the world stage. At the European Championships, the top five in the short all did at least one quad; three of the men did two quads. At the Japanese championships, Yuzuru Hanyu attempted two quads in the short, landing the quad toe, triple toe combination and falling on a fully rotated quad Salchow.

While the rest of the world has been developing and elevating the technical scores, a focus of the PSA and U.S. Figure Skating was to develop program components and a direct emphasis on grades of execution. Arutyunyan was quoted in an article on Icenetwork as saying, “Everything must be done starting from a child.  If you want to raise a warrior, raise from when he is 3 years old."

Last year rules were added to give our younger skaters bonuses for attempting double Axels and triples. The penalty for a fall for the earlier levels was decreased to .50. All to encourage skaters to try more difficult jumps at the juvenile and intermediate levels.

However… in several editorials this season I have pushed going back to basics. Specifically, I wrote in the November issue, “As an early specialization sport, coaches understand that skaters tend to struggle through the maturation phase. We are in a hurry to get our skaters doing triples before maturation sets in. Worse, with the margin of error for smaller, lighter skaters being much greater than those who have matured physically, it allows coaches and judges to overlook flaws in technique that will eventually stop the skater’s progress. As a whole we have strayed from the correct way to develop talent.”

So which is it? Give greater rewards for difficult technical elements, or for the well-rounded skater? Push jumping at the expense of the rest? I have been struggling with this. The championships in St. Paul had a plethora of great performances and well-rounded programs that brought the crowd to its feet, myself included. Ross Miner’s short program was a personal favorite. To me, his program is what is great about IJS. He grabbed points from every conceivable direction. Unfortunately, as much as I loved that program, the lack of a quad would have buried him internationally, and as a business, a lack of American skaters on the podium in singles affects the recruitment of new skaters. Olympic success means more skaters in the rinks … period.

Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to figure out how to get our skaters relevant on the world stage again. Is the ISU going to write rules that are going to help us make that happen? No, especially not when the rest of the world has left us behind.

The reality is if we are going to push skaters to the more difficult jumps earlier, those basic skills I’ve been preaching about are going to have to get a lot better. The quality of those skills will be relevant to the success of the jumps. We won’t get one without the other!