Rewarding Risk
Rewarding Risk
Originally published May/June 2015 PS Magazine
When making important decisions, it is always a good idea to
get the facts, study them well, and make an educated judgement. One of my
favorite sayings is, “you never have enough time to do it right the first time,
but always enough time to do it the second.” We are facing one of these
dilemmas currently. In fact, by the time you read this, it could have been
decided at the U.S. Figure Skating Governing Council. What I am describing is a
fundamental but extremely important change in the rules of our sport to
encourage risk taking at the developing juvenile, intermediate, and novice
levels. We are not discussing dance or pairs, but singles.
The issue is our men and ladies are falling behind on the
international stage. Just a few years ago, the United States dominated at the junior
level internationally. Not anymore. At the senior level today, we are more
often off the podium than on. While in my last editorial I was critical for
attempting quads to just attempt quads, the reality is that we are watching a
majority of non-American skaters out-jump us. The ISU rules promote jumps at
the expense of skating. The points to be attained from the technical scores
exceeds the maximum that can be achieved in the program components. Don’t get
me wrong, program components are important…it’s just that the rewards are
greater for the riskier jumps
So a philosophical change is in order. IJS was never intended
to develop skaters, only to evaluate the execution of a program. The singles
committee is proposing several changes. Individually, I’m not sure they would
work, but as a group I think this is the way to go. Of course, these proposals have to get past
the singles committee first and then Governing Council… no easy feat!
First is the penalty for falling. The proposal calls for a
reduction to a .5 penalty for juvenile and intermediate falls and .75 for
novice. Junior and senior would remain at 1.00 per fall. The rationale, which
is a strong indication that this needs to change, is that in an average 45
point juvenile program, a fall represents more than 2% of the program total.
Comparatively, a fall in a 140 point senior program accounts for only .7% of
their total.
The second item on the singles ballot is a rule to create a
bonus point structure to reward skaters for risk taking. Combined with the
reduction of the penalty for falls, the benefit outweighs the current risk with
the rational that our younger skaters need to be encouraged to push the
envelope.
The third item on the ballot is the reallocation of the
factors currently associated with the program components. Currently, the
factors are evenly distributed between the five components. The new factors
would increase the importance of skating skills while decreasing the value of
choreography and transitions at the juvenile and intermediate levels.
Performance execution and interpretation would remain the same.
While in the big picture I see the changes positively, I do
believe in the law of unintended consequences. With the focus on risk, we will
have fewer clean programs. With the changes to the program components, will our
skaters become one dimensional? Time will tell… One thing I do understand is that
if we don’t adapt, we will be left behind.
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