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by Sonia Bianchetti Garbato
|
(30 January 2013)
The 2013 European Championships were held in the Dom Sportova in
I had a great time in Still, after
sitting in the arena more or less 10 hours a day, I am fighting
between two opposing feelings.
We practically witnessed two different events: one very exciting
event among the four medal contenders in all categories, with some
really outstanding programs, and another one that I would define as
a second-class international competition among all the other
competitors. The joy and the emotion that I experienced watching a
few fantastic skaters is counterbalanced by the distress of seeing
most of the skaters mess up their programs. The technical standard
as well as the quality of the skating, especially in the ladies’ and
the pairs’ events, was the lowest I can remember in the last decade,
not to speak of the number of errors and falls that marred
practically all the programs both in short and free. What concerns
me is that these competitors are the national champions and
represent the best skaters of their countries. What is happening to
skating in The men’s
event was the most exciting.
Javier Fernandez
of Michael Brezina, CZE, was the winner of the bronze medal. Michael, who was fourth in the short and second in the free, performed an elegant free program to the soundtrack of the “Untouchables”, although marred by several mistakes. He fell down on his first quad Salchow and had a few other small errors. However, he executed a second quadruple Salchow and six more triples, including a triple Axel-triple toe loop combination.
In the ladies’ event, Carolina Kostner,
Adelina Sotnikova,
who was first in the
short and third in the free, had to overcome two errors at the
beginning of her free program performed to “At Last” and
“Burlesque”, underrotating a triple Lutz-triple toe-loop combination
and singling the flip. But then she recovered and executed four
triples, including a double Axel-triple toe loop combination and
excellent spins. Performing to
“Dark Eyes”, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva pulled off a triple Lutz-triple toe loop and
five more triple jumps as well as some good spins. The 16-year-old
won the free skating and moved up from fourth to third. She has a
beautiful program with good choreography and she skates at great
speed.
Elizaveta and Adelina are two young, very promising skaters who
still lack sophistication and need to mature to improve the artistic
side of their programs. Hopefully, this will come in the next couple
of years. Pair skating. First, I
would like to express my sympathy and understanding to Maxim Trankov
for the loss of his father due to a fatal heart attack just before
the event started. It surely must have been very difficult to hold
on.
Tatiana Volosozhar/Maxim Trankov,
Aliona
Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy’s
program to “Flamenco
Bolero” by Gustavo Montesano was highlighted by a throw triple
twist, a triple toe-triple toe sequence, and a triple twist as well
as five level-four elements. Although Aliona fell on the side by
side triple Salchow and he doubled it, their program was fantastic.
I am not too fond of Montesano’s arrangement of the “Bolero” by
Ravel, but the way they interpret and express the music is just
wonderful. The program is well choreographed, appealing and
emotional. By far the best that day. In my opinion, they should have
won the gold medal.
Stefania Berton/Ondrej
Hotarek,
In ice dancing, the fight for the first two places was very close.
Ekaterina Bobrova/Dmitri Soloviev,
Ilinykh/Katsalapov,
as well, skated an excellent free dance to “Ghost”, executing
several difficult elements.
I
enjoyed their way of skating and their appeal on the ice.
Anna Cappellini/Luca
Lanotte, What shocked me in the
dance event was that more and more, it seems it is becoming an
acrobatic sport, with many skaters looking like clowns from the
Cirque du Soleil rather than athletes of an Olympic sport. Is this
the best direction for ice dancing, in the ISU’s opinion? And now, some general
remarks on the whole event. It is with
great sorrow that I must say that I am sick and shocked after a week
spent in the arena to watch what I consider the weakest European
Championships ever.
What I
question is, once again, the validity of the system. Something must
be done quickly to stop this madness. It is time to
start seriously considering a total review of the system, of course
to be effective after the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. To me, what
always made figure skating so special and unique was that it came at
that wonderful convergence of art and athletics.
By
emphasizing difficulty for the sake of difficulty, the new system
diminished the emphasis on quality and artistry. What now matters to
the skaters is the element and especially its level. They are all
doing more or less the same things, and with the same disregard of
the music. The audience is now asked to withstand the same uniform,
frenetic style of skating, and the same disregard for music
throughout the entire competition.
No wonder that skating is
dying, that its popularity is going down the tubes, that people
don't care to see it, that television doesn’t care to cover it. To guarantee
more fairness in judging, the new judging system, introduced in 2004
after the Olympic judging scandal, requires two judging panels. One
panel, composed of judges, determines the quality of the
performances while the other, the so-called “technical panel”,
determines the difficulty of the program and the “levels” of the
various elements. To give the technical panel clear guidance to
assign levels to the various elements, more and more details have
been added, year after year. It is these exceptions and rules that
cause everyone’s programs to look similar and make it impossible for
any viewer to understand the scoring. Not to speak of the horror of
some positions in spins, lifts and step sequences, with the only
goal to reach the highest “level”! What the figure skating fans long
to see again is the quality and the splendour of these elements, not
ridiculous and painful contortions.
Figure skating trends have definitely pushed towards the difficulty
of the elements and endless rules, and away from the simple beauty
of combining athleticism with movement and emotion. Even the
chairman of the ISU Figure Skating Technical Committee, Mr.
Alexander Lakernik, declared in an interview that “exceptions, to
the exceptions, to the exceptions, detailing that has gone too far.” What
apparently has been forgotten is that for a sport to survive, the
public must like and understand it, and, in our case, must like and
understand the new scoring system. Now, even Olympic Champions do
not understand it any longer, as Scott Hamilton recently declared.
The ISU, to excuse these continuous changes, say that it is “a work
in progress”, but after nine years, this is no longer acceptable.
Donald Laws, well-known top world coach, says in the just-published
book Don Laws (by Beverly
Ann Menke, published by The Scarecrow Press, Inc.), “There
is nothing ignoble about admitting defeat, it is hanging on it that
is ignoble. The International Judging System should be simplified so
that the average people who want to watch skating can understand it.
Contrary to what was done with the 6.0 system when it was completely
abandoned, now we have the experience of two systems from which to
draw. With that knowledge, we can make a system that meets our
goals. We should find a middle ground and make our goals pure and
simple. Less expensive, less invasive, less complicated and, yes,
less secretive. It’s sad that, after all these years of
experimentations, we never made the sport transparent”. I can only agree with each of Don Laws’ words. Therefore, why not utilize what is universally recognised to be the best from both scoring systems, the 6.0 and IJS, and combine them? Much can be done to simplify and improve the IJS just by reducing the number of jumps or jump combinations required, by reducing the number of technical details and exceptions to the advantage of the skaters, the coaches and the viewers, by reducing the number of program components, by making judging more transparent and also by penalising the judges who assign PC marks based on the skater’s reputation and not on the reality of a performance, which is more and more often the case. The audience will come back to skating when less complex and more accurate judging permits the performances to become less desperate to skate and more enjoyable to watch.
All disciplines in skating
would benefit from simpler and less demanding rules. The love for
beautiful gliding on the ice is worldwide. Creativity and passion
must be brought back. A new and revised IJS would be the link to
bring back the best of the old 6.0 system while preserving the
technical improvements and more objective judging from the new one.
It is vital for skating’s future that a large TV audience is once
again attracted to the sport. It is the only way for the sport to
survive. So I want to address an appeal to the ISU President, Mr. Ottavio Cinquanta. After nine years of the IJS being imposed, the consensus about it is negative among a great majority. Surely when you decided to impose your “invention”, you honestly believed in it, but, as Donald Laws says in his book, you did not foresee the detrimental effect that such implementation would have on the sport nor its unbearable costs. Now you have the time and the opportunity to impose the revision of the system to the benefit of figure skating and the prosperity of the ISU. The whole skating world would appreciate and support you and would be grateful to you for this. |