Have you lost some respect for ladies figure skating as a sport?

[Jarrett]

I ask this after seeing Ashley win Skate America getting those scores for those jumps and Carolina winning worlds didn't help. It seems like ladies' skating is going backwards and men's skating is moving upward and onward. In my opinion the ladies are pretty much taking zero risk jump wise and getting rewarded for it and the men are flinging themselves in the air with all of their strength. All I can hope is that with the Russian ladies coming up other skaters will start in increase the technical jump content. I'm just disappointed.

[dawnie]

Well with Yuna back, Lipnitskaya's senior GP debut, and a hopefully injury-free Tuktamysheva, we will see a higher technical level with the ladies. It's amazing to look back and see Midori and Tonya whipping out huge triple axels and a complete set of triples in the early 90s. They were SO ahead of their time. I doubt they plus Kristi, Nancy, etc thought in 1992 that a program with no triple lutz would win a World Championship exactly 20 years later.

[love_skate2011]

In terms on technical content yes, Ladies have been so inconsistent the past seasons that they have been playing it safe
they need to up their game like the men's field

[aftershocks]

I've never lost respect for the ladies event as a sport. I think that's ridiculous. Why don't those who have "lost respect" go out there and try doing what the current ladies are doing on the ice.

Over the years, I have lost the same interest I used to have in the ladies discipline (but not because I think it isn't a sport because all the ladies are not doing 3-axels and 3/3s). Seriously, it takes awhile for difficult jumps to evolve. Take a good long look back at the sport, and talk to former skaters (like Janet Lynn, Dorothy Hamill, Katarina Witt, Charlie Tickner and others), and talk to skating historians like Benjamin Wright, and to the one and only Dick Button! Stop taking the narrow, limited "what have they done for me lately jump-wise" view.

I certainly do decry the fact that many top ladies (including Kostner and Yu Na) have won leaving out some of the basic jumps, but that is more due to the whack points-gathering system and rules changes that are in place as a result of IJS/ CoP, than anything else. I'm more concerned about the overall quality of athleticism and artistry being displayed by beautifully mature young ladies than I am about seeing young Russian phenoms rattling off 3/3 combos with precociousness but without a mature sensibility, without consistency, and without cohesive and exciting presentation skills. I will put my money on the newly competitive Ashley Wagner, Carolina Kostner of last season, the Christina Gao I saw at SA 2012, Akiko Suzuki, Mao Asada, perhaps Yu Na if she brings new expressiveness to the table along with her great technical abilities, and even Mirai and Alissa if they are able to come back strong with belief in themselves and good programs.

In the ladies' field, the emphasis is on doing 3/3 combos as the standard of difficulty, just as getting in the quad for men is now more mandatory if you want to reach the podium. Few ladies are able to do 3-axels today, and few could do them in Tonya's and Midori's time. As far as basic jumps being left out of programs, it is due to the scoring system that ladies have been picking and choosing what jumps to include or leave out based on how many points they can rack-up even with leaving out jumps that they are not as comfortable with. If the rules change to prevent that, then it will stop happening.

[briancoogaert]

I didn't lose respect. I've lost interest, I admit.
I love Carolina Kostner, because of her beautiful and amazing flow and glide. But not that much other ladies.

But I have the feeling the difference between men and women was the same in the 80's, when you see Boitano's LP and Witt's LP in 1988 !

[pinky166]

I think the technical content just comes and goes in cycle. The last Olympic cycle quads for the men weren't required to win on a World or Olympic stage, very few men tried it in the SP and some didn't even try it in the FS, with 2 quads in the FS being extremely rare. Then that changed, and fast. There's no saying the same won't happen in the ladies, and we do seem to have more ladies trying 3-3s these days, even if most of them are 3t-3ts.

[leafygreens]

Silly! Are you going to lose respect for ladies who aren't doing quints in 20 more years? Maybe ladies aren't doing 3/3's because they're hard and most people can't do them. Just because a few years have passed since the first 3A doesn't make it any easier on the body. There are complaints about "There are no ladies in ladies skating" but demanding that every skater do insane jumping passes is only going to limit the sport to midgets and prepubescent girls.

I think the new scoring system has made skating much harder beyond jumps because every aspect of the program counts from start to finish. If you want respect, then bring back figures where hardly anyone passed their 8th test.

[professordeb]

I think I'm not as "excited/invested" in women's skating simply because
1) there are no Canadian women to cheer for
2) the women who aren't Canadian that I would enjoy either haven't been skating or doing so poorly that I find it hard to watch.
I am sure things will swing back and there will be some/one for me to root amongst the ladies skaters, hopefully sooner than later.

[kwanatic]

I like a good jumper as much as anyone but what I love is a complete skater. There needs to be a level of difficulty in terms of the technical but there also needs to be a strength on the artistic side as well. Understanding music, timing and rhythm, relating to the music and the movements, portraying a story/character/feeling...there are only a handful of skaters who can do this convincingly.

I lose respect for the sport when people like Alena Leonova score 64+ in an SP that's literally nothing but elements with nothing else between. That score was an effin' joke IMO as was that program. That was when I lost respect for the sport. Thank God Carolina delivered in the FS and won...

[caseyedwards]

People were always complaining of Kostners PCS so that was always high even when she was inconsistent and when she became consistent it went even higher. No lutz and maybe one flip was just magic for her and her main opponents in 2012 were not really respected skaters even Suzuki. So with spin and step levels it was all good and not likely to repeat.

[l'etoile]

Every sport/discipline needs a pioneer to ascend some level and to bring some excitement. Like Yuna and Mao upped the field's ante with difficult 3-3s and 3As during Vancouver quadrennial, Chan with quads dominating has made quad battles revive, S/S and V/T with superior athleticism and artistry and D/W and V/M rivalry making it so interesting these days So maybe some people may have lost their respect for ladies field lately but with Yuna and Russian girls bringing their amazing technical abilities to the field, I foresee the issue would be resolved this season, in no time.

[spikydurian]

Every sport/discipline needs a pioneer to ascend some level and to bring some excitement. Like Yuna and Mao upped the field's ante with difficult 3-3s and 3As during Vancouver quadrennial, Chan with quads dominating has made quad battles revive, S/S and V/T with superior athleticism and artistry and D/W and V/M rivalry making it so interesting these days So maybe some people may have lost their respect for ladies field lately but with Yuna and Russian girls bringing their amazing technical abilities to the field, I foresee the issue would be resolved this season, in no time.

THIS.

No, I have not lost respect. Figure skating is a difficult sport and much more difficult to be a complete skater. I still marvel at what these skaters bring to competitions. I admire strong competitors because they raise the bar.

[judgejudy27]

Ladies skating hit the all time low in 2011 when Miki nothing but jumps Ando was awarded over 130 points in a LP and a World title for only 5 triples, no triple mistake, and a major mistake. So if I had lost respect for ladies skating as a sport it would have been then, so it would be impossible to say I did now as it is already much better than it was then.

[doubleflutz]

Historically, if we judged most of the ladies who did ambitious back in the day under the standard the COP ladies are being judged on today, most of them wouldn't be able to do more more than Ashley's content. Sarah Hughes's 3/3 that won her the OGM in SLC would not be credited. Katarina Witt's "lutz" in 1984 - what a joke! Even Midori, who was easily the greatest jumper of all time, had a flutz for a long part of her career, and never really had the best lutz even when it was technically correct. Yuna deserves a huge amount of credit not just for doing the 3LZ-3T, but that hers really was pretty much perfectly rotated every time she did it. Even Kristi Yamaguchi's could be a bit iffy.

There have really not been that many ladies throughout the history of skating who could do all five standard female triples on the correct edge OR do a fully rotated 3/3 in a difficult combination (anything other than 3T-3T) or manage even a partially rotated 3A. I don't think there are any fewer of these kind of naturally gifted athletes than there ever have been. Maybe we'd see somewhat less flutzing if all skaters had to still compete figures, but then I think we'd see a lot fewer high end triples at all. 3LZ is just a hard jump for women, all there really is to it. Same for 3-3s. Little boys who still compete in Novice or Junior and haven't without gone through puberty and their full adult growth can do 3A (Nathan Chen, Nam Nguyen, I believe Vincent Zhou) or even 4T (the little Chinese prodigy boy, I forget his name but he is amazing); those jumps are impossibilities for even extremely talented, disciplined, dedicated women who are grown adults.

People who act like the sport has regressed never had a mathematically accurate understanding of what female skaters are capable of, that's all.

[essence_of_soy]

Even though women competing in the sport most likely outnumber men 100 to 1, like most championships, the event is only as good as the people in it.

It's funny this topic is coming up now, because I remember when CoP first came into play, jump content on the men's side started to drop, and it was the women who were upping the ante.

Some years there have been podium sweeps where the ladies have had one or two triple / triple combinations. Other times, you were lucky if they included the standard five as stand alone jumps.

Fortunately, there are a lot of outstanding ladies that have just graduated from the junior circuit, particularly from the power nations like Russia, Japan and the US, that are already making a splash on the senior circuit.

[museksk8r]

I ask this after seeing Ashley win Skate America getting those scores for those jumps and Carolina winning worlds didn't help. It seems like ladies' skating is going backwards and men's skating is moving upward and onward. In my opinion the ladies are pretty much taking zero risk jump wise and getting rewarded for it and the men are flinging themselves in the air with all of their strength. All I can hope is that with the Russian ladies coming up other skaters will start in increase the technical jump content. I'm just disappointed.

Difficulty is not simply measured by quantity of jumps being performed. The large majority of ladies in figure skating can only wish in their wildest dreams that they could ever skate like Carolina Kostner. Her speed, flow, edge quality, musical interpretation, and choreography are all first rate. I assure you that if most ladies attempted Caro's footwork sequences, they would be tripping up all over themselves and probably end up with a bloody nose, elbows, and knees in the process. What she does in between the jumps is NOT easy! Also, the jumps she does complete are very high quality with terrific speed, height, and technique. You don't see Kostner's protocols littered with wrong edge takeoffs or under-rotations.

As far as Ashley goes, I find her jumps much more pleasing to my eyes than I ever did Tara Lipinski's, Sarah Hughes's, Sasha Cohen's, or Caroline Zhang's jumps. At least she doesn't donkey kick/hammer toe or contort her body as a corkscrew going into her flutz and flip jumps. She's much more stronger on holding her landings than Cohen or Zhang. Her jumps achieve more amplitude than Lipinski's ever did. Wagner is a spitfire, feisty fighter, and I like that!

[cbd1235]

I've lost no respect, and I find Ashley Wagner get's more flack than she deserves. She won Skate America with a clean 6 Triple Program (minus a questionable 2ft. landing and questionable lutz edge). Not to mention she had the crowd roaring and skated like a mature LADY champion. She deserves it, she's arguably one of the most complete skaters out there at the moment. Russian jumping beans I find to be immature, hit-or-miss, and contort themselves in a side-show manner; not exactly what I would call complete although they can jump. Another complete skater, Mao Asada, a much more lyrical and refined skater than Wagner has what I would consider slightly inferior jumps. Not that Mao can't jump, but she's more prone to UR's. Therefore the two are comparable on overall complete-ness level. Suzuki has a package much like Wagner's, and same with Carolina Kostner (trades out some jump content for immaculate skating skills and flow in her case). Yu-Na Kim has got it all so we'll see what her comeback brings, although I must say her extension has always been lacking and was very evident in 2011.

I find the skaters mentioned; Wagner, Asada, Suzuki, Kostner, and Kim are all very high-end and complete packages competing against each other. In the past there usually hasn't been such depth. The coming seasons should prove very interesting! And I'm hoping that it's the most complete package on the night that wins, not the skater with the hardest jumps.

[alchemy void]

Professordeb: You have Kaetlyn Osemond to cheer for; She's the discovery of the year for me thus far...she was freaking fabulous at Nebelhorn!

Her skating is late 90s retro in all the best possible ways.
Sent from my Windows Phone using Board Express

[t.mann]

I think the new scoring system has made skating much harder beyond jumps because every aspect of the program counts from start to finish.

Yes, COP seems demanding for female skaters particularly.

Thompson(CEO of Skate Canada) said it took some time for athletes to get used to the new system, but now the newest generations have grown up with it and know how to use it. He conceded that the female singles skaters are still struggling.
However, he pointed to skaters such as Kim, former world champion Daisuke Takahashi, current world champion Patrick Chan of Canada, Virtue and Moir, and the Olympic champions from China, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, as skaters that delivered plenty of emotion and artistic content.
He does not know why the women have not advanced as quickly as the other disciplines. Perhaps, he suggested, they are still building the skills necessary to do the difficult footwork and other elements that were not emphasized in the past.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...ontent=2223365

[antmanb]

Maybe if the women were given the same length of programmes, the same number of jumping passes etc as the men they'd be able to up the technical ante. As it stands limiting the women in a way that they never were under 6.0 is going to have implications. The ladies in the 90s and up to COP were routinely including 8 jumping passes (and more) in their programmes rather than the arbitrary 7 they get under COP. Make the rules equal to both sexes otherwise there's no valid comparison between the two.