ISU to evaluate feasibility of 2020-21 skating season

[PeterG]

Skating on outdoor rink in Sydney in the Southern Hemisphere summer would be like this:

Rumours are that backflips are being re-considered for competitive programs.

On an unrelated note, Surya Bonaly is contemplating un-retiring.

 

[starrynight]

The ladies might need to reconsider costumes if outdoor rinks were used. The little swimming togs with skirts might not work so well!

When skaters skate on television at the Rockefeller Centre I've seen them have to skate in tracksuit tops over their costumes because it simply got too cold for them.

But I think that many of the current moves are benefited from costumes with the four way stretch modern fabrics offer. And lightness. I remember Medvedeva saying that her Geisha dress weighed only about 200 grams as she likes her costumes extremely light.

 

[Lemonade20]

If we go back to outdoor rinks for competitions, I can see fur-lined costumes making a comeback :-D

 

[mjb52]

If we go back to outdoor rinks for competitions, I can see fur-lined costumes making a comeback :-D

o nooooo advANTAGE to the Russian bloc!!!!

 

[Dobre]

A pretty skeptical opinion piece on the outlook for elite sports in the U.S. in general at the moment:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/21/return-sports-anytime-soon-seems-somewhere-between-unlikely-irresponsible/

It includes references to the various positive cases that were identified just this past week at the professional & college level in hockey, baseball, football, and golf.

 

[missing]

Professional tennis has been trying to work out ways of playing, and the hope has been that the US Open will go on as scheduled at the end of August.

In the meantime, they created mini-tournaments, played both in the US and in Europe.

Now, one of the players, Grigor Dimitrov has tested positive, and at least one event has been cancelled.

"We are really sorry, we tried our best to respect all measures, and we did respect all measures imposed by the governments of Serbia and Croatia," said event director Djordje Djokovic, the younger brother of Novak Djokovic.

"From our side, we did all we could but Grigor is unfortunately positive. At this moment we are organizing all medical services to check all people who have been in contact with Grigor, they will all be tested. I already contacted all players of the Adria Tour, and their families, all of the volunteers, all people involved in [the] organization -- absolutely none of them have any symptoms."

It's the ripple effect that makes scheduling figure skating competitions so difficult. Should one person involved with the event be positive, then everyone might be at risk.

I'd love for everything to magically work out, but lately I'm feeling more pessimistic.

 

[twizzletoes76]

People just need to say good-bye to a season 2020-2021. Seriously, not worth the trouble.

 

[MsZem]

A pretty skeptical opinion piece on the outlook for elite sports in the U.S. in general at the moment:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/21/return-sports-anytime-soon-seems-somewhere-between-unlikely-irresponsible/

Meanwhile the KBO and Bundesliga have been playing successfully for over a month and the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A and various other European leagues have all made their returns. So there are models of how to make this work, and hopefully some of these can work for skating, if only at the regional level.

The US really needs to be in better shape if sports are to take place safely. Maybe they can use that to motivate people to wear their masks?

(I realize the risk of catching the vlrus should be more than enough, but what can you do)

 

[Lemonade20]

People just need to say good-bye to a season 2020-2021. Seriously, not worth the trouble.

Sadly you’re right on that. We’re not out of the woods yet.

 

[Japanfan]

People just need to say good-bye to a season 2020-2021. Seriously, not worth the trouble.

I see no reason to say good-bye to 2021 yet, most places will be well past reopening by then. I expect the GP to be cancelled, but am hoping that Nationals and maybe Europeans/4CCs will go forward.

 

[starrynight]

I just can’t see Australia letting people from hotspots such as the USA in For 4CC. Not expecting Australian borders to reopen until early 2021 and I expect that will be with a quarantine.

 

[MsZem]

I see no reason to say good-bye to 2021 yet, most places will be well past reopening by then. I expect the GP to be cancelled, but am hoping that Nationals and maybe Europeans/4CCs will go forward.

It almost seems like there are people who enjoy telling others how much life is going to suck in various ways. Is this some kind of reaction to CV denial and the idiots who won't wear masks and think things will be 100% normal by the fall? Neither extreme makes sense to me.

As I wrote yesterday, multiple leagues and sports are back, including team/contact sports that are much riskier than figure skating! I agree that the GP is probably a lost cause that travel issues will be tricky, but national and regional events seem pretty doable in many places. If they can have football matches in Germany, I fail to see why Nebelhorn can't go ahead, with certain adaptations.

 

[Orm Irian]

As I wrote yesterday, multiple leagues and sports are back, including team/contact sports that are much riskier than figure skating!

And the AFL was barely back in business before a match had to be cancelled because an Essendon player tested positive. Some places have got lucky so far and some haven't, but every time a match is played there's a risk. Big sports with big funding may be able to risk it, but I think we'll see smaller ones being more risk-averse for a while, for insurance reasons if nothing else.

I do agree we're far more likely to see Senior Bs and Challengers in the Schengen Area in particular go ahead, more than the GP, so long as a second wave doesn't start up, precisely because a reasonable number of skaters, coaches and officials will be able to access them without necessarily requiring air travel to do it, and certainly not intercontinental air travel.

 

[Miezekatze]

If they can have football matches in Germany, I fail to see why Nebelhorn can't go ahead, with certain adaptations.

Because there's millions of Euros in German soccer, players earns millions, coaches are highly paid professionals, the clubs are multi-million corporations with employees, there would have been millions of Euros LOST from not fulfilled tv contracts if the Bundesliga season had been cancelled. That was the main reason it was continued.

Who's going to pay for Nebelhorn Trophy happening under those circumstances and why?

Our nearby city is currently thinking about whether they are even going to take the risk of organizing the local Christmas market in December because of the financial uncertainty and planning risk.

I think generally this is more a question of money than of regulations in countries where the situation is good enough to theoretically hold an event.

 

[starrynight]

I think generally this is more a question of money than of regulations in countries where the situation is good enough to theoretically hold an event.

Money and big $$$$ TV contracts and betting.

The betting agencies need big sports to start again too.

Where there’s money there’s a way. If all the skaters were on million dollar/hundreds of thousands dollar contracts I’m sure there’d be a way. Whereas in skating the skaters themselves pay to skate and not the other way around.

I actually find it less disappointing to just face up to the season being pretty much over. I find the idea of underprepared skaters and incomplete fields and feds losing money more disappointing.

 

[MsZem]

Because there's millions of Euros in German soccer, players earns millions, coaches are highly paid professionals, the clubs are multi-million corporations with employees, there would have been millions of Euros LOST from not fulfilled tv contracts if the Bundesliga season had been cancelled. That was the main reason it was continued.

Who's going to pay for Nebelhorn Trophy happening under those circumstances and why?

Our nearby city is currently thinking about whether they are even going to take the risk of organizing the local Christmas market in December because of the financial uncertainty and planning risk.

I think generally this is more a question of money than of regulations in countries where the situation is good enough to theoretically hold an event.

You're responding to me, not to missing

You're right that there are two things at play - the level of risk and the financial incentives involved. Compared to others sports, skating is probably lower in risk, but also lower in financial incentives in most countries. So we might see skating back (1) in places where the risk of infection is lower (2) in places where skaters can travel between countries (e.g. Schengen zone) (3) in places where skating does bring in money (Japan?). Which corresponds to what I wrote earlier - national and regional events could be doable.

Of course, there are plenty of unknowns in terms of what the situation will be like in the fall/winter, what kind of treatment will be available, how different countries will be faring etc. And indeed, uncertainty is not conducive to long-term planning. But the argument that we should give up on the season because nothing can be done anywhere strikes me as extreme. It basically extrapolates from what is currently happening in the worst-hit/most restrictive places and assumes everyone will be like that six months from now. We don't know that.

 

[Aussie Willy]

I think in Australia the skating clubs who organise interstate events are planning for things to be on a smaller scale. There are still issues with travelling between states. And where I live in Tasmania we can't even leave the state because basically there are no flights and if you return you have to spend 14 days in quarantine. So until our states lifts travel restrictions, I couldn't go anywhere anyway. But for the other states, lack of flights and travel restrictions will also prevent skaters travelling around the country.

 

[starrynight]

But the argument that we should give up on the season because nothing can be done anywhere strikes me as extreme. It basically extrapolates from what is currently happening in the worst-hit/most restrictive places and assumes everyone will be like that six months from now. We don't know that.

Im thinking more about the international season. And it’s pretty significant for skating that USA, Russia and China are at risk places. An international season without those countries wouldn’t be worth having.

And believe me I’d been planning on going to 4CC for ages so I’m pretty disappointed.

 

[morqet]

The risks from travel make it very unlikely in my opinion. Look at what's happened in tennis this week. An exhibition series was being played in Serbia, where there was a low rate of cases. Players flew in from all over the world, one who had come from the US via Bulgaria tested positive on Sunday, and now there are 7 confirmed cases linked to him. (although not clear if he was patient zero for that cluster, as another player's wife is now confirmed to have tested positive last week) So the final of that leg of the tour was cancelled with an hours notice, the remaining weeks cancelled, players who were supposed to be going other events in the coming weeks should now be going into quarantine, and the organisers of the event are being roundly criticised for bringing people in from all over the place with no quarantine, and then holding an event with little regard to social distancing.

Tennis is the sport with a schedule most similar to skating in that it moves from country to country week by week, but even with significantly more money & resources than skating they haven't been able to make it work.

 

[Miezekatze]

Im thinking more about the international season. And it’s pretty significant for skating that USA, Russia and China are at risk places. An international season without those countries wouldn’t be worth having.

And believe me I’d been planning on going to 4CC for ages so I’m pretty disappointed.

Yes, I'd really like to go to Nebelhorn Trophy this year (like nearly every year in the last 15 years, I only missed it once) too, but it just seems very unlikely.

I guess it would probably be possible to hold some sort of "regional" Nebelhorn.

But this area of the world is not exactly a powerhouse of skating, so it would something like German Nationals (not very attractive, sorry ) with a couple of guests from European countries around Germany.It just seems a lot of effort and risk to hold an international competition for a couple of skaters from federations who have little financial resources.

Plus now in Germany we have a local lockdown for a week in a province that had a really really bad outbreak in a meat plant. So for the next week (at least), this province is in a complete lockdown again and all events in that week immediately have to be cancelled. This situation can come out of nowhere within days or a few weeks, probably at least until the beginning of 2021. I really wonder if anybody even has info on how something like this can be insured in the future. It doesn't seem fair (or financially possible) that event organizers are going to be the ones holding that risk all the time.

 

[starrynight]

Plus now in Germany we have a local lockdown for a week in a province that had a really really bad outbreak in a meat plant. So for the next week (at least), this province is in a complete lockdown again and all events in that week immediately have to be cancelled. This situation can come out of nowhere within days or a few weeks, probably at least until the beginning of 2021. I really wonder if anybody even has info on how something like this can be insured in the future. It doesn't seem fair (or financially possible) that event organizers are going to be the ones holding that risk all the time.

Yes I don't think there is insurance for it. If there is, the premiums would be very high. At this point, it would almost be a voluntary assumption of the risk of losses from cancellations.

I just saw on the news that Novak Djokovic tested positive with 'rona (along with 4 other people) after a tournament he held on the weekend. So that's a bit of a disaster - a PR one too. I saw on twitter that the players who tested positive have had to warn people they were in contact with and issue apologies. (Although it's not anyone's fault for being sick). But it's just a bit of a mess.

 

[Aussie Willy]

Unless the number of news cases drop then I don't think anyone is going anywhere. 1 million in a week? It is getting worse not better.

 

[Yuri]

Minitrue is working overtime on the C-19 statistics now that USA-wide daily death rates are down 70-80% from April peaks, despite the reopening of most of the country over the past 4-6 weeks. However, Big Brother has instructed Minitrue to switch the data (and rewrite all past predictions of massive death rates) to positive cases of individual states with so-called "spikes" to continue to terrorize the proles to hide under their beds until at least November 4, 2020.

At least Novak Djokovic should be healthy in time for the US Open Tennis tournament. I cannot believe that the proles still are buying Minitrue's line that testing positive is a death sentence, especially for healthy young athletes. The USA crushed the curve and there's no reason to slow down bringing back the figure skating season in this country.

 

[starrynight]

As someone whose fave (Tuktamysheva) had the whole second half of a very successful season wiped out by catching pneumonia, I have some reservations.

I've actually been there while my favourite skater's season was totally sabotaged by illness. It wasn't just getting sick (which required hospitalisation), it took her months to get back into shape due to the affect pneumonia has on the lungs and physical condition. A world medal would have had an amazing boost for her, but alas. Tuktamysheva was never going to die from pneumonia, but gosh it killed the season. (Great comeback at WTT though).

Just saying. It's all fun and games until someone's fave gets all of their momentum and prospects for the season wiped out.

 

[Sylvia]

(Cross-posted in the OES News thread) This was posted on the Netherlands skating federation website today (June 24): https://www.schaatsen.nl/nieuws/2020/juni/kunstrijders-in-quarantaine-vanwege-coronabesmetting/
Google translated excerpts:

An athlete from one of the KNSB selections Figure Skating appears to be infected with the corona virus. She was immediately quarantined. Because she was on the ice with the KNSB selections in Belgium last weekend, another 22 figure skaters and 6 coaches will be quarantined.

The KNSB selections figure skating, which together count about forty athletes, trained since last week in Belgium. The best talents and seniors were on the ice in Mechelen on Tuesday and Thursday; last Saturday and Sunday was trained in Leuven. In the dressing rooms as well as on the ice, the figure skaters kept at least 1.5 meters apart.
One of the athletes got throat complaints during the weekend. After returning to the Netherlands, she was tested for corona on Monday. Today the result of that test was known: the skater appears to be infected. She was immediately quarantined. The other athletes and coaches have now been informed about the situation that has arisen.
...
The skater in question is doing well. She has not had a fever and does not feel sick, but still has to cough slightly. The KNSB does not reveal its identity for privacy reasons.

 

[GarrAargHrumph]

Thanks for posting the details, Sylvia.

 

[bladesofgorey]

Minitrue is working overtime on the C-19 statistics now that USA-wide daily death rates are down 70-80% from April peaks, despite the reopening of most of the country over the past 4-6 weeks. However, Big Brother has instructed Minitrue to switch the data (and rewrite all past predictions of massive death rates) to positive cases of individual states with so-called "spikes" to continue to terrorize the proles to hide under their beds until at least November 4, 2020.

At least Novak Djokovic should be healthy in time for the US Open Tennis tournament. I cannot believe that the proles still are buying Minitrue's line that testing positive is a death sentence, especially for healthy young athletes. The USA crushed the curve and there's no reason to slow down bringing back the figure skating season in this country.

What in the holy H3LL are you talking about?
Deaths are not down in the US by 70-80% from April peaks!
AS of yesterday the death rate even with more testing which should catch asymptomatic people: around the world including in the US 1 in 20 people who swab positive die of the disease. One in Twenty so far if you need it spelled out.
THE US CRUSHED THE CURVE wtf are you even talking about?! The US has not crushed the curve, even if NYC/NJ/CT have- due to actually working to stop transmission with masks, shutdowns, and testing. I. am. so. sick. of people saying this is some kind of hoax when my community has been devastated by this. Oh, at least Novak should be healthy in time for the US Open? Please try and at least look like you give a single sh!t about the dead and suffering.

 

[overedge]

Minitrue is working overtime on the C-19 statistics now that USA-wide daily death rates are down 70-80% from April peaks, despite the reopening of most of the country over the past 4-6 weeks. However, Big Brother has instructed Minitrue to switch the data (and rewrite all past predictions of massive death rates) to positive cases of individual states with so-called "spikes" to continue to terrorize the proles to hide under their beds until at least November 4, 2020.

At least Novak Djokovic should be healthy in time for the US Open Tennis tournament. I cannot believe that the proles still are buying Minitrue's line that testing positive is a death sentence, especially for healthy young athletes. The USA crushed the curve and there's no reason to slow down bringing back the figure skating season in this country.

Sounds like it's getting a little warm under that tinfoil hat....

 

[misskarne]

The USA crushed the curve and there's no reason to slow down bringing back the figure skating season in this country.

The neurologist called. They're rather concerned at how someone is still alive with so few brain cells.

 

[DreamSkates]

The ladies might need to reconsider costumes if outdoor rinks were used. The little swimming togs with skirts might not work so well!

When skaters skate on television at the Rockefeller Centre I've seen them have to skate in tracksuit tops over their costumes because it simply got too cold for them.

But I think that many of the current moves are benefited from costumes with the four way stretch modern fabrics offer. And lightness. I remember Medvedeva saying that her Geisha dress weighed only about 200 grams as she likes her costumes extremely light.

There are also special fabrics that retain heat and are moisture wicking (athletes, hikers, etc. in very cold climates use them).