Kaetlyn Osmond comfirms she will not compete this season

[aftershocks]

Totally agree. When you have a country with Miyahara, Higuchi, Honda, Kihira, Sakamoto, Mihara, and previously Asada... it can only lead to frustration about the number of skaters they can send.

Right, and with more talent on the rise. All of these Japanese ladies are such good jumpers*, but they are currently at different levels of ability in terms of their consistency and presentation skills. Still, they are all so good, Japanese fed could even put five ladies spots to good use.

There are just no easy answers though in how to fairly restructure figure skating competitively. The sad thing is that the sport doesn't even seem to seriously entertain the possibility of studying problem areas, and attempting to test viable solutions, unless they are forced to suddenly confront change via unforeseen p.r. snafus or scandals.

(*aside from Satoko who is chiefly an extraordinary artist, but she has recently worked on gaining more muscle srength in order to lift her jumps higher in the air)

 

[barbarafan]

Am I alone in thinking Osmond will return the following season???

Er'body so gloom and calling her career as an amateur over.

She won an Oly medal against 2 Russians and topped it off with a World title. I mostly expected her to take this season off....

I am with you. She needs a breather before attacking another 4 yr cycle..or even for mtl...Take her time to prepare for 2020. This is also a very nb yr for her BF...he trains across the country and it will be intense. not sure where base for new tour wi

Don't forget that other than this past season, Alaine was right there with them, battling for gold

But I think it will be a few years. There was at least 5 years between the true era of the Joannie/Cynthia battle (until Joannie was a class of her own) and the Katelyn/Gabby/Alaine years. Before Joannie/Cynthia - god, when was the last time we had a real battle for the top, between skaters who could actually contend internationally? Possibly(?) Josee Chouinard and Karen Preston, back in the early 90s? (but even that is a stretch)

So if we go just 5 years with our ladies in a depth slump, I'm okay with that. I'm personally more worried about our men, because we always seem to have men that are in the mix. but right now, despite having 3 men competing who have been top 10 in the world, we're kind of outclassed internationally. Canada is kind of known for its mens figure skating, and I hope we don't hit a big slump like we tend to with ladies.

Good juniors coming up though.

 

[coppertop1]

Don't forget that other than this past season, Alaine was right there with them, battling for gold

But I think it will be a few years. There was at least 5 years between the true era of the Joannie/Cynthia battle (until Joannie was a class of her own) and the Katelyn/Gabby/Alaine years. Before Joannie/Cynthia - god, when was the last time we had a real battle for the top, between skaters who could actually contend internationally? Possibly(?) Josee Chouinard and Karen Preston, back in the early 90s? (but even that is a stretch)

So if we go just 5 years with our ladies in a depth slump, I'm okay with that. I'm personally more worried about our men, because we always seem to have men that are in the mix. but right now, despite having 3 men competing who have been top 10 in the world, we're kind of outclassed internationally. Canada is kind of known for its mens figure skating, and I hope we don't hit a big slump like we tend to with ladies.

Hopefully, Alaine will regain her confidence. Sometimes a major disappointment can make a skater come back with a vengeance. It would be nice to develop some more depth. I wonder if we can adopt a lady from Japan or Russia. As long as we still have Gabby. We will be fine. If we didn't have her, I'd be worried. We've been in worse situations with our ladies. Remember the mid to late 90s?

Canada might be in for dip with regards to our medals. Our stars are almost all retiring. We've been rather spoiled for talent over the past decade.

 

[overedge]

I'm personally more worried about our men, because we always seem to have men that are in the mix. but right now, despite having 3 men competing who have been top 10 in the world, we're kind of outclassed internationally. Canada is kind of known for its mens figure skating, and I hope we don't hit a big slump like we tend to with ladies.

We've had that big slump already with the men, in the mid-'90s. There was one year in there when the only international medal won by a Canadian man was in the adult competition at Oberstdorf.

Some years are big years, other years aren't. It happens, and it's not the end of the world when it does.

 

[screech]

We've had that big slump already with the men, in the mid-'90s. There was one year in there when the only international medal won by a Canadian man was in the adult competition at Oberstdorf.

We had Elvis, though. Even when he wasn't at his best, up until about 2000, he was always in the mix. I guess we had a bit of a slump in the early 00s, but even then we did have Buttle and/or Sandhu winning medals internationally, and both consistently top 10 at Worlds before Buttle really hit his stride.
We've had at least 1 Canadian man on the World podium for 23 of the last 36 Worlds (since 1982).
Conversely, we've had at least 1 Canadian lady on the World podium 4 of the last 36 Worlds.

Of course, during that time, we had Josee Chouinard who was absolutely one of the best in the world, but just never managed to make it count at the big events.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Between

• Knight (1965, bronze) and Cranston (1974, bronze) were nine seasons
• Cranston and Poccar (1982, bronze) were eight seasons
• Stojko (1997, gold) and Stojko (2000, silver) were three seasons
• Stojko and Buttle (2005, silver) were five seasons
• Buttle and Buttle (2008, gold) were three seasons
• Chan (2013, gold) and last Worlds were five seasons, with or without Chan

The long run was 1982-1997, where Canadian Men were off the podium once, in 1996, ironically in Edmonton, where Stojko was 4th. Plus there was Orser to replace Poccar, Browning to replace Orser, and Stojko to replace Browning in that run. It wasn't a given, after Chan's first Worlds, that he would be on the Worlds podium right after Buttle's championship in 2008. Kind of made us spoiled.