It seems the DG criticise them for their style? Is that right? How dare he!
Gailhaguet 101 : Reed between the lines
"Their style" = Dubreuil and Haguenauer
"Be more open to the world" = I want you to change coach and go where I'm going to tell you to go.
Last year already, he wanted them to move away from Montréal. He said training with V/M was a wrong idea.
Now, he wants them to move away from Montréal. He says it's about their style.
That's BS.
He just want to cut them off from their base to get control over their career and uses arguments at hand.
Can someone with knowledge of the French Federation please explain to me how Didier is still around? Presumably he got elected at some point. He seems to cause as many problems for the skaters he's meant to be helping as he does for everyone else.
Because he's elected by a limited base, which are the club presidents. Because the area that gets the most votes is Ile de France (Paris and surroundings) and controlling it is enough to secure an election and that's where he has built his base. Because he has dossiers on many people. Because president of a sport federation is an unpaid time-consuming position that he wants more than any other (an interesting question is where does he get his personal money from ? A while ago, like some other sport federation's presidents, he was getting paid as a teacher by the National Institute for Sport where he wasn't teaching for real but the Cour des Comptes (which verify the use of state money) stopped the common practise). Because he makes sure no athlete is legitimate enough to replace him. No ex-champion is left close to the fed after a year or two of retirment. He keeps them that long for the show but that's it.
He banned Candeloro from entering the french fed box during Nice Worlds.
At the last election, daddy Peizerat died no long before the election. His wife became president of the club of Lyon (the region, named Rhone Alpes, is the other powerhouse region of the fed, quite adverse to Gailhaguet with Lucine, Zazoui ... but smaller than Ile de France). The morning of the election, he found a technicality (she was not yet officially registered as president or something like that) to forbid her to enter the building of the general assembly ; Gwendal said he left her crying at the entrance. Right before the elections, there are always mysterious rumors about the serious opponents, like they are crooks or something bad. He throws promises and threats.
And it's a multi-discipline federation. The clubs are diverse with no shared interest. Making alliances big enough to overthrow him is complicated. Gwendal peaked at 35%.
He asks the eligible french athletes to send supporting letters to the club presidents (he holds their selection in his hands, that's easy)
Everyone, the media, the people, the politics, many athletes would like him to be beaten at the elections.
Everyone is "why is he still here, how come ?"
But figure skating is not a important sport and no journalist will go further than that.
Sport feds are purely independant. They do as they wish.
Their organisation is very old-fashioned. Amateur, unpaid, almost family business. It is not just the figure skating federation that is like that. It's 90% of the french sport federations who have old presidents with 4-5 mandates behind them and habits of making business with friends.
The government has been talking to the CNOSF (french olympic committee) about reforming the sport federations for 20 years. About getting pro, getting paid positions to attract several / younger candidates, limiting the age of the presidents to 70 yo, 2 or max 3 mandates, getting a larger voting base to bring some air, more transparency. Until not long ago, the CNOSF and the federations were bonding together against those wills of reform and decided against them.
But with Macron's election, things have changed. Sport federations look totally off base and they know it. The state is about to reduce money for sport (which is already not big). And 2024 Olys are now a deadline when the government wants sport organisations to be totally reformed. The government is going to cut most of its ties to sport federations and wants to put things in order and in motion before that. So there is a initiative for the "reform of sport governance" by the Ministry of Sport that is to make some propositions in the coming months.
At the 2016 elections (summer sports), on their own, several people overthrew the old presidents on the basis of these reforms. But some others feds resisted. At the 2018 elections (winter sports), the propositions for sport reform won't be ready either so there will be no external pressure on this election to force the FFSG to evolve (and get rid of his president), even if everyone think the FFSG is the worst of all the french sport feds and is the perfect example of why the reform is necessary.
Don't know really. He was elected a year ago or something.
He was re-elected in 2014. Next elections are in May or June. No declared opponent yet.
I can, however, get behind the argument that they need to work on other styles to get better in the SD. They need to find a way to become more comfortable with the SD rhythms, to be able to translate the SD music into movement and onto the ice the same way that they do it in the FD. But they don't need to change their FD style for that, they can work on that off the ice.
I think they need 2 things.
1st : for their SD, they need to find what woks for them I agree. And what works for them is recent music with which they relate and like to move. No standards, no overly adapted music (thinking about their waltz where the music was NOT waltzing). The ones where they lightened up in my opinion are their
2014 SD, the
second part of their 2017 SD and
this season's SD.
This is what they really have fun skating. And it shows.
I enjoyed seeing them skating a waltz as junior in 2011 to Coeur de Pirate much more than skating to Charms years and medals later.
2nd : and for the free, they need not to change style but explore further.
Ie not get rid of Marie-France and her view on steps and on what ice dance should be but work with external choreographers and put them even more at the heart of their choreo than what they did this year with Cirio.
Explore different kind of moves, different feelings.
I'd like them for example to go less ethereal and explore gutsy. (problem is, that isn't Marie-France's branch)
They explore feelings so I'm dreaming of a program about anger that would go like this : oppression, fear, anger, revolt, fight, victory, soothing. On drums.
I'd also like them to go for something sexy (but classy). I want them to skate
to this. Water drops on burning rocks.
Where is my fan ?
In general, I want them to go for what I call « esthetic shocks ». The year I wrote that on french forum, they came up with Oddudua and that's the kind of thing I'm talking about, except it's not just about getting musics that are unusual in ice dance but about creating an esthetically awing and fitting choreo. (frustrated me last season)
(Translation = leave us alone 
)
