I would be very surprised if we have a fall int'l season (I don't even think we'll have Regionals and Sectionals in the U.S.), unless a vaccine is developed by then. With so many countries restricting int'l travel and closing borders, and cases growing in many areas, there's too much risk. At this point, I'm just hoping we can have 4CC/Euros and Worlds.
Skate America 2020 Back to Vegas
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skatesindreams
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Every competitor will eventually need to decide what degree of "risk" they choose to assume.
Very few would likely accept another 12-18 months of SIP/severe restrictions.
Very few would likely accept another 12-18 months of SIP/severe restrictions.
That is under the assumption that governing bodies/locales even allow sports in the first place and then, that the ISU goes ahead with any ideas. Remember, a high percentage of officials and people that would actually have to be at these events would be in higher-risk categories. Getting to the point where skaters actually have to choose/accept a situation is a long ways away.
skatesindreams
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I believe that we will see many participants/competitors leave the sport/retire if this is protracted; without an effective treatment or vaccine.
skatesindreams
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If potential staff and participants want a guarantee that they won't get COVID-19; no one can provide that, unfortunately.
When it comes to day to day training, yes, in most cases, it's up to skaters and their families to decide what they want to do, assuming their rinks are actually open and in the context of whatever restrictions are in place per local laws. When it comes to comps, it likely won't be up to the skaters - the ISU has to decide whether to hold the comp to begin with, based on health risks as well as feasibility. If a country scheduled to host an event is on lockdown and won't allow it, there goes the event. If a critical mass of countries won't allow their athletes to fly out and/or even train, then comps aren't likely to happen regardless of what risk the athletes are willing to accept.
As of now, the ISU has canceled all events - judge seminars, etc - through mid-August. I think June 15 is their decision date for the JGP? Their process for that should give us insight on what the upcoming season will look like.
So instead of the "GP events" being international events, maybe an event like Skate America can be an event for people that train in the US- it could include non US participants if they train here and it wouldn't have the issue with international travel. I am sure similar other GP events could be handled in a similar way. I am sure that we could limit the attendance to an appropriate number, to keep things safe. Perhaps the same concept can be applied to the other GP events. We could have competitive events without international travel and keep attendance small and local.
It could be a good preliminary lead up to nationals and possibly world events if the health issues are minimized.
I think a lot of people both outside and inside the US are looking at more concern for traveling within the US than going abroad (Ie- numbers going up here). And on the opposite spectrum, countries that may have started to stabilize their numbers are sure not going to jump on the idea of people coming from every direction.
It would still have to be organized by the ISU, and while they could switch the rules and have an entire judging panel/technical panel coming from the same country, I don't think it's likely. And if it's a USFS event then you are shutting out international skaters who train/live here. The big ask is still getting people from point A to point B, regardless of how far it is.
I think the general ISU reaction is going to be until everyone can be on somewhat of a level playing field, especially with Beijing waiting in the wings, it's either going to be all or nothing.
ETA- Can you imagine the NFL saying x amount of teams are allowed to play but certain ones can't because of restrictions? I think the NFL announcement was just to give people something to look forward to, but I don't see those plans really coming to fruition by the start of the season.
Carolla5501
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Why not? That’s the exact model college football is currently considering. I can see NFL considering it and I can see ISU considering it.
The ISU is a different situation completely. They are still trying to figure out if MLB and NBA seasons are salvageable with a bunch of different situations- all seemingly with no audience. Big names in the NBA are saying the season just needs to be canceled.
And if you really think for one minute that even one big-name/favorite team being told they can’t play this year in NFL games is going to fly with the general fandom and/or probably the players themselves, I think you’re wrong.
PS- in regards to college football, from what I’m seeing the ones who are calling the shots are saying if campuses are closed to students, then this obviously also applies to the athletes. The general consensus seems to be 8 weeks/60 days for any of these athletes to get back into shape and be ready to play by the end of August. That means by the middle of June at the latest- for everyone, which means campuses would have to be open. In almost every article I’ve found, it seems the most hopeful the majority of them are is for a spring season after the Super Bowl. It seems no one involved wants to play a conference-only shortened season or anything less than a full, regular schedule if it’s anything at all. But then you run into the case of the two seasons being too close together, little downtime for the athletes, and the potential for more injuries.
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Sounds about right, @Tony Wheeler
I don't think students will be back on campus this calendar year. One college I teach for here in Canada has already made that announcement. I expect this to be the norm, especially since we are likely looking at Round 2 of this sometime in the colder seasons.
I just can't imagine we'll see much of anything in the fall. Any hopes for the new year will likely rest on what Round 2 looks like.
I don't think students will be back on campus this calendar year. One college I teach for here in Canada has already made that announcement. I expect this to be the norm, especially since we are likely looking at Round 2 of this sometime in the colder seasons.
I just can't imagine we'll see much of anything in the fall. Any hopes for the new year will likely rest on what Round 2 looks like.
And I think it’s very telling if Canada has already made that decision in some places seeing how drastically smaller the amount of cases are there.
At the end of the day, these athletes want to face off with the best. They want the BCS to more or less make sense. They don’t want the * next to their names for winning. They want the Michigan vs. OSU matchup. Having a watered-down season playing teams only in a certain area is going to turn many of them against rushing into this in August, if there’s even a small chance of it.
MacMadame
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Look at where GP events are held:
Skate Am: Plenty of skaters and international level judges. Traveling within the country could be a problem
Skate Canada: same
Int. of France: it's a small country so I don't think they could put anything on with just their skaters. If you start to expand out, you get the same situation as in the larger countries
Cup of China: same as US & Canada
Ros. Cup: same
NHK: Might work
That doesn't seem like much of a GP if it's only one event.
But if travel around the US and Canada is okay, that would be 3 events. If Russia is in better shape than it seems right now and travel in country was safe, that would be 4 events and now we're talking.
But no GPF no matter what unless the virus is really under control by Dec.
Skate Am: Plenty of skaters and international level judges. Traveling within the country could be a problem
Skate Canada: same
Int. of France: it's a small country so I don't think they could put anything on with just their skaters. If you start to expand out, you get the same situation as in the larger countries
Cup of China: same as US & Canada
Ros. Cup: same
NHK: Might work
That doesn't seem like much of a GP if it's only one event.
But if travel around the US and Canada is okay, that would be 3 events. If Russia is in better shape than it seems right now and travel in country was safe, that would be 4 events and now we're talking.
But no GPF no matter what unless the virus is really under control by Dec.
Japanfan
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That's my hope as well - that the skating season will kick off in 2021, with qualification for major competitions modified as needed.
VGThuy
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Let’s face it; the US is the last place many people around the world want to be in right now. We’re not handling this crisis well. But if you’re optimistic you should book anyway, and you might be right as there certainly are people in high positions who aren’t seeing the actual danger who will fight tooth-and-nail to try to open this competition back up to the public (and I envy them as my sister’s boyfriend’s mom just died of C.OVID-related causes and that’s just one of many people I know who have been impacted and it looks like we’re not even at the halfway point with this thing and things look like it’ll get even worse).
Carolla5501
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Let’s face it, the ISU has never struck me as being all that concerned with being seen as fair and impartial. So you’re asking them to give up the television dollars because some people can’t travel? Do you really think that’s going to happen? it might not be fair but I can also see them saying well we can get some people there so you just do the event with whoever you can get a make sure you collect those $$$
Vagabond
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Skate America cannot happen this season unless Clark County and the State of Nevada allow it to go forward. Nevada is coordinating the reopening of business with other Western states, including California. As I recently posted in the U.S. Nationals thread, California's Governor said that sporting events will not be allowed even behind closed doors there until either a vaccine is available or there is herd immunity. Even if a vaccine is on the market by October, it's unlikely that it will be widely available by then. It's even more unlikely that there will be heard immunity, particularly internationally, as would be necessary for a Grand Prix event.
I’m baffled how some people think (in the long list of things that need to happen between now and then) that the ISU is going to be the one that has the say in the whole thing.
And yeah, I do think that they would put the safety of the athletes and the higher-risk officials, coaches, judges, and everyone else ahead of television money made for a Grand Prix series.
Federal, territorial and local governments hold all the cards, as already mentioned here.
You cannot even begin to plan an international event of any kind until a critical mass of skating countries are back on line and their athletes are able to train and compete locally.
Let's consider a realistic process of how ISU would upload the sport again.
I assume the model would be similar to what the major North American sports leagues are doing.
Given that all cities, regions, countries will come back online at different times, the first decision you have to make is how many countries - and which ones - have to be fully operational for training and competitions to kick off the process of planning events. That's a huge debate to have. Do you leave USA or Russia out of they are not restored but everyone else is? Do you hand pick your top skating countries and plan around them? Do you wait for everyone to come back online, even the member countries who have never had an entry place in top 10 at world's? Good luck even getting past this stage and arriving at a consensus of what's fair.
Next you build a massive spreadsheet that metrics each country. You on a daily basis monitor and update key details such as training restored, social distancing restrictions, travel, etc. All the things you need to know to move forward. You establish threshholds for each item you monitor to determine what constitutes 'green' = go.
Once every cell in your spreadsheet for every country turns green (or is announced to turn green based on planned/announced measures to ease restrictions) you can START to plan. You need months (and months) to organize and allow athletes to prepare.
So when you look at the scope of thinking and planning required, and if a similar process as I have just outlined has been followed, I simply cannot see all spreadsheet cells turning green until the fall sometime. Earliest.
So I'm sticking with my best case scenario being the only way to salvage the coming season is to hold a national championship in late winter/early spring and world championship in late spring. Possibly senior and junior. There would be no other events, other than individual federations creating local competitions as they can to give their skaters some competitive practice.
Keeping an eye out for a path to accelerate the timeline and/or think differently about the process, but so far I can't come up with anything. Nor have I seen a more efficient model being put into place for something this international.
You cannot even begin to plan an international event of any kind until a critical mass of skating countries are back on line and their athletes are able to train and compete locally.
Let's consider a realistic process of how ISU would upload the sport again.
I assume the model would be similar to what the major North American sports leagues are doing.
Given that all cities, regions, countries will come back online at different times, the first decision you have to make is how many countries - and which ones - have to be fully operational for training and competitions to kick off the process of planning events. That's a huge debate to have. Do you leave USA or Russia out of they are not restored but everyone else is? Do you hand pick your top skating countries and plan around them? Do you wait for everyone to come back online, even the member countries who have never had an entry place in top 10 at world's? Good luck even getting past this stage and arriving at a consensus of what's fair.
Next you build a massive spreadsheet that metrics each country. You on a daily basis monitor and update key details such as training restored, social distancing restrictions, travel, etc. All the things you need to know to move forward. You establish threshholds for each item you monitor to determine what constitutes 'green' = go.
Once every cell in your spreadsheet for every country turns green (or is announced to turn green based on planned/announced measures to ease restrictions) you can START to plan. You need months (and months) to organize and allow athletes to prepare.
So when you look at the scope of thinking and planning required, and if a similar process as I have just outlined has been followed, I simply cannot see all spreadsheet cells turning green until the fall sometime. Earliest.
So I'm sticking with my best case scenario being the only way to salvage the coming season is to hold a national championship in late winter/early spring and world championship in late spring. Possibly senior and junior. There would be no other events, other than individual federations creating local competitions as they can to give their skaters some competitive practice.
Keeping an eye out for a path to accelerate the timeline and/or think differently about the process, but so far I can't come up with anything. Nor have I seen a more efficient model being put into place for something this international.
Carolla5501
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I’m not saying the ISU the only party involved but I keep reading the event won’t happen because it might not be open to everyone. If the authorities allow the event, I don’t see the ISU suddenly becoming overwhelmed with a sense of fairness
Remember they didn’t cancel worlds until the Montreal government told them they had to
Remember they didn’t cancel worlds until the Montreal government told them they had to
Give me a break on that last point. Things in all of North America almost right up until that point were going on as scheduled. It wasn’t as if the ISU was the only set of people left trying to hold a large gathering.
Barbara Manatee
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Which makes me think that now in the opposite situation, the ISU is similarly not going be the organization that boldly sticks its neck out and pushes to be one of the first sports to reopen. Figure skating federations are conservative and risk-averse - I expect them to hold off on competitions while they wait and see what happens in other sports.
A lot professional sports leagues are suggesting they should just hop over to Las Vegas to play out their seasons. I haven't heard any of them asking us Nevadans if we are willing to have them. And yeah, the mayor is a loon who'd be all for it damn the consequences, but thankfully the governor is not.
Aceon6
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Fixed it for you
There's a nuance here.
2020 world's were originally planned to involve everyone. Then this unexpected situation hit. Assuming local authorities gave the go-ahead to hold the event, the decision becomes to do it with only the countries who could make it or cancel altogether. In such a circumstance you can justify the lack of 'fairness' as that's your only path to holding the event.
Looking forward in this new world the ISU has choices in planning. To consciously plan only around certain countries and exclude others in the early stages when you have other possible alternatives is a whole other debate and wouldn't be seen in the same light by member federations.
This issue may however come to a head should the ISU reach the latest possible moment for go / no-go for the entire season and are painted into a corner to agree to proceed with those who can make it. Or scrap the season. Even then, the decision could be taken not to proceed out of fairness.
ETA: plus the cancellation/insurance issue
MacMadame
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They needed the government to cancel so they could collect insurance. For all we know, they were begging Montreal and Quebec to say they couldn't do the event behind the scenes. (I consider this just as likely as them begging to hold it.)
As much as some people here would love to tear apart any decision the ISU makes, they aren't always making poor decisions/lacking common sense. They weren't going to be the only organization left by the end of the week complaining that it still needed to happen. They announced quite a few days before the actual cancellation that news was coming- in a week full of pretty much everything shutting down in general. It's not their fault that the event was scheduled to start a mere days after said announcements and they went from one week of everyone being told to proceed as normal to the next where all hell broke loose quickly.
And honestly- why would you NOT want the insurance when you know the cancellation is pretty much a guarantee by that point?
The decision on Worlds came last minute b/c, as Tony said, all hell broke loose at the last minute. And at that point, who knew what would happen in the near future? Registration for my club's comp went live on March 13 and I questioned our comp chair if we should wait a few weeks, but it was decided we needed to move forward. At that point, we thought we'd be shut down for 2 weeks, and of course if we didn't have the comp, skaters would get their money back. We had some deposits with the hotel and some vendors and when we canceled, they just rolled the deposits over for next year. (Hard to do with GPs unless you are coming back to the same city, which could certainly happen. But not with Worlds.)
Since we've been in this for 2 months and have a better view of the longer term, the ISU is obviously going to spend more time making the decision, (hopefully) taking all factors into consideration. Right now, they've said they'll make decisions 10 weeks out, which I assume makes it possible for them to cancel w/o depending on insurance. I would expect that unless training and travel are feasible for the majority of ISU nations, they will make a blanket decision to cancel. And unless we have a vaccine by then, that all seems unlikely.
Tickets for 2019 SA went on sale in mid-April 2019. Given that we haven't heard anything about tickets or hotel rates, I don't think anyone is counting on the event being held. It was also posted here that ticket sales for next year's Worlds have been delayed. I'm hoping that we'll be able to have Worlds, at least.
Since we've been in this for 2 months and have a better view of the longer term, the ISU is obviously going to spend more time making the decision, (hopefully) taking all factors into consideration. Right now, they've said they'll make decisions 10 weeks out, which I assume makes it possible for them to cancel w/o depending on insurance. I would expect that unless training and travel are feasible for the majority of ISU nations, they will make a blanket decision to cancel. And unless we have a vaccine by then, that all seems unlikely.
Tickets for 2019 SA went on sale in mid-April 2019. Given that we haven't heard anything about tickets or hotel rates, I don't think anyone is counting on the event being held. It was also posted here that ticket sales for next year's Worlds have been delayed. I'm hoping that we'll be able to have Worlds, at least.
Japanfan
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Is there a protocol or rule regarding who gets to cancel, the host/pertinent national authorities versus the ISU? Do both have the power to cancel?
And a competition in an empty arena might not work very well, given that audience contributes so much energy to performances.
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