Synchronised Skating at the Olympics

[jamesy]

I kind of want them to add synchro so people will watch and ask where is Nathan Chen.

 

[overedge]

The Olympics could get rid of a lot of those newer X-Games-type skiiing events that all look the same anyway.

Biathlon is interesting and exciting because it's so difficult - to ski that fast and hard and then be able to settle down enough to do something as precise as shooting.

 

[Bellanca]

I kind of want them to add synchro so people will watch and ask where is Nathan Chen.

 

[caseyedwards]

Why not, when the surfing venue for Paris 2024 will be in Tahiti!

I missed that!! But it totally makes the point! Just put synchro in different city!

 

[Bellanca]

More hockey players? More peeps for curling? Yet, still no synchro.

 

[starrynight]

If they revived and updated the old fours discipline, though, maybe that could be a midway point bringing elements of synchro to an Olympic discipline alongside elements of singles/pairs skating.

I would LOVE to even see a fours exhibition by modern pairs skaters. I think it would be amazing. I can just hope that one day some enthusiastic pairs skaters will create a routine for Stars on Ice or the like. Weaver/Poje and Duhamel/Radford did a sort of fours routine with a fours death spiral ... but because it was dance/pairs there were no side by side jumps or fours lifts.

Ice time is already at a premium and more so during the Olympics. Currently skaters can practice on the same ice but a synchro team would need more than just a patch on the ice. The only way it’ll work is if the host city partners up with another city close by who can provide the ice and housing. It would be difficult to pull off but not completely impossible. The bigger question: will people tune in to watch?

I think figure skating is like gymnastics - it's one of the once every four years sports that people always like to tune into. Especially things like rhythmic gymnastics or synchronised swimming - I reckon that would only be on TV in my country once every four years, but people look out for it if only for the spectacle of the performance.