I have heard this before, that it is somehow motivating to be the kid left out, not told or shown they are special. All I can say is that in my many, many years watching skating practices from learn to skate to elite, at many clubs in North America and abroad, I can assure you I have never seen nor heard of that being the case. There probably are some kids it works for but I have seen many, many examples of kids whose success far exceeds their work ethic and skill and in every case they have been made to feel incredibly special by coaches spending extra time and emotional energy on them, by indirectly or directly putting down or holding back other skaters to make their special more special, and by blaming others (judges, choreographers etc) for any bad skates. This approach seems to be extremely common and probably happens in other sports as well. (I have heard that it happens in soccer and ballet but have not seen it first hand.)
The big tell is that if not being the special one actually made you a better skater, we would see coaches making their special ones compete for time and attention. The fact is, they don’t, so clearly coaches disagree with you.
I think the problem is that unless you are around coaches and skaters day in and day out, and involved in the workings of the training centre or club, you would not be aware of what is happening.
Finally, whether you are bringing up kids, training animals, or training elite athletes, most of the current research shows that a positive environment that is rewards based rather than punishment based gets the best long term results.
