Sunrise

The Newsletter of the Eastern Section of the U.S. Figure Skating Association

July 2002,

Volume 2, No. 1

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ISU

WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL

Despite all the uproar at the Winter Olympics and the attention given our sport by the media, not much of substance happened at the ISU Congress in Japan last month. Ottavio Cinquanta was re-elected. His plan to revise the judging system was accepted pending further testing, and little attention was paid to the dishonest judging.

Here’s a quote from the ISU webpage: “Following his re-election by acclamation, ISU President Mr Ottavio Cinquanta stressed the importance of unity to the organization. He said that the outcomes of the Congress demonstrated that the ISU was ‘active, proactive and responsive.’ "

Here’s the ISU take on “Key changes agreed by the Congress: “:

After intensive debate on the Judging System for Figure Skating and Ice Dancing, the Congress decided that, with immediate effect from next season, the main change will be that 20 Judges will attend the Championships. 14 Judges will be randomly selected and only 9 of the 14 (chosen randomly and anonymously) will determine the result. This structure applies for each event (Short Program, Free Skating). The concept has been taken from a much wider revolutionary project originally worked out by President Cinquanta and then presented by the Council.
The full project will be worked on intensively for completion as soon as possible and implementation if it is proved suitable.
Other key features of the new system:

The scoring system will be cumulative from 0 rather than deducting from 6.0
Each element of a skater's program will be assigned a score according to an agreed scale of difficulty, plus or minus a score for the quality of execution
Scores for all technical elements and their grades of execution plus scores for general skating skills will be added to a Presentation Score
The total score of the Short Program will be added to the total score of the Free Program producing the Total Competition Score
The marks awarded by the 9 Judges are added and the highest total score wins
Further details will be coming soon

None of the USFSA proposals were passed by the ISU Congress. While the media made a lot of fuss about judging systems, little was said about our zero tolerance proposal which would have barred judges for life when they were caught cheating. That’s where the trouble was and is – cheating judges. The judging system wasn’t broken. Trying to quantify everything may make it worse, however.

In the elections, Ron Pfenning led the balloting for the Figure Skating Technical Committee and USFSA President Phyllis Howard placed fourth in the balloting for the Council and now joins that body. Jerry Lace was appointed Chair of the Management Commission. Congratulations to each of them.

As many know, the ISU consists of both figure skating and speed skating organizations. Ottavio Cinquanta, who came from a speed skating background, can count on the speed skaters to back him. Many who had been supportive of the U.S. were unseated in these elections, and we can expect in future the usual way of doing business.

How do American concepts of justice fit within an organization and culture of this kind? We have Worlds in Washington next March and we should and will do a good job with that. It’s time now to start looking post-DC to plan for our future.

That’s my own opinion and not official at all. But it’s not unlike the opinions of other Americans – skaters, fans, or officials. If we’re not about justice and fairness, what are we about?

Readers’ views are welcome.

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Pro-Am

One of the best-kept secrets is the excitement and viability of the annual Pro-Am competition held in Ashburn, Virginia by the Washington FSC Education & Development Fund.. Here you may see compulsory dances skated on a level found only at the Lake Placid Summer Dance Competition or at Nationals.

The wrinkle is that most of these events are skated by students and their instructors against other similarly-comprised teams. The coaches, mostly but not entirely men, are in outstanding shape. Many of them compete with anywhere from 10-30 of their students in event after event under competition conditions and are able to give full energy to each of them. There are no solos for breathers as there might be for tests.

This year’s events saw coaches who have competed at national, international and world levels, some not many years removed from their competitive days and still possessing the skating skills improved by their acquired partnering skills. This makes for high-level competitions and exciting events. The best of the coaches can make their best students look world-class and those with minimal skills look presentable. It also makes for a challenging situation for the judges.

For the students, it’s a chance to look their best in front of an audience; to compete where there might otherwise be no chance to compete; perhaps to prolong their interest in skating and provide a goal toward which to work.

For the coaches, it’s an opportunity to display their talents and the abilities of their students, to keep their skating skills sharp, to compete with other mature skaters, and it’s a full weekend of work.

There are also some Open events. In these, anyone can compete except two coaches together. New teams or established competitive teams often enter these. There are also Coaches Only events and Team Rhythm Events in which a coach skates three dances of the same rhythm (Latin, Fox Trot) with three different students, earning points for each placement.

It was a three-day competition this year (June 7-9) and is growing larger. Next year will be the 10^th annual event and organizer Ed Picken says he expects to have something special planned including some social (off-ice) events.

ExCom

The USFSA Executive Committee held its first meeting of the year in Denver, June 21-23, covering a wide agenda of items. The EC agreed in principle to offer a new PSA/USFSA joint membership which will be required of coaches who wish to participate in USFSA activities. It is the committee’s belief that all coaches should have a basic understanding of the rudiments of teaching and ice safety (which is offered by PSA’s Registration of Entry Coaches) and that the “licensing” of coaches belongs within the purview of USFSA. The joint membership with PSA will give further opportunities for professional growth. USFSA will continue its oversight function with PSA as its teaching arm.

It was also agreed to move forward through our marketing team to devise a new logo to represent the USFSA in all its activities, and to seek a proposal for a website redesign.

Additionally, a Task Force was formed to look into the running of Nationals beyond the year 2006.

Synchro School

Warwick Figure Skaters held a National Judges School for Synchronized Team Skating on April 27. The school was held at a hotel adjacent to the T.F.Green Airport which made it easy for people to get to. Don and Karen McKenzie led the LOC.

It was an excellent school, explaining the new short program, new elements and shapes. There was also an exercise in the hotel parking lot where attendees made up teams and went through hand-holds and transitions in order to understand the difficulties of each. During an on-ice session, a team was asked to try the new twizzle move and it quickly became clear that those with ice dancing experience would handle that much more easily than the rest.

Silver Blades

On June 26, the Silver Blades SC held an awards and exhibitions day at its rink in Bridgewater, MA. I was pleased to see that the club, whose membership had been dwindling was now rebounding under new leadership and an energetic set of parents and pros. They have a nice range of skaters, a few regional competitors, some potential champions and others who have recently bridged from USFSA and ISI programs. It was good to be among people who were enthusiastic about growing their club and offering the benefits of skating to their children.

Rule Change

Note that the jump-out-of-footwork in Senior Ladies must now be a triple.

Competitions

The Competitions Committee is currently balloting some issues which will interest some of you. Two have to do with changing dates of competitions. If successful, these would move Junior Nationals into January (dates depending on Nationals’ dates), and would move Sectionals and Regionals to the 3^rd or 4^th weeks of November and October. This would be a policy decision and would not require a rule change. The question arises often, and was part of the discussion during the Competitions seminar in Minneapolis prior to the Governing Council Meeting.

Another question revives discussion on what is being called the Percentage System for Qualifying skaters from Regionals to Junior Nationals. The idea was brought into play by Jack Curtis and was forcefully presented at the Board Meeting and at the Eastern Meeting in May by Anne Gerli. If passed, the number of entrants in a regional would help to determine the number of skaters from that competition who would qualify for Junior Nationals. (Larger regions would send more skaters to Junior Nationals, but there would be a minimum from each region.) This would require a rule change and would go through the Board of Directors in November and the Governing Council in May.

The question of who is to run Nationals has also reappeared (as mentioned in the Executive Committee section above). Should the USFSA bring this event in-house? Does it have the resources to do so? If the Local Organizing Committee is now doing most of the work for most of the money, how can it be convinced to do so for less? What are the advantages of various ways of running this event? These (and other) questions will need to be answered by the new Task Force created by President Howard. You may have others.

The Longer View

A new (2002) book on sport, entitled “Sports: The All-American Addiction”, written by John Gerdy and published by University Press of Mississippi, calls into question the value of sports as they are organized today. A former All-American basketball star with a long and continuing career in sports, Gerdy charges that American sports undermine traditional American values and are becoming no more than mindless entertainment. Rather than promoting educational ideals, today’s organized sports promote cheating, commercialism, drug use, and a win-at-all costs mentality for elite athletes as well as an anti-intellectual athletic culture. He suggests some restructuring changes.

As most of us know, the ancient Olympic Games began in Greece in or around 776 B.C., held every four years, and continued until 393 B.C. They involved not only athletics, but were a gathering of diverse parts of the populace with exchanges possible in philosophy, the arts, politics and economics. Many festivals and rituals were held including one in which athletes swore a sacred oath not to use unfair means in the games.

Although the prizes were crowns of wild olives, thousands made the pilgrimage to take part in the festivities. But public interest and investment fell off after a period of glory and great interest. Gerdy traces the decline this way:

“As its public appeal grew, the number of athletic events and festivals grew as did the number and size of honors and awards for victors. Increased competition led not only to increased cheating and corruption but also forced athletes to become more specialized, devoting an increasing amount of time to preparing for a particular sport or event to achieve success. Soon experts had to be hired to supervise that training, further promoting the rise of “professional” athletes. The development of a class of elite professional athletes relegated the masses, without the ability or unable to afford the time or money to attain excellence, to the sidelines as spectators, changing Greece from a nation of participants to a nation of spectators. Sound familiar”

Certainly there are differences. But Gerdy’s question about the positive and negative effects on our culture bear consideration. The events of the past season may be signposts that cause us to question whether we are heading in the right direction.

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USFSA – EASTERN SECTION

Eastern Vice-President

Ted Clarke

(T) 781-335-9135

(F) 781-340-5648

E-Mail:Bosnats@aol.com

AT-LARGE MEMBERS:

Mr. Thomas Lescinski (Coach Member)

(H) (617)-923-4534

(F) (617)-782-7846

Mrs. Susan Ward (North Atlantic Region)