by Thaliana » Thu Sep 14, 2017 4:10 pm
Interesting ideas, though I am not fond of all of them.
I don't mind the reduction in quad value, as I understand it would be cut by approx 10%. We've seen this kind of change in values for triples as well not too long ago, so fine. But I hope, that the deduction for failing a quad will still be high enough to prevent that a fall on a quad would be worth more than a reasonable triple. IIIRC that was one of the thoughts to increase the quad values after 2010.
I don't buy that cutting men FS to 4min will impact artistry. If you can't tell a story in 4min, another 30sec won't make a difference. Ladies FS are already 4min (+/-10sec I think) and that doesn't make the ladies less artistic than the men. But again, Keep them, cut them, I don't see a big problem either way.
However, I absolutely abhore the idea to make a technical and an artistic program and then crown individual as well as all-around winners. "The intention is to have three different medals" ??? Why!! The beauty of figure skating lies in its combination of sports and arts. I wouldn't watch a purely technical competition, and also not a purely artistic one - that would be singles dance then? I want to watch sports and not a show.
Also, if the intent is to bring back the popularity of figure skating as it used to be, I seriously doubt if distinguishing tech and artistic will help. At least technical content is something that you can somewhat judge even as a layman. URs and edges may not be easily understandable, but a competent commentator should be able to point those out in the replays or even life - at least the rather obvious ones.
But giving out an "artistic medal" is IMO actually dangerous for the sport's popularity. Judging skating skills, transitions... is quite impossible for recreational spectators and any perceived ranking is liable to be done based on the show value or music preference or similar things based in personal taste. So there might be vast discrepancies between official results and how the specators feel the results should be. THIS would just exacerbate the problem FS is facing.
I agree with Andy: A lot of problems would be solved if COP would be used as discretly as it is supposed to be. Also very true: medals are about sports, not show.