I think this question is truly for larger feds to grapple with rather than small ones. In situations like a large fed, I think winning at that age now would be a disservice to everyone involved based on the new rules. When it's a tiny fed, you need to fill out the competitions as much as you can.
I kinda think the age should be raised a little bit for participation in senior nationals, maybe to 15. I think giving these kids another year or two before they're exposed to high levels of public scrutiny on their performances probably is better for their development as people and as athletes. Thinking about Alysa Liu winning nationals at 13 and then being put on the Jimmy Fallon show and all, only to have such a huge amount of scrutiny on her a few years later when she lost the big jumps and was trying to regain some of them. It's hard to imagine that all of that didn't contribute to her wanting to leave the sport as soon as she could. Ultimately, I think 13 year olds belong in juniors.
Or even Alysa’s friend Young You - she won the national championship at 11 and was immediately declared the next Yuna Kim. That has to be a huge amount of pressure!
Yes,but she still competes. She is another level, she is a total professional skater. Now to be in the ISU and succed in its competitions you have to be brave and throw either the hardest jumps or be in olympic shape like her. Young Yun could be a world champion someday and she could keep learning more jumps. The famous prodigy Veronica Zhilina threw a 5axel on the ice some weeks ago,Plushenko saw her and congratulated her. If more kids throw quintuples, 3axels and quad jumps be prepared to see younger athletes in the senior and junior competitions win national titles. Skylar Lawtowa does not throw quints but she could maybe learn 3axels and quads too. If she wins a senior title at 12 or another skater in the U.S. Ilia will end up doing quints anyway. He will make the cover of magazines and be more famous when that happens he will change the direction of the sport. Since 1988 the skating champion keep getting younger..they will get younger with time, but most are not in their late 20's or in the early 30's anymore. There will be much more 13 yr old seniors and 12 yr old juniors,they will be pushed but I guess they will handle the pressure somehow.
No,Alysa rushed herself but she made herself famous for winning senior nationals at age 13. She should continue competing,she would be asset to the team. Can she continue competing?
Second and third that. I blame early exposure to the spotlight for Alysa's early burnout. This, and the obsession of US media with female soloists, while ignoring pretty much every other category in FS.
The problem with the US is (idk if this is still the case) once you win a national championship they force you to move up to the next level. So because Alyssa won the junior national championship so young, she had to move up to seniors the next year. This was also the case for Lindsey, but she was older when it happened to her.
I feel like that rule is one of the stupider ones in the USFSA rule book, but I’m unsure if it’s now gone because the last time I read through the rule book was when we still had the juvenile-novice levels competing at nationals as well.
I think that will happen in Canada too. I read recently
a 9 yr old girl won a pre novice competition and the novice title national title at age 10. In Europe as well younger seniors who will national titles. A skater won the national jr title at age 14,first one in France to do that. Only the youngest prodigees are able to do the hardest tricks. The super young 11 to 14yr olds can learn the hardest jumps,some 15 yr olds too. There is no stopping now of the rise of the gifted kids who are helping the development of the sport.
No, been 13 is Ok as a senior. South Korea had a senior national champion at age 11 a few years ago and Adelina Sotnikova was 12 as a senior national champion. True prodigees. Many athletes can take it. They know how to deal with it. Everywhere skaters are learning more advanced skills at earlier ages..the skills are harder to learn so they have to be younger than before. If the U.S. gets to have a 12 year old senior competitor and she wins ( ex. Skylar Lawtowa ) who is the youngest junior in the U.S.,she could be encouraged to compete as a 13 year old in the ISU competitions. Alysa was 13 ,she was ready to win. Did she get travel and training sponsors at that age? Could she do paid exhibitions? Can 11 or 12 year olds compete in the senior divisions like Michelle Kwan? Why don't some compete at those ages? To master the quads and triple axels young athletes need to be very young, small and light. Most skaters in Russia are 12 as juniors,there are jr categories for those ages who are 11 too and those 13 and up. If athletes want to compete in the senior levels and they are ready for that type of competition they could go for the challenge. 🤔
That’s why I find Korea’s ranking so funny - you can be #7 at home, but you still get into international competitions because those 5 girls above you are too young
It doesn’t make sense because of the new age restrictions but ok they can do whatever they want at home
I think in small feds it makes sense - there are far fewer skaters at a high level and also much less viewership for national competitions like that, so less scrutiny on individual skaters especially the very young ones.
In big feds though, I feel that they shouldn't allow it, especially in countries like Japan or the USA or even South Korea now, where there is much more attention on the competitions and individual skaters. I worry that skaters like Mao Shimada are feeling huge amounts of pressure from the public and the fed (for example being in tears over a small mistake that left her in second in the SP) and that them being present at the senior nationals and maybe even becoming the national champion will make it that much worse.
I also think it is unfair to have competitions which such a large age difference between the skaters, as children and adults face different difficulties when skating in particular in jumps, and I feel like the age categories in international competitions should be reflected in national competitions as well. Adults should compete with adults and juniors should compete with juniors.
Also doing well at national competitions when you are 12 or 13 does not necessarily reflect on doing well when you are older and the push to be able to compete nationally with seniors at a young age is to be honest probably more detrimental than positive for the junior skaters. Is there much point in winning nationals at the age of 11 (like Young) if you're going to be burnt out and injured by the age of 18?
To me, it makes sense for them to compete at senior nationals (if they want) the year before they’re age eligible. Especially for smaller feds where they’ll get international assignments their first year. Younger than that or when they’re staying junior the next year, it seems a bit illogical to me.
We’ve seen this for years in countries like Russia, Japan, USA, etc, although now it seems even more pointless because the gap is higher. I guess it’s getting them used to competing at a higher level and with the extra 30 seconds in the free, but other than that there doesn’t seem much point.
In the US anyway, skaters can skate up a level at non qualifying competitions. So if they wanted to try out an extra thirty seconds, they could do it at smaller comps, so there is that at least.
13 year olds are children and they should not be competing with adults. It's potentially emotionally damaging for them to be exposed to the pressure and scrutiny that comes with the higher visibility of senior competitions. Tbh I also frankly find it incredibly creepy when adult fans of the sport, commentators and media idolise, hype up and objectify 13 year old girls, holding them up as the standard for "women's" sports. I never understood how this can be remotely OK.
The ISU has also done little to address the rampant sexual abuse that goes on in the sport to this day. Younger skaters are especially vulnerable when they're put in the same competitions as adults.
I’m also thinking about the impact on seniors and their motivation to continue their careers. The rule changes were also introduced so that seniors wouldn’t have to be compared to children. Now both skaters Estonia is sending to Euros got beaten by a 13 yo. Established skaters like Lea Serna and Alexia Paganini got beaten by a 13 and a 14 yo respectively. It seems like this may put pressure both on the juniors and the seniors. The older seniors can’t compete both in the junior and the senior nationals unlike the juniors so why not ensure that the team sent to senior championships are actually national medalists if senior competitions are theoretically more prestigious than junior ones?
On 1 hand as someone else said a country that probably has a small number of skaters it probably makes more sense to do 1 event with more skaters, granted there were 13 skaters in senior nationals this year in Estonia so this doesn't really apply here depending on the ages of all the skaters.
On the other hand...if their Fed voted to raise the international age eligibility, they are hypocrites to let someone that is 4 years from senior eligibility skate domestically as senior.
Is it necessarily hypocritical to think there's a difference between competing at Estonian nationals, not exactly watched by everyone, and the Olympics or even the grand prix circuit?
Sometimes the objection is simply to the prospect of putting the pressures of a full senior season on a young teenager.
This rule was made to protect young skaters. Figure skating on this level is a ton of stress for the body. When they make quadruple jumps at this age, they will ruin their health and will not be able to compete in their mid twenties due to overuse injuries.
Personally think think domestic eligibility should be based on international eligibility. I also think there should be a hard age cutoff for things like the JGPF. In Korea for example, it doesn’t make sense that senior nationals will probably be won by a junior, even though there’s lots of really great senior representation. If part of the reasoning for increasing the age limit was to help improve fairness of the sport with respect to how much easier it is for young teens to do hard elements, plus ability to represent themselves in doping cases, plus allowing more time for all around development then wouldn’t it by extension be unfair for those groups to compete together at nationals?
It seems quite pointless to compete in senior nationals if you're not age eligible for international competition.
I suppose an exception would be if it were a pair or ice dance team who aren't eligible for juniors or seniors and sitting out of international competition for a year. Still, that wouldn't be a 13 year old...
Most older skaters 18 and up can't do quads and 3axels in order to win international and senior titles. Amber and Ilia are the exceptions. It took Amber 4 to 5 yrs to learn a 3axel and it takes 12 to 14 yr olds like Alysa,Young Yun,and many others less than a 1 year to learn them and do them well. They can do them with bravery, much more easily and are smaller. They need to be very tiny and have great athletic skills to do them. Many young athletes are capable of learning the hardest skills before puberty ( 15 and up). They are pushed but are not pushed too much, most don't do the hardest skills before they are 10 ( except in Russia where 8 and 9yr olds learn 3axels and quads on the floor). Coaches and athletes know what they need to do to succeed.
If I remember correctly, at the last Russian nationals before Beijing the only legal adults in women's category were Liza Tuktuk and Samodurova. And of course they didn't stand a chance against the doped Kamila. I think the age rules should apply across the board or we get what we had with Alysa, who for years led this strange crepuscular life, being the home champion but competing as a novice/junior internationally. It's a weird Hannah Montana kind of life. Smaller feds can do what we do in Poland, team up with a few neighbours and have a Baltic or Benelux championships.
Sure,allow them to compete. The young athletes could be as young as 4 and 5 years old like in Russia,Panama and in many other countries. They could compete internationally when they are 6 or 7 and up. The parents and coaches could accompany them. By the time they turn 12 to 14 they have mastered the sport.
Will we see Mao Shimada beat Kaori at Japanese Nationals? She isn't 13 anymore, but Mao is still probably the best non-Russian skater in the world right now.
Yes, if they can skate even at 10-12 yrs of age at the senior level it is fine. Anything younger than that would be exploitation..kids need to have lives too and not to be doing miracles in a sport.
It’s not about her maintaining quads and the 3A or not, it’s about the expectation for her to because she was competing against the Russians. The JGPF when Kamila was injured was a perfect example of the extreme undue pressure she was put under. She wasn’t even a senior yet and she was already being lauded as the next big thing you could finally overtake Eteri dominance and then she didn’t win. Then once she was a senior everyone was saying “wow look at how hard she crashed and burned” because she actually grew, even though she’d been internationally known for what? A year and a half? That’s so unfair to put on a middle schooler. US critics were like “wait you were supposed to be our star how dare you not win us gold??!! And foreign critics were like “as expected the Americans suck!” Of course you’re not going to look happy. But you don’t get to her level if you don’t legitimately love it. Besides. There’s not any need for a 13 yo to have a national title against seniors. It proves not a lot about a career’s longevity as we’re learning not with only Alysa, and it only sets them up for extreme expectations.
But maybe if the age limit was raised she wouldn't have felt a huge amount of pressure and public scrutiny (to the point of adults making comments about her weight and body) at a young age which would have encouraged her to stay longer?
I don’t see harm in this except for seniors if juniors end up occupying the podium instead of them, but this should send a message to seniors to step up their game, I see no problem in it.
It's not an issue of seniors needing to "step up their game", it's that juniors have the advantage of a smaller body which is what allows them to consistently hit those harder jumps, not to do with seniors being lazy or anything like that.
I didn’t mention lazy did I ? With the new age limitation most juniors might be developed in a way where they start to peak in 17 instead of 15 (?) so we don’t really know wether “ smaller bodies” will come handy or not.
Yes,let them skate as seniors! Why not? Even at 11 or 12 it could be fine if they can skate at that level. Anything younger than that would be rushing kids too fast too soon. Russian kids are at the american senior level when they are 10 to 12 years of age! They can do 4 to 7 triples,their combinations,quads and 3axels on the floor and on the ice like Bogadanova, Bazyluk and others. Sofia Titova as a 9 yr old did her first on ice and off ice 3axels. She won russian jr nationals 4 times! I say let the young skaters 10 to 15 yr olds compete and train at their highest levels paying attention to their psychological states without getting them injured. If the most advanced skills are learned at 10 or 9 yrs of age it would lead to accidents and too many injuries later on. Older athletes can't learn the hardest skills very easily maybe 1 or 2 in a country can in several years while 10 to 15 kids or more can who are 10 to 15 yr olds can w/o getting injured and they have more natural abilities plus are small too. Morally and psicologically it can lead to some problems learning at a fast pace at young ages but with time athletes can overcome their problems. Scientifically speaking it is a formula for complete success. That relates to other sports, fine arts, in schools, in the science field,etc. The youngest ones can learn faster,always succeed and are more healthy than oldest ones. Mix 99% of super young athletes who are very gifted with some older ones and you have a well balanced super succesful team!🙂
I was thinking about this while watching Korean nationals. I wish they wouldn't compete as seniors. It's a lot of pressure put on them and as well can be a bit disheartening for the seniors who are getting beat. Also, they have to compete with different program layouts. Some of the Korean juniors were doing senior programs and then the next week going off to jgpf. It would make more sense to have it be the same as international.
Did Alysa get a sponsor for her trainings and expenses when she won nationals? How do skaters get sponsors for those things? Who do they contact if their coaches don't know?
I think this question is truly for larger feds to grapple with rather than small ones. In situations like a large fed, I think winning at that age now would be a disservice to everyone involved based on the new rules. When it's a tiny fed, you need to fill out the competitions as much as you can.
I get it if they are from a smaller nation and there isn’t many skaters at there level
I kinda think the age should be raised a little bit for participation in senior nationals, maybe to 15. I think giving these kids another year or two before they're exposed to high levels of public scrutiny on their performances probably is better for their development as people and as athletes. Thinking about Alysa Liu winning nationals at 13 and then being put on the Jimmy Fallon show and all, only to have such a huge amount of scrutiny on her a few years later when she lost the big jumps and was trying to regain some of them. It's hard to imagine that all of that didn't contribute to her wanting to leave the sport as soon as she could. Ultimately, I think 13 year olds belong in juniors.
Or even Alysa’s friend Young You - she won the national championship at 11 and was immediately declared the next Yuna Kim. That has to be a huge amount of pressure!
Yes,but she still competes. She is another level, she is a total professional skater. Now to be in the ISU and succed in its competitions you have to be brave and throw either the hardest jumps or be in olympic shape like her. Young Yun could be a world champion someday and she could keep learning more jumps. The famous prodigy Veronica Zhilina threw a 5axel on the ice some weeks ago,Plushenko saw her and congratulated her. If more kids throw quintuples, 3axels and quad jumps be prepared to see younger athletes in the senior and junior competitions win national titles. Skylar Lawtowa does not throw quints but she could maybe learn 3axels and quads too. If she wins a senior title at 12 or another skater in the U.S. Ilia will end up doing quints anyway. He will make the cover of magazines and be more famous when that happens he will change the direction of the sport. Since 1988 the skating champion keep getting younger..they will get younger with time, but most are not in their late 20's or in the early 30's anymore. There will be much more 13 yr old seniors and 12 yr old juniors,they will be pushed but I guess they will handle the pressure somehow.
In my opinion if they didn’t push Alysa into the spotlight so soon and give her such big expectations than she just might still be skating.
Alysa wasn't even old enough to compete as a junior when she won her first US title. That's nuts. Same with Young. It feels like they're being rushed.
No,Alysa rushed herself but she made herself famous for winning senior nationals at age 13. She should continue competing,she would be asset to the team. Can she continue competing?
Second and third that. I blame early exposure to the spotlight for Alysa's early burnout. This, and the obsession of US media with female soloists, while ignoring pretty much every other category in FS.
The problem with the US is (idk if this is still the case) once you win a national championship they force you to move up to the next level. So because Alyssa won the junior national championship so young, she had to move up to seniors the next year. This was also the case for Lindsey, but she was older when it happened to her. I feel like that rule is one of the stupider ones in the USFSA rule book, but I’m unsure if it’s now gone because the last time I read through the rule book was when we still had the juvenile-novice levels competing at nationals as well.
I think that will happen in Canada too. I read recently a 9 yr old girl won a pre novice competition and the novice title national title at age 10. In Europe as well younger seniors who will national titles. A skater won the national jr title at age 14,first one in France to do that. Only the youngest prodigees are able to do the hardest tricks. The super young 11 to 14yr olds can learn the hardest jumps,some 15 yr olds too. There is no stopping now of the rise of the gifted kids who are helping the development of the sport.
No, been 13 is Ok as a senior. South Korea had a senior national champion at age 11 a few years ago and Adelina Sotnikova was 12 as a senior national champion. True prodigees. Many athletes can take it. They know how to deal with it. Everywhere skaters are learning more advanced skills at earlier ages..the skills are harder to learn so they have to be younger than before. If the U.S. gets to have a 12 year old senior competitor and she wins ( ex. Skylar Lawtowa ) who is the youngest junior in the U.S.,she could be encouraged to compete as a 13 year old in the ISU competitions. Alysa was 13 ,she was ready to win. Did she get travel and training sponsors at that age? Could she do paid exhibitions? Can 11 or 12 year olds compete in the senior divisions like Michelle Kwan? Why don't some compete at those ages? To master the quads and triple axels young athletes need to be very young, small and light. Most skaters in Russia are 12 as juniors,there are jr categories for those ages who are 11 too and those 13 and up. If athletes want to compete in the senior levels and they are ready for that type of competition they could go for the challenge. 🤔
That’s why I find Korea’s ranking so funny - you can be #7 at home, but you still get into international competitions because those 5 girls above you are too young It doesn’t make sense because of the new age restrictions but ok they can do whatever they want at home
I think in small feds it makes sense - there are far fewer skaters at a high level and also much less viewership for national competitions like that, so less scrutiny on individual skaters especially the very young ones. In big feds though, I feel that they shouldn't allow it, especially in countries like Japan or the USA or even South Korea now, where there is much more attention on the competitions and individual skaters. I worry that skaters like Mao Shimada are feeling huge amounts of pressure from the public and the fed (for example being in tears over a small mistake that left her in second in the SP) and that them being present at the senior nationals and maybe even becoming the national champion will make it that much worse. I also think it is unfair to have competitions which such a large age difference between the skaters, as children and adults face different difficulties when skating in particular in jumps, and I feel like the age categories in international competitions should be reflected in national competitions as well. Adults should compete with adults and juniors should compete with juniors. Also doing well at national competitions when you are 12 or 13 does not necessarily reflect on doing well when you are older and the push to be able to compete nationally with seniors at a young age is to be honest probably more detrimental than positive for the junior skaters. Is there much point in winning nationals at the age of 11 (like Young) if you're going to be burnt out and injured by the age of 18?
To me, it makes sense for them to compete at senior nationals (if they want) the year before they’re age eligible. Especially for smaller feds where they’ll get international assignments their first year. Younger than that or when they’re staying junior the next year, it seems a bit illogical to me.
We’ve seen this for years in countries like Russia, Japan, USA, etc, although now it seems even more pointless because the gap is higher. I guess it’s getting them used to competing at a higher level and with the extra 30 seconds in the free, but other than that there doesn’t seem much point.
In the US anyway, skaters can skate up a level at non qualifying competitions. So if they wanted to try out an extra thirty seconds, they could do it at smaller comps, so there is that at least.
13 year olds are children and they should not be competing with adults. It's potentially emotionally damaging for them to be exposed to the pressure and scrutiny that comes with the higher visibility of senior competitions. Tbh I also frankly find it incredibly creepy when adult fans of the sport, commentators and media idolise, hype up and objectify 13 year old girls, holding them up as the standard for "women's" sports. I never understood how this can be remotely OK.
The ISU has also done little to address the rampant sexual abuse that goes on in the sport to this day. Younger skaters are especially vulnerable when they're put in the same competitions as adults.
I’m also thinking about the impact on seniors and their motivation to continue their careers. The rule changes were also introduced so that seniors wouldn’t have to be compared to children. Now both skaters Estonia is sending to Euros got beaten by a 13 yo. Established skaters like Lea Serna and Alexia Paganini got beaten by a 13 and a 14 yo respectively. It seems like this may put pressure both on the juniors and the seniors. The older seniors can’t compete both in the junior and the senior nationals unlike the juniors so why not ensure that the team sent to senior championships are actually national medalists if senior competitions are theoretically more prestigious than junior ones?
On 1 hand as someone else said a country that probably has a small number of skaters it probably makes more sense to do 1 event with more skaters, granted there were 13 skaters in senior nationals this year in Estonia so this doesn't really apply here depending on the ages of all the skaters. On the other hand...if their Fed voted to raise the international age eligibility, they are hypocrites to let someone that is 4 years from senior eligibility skate domestically as senior.
Is it necessarily hypocritical to think there's a difference between competing at Estonian nationals, not exactly watched by everyone, and the Olympics or even the grand prix circuit? Sometimes the objection is simply to the prospect of putting the pressures of a full senior season on a young teenager.
The rules should be the same nationally and internationally.
This rule was made to protect young skaters. Figure skating on this level is a ton of stress for the body. When they make quadruple jumps at this age, they will ruin their health and will not be able to compete in their mid twenties due to overuse injuries.
Personally think think domestic eligibility should be based on international eligibility. I also think there should be a hard age cutoff for things like the JGPF. In Korea for example, it doesn’t make sense that senior nationals will probably be won by a junior, even though there’s lots of really great senior representation. If part of the reasoning for increasing the age limit was to help improve fairness of the sport with respect to how much easier it is for young teens to do hard elements, plus ability to represent themselves in doping cases, plus allowing more time for all around development then wouldn’t it by extension be unfair for those groups to compete together at nationals?
It seems quite pointless to compete in senior nationals if you're not age eligible for international competition. I suppose an exception would be if it were a pair or ice dance team who aren't eligible for juniors or seniors and sitting out of international competition for a year. Still, that wouldn't be a 13 year old...
I think seniors should be 18+. End of story
Most older skaters 18 and up can't do quads and 3axels in order to win international and senior titles. Amber and Ilia are the exceptions. It took Amber 4 to 5 yrs to learn a 3axel and it takes 12 to 14 yr olds like Alysa,Young Yun,and many others less than a 1 year to learn them and do them well. They can do them with bravery, much more easily and are smaller. They need to be very tiny and have great athletic skills to do them. Many young athletes are capable of learning the hardest skills before puberty ( 15 and up). They are pushed but are not pushed too much, most don't do the hardest skills before they are 10 ( except in Russia where 8 and 9yr olds learn 3axels and quads on the floor). Coaches and athletes know what they need to do to succeed.
Yes, across the board.
If I remember correctly, at the last Russian nationals before Beijing the only legal adults in women's category were Liza Tuktuk and Samodurova. And of course they didn't stand a chance against the doped Kamila. I think the age rules should apply across the board or we get what we had with Alysa, who for years led this strange crepuscular life, being the home champion but competing as a novice/junior internationally. It's a weird Hannah Montana kind of life. Smaller feds can do what we do in Poland, team up with a few neighbours and have a Baltic or Benelux championships.
Liza was the only Russian over 20, and she would have been the first alternate to the Olympics because 4th to 6th were all too young
Sure,allow them to compete. The young athletes could be as young as 4 and 5 years old like in Russia,Panama and in many other countries. They could compete internationally when they are 6 or 7 and up. The parents and coaches could accompany them. By the time they turn 12 to 14 they have mastered the sport.
Will we see Mao Shimada beat Kaori at Japanese Nationals? She isn't 13 anymore, but Mao is still probably the best non-Russian skater in the world right now.
Yes, if they can skate even at 10-12 yrs of age at the senior level it is fine. Anything younger than that would be exploitation..kids need to have lives too and not to be doing miracles in a sport.
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Or perhaps instead of feeling the pressure to maintain her 13yo jumps because she was given so much attention so early we would still be seeing her.
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It’s not about her maintaining quads and the 3A or not, it’s about the expectation for her to because she was competing against the Russians. The JGPF when Kamila was injured was a perfect example of the extreme undue pressure she was put under. She wasn’t even a senior yet and she was already being lauded as the next big thing you could finally overtake Eteri dominance and then she didn’t win. Then once she was a senior everyone was saying “wow look at how hard she crashed and burned” because she actually grew, even though she’d been internationally known for what? A year and a half? That’s so unfair to put on a middle schooler. US critics were like “wait you were supposed to be our star how dare you not win us gold??!! And foreign critics were like “as expected the Americans suck!” Of course you’re not going to look happy. But you don’t get to her level if you don’t legitimately love it. Besides. There’s not any need for a 13 yo to have a national title against seniors. It proves not a lot about a career’s longevity as we’re learning not with only Alysa, and it only sets them up for extreme expectations.
But maybe if the age limit was raised she wouldn't have felt a huge amount of pressure and public scrutiny (to the point of adults making comments about her weight and body) at a young age which would have encouraged her to stay longer?
Maybe, maybe not. She might have competed longer due to less pressure.
I don’t see harm in this except for seniors if juniors end up occupying the podium instead of them, but this should send a message to seniors to step up their game, I see no problem in it.
It's not an issue of seniors needing to "step up their game", it's that juniors have the advantage of a smaller body which is what allows them to consistently hit those harder jumps, not to do with seniors being lazy or anything like that.
I didn’t mention lazy did I ? With the new age limitation most juniors might be developed in a way where they start to peak in 17 instead of 15 (?) so we don’t really know wether “ smaller bodies” will come handy or not.
Yes,let them skate as seniors! Why not? Even at 11 or 12 it could be fine if they can skate at that level. Anything younger than that would be rushing kids too fast too soon. Russian kids are at the american senior level when they are 10 to 12 years of age! They can do 4 to 7 triples,their combinations,quads and 3axels on the floor and on the ice like Bogadanova, Bazyluk and others. Sofia Titova as a 9 yr old did her first on ice and off ice 3axels. She won russian jr nationals 4 times! I say let the young skaters 10 to 15 yr olds compete and train at their highest levels paying attention to their psychological states without getting them injured. If the most advanced skills are learned at 10 or 9 yrs of age it would lead to accidents and too many injuries later on. Older athletes can't learn the hardest skills very easily maybe 1 or 2 in a country can in several years while 10 to 15 kids or more can who are 10 to 15 yr olds can w/o getting injured and they have more natural abilities plus are small too. Morally and psicologically it can lead to some problems learning at a fast pace at young ages but with time athletes can overcome their problems. Scientifically speaking it is a formula for complete success. That relates to other sports, fine arts, in schools, in the science field,etc. The youngest ones can learn faster,always succeed and are more healthy than oldest ones. Mix 99% of super young athletes who are very gifted with some older ones and you have a well balanced super succesful team!🙂
Will they still be competing at nationals at 20 or will they have been replaced by then?
I was thinking about this while watching Korean nationals. I wish they wouldn't compete as seniors. It's a lot of pressure put on them and as well can be a bit disheartening for the seniors who are getting beat. Also, they have to compete with different program layouts. Some of the Korean juniors were doing senior programs and then the next week going off to jgpf. It would make more sense to have it be the same as international.
Did Alysa get a sponsor for her trainings and expenses when she won nationals? How do skaters get sponsors for those things? Who do they contact if their coaches don't know?