5 minute read
The Future of Figure Skating Competitions and the 2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championship Series
By Terri Milner Tarquini
UPDATE: Copy and paste the following link for the latest news >> https://www.usfigureskating.org/news/press-release/us-figure-skating-championship-series-moves-virtual-format-due-covid-19-surge
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A heavy question weighing on figure skating: What is it going to take to go from nationwide rink closures to in-person competitions amid a COVID-19 pandemic that has gone on far longer than most anticipated?
Changes. Adaptability. Understanding. Information. All of those things in spades.
“Your on-site experience at competition is going to look a lot different,” said Mia Corsini, Director of Events for U.S. Figure Skating. “Your schedule will be intricate, including arrival times, pre-scheduled off-ice warm-up and limited practice ice. But, at the end of the day, we know this is what it takes to host the safest competition possible.”
Changing the look of competitions was part of the coronavirus-response machine that kicked into gear many months ago.
“We have been scenario planning since March,” Corsini said. “When the ISU World Figure Skating and Synchronized Skating Championships were cancelled, we had to realize, ‘This is happening.’ We have been prepared for the worst-case scenario for a while. The hope was that we wouldn’t have to go there and that we could regain a sense of normalcy, but we realized in July that our regularly scheduled season wasn’t going to happen.”
What is happening is the 2021 U.S. Figure Skating Championship Series presented by Toyota, a reimagined qualifying season that, in place of regional and sectional competitions, has eight geographically diverse locations with skaters allowed to compete in up to two of any of the competitions, regardless of where they live or train. The locations were determined through a heat map exercise that pinpointed athletes based on their home address data, thereby identifying the most accessible locations.
“We surveyed the coaches and athletes and, overwhelmingly, the response was that they wanted to compete in person,” Corsini said. “However, with rink re-openings looking so different, many skaters are not yet training up to the usual amount. Pushing the structure back allows for the coach and the athlete to choose what works best for them.”
The Championship Series runs from November 9-December 6 and will determine advancement to the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships and assignment to the 2021 National High-Performance Development Team.
“I think we all thought that rinks would reopen sooner than they did,” said Bob Dunlop, Senior Director of Events for U.S. Figure Skating. “Really, all of our discussions kept having to go back to the coaches and asking them, ‘How long will it take to get your athletes safely back to where they need to be?’ We didn’t want to lose a whole season, so, yes, the qualifying season is pushed back, but it’s happening.”
Oh, it’s happening all right.
“Up until then, it was all just surveying and asking what skaters and coaches wanted,” Corsini said. “Then registration opened, and those numbers poured in. It verified that what we thought they wanted was, indeed, what they did want.”
While non-qualifying competitions have begun again and the qualifying series is right around the corner, the face of figure skating events has a different look.
“The competition environment now looks a lot like a synchronized skating competition schedule,” Corsini said. “Arrival, departure, off-ice warm-ups, controlled movements of coaches and chaperones —everything is really timed out to the minute. Currently, the plan is for no spectators, but we will live stream the Championship Series.”
Since March, the pandemic and its accompanying fallout has proved to be quickly evolving and each locality can be very different in its response and mandatory guidelines. As such, it has never been more vital for coaches to be aware of what requirements are in place for each competition.
“We know coaches have a lot on their plates, with the usual technical updates and training their athletes and rink reopening procedures and everything else, but they need to be really aware of the new criteria,” Dunlop said. “And it’s really important that they inform the parents and explain to them that there are a lot of changes—and this is not the rink making these decisions, it’s the local guidelines and they need to be followed. It’s up to the coaches to let the parents know what they are walking into so they can be prepared and have the best experience possible.”
Extra vigilance on the coach’s part is especially important now more than ever because competitions even in different neighboring counties could have very different procedures based on their local government.
“We are doing our best to keep it standardized as much as possible, but the experiences will likely be different from competition to competition and from place to place,” Dunlop said. “We are working with figure skating rinks around the country. We need to all be committed to the safety of the athletes, coaches, judges, and rink staff by utilizing state and local guidelines.”
While virtual competitions have been conducted, the feedback from skaters and coaches for in-person competitions was overwhelming and the message was clear: The goal is not to upload videos; the goal is to get back out and compete.
“We were forced as a sport to react, so we asked and listened,” Dunlop said. “What we kept hearing over and over was that there needs to be hope. Step one was returning to the rink. Step two was returning to competitions. Taking these steps will help give back a sense of normalcy to our sport.”
The ISU World Figure Skating Championships, scheduled for March in Montreal, was cancelled due to COVID concerns, making it only the second time the event has been cancelled for something other than a World War—the first being the Sabena flight 548 plane crash.
“It’s too early to tell if there will be lasting impacts on the sport, but through a negative time, some real positives could occur,” Dunlop said. “We will evaluate how it worked and whether the coaches and athletes like the flexibility of choosing competition locations. There are always things we can discover, and I think we certainly will learn a lot from all of this.”
Looking ahead to 2021, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships are scheduled for January in San Jose and the World Figure Skating Championships are to follow for March in Stockholm.
“Right now, we absolutely feel that these events will happen,” Dunlop said.
For inquiries regarding figure skating events go to www.events@usfigureskating.org.
For information regarding all of the competitions that are part of the Championship Series, go to www.usfigureskatingchampionshipseries.com.
