ISU Communication 1494 - New Rules!!!

There was a new ISU Communication published.

http://isu.sportcentric.net/db//files/serve.php?id=934

The changes that were made are underlined.

3A and quads now have higher base value, but receive more penalty for falling. (I hope this does not make some male skater spend 90% time of their training on perfecting just quads...)

There new rules concerning spirals; for example, it is possible to achieve higher level by holding a single position for 6 seconds.

A lot of changes concerning the evaluation of spins and jumps... Some of them are funny, such as "Change of edge in Spirals requires minimum 3 seconds hold before and after the change with the distance used for the change not longer than 1 meter". What I'm interested is how they are going to measure the distance? Can a technical specialist just guess when skater glides 59 cm on the ice and when, let's say, 101 cm?

I haven't even read everything yet. I feel bad for the coaches, choreographers and judges - they have to memorize all that, and the rules just keep changing every year.

Some changes are good, some are funny indeed! It's good to see that ISU tries to improve the system, but what worries me is that it becomes more and more rigid and mathematical... I'm afraod that soon the skaters will not have much freedom left in their programs!

z4mboni wrote:

3A and quads now have higher base value, but receive more penalty for falling.

That's both good and bad for Mao. (: