Four months after the Valieva affair that splashed at the Beijing Olympics, the International Skating Federation (ISU) is considering from Monday a proposal to raise the minimum age to compete for seniors from 15 to 17 years old. .
The debate over the very young age of skaters, and especially female skaters, is no longer new and comes up regularly. It reopened in February in Beijing, in the middle of the Olympics, when Kamila Valieva, a big favorite for the Olympic title at the age of 15, fell under pressure.
The Russian teenager, queen of the quadruple jumps and undefeated so far in senior competitions, cracked after finding herself in the middle of a notorious doping affair. He finished his performance holding his head in his hands, trembling with sobs before he failed at the foot of the podium.
Meeting in congress in Phuket, Thailand, from Monday to Friday, ISU members must decide on a proposal, which if it is accepted by more than two -thirds of voters, plans to raise the minimum age to 16 years. for the 2023 -2024 season, then on the 17th from 2024-2025.
Purpose: to prevent physical and mental injury of skaters whose high -level sports careers are often too short
The ISU has a duty to protect the physical and psychological health and safety of all athletesapproved by the Medical Commission of the opportunity.
The body believes that too charges and risks related to the high level is inappropriate for very young skaters.
Figure skating is actually a demanding sport, where girls spend hours of repetitive training, jumping and pirouette, at the age that their bodies are still developing.
To succeed in triple or even quadruple jumps, a slender silhouette is also a definite advantage and after adolescence, when the size thickens, the jumps become more difficult to master. The skaters then found themselves on the sidelines, replaced by younger ones.
Yulia Lipnitskaya, for example, was just 15 when she won gold at the 2014 Sochi Games in the team event. He was predicted to have a brilliant career, but three years later he retired, suffering from anorexia.
By increasing their minimum age to compete, which will allow them to have maturity before reaching high levels, skaters will be better prepared to tolerate training and the increased psychological harassment of senior competitionsaid the Medical Commission.
With this measure, the Federation also hopes to encourage skaters to lead longer races.
A few days after the Valieva affair, Frenchman Guillaume Cizeron, the crowned Olympic champion in ice dancing in Beijing, pointed out the problem.
You see a lot of kids, they’re almost kids of that age, brought to the top of the podium, then thrown right away. They have very short careers. I don’t know to what extent it will impact their lives afterwards (but) I can’t imagine it being something very positive.
Perhaps this will allow them to have a longer life, and therefore have more time to get to maturity. That should probably make the competition more interesting, because we want to see mature skating. There are kids jumpinghe examines.
This is not the first time that a proposal for raising the age of skaters has been submitted to the ISU vote. In 2018, an equivalent proposal was rejected, particularly the opposition of the Russians.
During the Beijing Games in any case, the opinion of the participants seemed almost unanimous.
If you look at the season of Michelle Kwan or Sasha Cohen, they are people we can encourage in a few years, which is a great representation for our sport.estimated American Mariah Bell, one of the oldest in the competition at the age of 25.
It would be great to have more athletes like this, and an age limit would help with that..
Source: Radio-Canada
