120 Proposals Made to Change Figure Skating

Figure skating has reached a turning point.

Its top attraction, Katarina Witt, is moving on to show business. The “Battle of the Brians” soon will be just a memory. And the next Winter Olympics, when the public gets most excited about the sport, is four years away.

So the International Skating Union is looking at ways to increase interest on ice, especially through television.

The panel meets in Davos, Switzerland, June 4-10, to discuss proposals that will affect the way the 1992 Olympic champions in Albertville, France, are determined.

The closest scrutiny will be given to singles and ice dance, with an eye toward making the competition more dramatic.

At the top of the list of 120 proposals for the figure skating representatives is elimination of school figures to emphasize free skating.

“It is true that compulsory figures are the basic element of the sport,” Josef Dedic, ISU vice president in charge of figure skating, said. “But they are performed the same way they were 50 years ago whereas free skating has grown tremendously.”

The Figure Skating Technical Committee’s proposal calls it “essential to the future development of the sport to bring in new and innovative ideas,” while reducing training and costs.

Eliminating school figures “will make figure skating of greater interest to its participants, especially through the medium of television,” the committee’s proposal says.

TV helped make the sport popular, and focused on figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, where Witt and the battling Brians--Boitano and Orser--drew blanket coverage in the free-skating portions. The time-consuming figures, by contrast, drew sparse crowds, little TV coverage and a surplus of yawns.

If the school figures go, gone, too, will be the days when a slightly chunky and mediocre free skater, such as Trixi Schuba of Austria in 1972, would be able to win a gold medal.

Witt’s performance in winning a fourth women’s world championship in Budapest, as with many other skaters, was lackluster, coming so close after the Olympics.

When Witt won the Olympic gold medal in 1984, there had been four different women’s world champions in four years. Witt’s combination of artistry and athletiic ability--and good looks--made her an valuable commodity.

Figure skating has been riding her short skirt-tails since, and Witt created a furore in Calgary with one costume that a rival coach compared to a G-string.

Not surprisingly, a closer look at skating costumes--both men’s and women’s--is on the Davos agenda.

Witt’s duels on and off the ice with American Debi Thomas also attracted attention for skating, as did the men’s contests between American Boitano and Canadian Orser. With their retirements, new stars will have to be found, with Japan’s high-leaping Midori Ito a prime candidate.

The ISU meeting also will touch on pair skating and ice dance.

Ice dance, especially, is going through a transition process. The ISU will discuss rule changes to make it more athletic and less theatrical.

The 1984 Olympic champions, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Britain, made an impact on the sport both while competing and four years later.

“T and D” challenged the rules of ice dancing then with innovative routines they skated themselves. This year, Dean choreographed the eyebrow-raising jungle dance of Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, the French-Canadian brother and and sister who skated to the beat of African drums.

Skating officials said some of the judges may have felt that the Duchesnay’s were stretching the rules, not only in the free dance but also in the original set pattern number to a slinky tango.

As a result, their marks at the European, Olympic and world championships were always a wide range, depending on the judges’ view of the legality of the dance.

“Some liked it and some didn’t,” Isabelle Duchesnay said. “It’s a matter of taste, I suppose.”