General Director of the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) Alexander Kogan believes that raising the age limit for figure skating may affect the mental health of young athletes.
The International Skating Union (ISU) Congress in June approved the organisation’s Council’s proposal to gradually raise the age limit in all ISU disciplines. According to the new age limit, from the 2023/24 season it is allowed to compete at the adult level from the age of 16, and from the 2024/25 season – from the age of 17. The previous qualification provided for the possibility of leaving the juniors from 15 years old.
– This will further increase the pressure on the mental health of the children – the juniors will have tougher competition, as there will be more of them. They will pile up at their level. And now we have to think about how to add competitions to these age groups, otherwise there will really be a crowd of children.
As for the health of the athletes, which was emphasized when raising the age limit, everything depends on the training methodology and the qualifications of the coach. In our country, coaches receive a special education, study physiology, anatomy and the theory of sports training as such, which is one of the largest in the world. There are many examples abroad of figure skating fans starting to train or athletes who have just finished skating. Therefore, using the wrong training methodology, it can be assumed that there will definitely be injuries,” RIA Novosti Sport quote Kogan.
A member of the executive committee of the FFKKR, Sergey Sviridov, criticized the study of the medical commission of the ISU on the advisability of raising the minimum age of participants in adult competitions.
“When the ISU Congress decided to raise the minimum age for participants, there was a clear objective. But above all, I was surprised by the attached study of the so-called medical commission – extracted from quotations from various sources. I’ll go to a search engine and find dozens of them. Serious research should have been done on statistics, on specific examples of figure skating, Sviridov said.
RIA Novosti Sport
Source : MatchTV
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