Just got a mail from my figure skating club's secretary, containing press releases and the like about a rupture within the dutch skating association KNSB. Over here, speed skating is WAY hot and figure skating has always been the unloved child in the past decades, lots and lots of folk is complaining about lack of facilities for figure skaters and even worse, for ice dancers, and about the unfair treatment of our top figure skaters compared to top speed skaters. This summer tensions highened as a lot of figure skating activities for the upcoming year were cancelled because supposedly, they were too expensive.

So much so did the tensions rise, that now the figure skating clubs have decided to, as of next season (2009-2010), quit the skating association, and form a FIGURE SKATING ASSOCIATION independant of the KNSB! It will become a member of the ISU and NOC*NSF...

Whoohoo! We finally get an association of our own, concerned about no other ice than ice for us figure skaters!

(I'm kind of hoping this means that somewhere in the next decades, the ridiculous 6-month seasons will become at least 9-month seasons)

Wow!! Best wishes to you Niederlanders as you move forward!

That's great news!!
Do the speed skaters have to go elsewhere to train in the summer, too? I hope you all get some longer rink times!

Well yes and no. For speed skaters, training on roller skates is a much more viable option than it is for figure skaters, so most lower-leven speed skaters do just that - and even for top level speed skaters it's a very valuable training tool.

Also, speed skaters are allowed to have sponsors (and they do - their cars, suits, even skate bags are stuck full of advertisement for their sponsors), and figure skaters are not allowed to have sponsors like that (in fact, there was quite a scandal last year when one of our top figure skater skated 1 time for a TV show, "Dancing On Ice", and was almost excluded from participating in amateur competitions ever again). Which makes quite a difference. The speed skaters' sponsors pay for their camps abroad, where as figure skaters have to cash it out from their own pockets.

That's not because of earning money from it; it's because Dancing on Ice isn't sanctioned by the ISU, so no eligible skater, of whatever nationality, is allowed to compete and retain their eligibility.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

From what I understand, she wasn't competing in it, she was getting paid to do an act solo - but I might have it wrong. At any rate, the complaint in general I hear from people extends much further than just that particular show.