This comes up a lot on this board, so I thought some people might be interested to know.Ksenia Marakova (that last name might be wrong) wore a pad on her hip/butt at NHK (the grand.prix event) See the second to last picture in this slideshow: http://web.icenetwork.com/photos/gallery.jsp?content_id=40407696
It was visually distracting, which seems to be the argument against them. But if elites can wear them in competition, so can adults! If you feel you need a pad, do it.
I gotta say, I think a skating safe pad would have been less distracting.
I was watching NBC just now and thought wow what brand was it? Quite bulky! Not sure how the effectiveness compares. Skating safe hip pads are 3/16" thick, hers I'd guess as much as 1/2".
IIRC she did the same in her last event too. If she plans to wear padding, might as well make the dress a tad longer?
It's only distracting because it's not the norm. If ISU made pads mandatory, people wouldn't find anything odd about it.
Over-the-boot tights had the same status before they became used by majority of skaters. People used to find them odd, but not anymore.
Tons of people still complain about otb tights.
I do not want to see.pads be.made mandatory, as to be effective you'd have to cover yourself head to toe. That would be a lot of unnecessary movement restriction. I do want skaters to feel comfortable wearing them. Especially in practice.
OTB tights are virtually never seen in our area. It's an area by area thing. But, that's off topic ... I actually just realized after reading your post that I've not really seen a pair in a few years!
The skater in question has a vulnerable area that the coach is attempting to protect. High level skaters generally are trained to/experienced enough to fall effectively (barring freak falls) which limits the need for protection; pads are really only for injury recovery or for learning something that is causing successive falls. We haul them out when we know that a jump is likely to result in a high level of falls on a hip or a knee, or the tailbone (or if there's an injury being nursed); otherwise, they stay in the bag as, regardless of how thin or light they are (we use Skating Safe) - they do restrict movement to a certain degree.
Quote from: jjane45 on November 25, 2012, 04:01:52 PMIf she plans to wear padding, might as well make the dress a tad longer?
ITA.
She wore that same pad at Skate Canada too...