What does the US want to get out of figure skating in the Olympics

[AgnesNitt]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/brennan/2018/02/24/us-figure-skating-faces-tough-questions-what-wants-winter-olympics/369788002/

[tstop4me]

I think that article partitioned the key issues succinctly:

(1) What is needed for the US to compete on the world and Olympic stage?

(2) Given what is needed, should the US do what is needed?  Particularly in light of what happened in the US gymnastics team, parents are going to be super wary about whom they entrust their kids to.

[Query]

I see no practical economic reason for the country to make it a national priority for skaters representing the United States to win at the Olympics.

We've already got the economic benefits of being a major training center for the rest of the world.

Of course, the USFSA may see it differently, and will no doubt conduct a fund raising drive justified by the relative lack of medals.

in light of what happened in the US gymnastics team, parents are going to be super wary about whom they entrust their kids to.

I don't think that will be a major bar to athletics development in the U.S. or the world. In particular, I think the publicity over the USA Gymnastics team abuse issue, and other abuse cases in many areas of activity, has created a "me too" movement which will hopefully root out some of the worst abusers. In fact, I'd bet that USA Gymnastics will soon be freer of such problems than it has ever been, because lots of people will look at the problem, and investigate everyone involved with that sport - and with every sport.

"SafeSport" arose largely because of evil coaches doing evil things, as well as the potential for good coaches to be accused of doing evil things. It resulted in attempts to insure that minor children would not be present alone in a room with unrelated adults, among other things - e.g., there should always be at least two investigated adults present. This resulted in a somewhat reduced level of risk for both athletes potentially exposed to bad things, and for coaches and others who might otherwise be falsely accused of doing bad things.

The USA Gymnastics scandal has brought out a fundamental weakness in SafeSport - that physicians and other medical personnel often have good reasons to be alone with their patients - that they even sometimes have to examine and maybe even touch their patients in manners that would be inappropriate for coaches. What is more, the sports physicians that certify athletes' ability to compete to athletic organizations have a lot of power over those athletes, and are therefore in a position to abuse that power.

But now many parents will start asking questions about sports physicians, and perhaps other sports medical personnel, and information about most of the bad people will probably come out. In addition, many administrators who covered up past problems will also be blamed and removed (like the entire board of USA Gymnastics), and future administrators will be more cautious about such things, so they don't get blamed and removed.

I also bet SafeSport gets a revision in light of the USA Gymnastics scandal - one that better addresses the behavior of and safeguards against bad sports physicians, and better addresses the responsibilities of people who oversee athletic programs, whether or not they have direct contact with the athletes. It should have been there to begin with - but SafeSport will be improved.

Scandals are caused by bad things - but they result in good consequences.