Changes in skating rules to limit jumps may make Malinin's record literally one for the ages

Ilia Malinin after winning the men’s singles gold at the 2024 World Championships.

There is an old saying in sports that goes, “Records are made to be broken.”

That may not apply to the world record men’s free skate score Ilia Malinin of the U.S. posted in winning the 2024 World Championships – as well as not apply to several women’s world records – if the International Skating Union passes proposals limiting jumps at its biennial Congress this June in Las Vegas.

Should that happen, everyone should have their asterisks ready, as the ISU once again will have to create yet another chronological subdivision on its already confusing record lists.

While the formal agenda for the ISU Congress will not be made public until next week, the preliminary agenda includes the following changes to singles free skate programs recommended by the singles and pairs technical committee:

§  Reducing the maximum jump elements (jumping passes) from seven to six.

§  Reducing the maximum jump combinations from three to two, one of which can be a jump sequence.

What would the impact be?  Let’s look at it through the prism of the world record Malinin set (227.79) and the one he broke (224.92 by his compatriot, Nathan Chen, at the 2019 Grand Prix Final.)

With six quads and three combinations, Malinin’s aggregate base value for jump elements alone was 93.59.  With five quads and three combinations, Chen’s was 81.23.

Subtract the lowest base value of Chen’s seven jumping passes (8.0), and he would be left with a base value of 73.23 – some 20 points lower than Malinin’s, even though the program would have difficulty no one other than Malinin has topped.  Losing the jumping pass would make it impossible for a skater to close such a gap through grades of execution and component scores.

Ilia Malinin’s record-breaking free skate at the 2024 World Championships.

In women’s singles, Russia’s Kamila Valieva has put the free skate and total records so far out of reach by anyone but a few of her compatriots that eliminating a jump element will make those records eternal.

Is this much ado about little?  It would be if the ISU hadn’t been so excited at the idea of a judging system that allowed for record scores, giving fans the presumed excitement of seeing records set.  Now the ISU is on the verge of making the second substantive scoring change in the past six years, rendering meaningless any comparisons to older records.

According to Fabio Bianchetti of Italy, chair of the ISU’s singles and pairs technical committee, the proposals on jump reductions are, if approved, to take effect next season.

The time freed up by eliminating a jump element (15 seconds?) would not be filled with an element of another type.

“The purpose is to give more time for transitions and choreography,” Bianchetti said via email.

That will hardly mollify critics who feel that singles skating has turned into a jumping contest among those who aspire to reach the podium at global championships.

(Since Russian skaters were banned the past two seasons because of their country’s unprovoked 2022 invasion of Ukraine, such criticism applies almost exclusively to men’s singles.  Strictly in terms of jumps, the top non-Russian women now are doing programs no more technically demanding than those of 15 years ago.)

Nor will the proposal limiting jumps to three of the same, no matter the number of revolutions, to cut down on repetitiveness.  So, for instance, just three toe loops, whether single, double, triple or quadruple. 

Nor will the proposed addition of a “choreographic spin” make much difference in re-balancing the relative importance of artistry vs. athleticism in skating, a conundrum that has grown more perplexing since quadruple jumps became the sport’s currency.

Adam Siao Him Fa’s backflip at the 2024 European Championships.

Perhaps some of the choreographic spins will be so eye-catching they become audience-pleasers, like the backflips that now are illegal elements in competition, with skaters penalized two points for doing them.

France’s Adam Siao Him Fa, the 2024 world bronze medalist, has pushed back against that restriction, doing backflips at both the European and world championships.

Siao Him Fa has said that the sport should allow skaters to do more things that appeal to fans, and some in the ISU agree with him about backflips.  Bianchetti said there is a proposal before the congress to take the illegal tag off the backflip.

In all sports, athletes push the envelope of what seems possible.

That was Malinin’s goal in becoming the first (and still only) person to land a quadruple Axel in competition. The hardest jump anyone has done in skating has become a feature of his programs, even though its risk-reward ratio is wrong because its base value is too low given its singularity in skating.  (The quad Axel is worth 12.5 now, dropped from 15.0 until the 2017-18season.) Mallinin has also talked about quintuple jumps, yet to be tried or given official values. He may need one to break his own record,

Bianchetti said there will  be discussion about changing the scale of values for various elements.  “Quintuple jumps for the moment will not be included,” he added.

Let’s be clear, though.  The only way for figure skating to please those who want the sport to look like it did in the last century would be to place dramatic restrictions on the number of jumps athletes already are capable of doing.  Does anyone really think it can go back to the future?