Former European champion Norbert Schramm has criticized the development in German and international figure skating. “We would have the best potential to provide entertainment with sport. People love figure skating, but we don’t do enough with it,” said the 62-year-old from Nuremberg and skating star of the 1980s on the sidelines of the German championships in Oberstdorf. “We had a different system back then, nobody wanted to be comparable, everyone wanted to find their personality,” he said: “As a result, every runner did different things. Today it’s about the value of the elements and jumps.”
You have to turn the screws, “upgrade the pirouettes and elements and reduce the jumps,” said Schramm. The jumps are promoted by the rating system of the world association ISU, which means that ice art falls by the wayside and there are no longer long careers for runners, also because of the health problems caused by quadruple rotation.
“Why not entertain and have fun. If I saw a runner at the European or World Championships, I saw them all,” criticized the two-time European champion and runner-up in the world in 1982 and 1983. “They run the same, they dress the same, it’s a mush.”
Schramm also complains that in German figure skating, with its too few athletes, there is a lack of willingness to take risks and a feeling for an attractive presentation. “How do I get money into the association? Namely in which I have runners and characters who say the right thing at the right moment and perform. It’s amateurish,” he said. “You can sell it differently.”
It’s not just this sensitivity that he misses from the young athletes: “They don’t know how to present themselves to the public either. They walk into the ice rink, the spectators don’t interest them at all. I run for my spectators, they are my fans,” criticized Schramm.