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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Sure, all it would take is tens of millions of dollars that I'm sure someone has lying around. [/quote]

I mean, yes.  Skating is expensive.  Ice time is expensive.  Top coaching is expensive. Ballet is expensive. Opera is expensive.  High art is expensive.  What do we want to do? We either accept that they will be open only to the wealthy or to the privately sponsored.  Or, you find public funding to make it available to most.  I'm afraid there's no easy answer.

Chen's coach thinks skating academies are the answer where knowledge is centralized and systematic, and all skaters get the benefit of the same knowledge and experience. [/quote]

So who pays for them? Are you proposing to publicly fund academies that will only be accessible to the elite? What politician is going to support building an arena open only to elite skaters? Do you think that people who have none elite skaters, or kids who play hockey, or who just want more publicly accessible ice will be ok with that? [/quote]

Just improvising - you could, for instance, have an academy where children could start with lessons when they are four or five, but a proper system - not a pathetic once-a-week.   Lessons two or three times a week, off ice fitness, ballet, choreo, nutrition etc.  Have a natural progression/attrition system where each year they pass exams, and only those who pass advance to the next level, and the rest are counseled out and advised to stay with skating as a hobby.

It's not that they are accessible only to the elite, it's that they exist with an explicit purpose to train future elite of the sport.  If you just want to skate as a hobby, you can still do that on your own time and dime.  Not every parent and child wants serious training, and that's okay.[/quote]

Sure, but most parents know how hard it is to get ice and would never support a publicly funded facility that excludes the vast majority. Also very very few people care about the US's ability to field slightly more competive figure skaters [/quote]

Very well.  I agree with you.  It cannot be done.  It should not be done.[/quote]

We in the US do not belive in funding youth sports - really at all. Only at the top rungs for olympic sports. Like most things American, we believe in the free market (aka parent funding) for our kids, which is pretty on par with the rest of US domestic policies. If the US did start to do youth sports academies like they do elsewhere, our standings could improve, particularly in sports like soccer. But that's not how the US works. We have parent-pay programs and college. The end.[/quote]

Yeah because winning the Olympics or the World Cup is not a national priority, nor should it be. It doesn’t matter. We need more recreational programs for enjoyment and good health but this elite nonsense is stupid .[/quote]

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