For senior Rachel Zhou, figure skating is often decided by small details and it’s a subjective sport that depends on the unique opinion of each judge. Even though most people just sit back and enjoy the performances from the Winter Olympics, Zhou said she finds herself analyzing the technical scores of the competitors, but, at the same time, she also feels she is still able to enjoy performance as a usual fan.

“I find it entertaining to ‘guess’ how the judges will score each element,” Zhou said. “I feel like that aspect lends me to be more engrossed in each program, so it’s entirely possible to lean back and appreciate the program as a whole.”

According to US Figure Skating, skaters earn points based on the base value of technical elements and their grade of execution (GOE), which ranges from -5 to +5. A technical panel identifies elements, while a maximum of nine judges evaluate three components: composition, presentation and skating skills. Unlike the 6.0 system, the International Judging System (IJS) is based on cumulative points and it’s more focused on evaluating the specific quality of each performer.

Even though most people only see the four minutes on the ice, most performers struggle to balance both their school work with the amount of hours they have to put into practicing a specific skill in order to make their show as entertaining as possible. 

“It’s certainly been tough trying to balance my courseload with all the time that is required for skating as since figure skating is a relatively small sport in CHS, our only ice time block is 6 to 8 a.m. on the weekdays so I normally wake up before 6 a.m. to skate for around an hour and a half and then head straight to school,” Zhou said. “On Tuesdays I have rehearsal until 9 p.m., so I typically find myself staying up late to complete homework.”

Jordan Jurasevich, Advanced Physical Conditioning and physical education teacher, said it’d be good for the school to see more recognition of winter sports. He said having more representation from other sports would help show how this school is one of the best athletic programs in the country. 

“Having more ‘ice’ representation would show that, while Carmel is definitely more known for its summer sports like swimming and football, it isn’t only about summer sports,” Jurasevich said. 

This lack of recognition from the school is mostly because athletes have to travel long distances in order to be able to skate properly and find the right conditions to be able to practice their tricks. 

Senior Joseph Kim, who is a snowboarder, said, since Carmel doesn’t have the best snow, his family usually travels to different places across the globe to get a better experience and practice his tricks in a snow with a much better quality for skaters.

“I’ve been to Whistler in Vancouver, Canada, Mont Tremblant near Quebec, Steven’s Pass in Seattle, Verbier in Switzerland, and Crans Montana in Switzerland,” Kim said. “But I will occasionally go to Perfect North. It’s not so terrible. This year has been better than most others.”

The costs for equipment are also prohibitive. According to Reuters, sports management experts described the costs for equipment costs for winter sports as “astronomical” compared to summer sports like soccer. It states that even starting out in skiing can cost $600 to $800 for basic gear alone, while elite training academies can cost up to $70,000 per year. 

In addition, according to Forbes, for Gen Z, these sports are shifting from “old luxury” to a “new premium” where social media influence and niche brands are used to make themselves unique from the crowd.

“My dad used to talk about how when he went snowboarding in Korea for the first time, they didn’t even let him on the slopes because they didn’t know what snowboarding was,” Kim said. “Snowboarding is expensive, so I’m going to mooch off my parents while I still can but I also think that snowboarding resonates so much with our generation specifically because of the influences of social media. I feel like nowadays people want to try harder to differentiate themselves from the crowd.”

Despite these challenges, Kim said that the Winter Olympics can help winter sports become much more popular across the school and even attract more people to join the teams for upcoming years. 

“As far as I know, the figure skaters and the hockey teams are the only ones participating in winter sports at CHS, so it does feel like we’re all representing this niche together,” Kim said. “We’re definitely all carrying that responsibility to show the importance of winter sports.”