No more QR at Worlds, Euros
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vcontent/co...s-item,00.html
Good. I thought it was pretty useless now that Cop is in effect.Qualifying Free Skating- Congress approved a motion to cancel the Qualifying Free Skating round at all ISU Championships, thus making the Championships shorter, more appealing to the public and cost effective.
YESS!!!!!!!!!
Thats good IMO. Anything to popularize without compromise is a good plan AFAIC.
Michelle says, "two years too late!"
The first paragraph is also interesting. In justifying the anonymity of judges, now they are putting more emphasis on the review and evaluation procedures, rather than on the question of pressure from national federation officials.
So now the question is will the SP be broken into two groups, or will it just be one long enormous ordeal for the judges.
There were 40 men and 43 ladies at 2006 Worlds. I can't imagine one judging panel sitting through 43 performances. That would be a 6.5-7 hour nightmare.
Bummer. I loved quali rounds at Euros and Worlds. I was hoping that the change would be either auto-byes for top skaters or full qualis, with the scores wiped out after the field was narrowed.
I don't know if I can agree that it did all that wonderful of a job as they say, "has ensured objectivity." But maybe it is true. It might appear to give them more freedom to "pump up" a favorite of theirs, yet allow them to score based on what they really think opposed to the pressure of pleasing the fans. ?Originally Posted by Mathman
Who are the ones doing the review anyway, is that not the national federation officials?
It all seems kinda "iffy" to me that they wouldn't just do the job like they should in the first place. It is not like a Mile High game where the fans are going to start throwing snowballs at them. And even after incidents like that they still call them like they see'm. So why should the judges of FS be any different? Why should they need to hide for any period of time?When has it not been up for review that they would need to shift the emphasis?
That sounds really cool!!! I Like alot
How or could that effect the "integrity" of it all. I wonder what that might effect? I think the "general public type fan" might really go for that. I wonder?
Last edited by SeaniBu; 06-28-2006 at 04:19 PM.
I think it's that "cost effective" that they snuck in there that tipped the scales.
The qualifying rounds probably drew small audiences and little television interest. (I have been to events where they just let you in for free for the compulsory dance.)
At Junior Worlds there were 51 ladies in the two qual rounds (which didn't count).
Short programs are shorter, but that is a very long competition. At club events or domestic qualifying events, or some of the larger internationals like Karl Schafer or JGPs, judges may serve on panels for many small to medium-sized events or two large ones in a single day and so end up judging more than 50 skaters in a day. Usually judges would have breaks between events though. And of course at the lower levels the programs are shorter.
At least there's no longer any need to compare skaters directly against each other.
And now the draw for the SP will be completely random again?
Sounds like an average work day to me. I would rather do that than organize meetings and classes for snippy CEO, coworkers and Customers for 9.
It's not pleasing the fans that is the problem, it's pleasing their own national federation chiefs back home.
In the Salt Lake City scandal that accelerated the whole CoP movement, the charge was this. The French judge (Marie-Reine Le Gougne) was instructed by the President of the French Skating Federation (Didier Gailhaguet) to place Russian pairs team Berezhnaya and Sikharudlidze ahead of Canadians Sale and Pelletiere, in exchange for Russian support for the French Ice dancing team Anassina and Peiserat, which she did. (Later on she broke down in a tearful confession, and eventually both Le Gougne and Gailhaguet were wrist-slapped by the ISU.)
Anyway, the point is that the judges are nominated by the officials of their own national federations, not by the ISU, so if you don't play along you will be in the dog house with your own federation and you will not receive any more national or international judging assignments.
So the anonymous judging was supposed to help the honest judges resist this pressure. If the judging at Salt Lake City had been anonymous, Le Gougne could have voted her conscience and then lied to Gailhaguet afterwards, and everyone would have gone away happy (except B&S).
In fact, Mr. Cinquanta's whole plan is to weaken the grip that the powerful national federations hold over the ISU (and correspondingly strengthen his own). The Technical Specialist and his crew are not nominated by the federations but rather they are hired directly by the ISU. Judges at major events are no longer identified by nationality, but rather just as "ISU judges."
Is this good or bad? It depends on who you think is the bigger crook, Speedy or Piseev and his counterparts.
MM
Last edited by Mathman; 06-28-2006 at 05:06 PM.
No, it is the ISU. There is a special "Officials' Assessment Commission" comprised of experienced figure skating referees of various nationalities, which reports directly to the ISU Technical Committee. You can check it out here:
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/...-0-file,00.pdf
Organizationally, the ISU is a queer bird. No person is a "member" of the ISU. The "members" are the national federations. ISU President Cinquanta rides herd over that unruly mob, but at the same time he continues in office only at the pleasure of those same member federations that keep throwing monkey wrenches into the works by their interior politicking and skullduggery.
Sort of like every organization, LOL.
MM
Last edited by Mathman; 06-28-2006 at 05:08 PM.
Except that figure skating judges don't get paid. They get a small honorarium that in most cases doesn't cover their expenses.
I don't think so. LeGougne later said that she did vote her conscience and that B&S were the better team. If she had kept her mouth shut, instead of kowtowing to her fellow judges in front of the elevator -- she wanted to be on the Technical Committee, the false carrot that Gailhauget was danging in front of her, and Stapleford, who chastised her for her vote, had a lot of power at that time -- there would have been moaning and groaning and wuzrobbing, until the Men's competition started and there was a new story. No amount of moaning, groaning, and wuzrobbing in the past caused the ISU to change a result, but a judge who claimed publicly that she'd been pressured, including at a judge's meeting, was something they couldn't quite ignore.
In theory, her scores would have been anonymous, but given how tight the judges are, I suspect by the end of the day they all know who was in column 1 and who was in column 9, and their Federations know as well. And a relatively straightforward program can determine which scores counted
Last edited by hockeyfan228; 06-28-2006 at 05:07 PM.
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