No more QR at Worlds, Euros

[Mathman]

Outstanding post, Hockeyfan! That's a great point, that Sasha can bide her time and decide after the Grand Prix is over whether she wants to grab some points at Four Continents or not.

On the other hand, the skaters may decide that skating in the last group in the Short Program is not that big a deal. At the Olympics, Plushenko skated second out of 30. Takahash (#1), Buttle (5), Lambiel (11) and Weir (13), all skated early but finished in the top 6.

As for television, this won't be shown live anyway except maybe in Japan, so they can show whichever performances they want.

[Mathman]

OK, I just "did the math."

Do the statistics bear out the suspicion that the judges tend to give higher marks to skaters who skate later in the program?

There is a statistic called the "Spearman rank correlation coefficient" that measures the tendency of two "rankings" to go along together or to go in opposite directions. You can check it out here.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Spearma...efficient.html

Comparing skate orders to placements, a large negative correlation means that it is an advantage to skate later, a large positive correlation means it is more advantageous to skate earlier, and a correlation of 0 means that it doesn't matter one way of another.

For the Olympic short program, here is how it turned out.

Men: r' = +.33

Ladies: r' = -.03

So in this sample, for the men there was some tendancy for the early skaters to score better than the later skaters, while for the women it was a mixed bag.

Another way to interpret this statistic in words is to look at its square. For the men we have r' squared = 11%. This means that, statistically, 11% of the variation in final placements is correlated with start order, and 89% to other factors (what statisticians call "sampling error).

[hockeyfan228]

OK, I just "did the math."

So in this sample, for the men there was some tendancy for the early skaters to score better than the later skaters, while for the women it was a mixed bag.

I have to wonder whether this was because Plushenko skated second, and he received such high scores in the SP -- i.e., broke the ice. Also because looking at the last two groups, when fatigue most likely sets in, the judges were looking at:

Lindemann
Murvanidze
Kovalevski
Savoie
Joubert
Han

Lindemann had been skating badly all year, no one expected more than 15th or lower from Savoie, and Joubert was shooting himself in the foot all year, and hadn't changed back to Matrix yet.

Zelenka
Lysacek
Klimkin
Urbas
Toth
Sandhu

It isn't clear that Lysacek, with a very weak SP, was hurt by start order, since it seemed that as reigning World bronze medallist he was overrated, particularly in PCS, for a listless skate. Klimkin was not overwhelming at either Russian Nationals or Euros. Sandhu was the only skater the judges could look forward to after Lysacek fell apart.

The front-runners for the podium going into the Olympics were Plushenko, Lambiel, Buttle, Weir, Lysacek, with Joubert if he could regain 2004 form and maybe Sandhu if he could be consistent for two phases. The judges hadn't been giving positive vibes to Li, who had the technical arsenal. Plushenko and Buttle were in the first group, Lambiel in the second, and Weir in the third. It was another couple of groups before Joubert skated.

For Ladies, the front-runner Slutskaya and the dark horse Arakawa were in the second-to-last group, and Suguri, Kostner, and Cohen were in the last.

[Joesitz]

On the other hand, the skaters may decide that skating in the last group in the Short Program is not that big a deal. At the Olympics, Plushenko skated second out of 30. Takahash (#1), Buttle (5), Lambiel (11) and Weir (13), all skated early but finished in the top 6.

As for television, this won't be shown live anyway except maybe in Japan, so they can show whichever performances they want.

No it doesn't matter where one is seeded in the World's SP. With full faith and trust in the system, the points won't vary because a skater is not in the last group. Will they?

The TV SP is never shown live so that's standard procedures and not a problem. Now with the SP seeding based on the World Standings, there will be a group of last contestants to skate who will be among the top tier skaters for a TV taping. There is no problem whatsoever in eliminating the QR.

But the position of Sasha was presented as a minor problem and I think with Hockdeyfan's explanation, I think Sasha will be fine.

What I am confused about is the Groups of Twelve. With skaters in whatever group of twelve will have to draw to see if they skate in a group A or group B of that particular Twelve. Hyperthetically, if Mao and Kimmie wind up in two different groups of the same Group of Twelve, there could not be any really good comparisons if they both skate clean. The faith and full trust in the CoP system will be at its most necessity. Will it not?

Joe

[Mathman]

No it doesn't matter where one is seeded in the World's SP. With full faith and trust in the system, the points won't vary because a skater is not in the last group. Will they?

In Speedy we trust, Joe.

But still, we are no worse off than we were under the old system. No matter what the judging system, we have to trust the judges to do the best they can.

Under the 6.0 system, when you had 30 skaters randomly seeded for the Olympic short program, the judges somehow had to remember enough about the fourth skater that they saw, compared to the 25th, to be able to say that one of them deserved 15th place and the other 16th place going into the LP.

Now at least they will have some numbers to offer a little guidance. Skater number 4 ended up 1.5 points below skater number 25 because #4 got a -1.00 GOE on his triple flip, while #25 got a higher level on his sit spin.

At the very least it gives us kibitzers something to hang our hats on. We can say, "Plushenko was overmarked in Transitions," instead of, "Plushenko stinks and I like Joubert better."

[Joesitz]

I don't see any need to compare the two systems at this point in time. The 6.0 system is dead. RIP.

Of course we have to trust the judges, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to agree with them. What would be the point of a Forum if we just ignored any disagreements?

For example, some fans believe Plushenko was overmarked in everything but the his jumping skills. That's what Opinions and Forums are all about. (BTW, no one said he should not have won.)

My curiosity at this point in time is gkelly's introduction to what appears to be placing the skaters in groups of twelve From what I understand, e.g., the last group to Skate of 12 would draw for positiion in sub group A or sub group B each with standard 6 skaters.

I am just thinking that if Mao is in subgroup A and Kimmie is in subgroup B, and both skaters skate 2 clean programs. It will not be easy to compare their skates because no doubt, they will have to zamboni the ice in between the subgroups for fairness sake. That leaves quite a bit of time between subgroups for the average fan to come up with their personal winner.. There will be posts about if one was in the other group that one would have won.

But with full faith and trust in the CoP, the winner will emerge (even if it someone is not in either groups).

BTW - Has anyone else read about this groups of twelve?

Joe

[hockeyfan228]

My curiosity at this point in time is gkelly's introduction to what appears to be placing the skaters in groups of twelve From what I understand, e.g., the last group to Skate of 12 would draw for positiion in sub group A or sub group B each with standard 6 skaters.

I am just thinking that if Mao is in subgroup A and Kimmie is in subgroup B, and both skaters skate 2 clean programs. It will not be easy to compare their skates because no doubt, they will have to zamboni the ice in between the subgroups for fairness sake. That leaves quite a bit of time between subgroups for the average fan to come up with their personal winner.. There will be posts about if one was in the other group that one would have won.

At the Olympics, which uses random draw instead of seeding, two contenders could be 28 skaters apart in the short program, instead of a maximum of 10. Seeding ensures that there is a maximum amount of time -- around 90 minutes including zamboni break? -- between the two skates, as opposed to the possibilty of several hours.

BTW - Has anyone else read about this groups of twelve?

I read this on FSU.

[gkelly]

Look at how the OD draw is done for any dance competition with more than 10 teams. Same concept.

[Mathman]

Has there been any official statement from the ISU that they are going to use the ISU rankings as the basis for seeding the Short Program, or is all this still in the speculation stage?

[Joesitz]

Has there been any official statement from the ISU that they are going to use the ISU rankings as the basis for seeding the Short Program, or is all this still in the speculation stage?

Good point. Are they?

Thank you Hockeyfan for the info on how the Olys SP works I guess they could do the same with Worlds without resorting to seeding.

gkelly. Thank you for bringing up the system in Dance.

Joe