No more QR at Worlds, Euros | Page 5 | Golden Skate

No more QR at Worlds, Euros

gkelly

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Jul 26, 2003
Joesitz said:
But we are talking big stars here. They get lots of points for medaling in whatever. What about Romanovskaya/Grachev? Nam/Lefteris? Karademir? Young?

Romanovskaya/Grachev and Nam/Lefteris won't be affected for seeding at Worlds (should they qualify for their countries' world teams) because nothings has changed for dance or pairs -- compulsory dances and pairs' SPs will still be a random draw as before.



Let's look at the singles skaters. Take Karademir for example. She's currently ranked 56th, which is actually quite good for a skater without a full set of triples. Considering that many of the skaters ranked ahead of her won't be at Worlds because of retirement, being the fourth, fifth, or lower ranked ladies within the US and Japan or third or second from countries that only have two or one spot at Worlds, or random reasons like injury, there's a good chance that when you rank the ladies who actually go to Worlds Tugba will be among the top 24 using today's rankings, which if I'm right about the draw being by groups of 12 would give her just as good a chance of skating her SP in the third-to-last group as whoever is the 13th-ranked skater at Worlds. Even if the draw is by groups of 6, she would still be in one of the middle groups, and not one of the early ones for unranked or really-low-ranked skaters.

Would it be possible for her to pull up to a top-12 ranking (among the skaters who actually go to Worlds, not in the list as a whole)? Well, if she has a great season -- worked hard to improve her speed and add new triples to her repertoire, great choreography, and then performs that improved skating well at her assigned competitions, let's say winning a non-GP senior competition, placing 3rd or so at her GP event, and top 5, maybe 3rd at Europeans, by the time she gets to Worlds she could indeed have that high a ranking.

If she's not good enough to beat most of the skaters she'll be facing at Skate Canada, then why should she be ranked higher than them in the world standings? She does have one advantage over many of them, which is that she will surely be sent to skate at Euros and Worlds, whereas Hawker, Onda, Czisny, even Leung and Taylor, can't count on that.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
That's a good point about high ranked skaters who won't make their national teams at all. Alissa Czisny, for instance, got a total of 950 points for winning Skate Canada and making the GP final, although she finished last. (Arakawa got only 1200 for winning the Olympics.) This puts Alissa third among U.S. ladies (Meissner 2746, Cohen 2330, Czisny 2238).

She has a good chance to medal in both of her GP events. At Skate Canada she will have to contend with Suguri and Kim, and she will face Sokolova and Meir at Cup of Russia, but a couple of podium finishes are well within her reach. She is certain to pass Sasha on the ratings list, and she starts out with a lead of almost more 300 points over the next in line (Emily Hughes, who only has 1958 points despite being on the world and Olympic teams and performing well).

So Alissa is very likely to end the season as the number two U.S. skater according to the ISU ratings, but will still face stiff competition in Spokane to make the U.S. team, especially if Sasha competes.

BTW, its pretty cool how the ISU has it's rating pages set up. They have already taken off the results for three years ago and applied the 70% factoring for 2004-2005. For the current season everyone has a row of zeros. Presumably this will be updated after each Grand Prix event, so we can watch as one skater, then another, zooms up the scale after each successful outing. :rock:

For instance, if Mao Asada wins Skate America she'll get 400 points and jump to the top of the list, trailing only Slutskaya. The next week, Suguri can win Skate Canada and land right up there beside her.

http://www.isufs.org/ws/wsladies.htm
 
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hockeyfan228

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Jul 26, 2003
Mathman said:
BTW, its pretty cool how the ISU has it's rating pages set up. They have already taken off the results for three years ago and applied the 70% factoring for 2004-2005. For the current season everyone has a row of zeros. Presumably this will be updated after each Grand Prix event, so we can watch as one skater, then another, zooms up the scale after each successful outing. :rock:
This is great, considering how the ISU has made this meaningful for the first time.
 

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
Joesitz said:
But we are talking big stars here. They get lots of points for medaling in whatever. What about Romanovskaya/Grachev? Nam/Lefteris? Karademir? Young? They will be doing only one GP. Think that will be enough to get high rankings?
Actually, it's amazing how few skaters only get 1 assignment. I did the numbers: 10 out of 41 ladies, 12 out of 42 men, 8 out of 34 pairs, and 12 out of 40 dance teams.

I did forget about those competitions, and I didn't think they would be counted in the scheme of things. Are there others that count? It would be a way of Nam/Lefteris of pulling in a few extra points. Thanks for the reminder.
From ISU site: "International Senior Calendar Competitions, provided there are minimum 8 single skaters, 6 dance teams out of four ISU Members present respectively 5 Pairs out of three ISU Members". To be fair, they really don't give out too many points for that - it's 150 for gold, 100 for silver, 50 for bronze, nothing for off podium finish. Up to 2 such comps per season count. Competitions that got ranking points for skaters this past season:

Nebelhorn: Sokolova, Liang, Drei; Lindenmann, Kanzaki, Verner; Savchenko & Szolkowy, Duhamel & Arnold, Hinzmann & Parchem; Belbin & Agosto, Drobiazko & Vanagas, Beier & Beier

Nepela: Sebestyen, Czisny, Corwin; Scott Smith, Van Der Perren Nepeal had no pairs, and only 4 dance teams, so it only counter for singles; men bronze went to Verner who already had 2 competitions count toward ranking points, so this didn't

Karl Shaefer: Liu, Yong Sung Kim from N. Korea, Maxwell; Verner, Urbas, Murvanidze; VOlozhar & Morozov, Langlois & Hay, Vise & Trent; Drobiazko & Vanagas, Fraser & Lukanin, Beier & Beier

Golden Spin: Drei, Duhamel, Fontana; Urbas, Craig, Klimkin; Beknazarova & Zuyev, Mallor & Holdburg, Hajkova & Vincour only 3 pairs, so doesn't count

Other competitions that count: Finlandia Trophy, Bofrost Cup; I believe Skate Israel and some others if enough competitors
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
If someone outside of Europe really wanted to go after some extra points, Four Continents is the easiest pickings. The top North American skaters usually pass, and you can get more points (840) for winning 4C's than for winning the GP Final (800).

In fact, you get 805 points for finishing second at 4C's, same as Europeans.

Isn't there also a cash bonus this year for finishing atop the ratings list?

Edited to add: I just looked up the answer to my own question. Yes, the top three point-earners in the 2006-07 season get bonuses of $45,000, $27,000 and $18,000.

If Lambiel, say, has a clean sweep this season -- two GP events plus the final, Europeans and Worlds, he stands to make $171,000 in prize money, not counting cheesefests.
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
PS. BTW, the document (ISU Communication #1371 -- see also #1286) that talks about prize money for Four Continents, Europeans, Worlds, etc., also says to member federations who want to submit a bid to host one of these championships:

"However, taking into account the decreasing amount of financial support available for sport, including the ISU sports, from TV and rink board sponsors, the Council considers it appropriate to give notice to the Members that in considering applications for ISU Championships, the Council will welcome applications that guarantee the maintenance of high ISU standards for the event and at the same time offer savings to the ISU in the contribution amounts customarily paid, the sharing of revenues between the Member and the ISU, or other creative financial proposals that assist the ISU in maintaining a sound financial position for the long term benefit of the ISU sports.

In other words, if you want to host a major championship, the ISU will be looking for some "creative" contributions to the kitty.
 
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hockeyfan228

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Jul 26, 2003
Mathman said:
In other words, if you want to host a major championship, the ISU will be looking for some "creative" contributions to the kitty.
And more subsidy for speed skating.
 

Ptichka

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MM, having read your post I first checked if it wasn't April 1...
 
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Jul 11, 2003
Wow, this thread has brought out some interesting data on the workings of the ISU World Standings. I will not only check for the gold,silver,bronzes this season, but also watch those points go up or down.

The Nationals in the US and Japan will be extremely relevant for the contestants to get to the Worlds and then hoping their ISU standings are high enough to get into a decent group for skating.

I can't help but wonder if Sasha is aware of all this. I can't see her winning the US Nationals, going to the Worlds and skating her SP in the first group of maybe 6 or 7 groups.

(I don't think anyone else is ignoring the GPs. Is my thinking sound?)

Joe
 

hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
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Jul 26, 2003
Joesitz said:
I can't help but wonder if Sasha is aware of all this. I can't see her winning the US Nationals, going to the Worlds and skating her SP in the first group of maybe 6 or 7 groups.
Last year, there were 43 Ladies and 1 withdrawal either before the start or during the QR. Did they do six groups of six, and one group of seven?

Cohen is now ranked 13th. Above her are two skaters that may not skate (Slutskaya and Arakawa), although who knows how antsy IS will be by Euros, and whether the Japanese Fed will try to strong-arm Arakawa. In any case, there are six Japanese skaters ranked above Cohen -- Arakawa, Mao Asada, Suguri, Ando, Onda, and Nakano -- and only three spots on the World team. If Slutskaya doesn't skate, and assuming that the other four skaters ranked above Cohen make their World teams -- Sokolova, Meissner, Yu-Na Kim, and Kostner -- that really puts Cohen at 9th, before the season starts. If Slutskaya skates, then Cohen starts in 10th.

Of the skaters who under Cohen, if they complete their GP assignments and compete at Euros/4C's, the following are very likely to make their national teams and surpass Cohen in the World Rankings:

Poykio
Liu
Sebestyen
Hughes (I'm betting on her, unless she bombs in GP)
Leung (especially with Pfaneuf injured)
Korpi (she only needs two 8th places in GP to surpass Cohen in points, before Euros)
Gedevanishvili (same as Korpi)

That would bump Cohen to 16th in the rankings (17th if Slutskaya competes in Tokyo), which would see her in the third- or fourth-to-last groups, if groups of 12 are used. Were Cohen to show up at 4C's healthy, she might be able to be top 12 in the rankings; she would know this by the time 4C's started, based on the GP, GPF, Canadian Nationals, and Euros results, whether it was a possibility and worth it.

The skaters who could vie for the last spot on their national teams and who are very likely to pass Cohen in the standings, some if they skate at 4C's, are Czisny, Taylor, Liang, and Zukowski from the US; Duhamel and Hawker from Canada . If Cohen competes at Nationals, only two of Meissner, Hughes, and these four can make the World team. None of these would affect Cohen's seeding at Worlds; two Americans and two Canadians are already factored above Cohen.

The skaters who could conceivably pass Cohen, but are unlikely to make their national team are all Japanese: Sawada, Kitamura, and Mai Asada. It would take a series of amazing performances for Xu to do so, and she would just replace Liu.
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Outstanding post, Hockeyfan! :rock: 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.
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
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/SpearmanRankCorrelationCoefficient.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).
 
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hockeyfan228

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Jul 26, 2003
Mathman said:
OK, I just "did the math." :)
:rock:

Mathman said:
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.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Mathman said:
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
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Joesitz said:
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."
 
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Jul 11, 2003
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

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Joesitz said:
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.

Joesitz said:
BTW - Has anyone else read about this groups of twelve?
I read this on FSU.
 

gkelly

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Jul 26, 2003
Look at how the OD draw is done for any dance competition with more than 10 teams. Same concept.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
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?
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Mathman said:
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
 
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