A possible solution to too many skaters at WC

Many have notice the discrepency in the judging do to so many skaters being judge. I'm sure the judges get tired and their standards may move slightly as the day goes on. Of course you want to use the same judges through the short program.Maybe a quick way to weed out skaters would be to have a point cut off. I know a couple events in track and field have time cut offs. I don't know what would be a good and fair cut off for the different fields. I think it would make thing go faster if one could say skater c,g,y,and p seasonal bests are below a certain standard, they don't qualify,the judges don't have to see them.

enlight78 said:

Many have notice the discrepency in the judging do to so many skaters being judge. I'm sure the judges get tired and their standards may move slightly as the day goes on. Of course you want to use the same judges through the short program.Maybe a quick way to weed out skaters would be to have a point cut off. I know a couple events in track and field have time cut offs. I don't know what would be a good and fair cut off for the different fields. I think it would make thing go faster if one could say skater c,g,y,and p seasonal bests are below a certain standard, they don't qualify,the judges don't have to see them.

Click to expand...

They used to have a qualifying round for that I think. Where only those who make the cut goes on to skate in the SP. But they eliminated that after the 2006 WC. I don't think using the seasonal best would be a good idea though, as it doesn't seem like a fair basis, as scores can sometimes be inflated. I think the current practice where the top 24 advance to the free skate is alright.

Using SB scores as a cutoff would also be unfair to many skaters from smaller federations, who do not get the chance to do as many international competitions and who get far fewer GP assignments as well. It might also be problematic for skaters returning from injury.

I think the best thing would be to give the previous year's top 10 a free pass to the SP, as well as the winners of GPF, Euros and 4CCs, if for some reason they were not among the top 10 the year before (and maybe Olympic medalists in relevant years). Everyone else would go through some type of qualifying round.

However, they handle the cut off, I hope they fix the QR. I hated the 2 part Qualifying Round which also had the results included in the total score. Poor Fumie in Dortmund. Unfair, imo

Someone said they anticipate 57 Ladies for WC. That's 27 more than the official number by the ISU for competitive purposes. If that's true the logistics will be a nightmare. I would suggest 20 high ranking ISU skaters be excused from any form of elimination from the SP. The remaining 10 plus 27 or whatever go through a simple competition on the Saturday before the Opening Ceremonies. The top 10 finishers to go on to the SP. All scores to be dropped afterwards.

Back when there was qualifying in 2006, 43 ladies skated and 30 made it to the SP and the top 24 in the SP made it to the Free Program (LP). A total of 97 programs judged. In 2008, 53 ladies skated the SP and 24 made it to the LP. A total of 77 programs judged. 4 more in 2009 would make that 81 still far from the 97 in 2006.

Having more country members in the ISU is a good thing for the sport so the more skaters from other countries, the more revenue for the sport to keep on growing.

Personally, I am fine with this format. I hated qualifying because in Canada they would rarely broadcast any of the QR. At most we may have seen hi-lites of the top skaters or top Canadian.

With respect to the inconsistent judging, unfortunately it will always exist regardless of the format so weeding out the low scoring skaters doesn't fix that problem at all. Inconsistent and biased judging will always be there, it's effect can be minimized but it can never be entirely fixed.

Use Euros and 4CCs as qualifying events for spots for Worlds. Top 18 from Euros and top 12 from 4CCs. The slots could be granted to the country, not the individual skaters. It will make both competitions more important and reduce the number of skaters participating at Worlds. Done and done.