The judges strike back?

Maybe slightly . . . more as an overall upward trend for the past several years rather than a sudden change. I'm not a mathperson so I haven't done a formal study.

If we look at skaters who have been getting +2s and +3s this year, I think they were already getting those scores two years ago. Maybe slightly better on average now than then.

For Rochette, who gets some +2s now but not so much in the past, I think we can attribute the higher GOEs to improvement in her elements more than to changes in the judging standards. Hard to say quickly whether improvement in the elements might be a bigger factor with some of the other skaters as well.

I'll say it again... calling now seems to ALWAYS involve use of slo-mo replays. IMHO if a cheated landing or incorrect edge cannot be determined in real time with the naked eye... the benefit of the doubt should always go to the skater, and a slow mo never used. So forget the replays, call it cheated if obvious or give the skater credit for the element. Enough of this nitpicking bullcrap!

visaliakid said:

I'll say it again... calling now seems to ALWAYS involve use of slo-mo replays. IMHO if a cheated landing or incorrect edge cannot be determined in real time with the naked eye... the benefit of the doubt should always go to the skater, and a slow mo never used. So forget the replays, call it cheated if obvious or give the skater credit for the element. Enough of this nitpicking bullcrap!

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That'll boost some scores for some skaters who have been labled underrotators.

skatefancan - The Tech Panel calls the URS, not the judges, and I believe (not sure) that the judges must score according to the UR procedures), It's a flat out penalty - no partial credit - as there are in other major errors.

visaliakid said:

I'll say it again... calling now seems to ALWAYS involve use of slo-mo replays. IMHO if a cheated landing or incorrect edge cannot be determined in real time with the naked eye... the benefit of the doubt should always go to the skater, and a slow mo never used. So forget the replays, call it cheated if obvious or give the skater credit for the element. Enough of this nitpicking bullcrap!

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Agreed.

vlaurend said:

If figure skating is 50% sport, 50% art, then I think it is absolutely fair to have half of the score (TES) calculated objectively like a sport and the other half (PCS) judged like an art. No judging system will ever be perfect because judging is, by definition, subjective. This one does pretty well considering the complexities of judging this sport.

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Yes, I agree. To me, the current judging system is light years better than the 6.0 system. Does the judging system need some work? Of course, nothing is ever perfect. But this is definitely better than a judge just throwing out a 5.9 without carefully examining all of the elements and scoring them accordingly. Did a program scoring a 5.9 really only have 0.1 wrong with it? Of course not. That wasn't scoring at all, that was just place holding.

I am even fine with the judges having to slightly inflate or deflate PCS and GOE at times to make sure the "right" skater wins. While that may be somewhat subjective, I'd much rather have an educated person making sure the "right" skater wins, rather than some computer calculation having the "wrong" skater win. No judging system will ever be perfect, so there has to be some sort of human tweaking to make sure the results come out as fair as possible. The scoring system absolutely needs work, but I do think it's going in the right direction.

Tinymavy15 said:

However I feel that McLaughlin and Brubaker as well as Alissa were given "all the extras" like +GOE's and high PCS just to insure that they landed on top the podium.
At 4CC Joannie was the cleanest skater there (no flutz, no lip...no obvious) underroattion) but still finished a distant second to a less than stellar yu-na.
By 2011 we will have reverted right back to the "under the table" judging of the 6.0 system, only with added drawbacks.

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I don't equate McLaughlin/Brubaker's win at Nationals to Alissa's at all. M/B had the most technically demanding program of the competition, and won on PCS, and rightfully so. They were indisputably superior to D/B in that area. They skated a similar long program at 4CC, and the international judges felt the same way as the National judges did.

As for Alissa at Nationals, she attempted the simplest jump content of the top 3 ladies, and also had the most errors. I don't quite understand the hype over her program components and what not. I don't think she spins or does much of anything that much better than Zhang, and I don't even think she emotes or is choreographically that much better than Flatt. Being that her technical content was so weak, I just don't see how she deserved to win over two skaters who had more difficult programs and are not all that inferior on the PCS side either. I don't think it's surprising that she ranked 3rd of 3 Americans at 4CC without even falling in the LP.

As for Joannie and Yu-Na, I think Yu-Na's 3-3's are what gave her the clear advantage at 4CC. But I do agree with you that the result could have been closer.