maybe controversial but want to know...ladies bronze vancouver

[Mathman]

I think it is because the figure skating is much more complicated than other sports. Everybody knows how to win in soccer or boxing. But not everybody knows how to win in figure skating.

Very true.

Figure skating scoring is more complicated than the scoring systems of other sports.

Every sport is complicated at the highest levels of performance. In soccer I'm sure that there are at least as many different ways to strike the ball as there are different jumps in figure skating. Golf, too, for that matter. Plus in soccer you must also play defense as well as well as cooperate with your teammates. A soccer player must constantly be reacting to what 21 other players on the field are doing at the same time.

But, yes, for better or worse the scoring system in figure skating is morre complicated. In other sports a thousand little details are concatenated and magnified into a single GOAL, With the IJS, the skater gets fractions of a point separately for each of these little details.

[gkelly]

But, yes, for better or worse the scoring system in figure skating is morre complicated. In other sports a thousand little details are concatenated and magnified into a single GOAL, With the IJS, the skater gets fractions of a point separately for each of these little details.

That was true in 6.0 scoring as well.

All the little details that get officially added up under IJS, plus some other details that are not officially taken into account in IJS rules (e.g., variety of jump takeoffs) were all part of what judges took into consideration when arriving at the two marks for technical merit and presentation. There just wasn't any detail given publicly about how the two marks were arrived at. Often even the judges probably weren't consciously aware of every detail that contributed to their holistic impressions of relative quality. But all those details and more were part of what was considered.

You really can't compare judged sports to goal-scoring sports.

But something like gymnastics scoring would be comparably complex to skating scoring, especially if you consider all the apparatuses as part of the same competition even if they're competed at different times by each gymnast. However, only one number is posted for each apparatus so the public doesn't see all the details that went into arriving at those numbers any more than they do for skating when all that's announced are two numbers for Technical Merit and Presentation, or for Total Elements and Program Components, as the case may be.

[Figure88]

This may seem complicate but it really isn't. Though without a doubt, human judgment is necessary to interpret these rules just as other sports like speed skating or ice hockey. Someone said there is something wrong if the crowd can't comprehend the figure skating results such as Mirai Nagasu not winning the U.S. Nationals. I have to ask though, many other sports, such as speed skating where the first one to cross the line wins - can't be any more objective than that - also have a component where human judgment is involved as well. In Vancouver, I saw ISU referees handing out DQ and stripping some people or teams of their timed 1st place finish - human judgment overriding the timer, isn't that the same as Tech. Panel downgrading jumps? I'd even say that downgrades is far less draconian than DQ because a skater may not lose anything due to a downgrade but a DQ, you are left with absolutely nothing. By comparison, if Nagasu had been compared to a speed skater, her outcome in Spokane would have been compared to her Silver medal being stripped and Wagner & Cohen move a up a spot each. Would the crowd still wonder in ? Even in ice hockey, referees have also disqualified scored goals as well. There too, there is human judgment involved. So why is that figure skating alone getting so much criticism as a judged sport even though pretty much all other sports have judgment involved, one way or the other, if not even more draconian than skating?

Figure skating is essentially a "judged sport" where the judges determine the outcome of a competition unlike the other sports mentioned where ideally, the athletes determine the outcome and referees are not usually involved. Judging is limited to the role of the referee, whose only function to ensure that there is no foul play and the rules are being followed---I guess similar to the role of FS tech panel but also, very different from the function of the judging panel. But yeah, if you think of it, there is some degree of human judgement involved in every sport, but not to the extent and depth. So, inevitably there will be more controversy in an outcome of a figure skating competition versus a sport like speedskating because the role of the judge is limited.

[Bennett]

I thought that this thread was already closed though I could be confused with another one.

[Bijoux]

I think the results under cop in this olympics were pretty fair. In fact, the most fair olys I recall. I'd have to go back and review Torino, but compared to SLC this was fair figureskating for once. Ice Dance has been so cleaned up. Then mens was fair, the ladies was fair. I really feel only a couple people were not rewarded as they should have been, but I can't give you CoP reasons as I don't study it. It's too complicated and it takes the fun out of just trying to enjoy the skate.

I do think this UR mania is a bit much. Flatt should have been 5th. She will not get the international respect she deserves. The experts watching/commentators said her flips looked fine. I think she sees the writing on the wall. People act like there is something wrong with her body type. She does not have beautiful gams but she does point her toes. Her body is just fine. She's the typical skater height and a cute girl. Yu-na does not have pretty legs, IMO, either. Many skaters don't. I've read bowlegged skaters have the advantage, tho I have no ide why. Yu-na, best in world at least at present, gets some unflattering lines and no toe point. they try to compensate with her skate coverings instead of working on her toe pioint and technique during spirals/spins. The judges in FS will continue to be human, as they were under 6.0, but they really have to at least give a lot more justification for their placements.

I think they maybe need to keep tweaking cop but bias of several kinds will always be there. I will also say, off point, that Belgosto deserved third, and I just feel judges would not give North American Sweep of podium. Sorry to die hard Dom/Shabs fans, but that bronze was for me not based on what they presented.

[Tonichelle]

I thought that this thread was already closed though I could be confused with another one.

after a lot of moderation it was reopened.

[chronos13]

Off topic, but are "Park" and "Pak" two different unrelated family names in Korean, or are they two different ways of rendering the same name into English?

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Park and Pak are spelled the same in Korean as 박 and it is pronounced without the r sound. But there are different family lines of 박 so they have different ways of spelling it. Same applies to Lee and Yi or Seong and Song.

[Figure88]

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Park and Pak are spelled the same in Korean as 박 and it is pronounced without the r sound. But there are different family lines of 박 so they have different ways of spelling it. Same applies to Lee and Yi or Seong and Song.

Yes, and the Korean pronunciation of 박 is actually "bahk", although it is spelled "Pak" or "Park", among other different variations.