Should the ISU have separate scoring systems for men and women?

[silverlake22]

I think:

- sequences should be given full credit
- combination jumps should be worth more than just the base values added together. Doing a 3lz-3t is not as easy as doing a solo 3lz and a solo 3t, and yet the system values them the same
-UR triples should be given a mid point base value OR for every jump a skater URs they will receive a 1 point deduction but the base value of the jump will remain the same. A slightly under-rotated triple, especially on the back end of a combination, is nowhere near as easy as doing a double, it just isn't. The fact that Mao gets 3.5 points for her beautiful 3a with just the slightest cheat on the end is just not fair.

[gkelly]

I think the point value for 3A's are right. It's the downgrade penalty that's wrong. I want either some kind of mid way credit or for there to be less scrutiny on the rotation. Also I would like for the ladies to be able to replace the required 2A with a 3A.

You mean in the short program? The long program requires only "an axel-type jump."

[miki88]

I think:

- sequences should be given full credit
- combination jumps should be worth more than just the base values added together. Doing a 3lz-3t is not as easy as doing a solo 3lz and a solo 3t, and yet the system values them the same
-UR triples should be given a mid point base value OR for every jump a skater URs they will receive a 1 point deduction but the base value of the jump will remain the same. A slightly under-rotated triple, especially on the back end of a combination, is nowhere near as easy as doing a double, it just isn't. The fact that Mao gets 3.5 points for her beautiful 3a with just the slightest cheat on the end is just not fair.

I like these changes. I think it will benefit everyone. I don't like the idea that a slightly UR jump will lose much more points than a fall. Perhaps there could be a range of deductions for URs. The more UR it is the greater the deduction.

[evangeline]

I like these changes. I think it will benefit everyone. I don't like the idea that a slightly UR jump will lose much more points than a fall. Perhaps there could be a range of deductions for URs. The more UR it is the greater the deduction.

Yes, I believe the sliding scale for UR idea has been brought up in this forum before. There definitely is a difference between, say, Sarah Hughes-type URs that you can clearly see in real-time vs. the extremely borderline calls that require analyzing the jump in super-slow mo reply 3 times before making a decision.

[Bijoux]

absolutely there should be different rules and standards and rewards as as far as points go. this will protect the health of these very young and growing ladies. perhaps this point already made but not up to reading 5 pages. Gotta run over to Yuna forum as she is the "Queen" and only great skater to have lived! Got to hear the latest tweat, I think I missed that she hiccuped! sp? lol

[Mathman]

Again, however, as a thought experiment, if you want to consider an 84% value increase (I don't know why it has to be done in percentages, but let's run with it) for an additional half-rotation, then allow a 4T to have a base value of 20.2. A little too ridiculous in my book.

37% increase in base value (for optional jumps) between the 3Lz and 3A remains the highest separation for a half-rotation's difference. The difference between a 3A and a 4T is 20%. All this points to be the quads being undervalued, not the 3A.

Well, the topic of the thread was, should the value of triple Axels for women be increased (leaving men's the same). So we can cross the quad bridge later.

About percentages, we could look at it this way. How much is an extra revolution worth?

2T to 3T: 208% increase in base value
2S to 3S: 246% increase in base value
2Lo to 3Lo: 233% increase in base value
2F to 3F: 224% increase in base value
2Lz to 3Lz: 216% increase in base value.

2A to 3A: 134% increase in base value

(I don't know what that proves, just looking at some numbers. )

I guess I'm still not sure what your point is.

I guess I don't really have one. It just seems like under the present rules a skater can get a lot of points for repeating possibly flawed flips and Lutzes, and blowing off the "balanced program" idea, at least with respect to presenting the full complement of jumps.

The committee of coaches that initiated these proposals did not publish their rationale, so I am kind of guessing here. I do, however, have the feeling that one motive was to get rid of all the nitpicking about "e" versus "!", mandatory deductions in GOE versus judges choice, etc.

In the first suggestion, raising the base value of 3A is because there are few ladies to do it. So it would encourage ladies to learn 3A.

In the second suggestion, combining flip and lutz is again because there are few ladies to do them properly. So it would discourage ladies to learn the true flip and the true lutz.

I don't get the rationale behind them.

First, I do not think it is the job of the scoring system to encourage or discourage anything. It is the job of the scoring system to provide a means of determining who skated the best.

Under the new Lutz/flip proposal, a skater could still do a Lutz (and earn 6.5 points) and a flip (and earn 5.5 points.) Or...a skater could do two Lutzes, if that skater had a strong Lutz. Or a skater could do two flips if the skater did not have confidence in her Lutz edge and/or had a crackerjack flip.

The only difference would be that the skater could not do two Lutzes AND a flip in the LP, etc.

I am not sure how a jump would be scored that wobbled back and forth and did not really have a take-off edge at all. Presumably this would be bad form that would adversely effect the GOE.

[bekalc]

I don't see people getting a lot of points for flawed lutzs or flips. A lutz with -1 GOE gets the same as a base value for a 3loop.

[Mathman]

I don't see people getting a lot of points for flawed lutzs or flips. A lutz with -1 GOE gets the same as a base value for a 3loop.

Consider the skater who can't do a Lutz OR a loop. She does a flutz and gets 5.0 points anyway.

[bekalc]

Consider the skater who can't do a Lutz OR a loop. She does a flutz and gets 5.0 points anyway.

Well if its a really bad flutz she'll probably only get four points because it will be a minus 2....Also consider a good Loop will likely get positive GOE...And you don't see people with flutzs doing two flutzs.

[Mathman]

^ True, true.

Well, here is the perfect ladies' program, with both new rules in place. Music: Carmen (or Kalinnikov's first symphony.)

3A: 9.0 points
3Newjump (clear outside egde) + 3T: 10.5
3Lo: 5.0
3T: 4.0
rest, skate around a little, do some spins and choreography...
3Newjump: 5.5*
3S: 4.5*
Footwork
2A: 3.5*
Spiral, spin, moves-in-the-field
Splitjump: 0.0
Blur spin (level 1)
Tada!

(No +2T or +2Lo to confuse the issue, just beautiful flowing edges out of each jump.)

[Bijoux]

sounds good, is this an old Michelle program, BTW?

[bekalc]

sounds good, is this an old Michelle program, BTW?

Hate it with a passion. Mathman is talking about rewarding those who cannot do a 3flip or a 3lutz. I.e they will never have to learn, while punishing those who don't havea 3loop or 3sal. Why not instead just reward the skater who has all the triples with a 3 point bonus. That would be way more fair.

Plenty of women can do a real 3 lutz and a real 3flip. But if Mathman's plan goes into action they will stop. Triple lutzs will disappear from women altogether because it would be easier just to learn the 3flip. Ksensia Marakova in an interview said the triple lutz "was the hardest." So much for all of her hard work, why should she bother for a minimal .50.

Not to mention it dilutes the value of toe jumps. There are 3 edge jumps and 3toe jumps. If you get rid of one of the 3lutz or the 3flip, you only get 2 toe jumps. Hardly fair. I'd rather see the value of all the triples raised, and a bonus. Instead of seeing people who have worked their buts of to master the 3lutz and the 3flip correctly punished, and yes Mathman, they'd be getting punished.

[Mathman]

Hate it with a passion.

How can you hate this program? This ficticious skater is Mao Asada and Yu-na Kim rolled into one. She has a triple Axel AND a triple Newjump with outside edge take-off.

She does all six of the old-style triples, 3A, 3NJ (Outside edge), 3Newjump (inside edge), 3Loop, 3Sal, 3Toe -- a seven triple program plus a double Axel in seven jumping passes.

Tell me which skater has ever in the history of the sport done such an ambitious and wonderful program!

[bekalc]

How can you hate this program? This ficticious skater is Mao Asada and Yu-na Kim rolled into one. She has a triple Axel AND a triple Newjump with outside edge take-off.

She does all six of the old-style triples, 3A, 3NJ (Outside edge), 3Newjump (inside edge), 3Loop, 3Sal, 3Toe -- a seven triple program plus a double Axel in seven jumping passes.

Tell me which skater has ever in the history of the sport done such an ambitious and wonderful program!

First of all your plan robs this woman of the opportunity to do 8 triples. Midori Ito did. And it robs everyone else the opportunity to do seven ala Michelle Kwan.

Also, as I keep on saying, eventually nobody will bother to learn both new Jump inside or New Jump outside edge. Why should your skater show case both New Jump Outside Edge and New Jump Inside edge, when doing New Jump inside edge costs them points? No they will just do new Jump Outside edge.

But for the most part you'll just see girls not even bothering to learn one of the versions of your "new jump" It takes way too much time. The jump that will probably goes is the harder 3lutz. And that means we will lose the second most magnificent triple jump. And die it will, because how many Wallys do you see? That also means no more jumps with counterrotation.

That's why I hate your plan. And I keep on asking you why you somehow think its perfectly fine for someone not to master both the 3lutz or the 3flip, but you want to punish them for not having the edge jumps? The ladies should be able to do all five of them correctly. Your punishing those who are good at the toe jumps.

I see your point about how you can't fake an edge jump. But the thing is that its not the case that we have all these women mastering 3lutzs, or even 3flutzs and flips and not edge jumps. If you look at worlds, Yu-na was the only woman in the top 6 who did both a 3lutz and a 3flip in her long program. Laura (is an anamoly all together but her goal was also to attempt all the edge jumps and leave out a toe jump ) But Ando, Kostner, Cynthia did all the edge jumps but left out a toe jump each. I'm not sure why what they did should be rewarded, but Kim should be punished. All of them left out a normal jump for women. The new rules on edge calls are causing a lot of women to go back to the drawing board with the toe jumps.

Your plan will absolutely sound the death knoll for the hardest jump most women do (and I question if the 3axel will ever be normal) and it will also mean more Lepistos.

[gkelly]

Well, the topic of the thread was, should the value of triple Axels for women be increased (leaving men's the same). So we can cross the quad bridge later.

And the question isn't really should the ISU have separate scoring systems for men and women, but rather, should the same scoring system use different point values for some elements for men and women. They already use different multiplying factors for the component scores and have different requirements for the short program, and to a lesser degree for the long program, so in that sense it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have differential point values.

About percentages, we could look at it this way. How much is an extra revolution worth?

OK, the whole scale of values could be redone to base all the increments, between progressively harder elements and between various GOE values, on percentages. The current scores seeem to be based largely on trying to use relatively round numbers, especially for triple jumps.

I guess I don't really have one. It just seems like under the present rules a skater can get a lot of points for repeating possibly flawed flips and Lutzes, and blowing off the "balanced program" idea, at least with respect to presenting the full complement of jumps.

Well, there are more aspects to a balanced program than just the types of jump takeoffs. Some aspects can be enforced by the rules, which the current well-balanced program rules do much more than the guidelines of the 1990s or even the requirements of the early 2000s. Other aspects cannot be legislated -- skaters can make choices that are balanced or unbalanced within the rules, or they can have more success on a given day with executing some kinds of elements than others, and it would be up to the judges to ercognize and reward that balance under Choreography as appropriate.

First, I do not think it is the job of the scoring system to encourage or discourage anything. It is the job of the scoring system to provide a means of determining who skated the best.

But the well-balanced program rules and the definitions of what elements earn which scores certainly do have the effect of encouraging or discouraging certain kinds of technical content. If you spell out in the rules that certain elements will gain more points, skaters will have incentive to include them if they can. If you spell out that other elements will earn fewer or no points, there's less incentive to include them.

The first well-balanced long program rules were the Zayak rule about repeat triples, and later the rules about how many jump combinations or sequences may or must be performed. They certainly had the effect of discouraging skaters from repeating the same jump over and over again and of encouraging them to learn more triples if they could, of encouraging the skaters who did no combinations to do some and then later of encouraging skaters who did too many combinations to show some flowing landings for a change.

Under the new Lutz/flip proposal, a skater could still do a Lutz (and earn 6.5 points) and a flip (and earn 5.5 points.)

How do you get these values? The base value is 5.5 and a clear outside edge automatically gains a +1 GOE? Which leaves only two more possible GO increments for the best possible triple lutz?
Brian Boitano in his day had some huge clean triple lutzes with spread eagle entry and arm overhead in the air, the best of which should deserve +3 GOE in the current scoring system. Under today's rules, if all judges agreed, they'd be worth 9.0 points -- this change would cap their score at 8.5?

Or...a skater could do two Lutzes, if that skater had a strong Lutz. Or a skater could do two flips if the skater did not have confidence in her Lutz edge and/or had a crackerjack flip.

The only difference would be that the skater could not do two Lutzes AND a flip in the LP, etc.

In that case... The current well-balanced program rules limit men to 8 jumping passes and women to 7. Those limits are based on the premise that there are 6 different kinds of jumps that we'd like to see skaters execute, that many men can do the hardest triple (3A) and some can do quads, and that most women cannot do 3A and many cannot do all 5 of the other triples.

If the jump definitions change so that there are only 5 different types of triples (of which women generally do only 4 or fewer), would it make sense to take away one of the jump passes? Or at least give skaters the options of doing one fewer jump pass and replacing it with a different kind of element?

Skaters who can do triple-triples but who can't do triple axels or quads (top senior ladies, mid- to lower-ranked senior men) could easily use up their 4 different triples plus 2 repeats in 4-5 jump passes. Then they may still need to do a 2A. They'd still have another jump pass or two left. One of them can be another double axel. What should they do with that last jump pass? Double Newjump? It would be worth more points to do a level 3 or 4 of most other kinds of elements.

Or let that extra jump pass encourage the revival of single jumps with spectacular air positions that are not worth doing in the current rules? E.g., delayed axel, split-flip, split-lutz . . . oh, excuse me, split-Newjump. But if the split-flip version is a +3 single Newjump already, there goes any incentive for anyone to master the more difficult and always rarer split-lutz version. Well, except for the fact that counterrotated approach allows for more variety and surprise in the patterns across the ice, to be rewarded in the Choreography component.

First of all your plan robs this woman of the opportunity to do 8 triples. Midori Ito did.

I don't think she ever actually did 8 triples. She did have the jump repertoire to do so legally, so she apparently planned to do 8 on occasion, but I'm not aware that she ever succeeded.

Also, as I keep on saying, eventually nobody will bother to learn both new Jump inside or New Jump outside edge. Why should your skater show case both New Jump Outside Edge and New Jump Inside edge, when doing New Jump inside edge costs them points?

Well, that assumes that it's as simple as bothering to learn it. Some will put in a lot of effort and not succeed. If the skater can get three full revolutions and a clean landing fairly consistently from the inside edge takeoff and never from the outside edge, they'll stick with the inside takeoff. That would be every skater who ever planned a program with triple flip and not lutz, plus those who usually got positive GOE for their flips and negative for their lutzes.

Your plan will absolutely sound the death knoll for the hardest jump most women do (and I question if the 3axel will ever be normal) and it will also mean more Lepistos.

I agree with your points, although I wouldn't focus so specifically on the current crop of top ladies and prefer to look at a broader picture.