Would Plush have won if the new rules had been applied?

[PolymerBob]

2) The GoE on a bad quad was enough to render the jump worthless unless you were sure you could land it with positive GoE. The points for a fall on an underrotated quad were ZERO - as if you attempted nothing, while you could score 1.5 points for a nice 2T, so why bother?

I thought that under the old rules, a fall on a quad was the value of a triple with -GOE, minus 1 for the fall. I'm prettty sure that's more than zero.

[gkelly]

Now that I am reminded, I think gkelly did once post a video of a skater actually attempting an true inside edge triple toe Walley. It was definitely a rarity, though.

I don't remember finding a good example of a clear inside-edge triple toe walley.

I did once post an example of a very rare double walley (no toe assist). The edge wasn't totally clear there either.

Even with the changes, the Loop Jump still gets more value than the Salchow.

As well it should.

What a Tech Panelist should be looking for is a defined back inside take off of the salchow and flip. If you look closesly many skaters take off on the Flat of the blade.

On flips, yes. Not on salchows.

But then again, any which way take offs have never been considered an error. Technique is only considered for the air rotations and the landings on all Jumps.

Depending on the nature of the problem, of course a bad takeoff can be considered an error. Some kinds of takeoff errors are strictly scrutinized by the technical panel for determining the name of the jump in the first place, whether it was sufficiently rotated or needs to be downgraded, or whether it deserves an "edge call" (flip vs. lutz).

Other kinds of takeoff errors are up to the individual judges to evaluate. Some judges will be more vigilant than others, and the of viewing can affect what they see as well.

No one is stopping a skater from executing a Tripple Walley.

No person is stopping a skater from executing triple walley. Nor are any rules (although as you note it would earn no points if identified as such).

What's stopping skaters from executing triple or even double walleys is Physics. It's too difficult even for good jumpers to accomplish at all.

The single Walley could be used for the PC scores, I would imagine.

It can be and it often is.

I presume the ICJ does not want its Skaters to be in danger of the difficulties in executing Triple Walleys, any more than executing Triple Toeless Lutzes.

They are extremely difficult, and could cause grave harm even during practice. So no credit/no Sov.

I don't think it's so much that the ISU is trying to discourage skaters from doing these jumps as that they see no reason to build a score into the Scale of Values for a jump that doesn't exist in practice.

What would be the point of declaring that a triple unicorn is worth 25 points if no one has ever seen a triple unicorn in real life and even the reports of double unicorns are rare and dubious?

I thought that under the old rules, a fall on a quad was the value of a triple with -GOE, minus 1 for the fall. I'm prettty sure that's more than zero.

The rules changed over the years, but for the last several years the amount of TES remaining for a triple toe with a -3 GOE was 1.0. After you also take off the 1.00 deduction for a fall, that left a net value of 0 for a fall on an underrotated quad.

[PolymerBob]

The rules changed over the years, but for the last several years the amount of TES remaining for a triple toe with a -3 GOE was 1.0. After you also take off the 1.00 deduction for a fall, that left a net value of 0 for a fall on an underrotated quad.

Well, that explains how those guys won Worlds and Olympics without Quad Almighty.

[gmyers]

What happened to cause the decline of the quad? I think it was 3 factors coming together:

1) In 2008 Jeff Buttle was the first skater in a decade to win the world title without a quad. Until that point I don't think anybody thought it was possible - in theory, yes, because the CoP allowed it, but not in reality. When skaters with shaky quads or no quads at all saw that they realized that they had a chance, if they tailored their programs right - especially if the quadmasters made a mistake (as was the case in 2008 Worlds).

2) After that the SoV was reworked a little, and the value of the quads and 3A was raised a bit - but so did the penalty. The GoE on a bad quad was enough to render the jump worthless unless you were sure you could land it with positive GoE. The points for a fall on an underrotated quad were ZERO - as if you attempted nothing, while you could score 1.5 points for a nice 2T, so why bother?

3) At the same time, several prominent quadmasters retired/sat out 2009 - Lambiel retired (then came back), Takahashi took a year off for health reasons. That basically left out Joubert and Verner, neither of which had a particulary consistent season. Again - why bother with something risky when you can skate safe and trust the quadmaster to make at least one mistake, which would be enough to win.

But this thread carried itself into Vancouver, where Lysacek, who no one will "accuse" of being the most artistic skater (the "Yagudin" of the match), won without a quad against the old master Plushenko (not quite the "Goeble" of the match), who landed a 4-3 and made no "visible" mistakes - I mean his landings weren't as good, but he did not fall and I think not even a stepout (it's not as if I want to see either program again to check). This caused a lot of peple to say "Huh?" and the ISU to take a step back and reconsider.

Would Plushy have won under the new rules and SoV? Yes, by a narrow margin (about the same as Lysacek's narrow margin). As many people would have been happy with that as with Lysacek's win (maybe they would be from other parts of the world). It was a close competition, anyway.

A more interesting question would be - would Joubert have won against either Takahashi or Chan in Torino, where he landed two quads (neither perfect)? Remember, Joubert landed 2 quads and 5 triples, fell on his 6th triple, while Chan landed 7 triples and fell on his 8th. Which is better? Well, I ran the numbers, and while Joubert would have received a lot more points that he actualy did in Torino, Takahashi and Chan would also have benefitted from the new combo bonus and Dai would receive the new base value for his underrotated 4F, so the order would have remained the same, although the result would be much closer. Are you satisfied with that?

Anna

Good interesting post. Lots of stuff here-also lysacek nearly beat Plushenko on jumps in the long programs because of all the bonus points he got for doing so many jumps after the halfway point. If you can nearly beat someone with a quad triple because of bonus points and goe on triple jumps after the halfway point of course that is a major reason not to do any qyads.

Quote: "It's not as if I want to see either program again to check."

Cute one, Annamac! It's true that neither program was an artistic accomplishment for the ages, though Lysacek's was far more meticulous, and of course compliant with the CoP rules of its time. Keep in mind that if the rules had been different, Lysacek and Carroll would have crafted a program to those rules--possibly without a quad, but racking up the points in some other manner--while Plushenko would have been equally dismissive of the requirements for moves in the field, jumps executed throughout the program and so on.

I would love to see Lambiel's short program again, though! And Takahashi's long.

There is no requirement to put jumps throughout a program-you just get bonus points if you do. Now this discourages people from doing the hardest jumps I think so they only do triples now to do more jumps after the halfway point. I don't see any benefit in backloading jumps if it means the difficulty level of jumps goes down as a result-which is happening and bad for skating as a sport.

[janetfan]

Good interesting post. Lots of stuff here-also lysacek nearly beat Plushenko on jumps in the long programs because of all the bonus points he got for doing so many jumps after the halfway point. If you can nearly beat someone with a quad triple because of bonus points and goe on triple jumps after the halfway point of course that is a major reason not to do any qyads.

.

There was nothing stopping Plushy from doing a quad and then saving more triple jumps for the second half of his program. If he passed up the bonus points there was a very good reason for it.

Tim Goebel landed triple jumps and a third quad in the second half of his LP back in 2002 so we have seen it done.

Of course it is more difficult to do so many triples in the second half of an LP and that is why CoP awards them bonus points. It is in the rules and every skater and coach is aware of this. Some can do them - and some probably would struggle.

[ImaginaryPogue]

Yeah, gmyers, you're making a fundamental omission and that is the guys were still doing quads when the back end bonus was first applied. I agree with anamac - that a number of factors came together that exist outside the system that cause the quad to decline. The ISU is making an effort to rectify that, clearly, but I didn't think this three year trend signals something for the future of the sport. Essentially what Lysacek and Buttle did is skate their hearts out and earn their medal, but relied on Joubert/Plushenko to make mistakes to actually win.

[gmyers]

I can't think of any skaters who do a quad and then do as many jumps after the halfway point as skaters who don't. Obviouslhy that is for a reason. At the recent world championships the top three skaters in the free skate had no quads and all had five pluus jumps after the halfway point Joubert was the only one -to do two quads and he came in 4th place in the free skate-he also fell once but did do 2 quads. So you had all the clean triple people beat the ones with with quads. I am getting the feeling that you think quad skaters are lazy or have no stamina.

You saw what happened to Goebel's career under COP so how can you compare 6.0 successes to COP skaters?

[janetfan]

I can't think of any skaters who do a quad and then do as many jumps after the halfway point as skaters who don't. Obviouslhy that is for a reason. At the recent world championships the top three skaters in the free skate had no quads and all had five pluus jumps after the halfway point Joubert was the only one -to do two quads and he came in 4th place in the free skate-he also fell once but did do 2 quads. So you had all the clean triple people beat the ones with with quads. I am getting the feeling that you think quad skaters are lazy or have no stamina.

You saw what happened to Goebel's career under COP so how can you compare 6.0 successes to COP skaters?

Yags and Goebel both had to end their careers prematurely. It had nothing to do with the system but possibly had something to do with practicing quads.

I do know that Plushy said he had to skip Worlds this year because the the quads were killing his knee. Dai also blew out a knee and I would hate for some of these skaters to cut their careers short just for one jump. Dai is such a wonderful all around skater I would feel bad if he gets hurt again by putting such stress on his body.

[Mathman]

If I remember correctly the reason for giving the 10% bonus fro jumps in the second half had to do with the "balanced program" idea that underlies the whole concept of the CoP. I think it is not so much about stamina as about choreography.

Skaters were loading up their programs with as many quads and triple Axels as they could do in the first two minutes, with very little "program." But the music may call for technical highlights in the second half, too.

[janetfan]

If I remember correctly the reason for giving the 10% bonus fro jumps in the second half had to do with the "balanced program" idea that underlies the whole concept of the CoP. I think it is not so much about stamina as about choreography.

Skaters were loading up their programs with as many quads and triple Axels as they could do in the first two minutes, with very little "program." But the music may call for technical highlights in the second half, too.

And why do you suppose certain skaters were frontloading as opposed to spreading the jumps throughout the program? Certainly not because it is easier to save some of the big tricks for the second half of the program?

Could it have been that the ISU saw a need for more balanced and better looking programs and used the bonus as a way to encourage this?

[Mathman]

Could it have been that the ISU saw a need for more balanced and better looking programs and used the bonus as a way to encourage this?

Yes, I think so. That's what I was trying to say.

[gmyers]

And why do you suppose certain skaters were frontloading as opposed to spreading the jumps throughout the program? Certainly not because it is easier to save some of the big tricks for the second half of the program?

Could it have been that the ISU saw a need for more balanced and better looking programs and used the bonus as a way to encourage this?

I just think in order to save some "big tricks" for the second half that the biggest trick -the quad in my view- no longer made any sense to do. No skater currently does a quad after the halfway point but several begin the second half with a triple axel-most skaters

[Mathman]

Edited to add: I don't think the ISU's plan (to encourage balanced programs) always works out, though. Now we are seeing programs where the skater does a few huge tricks in the first thirty seconds, then skates aimlessly around looking at his watch until the stroke of the the second half, then does his second flurry of big tricks, picking up the bonus.

[gmyers]

Edited to add: I don't think the ISU's plan (to encourage balanced programs) always works out, though. Now we are seeing programs where the skater does a few huge tricks in the first thirty seconds, then skates aimlessly around looking at his watch until the stroke of the the second half, then does his second flurry of big tricks, picking up the bonus.

I have heard on tv and read in newspapers that fronloading with a quad equals bad but backloading without a quad is great! No one cares if you don't do a quad but do lots of jumps in the second half making them all worth more.

[janetfan]

Edited to add: I don't think the ISU's plan always works out, though. Now we are seeing programs where the skater does a few huge tricks in the first thirty seconds, then skates aimlessly around looking at his watch until the stroke of the the second half, then does his second flurry of big tricks, picking up the bonus.

I think I agree with a comment Pogue made earlier - that it is more about cycles.

When the CoP was developed they were careful not to give the quad enough points so that Goebel would beat Yags or Plush.

Then after Torino there was a degree of mumbling about how Plushy's LP was lacking.....in good choreo and transitions. In the following years we saw jumps become more closely scrutinized.
ISU actually made a training tape for judges using Plushy's Torino LP as an example of a skater with a lack of transitions and flowing IN.

We saw the last two World Championships and the OGM going to skaters without a quad.

Now ISU is reacting and adjusting to complaints that skaters like Evan and Patrick are scoring too many points for TR, CH, or PE......

So the quad has been raised along with other adjustments that may favor the big jumpers.

Question: should the rules follow the skaters - or should the skaters follow the rules?

Fine tuning is one thing - but some of the changes we are seeing appear to be for a few select skaters and not necessarily for for the good of the sport. The rules will no doubt be adjusted for quite a while ......... and it feels at times like ISU has no clear vision to follow other than the money trail.