Which Scoring system is your preference? Pro and Cons

Ellen said:

I think Figure Skating must not abandoned the 6.0 system.

“6.0” is the attribute of Figure Skating.
6.0 given by a judge is his/her recognition of the highest level, the perfection of skater’s performance from technical or artistic point of view. We have not that many programs for which 6.0 marks were given. These programs are remembered as 6.0-programs, that is the real masterpieces.

Unfortunately the 6.0-system was abolished after the scandal raised by Canadian Federation or press (I’m not sure of the details) at 2002 SLC Olympics. The Canadian pair got their gold medal, but the Figure Skating as the sport lost its main traditional feature – “6.0”, and the figure skating itself changed after that. I do not think that men skating and ice-dancing benefitted from that, not sure about ladies. Only pairs were not that much affected.
New systems introduced after 6.0 seem impartial but not perfect. In fact, men skating lost a lot because of the new rules. The most attractive in the men skating is its masculinity, in particular, the strong jumps. But with the score system of last years skaters did not risk and did well without the hard jumps by replacing them with spins, steps, etc. So men skating now resembles ladies skating and ice-dancing to some extent. With 6.0 system the hardest technical elements really had value. With 6.0 system we would never get the ironic situation, when a skater who is unable to do hardest but doable quad jump was placed ahead of another skater with two clean quads and really good basic elements like spins, steps, etc. So with the post-6.0 systems men skating downgraded to skating level of 1980s.

In ice-dancing everybody has to repeat the same mandatory elements, combinations of steps, etc. Dances now bear resemblance to each other, boring to watch. The new score system left less room for creativity. Dancers tend to do more acrobatics which is not natural for dancing. I prefer the ice-dancing of the 6.0 time.

Ladies skating was also affected by new score rules but a different way. Ladies programs (as opposed to men) became more technically difficult, forced with hard jumps. So ladies skating moved towards men skating and vice versa.

Also in time of 6.0 in Kiss & Cry area we saw what mark was given by each country’s judge. That was also intriguing, and evoke emotions. Remember a strange mark from a US judge for Natalia Mishkutenok - Artur Dmitriev LP at 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. They were really good and deserved Gold as much as G/G, but the US judge placed them 3rd by giving 5.6, 5.7 no. At least we could see that judging.

So I’d prefer 6.0.

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Wow. I love COP and I think the one discipline it has hurt is pairs and that dance has been undeniably raised up..

ImaginaryPogue said:

Wow. I love COP and I think the one discipline it has hurt is pairs and that dance has been undeniably raised up..

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I love skating enough that I can say "I love CoP" because what choice do I have?

I am curious - do you think the placements/podiums for Dance at '09 Worlds and in Vancouver were right? Or did we see much of what we have always seen throughout the years when it comes to judging Dance?

Did D/W miss the podium in '09 because it was not yet their turn? Did D/S win the Gold in '09 because they were the best or because it was their turn?

And say what you want - I am not buying D/S for Bronze in Vancouver. If CoP has made Dance scoring better that is hardly anything to crow about. Many skating fans still don't watch Dance because it remains so highly politicized.

I watch Dance because I like it. I still don't take the placements seriously though or consider it a competitive sport because of the way the placements are decided. Get the right federation chairperson and maybe it will be OK to skate with a rocket pak on your skates if your knee is sore and prevents you from being competitive without assistance. :sheesh:

Daniel5555 said:

Mathman

Table of GOEs.
A perfectly executed 3A will get +3 in GOE while perfectly executed 3Lz will get only +2,1.

I'm referring to the newest version of rules.

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What is wrong with that? It is harder to execute a perfect triple axel than a triple lutz because the triple axel is more difficult. There will be few people who will get that +3 anyways and this mostly apply to the men who regularly attempt both jumps in competition. On the flip side, a failed triple axel will also get more deduction (-3) than a failed triple lutz (-2), so it balances out.

Here's one difference between the two systems: when we criticized outcomes under 6.0, we talked about the skaters. When we criticize outcomes under the CoP, we mostly talk about numbers. With decimals! It creates an entirely different mental image for me.

janetfan said:

I love skating enough that I can say "I love CoP" because what choice do I have?

I am curious - do you think the placements/podiums for Dance at '09 Worlds and in Vancouver were right? Or did we see much of what we have always seen throughout the years when it comes to judging Dance?

Did D/W miss the podium in '09 because it was not yet their turn? Did D/S win the Gold in '09 because they were the best or because it was their turn?

And say what you want - I am not buying D/S for Bronze in Vancouver. If CoP has made Dance scoring better that is hardly anything to crow about. Many skating fans still don't watch Dance because it remains so highly politicized.

I watch Dance because I like it. I still don't take the placements seriously though or consider it a competitive sport because of the way the placements are decided. Get the right federation chairperson and maybe it will be OK to skate with a rocket pak on your skates if your knee is sore and prevents you from being competitive without assistance. :sheesh:

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1. There are three different questions here. Do I agree with ALL the podiums? No. Do I agree with more of them? Yes - undoubtedly. Do I enjoy the programs COP encourages for dance more? Yes.

2. Do I think that ice dance is "more" correct than men/women/pairs..... not sure, give me more time to think about it. But I do think COP has improved ice dancing the most; pairs the least and singles in the middle. Do I think that the ice dance is less political now? YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!

3. Podium in Vancouver? No one earned bronze. LA? Don't remember it well enough to have definitive opinion, but D/W should've been on the podium and they weren't. Beyond that? Don't want to say anything

Daniel5555 said:

Mathman

Table of GOEs.
A perfectly executed 3A will get +3 in GOE while perfectly executed 3Lz will get only +2,1.

I'm referring to the newest version of rules.

http://isu.sportcentric.net/db//files/serve.php?id=1862

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Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, Yuna Kim is cetainly the one skater in the whole world who will be the most adversely affected by these new GOE values. Yuna absolutely creams everyone else in GOEs on technical elements. Now, that won't matter so much.

On the bright side, Kim's record score will likely stand for a long time, unless ladies start doing quads.

miki88 said:

What is wrong with that? It is harder to execute a perfect triple axel than a triple lutz because the triple axel is more difficult. There will be few people who will get that +3 anyways and this mostly apply to the men who regularly attempt both jumps in competition. On the flip side, a failed triple axel will also get more deduction (-3) than a failed triple lutz (-2), so it balances out.

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Didn't think about that. COP makes it make no sense whatsoever to do the really hard jumps. It's like "It's Olympic season better stop doing quads (for men) and not even think about doing a triple axel (ladies)!" If a skater wants to win the first thing to do is certainly stop doing the hardest jumps.

gmyers said:

6.0 was just freer to me even with the lots of rules. It was more of a system where the overall performance could be scored both technically and artistically. The idea of getting swept up in a performance and a person winning with 5.9's and 6.0's just seemed better to me!

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Yes, 6.0 system was a simpler mechanism to give one overall estimation of technical skills and artistry. It also gave some room for placing skaters higher or lower against the others and evaluate the level of performance against "Ideal" 6.0 mark.

janetfan said:

Did D/W miss the podium in '09 because it was not yet their turn? Did D/S win the Gold in '09 because they were the best or because it was their turn?

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Here is my two cents. Yes to both questions.

And say what you want - I am not buying D/S for Bronze in Vancouver.

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I liked Belbin and Agosto better, but I wasn't their best effort. the move to Linechuk was a disaster.

janetfan said:

The results might have been different in Vancouver under 6.0 and many think Plushy would have won. I am not so sure. Those crooked jumps would not be nearly as acceptable under 6.0 as they are under CoP.

Dai's presentation marks would have been considerably higher than Evan or Plushy in Vancouver under 6.0. Possibly high enough to have given him the Gold. Maybe I am wrong - but we should remember that under 6.0 the presentation mark was 50% of the score and also used as the tiebreaker. It was more highly valued than it is under CoP.

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I thnk Plushenko would have been given the gold medal. The less than perfect quality of his jumps would have been trumped by the quad. I think Plushenko would have got excellent second marks, just like he did in 2002, despite not being a graceful artist type. Daisuke fell -- he's out.

That is why we read that under 6.0 Mirai would have easily beaten Rachael at Natls. The beauty of her skating would always trump the more mechanical "check off the elements" CoP style we see from Rachael.

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IMHO Rachael's challenge is the same as the Red Queen's in Alice Through the :Looking Glass. She has to run as fast as she can just to stay in the same place. In CoP, her PCSs will always lag a full point or so behind the leaders, so she has to hit every one of those seven triples to stay in the game. If she does, then anything can happen and its up to the other girls to bring their A game, too.

I agree with people who say they should let the FS be a true "free program" and not an extended version of the short program. Instead of eliminating the required spiral sequence from the SP, they should have done that for the free program. Skaters should be give more options in the free program so that they wont jam pack their programs with required elements. This way, the programs will have more flow and more originality; something that has been definitely missing in CoP programs in general.

gmyers said:

Didn't think about that. COP makes it make no sense whatsoever to do the really hard jumps. It's like "It's Olympic season better stop doing quads (for men) and not even think about doing a triple axel (ladies)!" If a skater wants to win the first thing to do is certainly stop doing the hardest jumps.

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Untrue. That it happened doesn't actually mean that to win a skater should stop doing the hardest jumps. It's so reductive and this point of view harms the sport.

ImaginaryPogue said:

Do I think that the ice dance is less political now? YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!

3. Podium in Vancouver? No one earned bronze.

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From the above two answers I see only huge antipathy to Russian skaters (or Russia as a country, or both).
Do you seriously think that Pakhomova/Gorshkov, Bestemyanova/Bukin, Klimova/Ponomarenko, Grishuk/Platov, Navka/Kostomarov and others, whom I haven't remembered in a second, did not deserve their Olympic Gold medals? Or Usova/Zhulin did not deserve Silver at Olympics and Gold at Worlds?
Do you think that their dances were not a great pleasure to watch? They were not examples of highest mastery, talent of coach and skaters, the best combination of sport and art on ice?
If all these pairs were from Canada would you tell that ice-dancing has always been political? Please answer!

Ellen said:

From the above two answers I see only huge antipathy to Russian skaters (or Russia as a country, or both).
Do you seriously think that Pakhomova/Gorshkov, Bestemyanova/Bukin, Klimova/Ponomarenko, Grishuk/Platov, Navka/Kostomarov and others, whom I haven't remembered in a second, did not deserve their medals? Or Usiva/Zhulin did not deserve Silver at Olympics and Gold at Worlds?
Do you think that their dances were not a great pleasure to watch? They were not examples of highest mastery, talent of coach and skaters, the best combination of sport and art on ice?
If all these pairs were from Canada would you tell that ice-dancing has always been political? Please answer!

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Grishuk/Platov are one of the all time greats. So are Klimova/Ponamarenko. Navka/Kostamorov earned their medals in COP; I think they were underrated earlier in their career. Don't know P/G or B/B well enough to have an opinion. Usova/Zhulin earned silver or gold in 1994, but I don't know them well enough to argue outside of that.

I have no antipathy towards Russian figure skating nor the country's culture. I will write a deeper answer later.

janetfan said:

Dai's presentation marks would have been considerably higher than Evan or Plushy in Vancouver under 6.0. Possibly high enough to have given him the Gold. Maybe I am wrong - but we should remember that under 6.0 the presentation mark was 50% of the score and also used as the tiebreaker. It was more highly valued than it is under CoP.

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janetfan lets not speak for Vancouver specifically(doctors orders) I put my hand on fire that by the thinking of old system, if it was 6,0 system none of the three skaters, lets call them XYZ would have gotten less than 5.9 in presentation, maybe one or two 5.8 marks and thats all, with the reputation they all had none would have goten 5.7-5.8 in second mark. In 6.0 it was not yet the brainwashing about the artistic skaters-graceful was in the eye of the beholder-it was also their relationship with the ice, the ease to compete, the crowd pleasers, the speed and all that jazz. Most important it was the reputation they had built.

Technical score, Z would have lost 0.4 for the fall in first score already and judges would not have given the gold to the Y skater who didnt do 4 or 4-3 no matter if the X skater had shaky landings, since he didnt step out or fall or had turnovers. Moreover if YZ skaters had not done quad in sp the result would have been already from sp.

All I miss from this system is the innocense I was watching a competition, now I m with a calculator on my head, I agree with Olympia that back then we were talking about the skaters or their skate, not their marks!

ImaginaryPogue said:

Grishuk/Platov are one of the all time greats. So are Klimova/Ponamarenko. Navka/Kostamorov earned their medals in COP; I think they were underrated earlier in their career. Don't know P/G or B/B well enough to have an opinion. Usova/Zhulin earned silver or gold in 1994, but I don't know them well enough to argue outside of that.

I have no antipathy towards Russian figure skating nor the country's culture.

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P/G - Lyudmila Pakhomova / Alexander Gorshkov - the first Olympic champions in ice-dancing. They "invented" or first introduced the new kind of figure skating - Ice Dancing. Their tango is still considered the best ever tango on ice. If I find a video with them, I'll update this post and insert the link. Alexander Gorshkov had been the head of dance technical committee in ISU, recently was elected as the head of Russian Figure Skating Federation.

Ellen said:

P/G - Lyudmila Pakhomova / Alexander Gorshkov - the first Olympic champions in ice-dancing. They "invented" or first introduced the new kind of figure skating - Ice Dancing. Their tango is still considered the best ever tango on ice. If I find a video with them, I'll update this post and insert the link. Alexander Gorshkov had been the head of dance technical committee in ISU, recently was elected as the head of Russian Figure Skating Federation.

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1976 Pakhomova / Gorshkov - Olympic Ice Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POZKOQai7l0&feature=related

Pakhomova Gorshkov 1976 LaCumparsita
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzfGAPzsxc&feature=related

Pakhomova & Gorshkov, Masquarade Waltz, 1976
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsZDguA9_QI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbcReL-vGko&feature=related
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Bestemianova & Bukin 1985 FD Carmen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iju_RarH3rk&feature=related

Bestemianova & Bukin 1984 Pasa_Doble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX4Wl13FRTE&feature=related
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1994 Dance Maia Usova & Alexandr Zhulin FD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSelX2fk2w0

ImaginaryPogue said:

1. There are three different questions here. Do I agree with ALL the podiums? No. Do I agree with more of them? Yes - undoubtedly. Do I enjoy the programs COP encourages for dance more? Yes.

2. Do I think that ice dance is "more" correct than men/women/pairs..... not sure, give me more time to think about it. But I do think COP has improved ice dancing the most; pairs the least and singles in the middle. Do I think that the ice dance is less political now? YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!

3. Podium in Vancouver? No one earned bronze. LA? Don't remember it well enough to have definitive opinion, but D/W should've been on the podium and they weren't. Beyond that? Don't want to say anything

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Your answers are all good with me but saying no one deserved bronze in Vancouver feels like you are ducking the question. Of course someone deserved bronze, but maybe a team skating a horrible OD and a belt assisted FD was not the one who deserved it. And it felt as political as anything from the 6.0 era. :scowl:

Being less politcal came about for a reason which I see as having little to do with CoP.

The IOC ordered the ISU to clean up the Dance or it would be gone from the Olympics. So grudgingly the powers that be have become less political. No credit goes to CoP for that and it is silly to blame 6.0 for the same problem.

A rigged or predetermined competition is no better or more fair to the skaters under either scoring system.

And let me say this - I am no Dance expert by any means - but I will MISS THE COMPULSORIES :disagree: .......waaaa!!!

gmyers said:

Didn't think about that. COP makes it make no sense whatsoever to do the really hard jumps. It's like "It's Olympic season better stop doing quads (for men) and not even think about doing a triple axel (ladies)!" If a skater wants to win the first thing to do is certainly stop doing the hardest jumps.

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CoP makes them unnecessary to win, not nonsensical to try, which I am perfectly fine with. You make it sound as if triple axels are merely a matter of choice for the ladies. Please. Give Mao some credit. She was the only one doing triple axels in the Olympics because she was the only one capable of doing so at the time. Many of the other girls have trained for triple axels early in their career (including Yuna) but either never landed it or never got it consistent enough to be confident of it in competition. The same could be argued of Lysacek with respect to the quad. He can't do it. Is it fair then to deny him any chance of winning because he can't and won't do the hardest element? Should Yu-na be stripped of her gold medal because she didn't force herself to execute a jump she couldn't even do well in practice?

Just because under CoP the champions won without executing the (currently) hardest elements does not imply that such is necessarily the best strategy for winning under CoP. That does not follow at all. Recall that in 1992 under 6.0 Kristi won the gold despite Midori landing a triple axel in the LP. Can we say 6.0 penalizes difficulty then?

The fact is, under either system, it wasn't always necessary to do the most difficult jumps in order to win. Even under 6.0 the technical elements only at best get half the weight of a competitor's ranking. It's easy to say, ceteris paribus the skater who executed the hardest elements should win the competition (and I agree with this). But unfortunately figure skating is a complicated mess. Two programs are never the same in all ways but jumps. And there are many other components, elements and aspects that are judged and weighed with respect to each other. So long as this is the case, so long as the judging system values and scores other aspects of skating besides the jumps, the winning program is not always going to be the one with the most difficult jumps.

Ellen said:

From the above two answers I see only huge antipathy to Russian skaters (or Russia as a country, or both).
Do you seriously think that Pakhomova/Gorshkov, Bestemyanova/Bukin, Klimova/Ponomarenko, Grishuk/Platov, Navka/Kostomarov and others, whom I haven't remembered in a second, did not deserve their Olympic Gold medals? Or Usova/Zhulin did not deserve Silver at Olympics and Gold at Worlds?
Do you think that their dances were not a great pleasure to watch? They were not examples of highest mastery, talent of coach and skaters, the best combination of sport and art on ice?
If all these pairs were from Canada would you tell that ice-dancing has always been political? Please answer!

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You know, a point here or there in either direction--maybe there were politics involved. BUT the fact is that for most of the past 30–40 years, the Russians (Soviets early on) really were the best. I don't think anyone who ever saw them can dispute the excellence of any of the ice dancers you mention, Ellen. (Though my personal preference would have been to give Usova/Zhulin the 1994 gold over Gritschuk/Platov. I found G/P's routine rather feverish, and U/Z always had the most beautiful flow.) It wasn't politics that made these skaters the best. It was a concentrated effort of the national sports program coupled with hard work and talent on the part of the skaters. And if it had just been technical superiority, I could argue that other skaters were better. But the Russian/Soviet skaters were always artistically innovative and profound as well. Personal tastes differ, of course. But add the excellence of these couples in the compulsory dances to the strong free dances, and we fans can't say we were cheated of a wonderful viewing experience from 1976 (the first ice dance OGM, won by Pakhomova/Gorshkov) on up.

Of course there were other fine couples that I wish had received medals (or more medals), such as Finland's Rahkomo/Kokko, the U.S.'s Blumberg/Siebert, France's Duchesnays, and Bulgaria's Denkova/Staviskiy. But I don't think anyone coasted to the top of the podium in those days of Russian dominance. I'm certainly glad the field has opened up for skaters of other countries nowadays, though. It's nice to give more people a seat at the table on general principles. And to my mind, no Russian couple this year could touch Virtue/Moir.

miki88

What is wrong with that? It is harder to execute a perfect triple axel than a triple lutz because the triple axel is more difficult. There will be few people who will get that +3 anyways and this mostly apply to the men who regularly attempt both jumps in competition.

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It's debatable. 3 Axel already has its base value, so the fact that it is harder counts anyway. The base value reflected the difficulty of the element, while GOEs were its grade of quality. I don't know why perfectly executed 3Lz seems to have less quality than perfectly executed 3A. It is harder to do 3A, but that's what base value stands for. Besides to do the perfect 3Lz is really difficult too. No one had +3 GOE, if I'm not mistaken.

Now people who used to get +1-2 GOE (and there are few people who can get this) will get +0.7-1.4 GOE.

On the flip side, a failed triple axel will also get more deduction (-3) than a failed triple lutz (-2), so it balances out.

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Only in case of fall.

Mathman

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, Yuna Kim is cetainly the one skater in the whole world who will be the most adversely affected by these new GOE values. Yuna absolutely creams everyone else in GOEs on technical elements. Now, that won't matter so much.

On the bright side, Kim's record score will likely stand for a long time, unless ladies start doing quads.

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Sadly, I can't comment much about men and pairs. I really wonder how Evan/Plushenko would end with new rules.

But about ladies it pretty interesting situation. If we recalculate the scores of the past season with those new rules, only two skaters are affected negatively by the changes. Those skaters are Yuna Kim and Mirai Nagasu. Their scores decrease with the same programs. So indeed Yuna is... adversely affected. Everyone else actually benefits from new rules. The most benefited skater is... Rachel Flatt. I don't remember the exact numbers, but she gets most points. That's interesting, right? Well, I think, I can explain this.

As I believe, the system was really balanced before. Now they decided to change base values and GOE tables for some reason, and as the system was balanced, those changes cause some effect similar to the tower that suddenly inclines to some random direction.

In ladies field Yuna was the first skater which was nearly the ideal established by CoP. In the new system a skater could not rely only on technical elements or artistic quality. A new skater should be versatile, I mean, it should do everything as good as possible. Be technically and artistically perfect. The skater of that style was Michelle Kwan, as she was brilliant both technically and artistically. Yuna Kim is something similar, but evolved, at least technically. Everything she does is good. While she doesn't have 3A and 3Lo, and her spins are debatable, she is generally flawless in what she does technically. Artistically she also succeeds with different programs and she drives audience to excitement. Therefore it is natural that she earned big scores.
Now, other skaters can also be versatile, but they are more inclined to some certain aspects of their skating. Like Mao Asada is clearly more inclined towards 3Axel, but she can be very versatile too, she just needs more time to fully develop it.

It is only natural that some time must pass before a lot of skaters will develop that Michelle/Yuna style and start to generate the most points from everything that system offers to them. The most overall quality ones will win, while deep investment in certain aspects also gives a lot of points (Yuna's 3-3, Mao's double 3A, etc).

But instead of let it happen they basically destroy the balance and discourage skaters from polishing the details and developing that style. Now it may end up again with artistic vs technical vs Axels/Quads which shouldn't happen. All things should be equally important.

Just my humble opinion. I also have no idea how coaches are supposed to train their athletes with rules that change every year.