Which Scoring system is your preference? Pro and Cons

I can't say I have a favourite judging system because I don't know the different ones well enough to be able to compare...but I do think one of the advantages of IJS is definitely the "educational" aspect of how things can be broken down and released into a protocol as gkelly explained.

It would have been interesting to see 6.0 era protocols released with short paragraphs (or essays ) that judges could use to justify their top 3 picks.

Mathman said:

Actually, yes, I think it might be. I can't think of a better one. Technically [Boitano] did the hardest stuff anyone could do in those days, plus more. A triple Lutz with 'Tano air position, a triple Axle-double loop, and a double Axel with arms folded into his final pose.
...
I did not see any flaws, his lines were clean, the choreography was smooth as butter.

It is really quite sobering to compare that with anything Lysacek or Weir or Abbott has ever shown us in the CoP era.

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:confused2: I don't know, I guess I am a girl of my times, but I loved Abbott's 2010 SP this year and much prefer it to Boitano's above. It is true that the American male skaters you listed rarely do "the hardest stuff" for their time (i.e. jumps-wise, i.e. quads) but I found the above Boitano's program to have too much of a similar pace throughout, making it seem a little too static for my tastes. I'd rather the ebb and flow and build-up of Abbott's SP. Boitano's lines and imperial presentation look very nice, but there's something non-organic about it (to me).

Mathman said:

Michelle's finest short program was the Rachmaninov SP in 1998. She got 7 6.0's for presentation (so Brian's 8 beat her. )

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And again, I think Michelle's Rachmaninoff is extraordinary because of the changes in pacing and mood. Starts off slow and soft, then changes dramatically to build up to an uplifting, riveting ending. I actually prefer her 1995-1996 SP a bit more, but I agree that the Rach SP is probably Michelle's best (and one of the best, period.)

ETA: ^ It doesn't even feel like an SP, there's so much packed into it.

Longer post, as promised. Preemptive apology about the length

1. I have to admit I took a little umbrage at the comment, Ellen, because I made NO reference to Russian skaters in my post. Janetfan (the poster of the quote I quoted) made reference to only one team, two results. Hardly fair to assume we’re denigrating an entire people, culture or figure skating tradition. Additionally, I have to admit I wondered the same about Ellen vis-a-vis D/W and DomShabs. Your criticisms about D/W are fair (indeed, I have them in a minor key myself) but it didn’t seem you were applying the same standard to DomShabs. You don’t have to, of course. But when making general comments about the trends in the sport, it helps.

2. Politics. Wier has complained about politics in his own nation. As much as a Russophile as he is, I’m pretty sure he means the USA. And that’s now. So no, politics have not disappeared. Nor will they.

But when I think of the detrimental effect of politicking, I think the most profound example would be the Duchesnays. They actually switched countries (away from Canada, I add, so you don’t think I’m pretending that Skate Canada is all angels and fairy dust) because they felt they didn’t get the political support from their first. Now, lets imagine for a second that they didn’t have that option as readily as they did (their mom was a French citizen, right?). Lets say they tried to make it work in Canada despite a politically “challenging” atmosphere. It’s extreme to say, but could you imagine ice dancing without “Missing” or “Savage Rights” or that crazy tango? Luckily for all of us, they went to a federation that supported them, but what if...? Maybe I’m overstating it

3. Pairs..... okay, pairs to me has been hurt the worst. I don’t know why exactly. Even if we credit the fact that the pairs of today aren’t as good as the pairs of the past, I do think that a big reason for the decline is the way COP dictates pairs programs.

Single skaters have to do three/four types of elements: jumps, spins, footwork (and spirals for the ladies). Ice dance only has four (footwork, spins, lifts, twizzles). Pairs? They have nine different types to pull off: SBS jumps, throws, twists, lifts, SBS spins, pairs spins, footwork, spirals, death spiral (even if you collapse the list down - I don’t know what elements are close enough to each other to require basically the same skills - it’s a long list). So what ends up happening is that the sheer volume of elements one needs to learn and get a high level on means that you see the same variations on the elements (that aren’t necessarily well done). I’d love to see COP for pairs revamped a bit.

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

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Yep. I’m totally ducking the question. I’m goosing it out of existence, turkeying it into my oven, and chickening out. And other bird references.

But more specifically.... of the teams in 3-6, I thought Faiella/Scali skated the best. They had the best free dance of the four teams (F/S, B/A, D/S and D/S) by far. DelSchos had the most intriguing OD, but it wasn’t as well skated as it could’ve been (nor as complex. And those twizzles.... sigh). B/A had two uninspired dances and didn’t really commit to either (though in their defence, skating on the ice after V/M had melted it with their blazing flamenco couldn’t have been easy). If you forced me to choose, I’d say F/S deserved it, with the caveat that she really needs to learn more than one expression. But I’d also mention that DomShabs were definitely top three after the CD (I’d have them in second behind... take a guess .... so that means first was reasonable, I’d have them in seventh in the OD and probably fifth in the FD).

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.

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My understanding was that they ordered it 1998. It was not much cleaner by 2001/2002 (to whit, Vanagas/Drobiazko)

Now that we have the ten per cent bonus, all the programs have their biggest point-getting jump right at the mark of one second past half-way.

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Rochette, Kim, Ando, Lepisto, Nagasu, Flatt, and Suzuki all have their hardest jumping pass as their first one in the LP.

gmyer said:

Well the next time a skater wins worlds while doing a quad this whole thought of mine goes right out the window! But the way COP is configured will the person who feels they can win go for it?

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Brian Joubert fell on 2A at Worlds 2009. Tomas Verner landed all his jumps but Verner ended up off the podium whereas Joubert won bronze.

At the Olympics, Daisuke Takahashi fell on his UR’ed quad attempt, so according to the protocols, he fell on a triple toe. Stephane Lambiel landed his quad toe. Takahashi ended up on the podium; Lambiel didn’t.

Brian Joubert fell on his triple lutz at Worlds 2010. Michel Brezina landed his. Joubert ended up on the podium, Brezina didn’t.

Therefore, and based on the evidence, to earn a bronze medal, it is better to fall on a jump then land them all. Anyone spot the flaw in the reasoning? There’s more than one. But the big one is that it only makes sense in a vacuum - all other things being equal. Obviously, they weren’t here. Not only do I neglect to mention that two of the three examples actually earned the podium spot on the basis of the short program (Takahashi, Joubert 10) and finished behind the example in the long, it pretends that there is nothing else to mitigate these errors. Verner doubled a few jumps, Lambiel’s weak landings, etc.

But that’s an extreme example, so lets examine the case that triggered this discussion: Lysacek vs Plushenko. This was the closest situation of the four people discuss and brings up a few issues.

a) Structure vs Application
It doesn’t help to be reductive here because these are separate issues with separate solutions. If I broke my leg and suffered a deep cut in the arm, I’d hope that the doctor wouldn’t put a cast on my arm and stitch up my leg, you know? So if you hate how UR’s are marked (lowered to the lesser jump, mandatory negative GOE as well), that’s structure. That’s not the judges, that the system; or if we hate the fact that transitions are a separate program component. However, if we think that Lysacek’s triple axel isn’t a good one and should never get a positive GOE, that’s application. Some can be both: PCS for example. I might dislike that XYZ gets too high transition scores, so the judges can be at fault. But they also have the corridor to deal with, and that’s structural.

b) It happened; therefore it will always happen
In blowouts, this is true. With close contests, it’s rarely so. Lets use a different example. Davis/White lost bronze in 2009 to Virtue/Moir by 0.04 points. For those who don’t know, this is one judge changing ONE GOE by one level or one PCS by one level. It’s the closest medal loss in COP history. Does anyone think that every judging panel would see it the same way? What if instead of a Canadian judge, there was an American judge on the panel?

So to me, saying that the system is broken is saying that “9 times out of 10, this result will happen” which I don’t think is true.

c) It argues that there’s no way to change the result within the skater’s strengths
This is a little vague. To argue that it’s nonsensical to do a quadruple jump as opposed to work on everything else only stands to reason if you can’t work within your strengths to pull of the victory/medal/etc. I think it’s fair to assume that someone who can land a quad would be a reasonably good jumper (despite whatever demons they may have on specific jumps: Kevin Reynolds and the triple axel, for example). And I think we can argue that Plushenko is a strong jumper. Lets focus on the triple axel. He landed three (one in combination, of course).

SP: GOE 1.8
LP solo: -0.36
LP combo: 1.00

So if he had landed the LP solo 3A at the level he’s shown he’s capable of (go with the median of 1.00) he would’ve won and this is without focusing on the spins/footwork/choreography/transitions etc.

I'm tired now.

ImaginaryPogue said:

1. I like the idea of judging recognizing both parts (TES) and the whole (PCS).

2. I like the way COP allows for multiple ways to win/earn medals. For example, Virtue and Moir. This team did not win the TES on a single portion of their World Junior Championship. They won every portion in PCS. BUT, before you say they were PCS'ed the win, it's worth remarking that overall, they won TES (aka, if you sum up the TES scores for the CD, OD and FD, they come first anyway). How? Despite often falling a little behind in base value, they made up for it in terms of GOE and their programs were made for senior competition as well (they skated at seniors at Nationals and 4CC) so their PCS got a little boost.

3. I like the way COP recognizes that difference between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 may not always be the same and compensates for that. The ordinal system didn't recognize that at all and that drives me up the wall.

4. I like that the system is actually meaningful. I like that it says "this is harder than that, and if you do this, this happens" etc.

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I agree with all of the above.

5. I recognize that it's not flawless. Nothing is. But I see COP evolving more readily and steadily than the 6.0 system (though I may be wrong here).

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Well, 6.0 scoring could be adapted to reward whatever the powers-that-be want to reward. The ISU and the referees could instruct judges to give more credit to trying harder elements regardless of result, or to give more credit to quality than to difficulty, or to pay more attention to specific kinds of errors or to transitions or to pair moves vs. side-by-side moves or whatever. Or the judging culture might just evolve in some of those directions without explicit instructions.from above. So in that sense it could evolve seamlessly. But since the judges only gave two scores for each whole performance, there was never any way to know which details each judge was focusing on and which they were ignoring or giving less weight to.

6. And finally, I like the programs COP encourages. That makes me an odd one here, I recognize that, but it seems to me the range of emotions COP programs can elicit is broader and engages me more actively. But I like level four footwork, so what do I know?

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I like some programs under both judging systems. It all depends what each skater chooses to bring to the table. I think that because from the start it was clearer to skaters and to tech panels vs. judges how to get points for higher levels than for quality (GOEs) or relation of the elements to the choreographic concept (PCS), we haven't seen as many IJS programs designed to showcase simple things done well or unified into a coherent program. But the mechanisms are there in the scoring system to reward that.

My favorite free dances from an artistic point of view are all from the 6.0 era. But that's because they were focused more on overall choreography than on technical content. I think from a sporting point of view IJS makes for much fairer judging in dance. I just wish there were some other venue outside the sport competition context that would encourage choreography of difficult dances with an artistic point of view.

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Blades of Passion said:

If someone left out technical content and it caused their base value to be lowered by .1, it's the same thing as making a mistake that would incur a "deduction" of .1; the resulting score is exactly the same.

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In some cases, yes. For example, in the 1990s ladies were still allowed to do a double jump out of steps in the short program; starting in the early 2000s a triple was required. Suppose under the 1990s rules a judge worked by a rule of thumb that the difference between doing a 2F or a 3F as the solo jump should represent a difference of 0.4 in the required elements base mark and that the choice to do double or triple should have no impact on the presentation mark. So if a skater did a solo double flip in an otherwise good program, the judge could think "I would have given this program a technical base mark of 5.7 if that had been a triple flip, but since it was double I'll start with 5.3 for required elements. No deductions. Presentation was quite good, so I'll give 5.8 for the second mark. 5.3/5.8."

Then when the rules changed and the triple became required, with a 0.4 deduction for not enough revolutions, the thought process could become "Required elements base mark 5.7, presentation 5.8. One 0.4 deduction required for doubling the required triple. Final score 5.3/5.8."

Different thought process, same result.

In practice, though, it seemed that the second mark was often more closely tied to do the elements base mark even in short programs, so it was unlikely that a short program with no deductions would get 5.3/5.8. More likely the lower required elements score would also be reflected by a lower presentation score.

Which is why it's so knuckleheaded when commentators would say "oh, that's not a deduction, it just means their base value is less." No, it is a deduction. The skater's score is lower than what it would have been; that's a deduction. Basically, this line of dialogue was just commentators trying to make the situation look better in order to create sympathy for the skater.

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Mathman said:

Still, I don't fault the commentators for this use of language. There is certainly a big psychological difference between losing something (that you have) and failing to gain something (that you don't have).

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In long programs, on the other hand, there were no deductions except for things like costume or time violations. It was all about base mark, based on each judge's individual evaluation of what the skater did and how well s/he did it.

So if a commentator said "that's not a deduction" about a long program, that's perfectly true. And unlike the list of required short program deductions there was no set amount that lesser technical content or various execution errors would reduce the technical merit score. Judges could weigh the various aspects of difficulty and quality however they chose.

Under 6.0 the mythology was that skaters were competing against an abstract standard, the perfect 6.0 performance. Every time you messed up, a couple of tenths was "deducted" from the perfect technical score. If your performance fell short of the grace, musicality, and panache expected of a perfect performance, you "lost points" on the second mark.

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That was true for school figures, because there is a platonic ideal of the perfect circle that the skaters were trying to draw on the ice.

I think it's a mistake to conceptualize free programs as starting from a perfect 6.0 with deductions/reductions each time the skater messed up. Only the very very best skaters of each era could start with a base mark anywhere close to 6.0. Skaters who didn't have the technical content or the athletic power to deserve 6.0s at their best could skate a perfect program with no errors and earn scores closer to 5.0, or below, just because that represented their level of ability.

Of course if you were only watching skating on US TV, you never got to see many skaters who weren't close to the best of their era.

In CoP you start with nothing. You do a double loop, now you've got something -- 1.5 points. At the end you add up all these little somethings for the total.

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Right. One way to think of what judges were doing in setting technical merit marks 6.0 was mentally adding up the difficulty (base value) of each element plus all the positive aspects and minus any errors (GOE) and also factoring in the skating skills and the in-between technical skills (e.g., spread eagles) that are now scored as program components.

But of course each judge might have a different process or have a different mental scale of values.

janetfan said:

I agree with your views on this. Dick Button correctly sensed that American viewers liked skating for the beauty of the sport and the high drama the Olympic competitions provided at times.

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I think that is true, especially when ABC first started broadcasting skating to a public who had mostly never tried it themselves or seen it in person. The way to get casual audiences interested initially was to focus on the beauty of the movement (and, often, the prettiness of the girls) and on the human interest and international conflict drama especially in the Cold War.

But it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. To the extent that TV coverage of skating focused on artistry, appearance, off-ice dramas, and evil Eastern bloc judging more than on the technical details of the sport, the casual fans never got the opportunity to learn from TV the majority of what was really being judged.

There was not much effort to educate viewers about how to appreciate skating as sport. And so diehard sports fans (typically male) tended to dismiss skating as "not a real sport" while fans of the arts and of human interest drama (typically female) tended to be more interested in following skating, but not necessarily in learning about its rules and techniques.

Before the internet, before the extended and often more sports-oriented coverage on ESPN or other cable networks, the only way to really learn about skating was to travel to elite competitions or to participate oneself at a local level. It's only in the past 15 years or so that it's been possible to be a serious fan of skating as sport from one's armchair.

Fans who grew up following skating as art and drama were better served by a more holistic, less detailed scoring system because that's how Button taught them to watch skating.

Potential technically minded fans who were turned off by the artistry talk might be busy watching baseball or golf or snowboarding on another channel.

But what's the fairest way of rewarding the skaters?

janetfan said:

Here are real 6.0 judges at 1988 Natls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah3Fmy7hAn0

Is this one of the greatest SP's in US Skating history :think:

Did Michelle or anyone else ever get as many 6.0's ?

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Yes, she did. I haven't memorized all her marks though. Maybe not more than seven 6.0s for a short program.

As for Boitano's SP, the question is not whether it was better than anything skated in the 1990s or 2000s, or even Boitano's own performance a month later in Calgary, since the judges at the time didn't have those performances in mind to compare with. Was it better, or at least as good as, the best they'd ever seen up until then?

gmyers said:

See under 6.0 you could say 5.8 was wrong 5.6 would be correct now it would have to be like if you were judging a man

first triple triple jump got 2 GOE I would have given 1...

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In terms of "audience participation," i think that summarizes the differemce in the two systems perfectly. Every person in the live and television audience does the first (I thought she should have got a 5.8 instead of a 5.6).

Not one viewer in 10,000 will do the second (go through the whole list of elements).

ImaginaryPogue said:

a) Structure vs Application

It doesn’t help to be reductive here...

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What does reductive mean?

I mean it doesn't help to reduce something very complex to something very simple with the aim of fixing it. You recognize its complex and go from there. So when people complain about COP not rewarding skating as it should, they often blame the system for something that could be application, and that's something I see a lot of.

prettykeys said:

Boitano's lines and imperial presentation look very nice, but there's something non-organic about it (to me).

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That is startling to me, because "organic" was the one adjective that I was struggling to come up with to describe Boitano's program.

Now that I think about it, I guess i don't really know what organic means (along with reductive). Maybe what I want to say is that I thought Brian's program had artistic integrity. (Yet another phrase that I don't really know the meaning of -- but I know what I like )

About changes of mood, rhythm, etc. I don't think that is strictly necessary for an effective program. Look at Torville and Dean's Bolero, for instance. I think the traditional "fast, slow, fast" formula was mainly to allow the skater to catch his breath in the middle.

ImaginaryPogue said:

I mean it doesn't help to reduce something very complex to something very simple with the aim of fixing it. You recognize its complex and go from there. So when people complain about COP not rewarding skating as it should, they often blame the system for something that could be application, and that's something I see a lot of.

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Thanks.

It might be, though, that it is the complexity of the system that is making the application erratic.

Mathman said:

Thanks.

It might be, though, that it is the complexity of the system that is making the application erratic.

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I agree.

Mathman said:

It might be, though, that it is the complexity of the system that is making the application erratic.

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But 6.0 judging was also erratic, especially if you look at large fields.

Skating programs are complex objects. Therefore a complex system is necessary for scoring them.

When the judges did all the complex calculations in their own heads without using explicit rules or numbers and then reduced their conclusions to two numbers per skater, you could look at off-the-wall scores or ordinals and come up with a theory that the judge was corrrupt, or biased, or incompetent in some unspecified way, or you could guess what they valued more or less than you did.

Or you could just declare that they were wrong (or that all the other judges were wrong, if you liked the outlier's results better) without worrying about why.

That doesn't make it a more consistently applied system.

And two different judges might end up with similar ordinals for completely different reasons, or similar scores for a given skater despite drastically different ordinals. In which case the judging was erratic across judges but a snapshot of the summary scores wouldn't capture the erraticness.

janetfan said:

I remember watching 6.0 for many years before quads and even before 3A's
And in a close competition the pacing of a program often made a difference. Sandra Bezic knew this and Brian B., Chen-Lu, and Kristy owe alot to her choreo and program designs that featured jumps later in the program.

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And don't forget Tara Lipinski's Oly long in '98. She did her most difficult jumps later in the program. Wasn't Sandra Bezic her choreo?

gkelly said:

In some cases, yes.

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No, in all cases, LOL. The determination of technical base value was a very shady thing in 6.0 judging but the fact is that if you left out content your score was going to be lower. Thus, it's silly to say "well, the skater won't get deducted for that, their base value will just be lowered." It's the same thing. If you start with the number 10 and you mark -1 in red pen, the final value is 9. If you start with the number 10 and you mark -1 in blue pen, the final value is still 9.

You can say the deduction for doubling a jump won't be as much of a deduction as a fall, but it's a deduction nonetheless. Judges didn't adhere to the actual rules for "deductions" anyway. Sometimes when a skater fell their technical score would be higher than what it should have been if the specific deduction had been taken off from a perfect 6.0 score...which means the only way to explain it is the judge valued the skater's base score as higher than 6.0...

Mathman said:

In terms of "audience participation," i think that summarizes the differemce in the two systems perfectly. Every person in the live and television audience does the first (I thought she should have got a 5.8 instead of a 5.6).

Not one viewer in 10,000 will do the second (go through the whole list of elements).

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Comaneci myth in history is that she was the very first 10.0, while Yuna's scores are astronomical, and girls wont pass it maybe, since there is no perfect score, it is difficult for audience to recall You remember this girl? she got the first 150!

janetfan said:

Did Michelle or anyone else ever get as many 6.0's ?

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if we count nationals I know someone with eleven combined

jenaj said:

And don't forget Tara Lipinski's Oly long in '98. She did her most difficult jumps later in the program. Wasn't Sandra Bezic her choreo?

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Yes, Bezic choreographed for her. In that Olympics, Bezic's skaters won gold and bronze--Lipinski and Chen.

Blades of Passion said:

No, in all cases, LOL. The determination of technical base value was a very shady thing in 6.0 judging but the fact is that if you left out content your score was going to be lower. Thus, it's silly to say "well, the skater won't get deducted for that, their base value will just be lowered." It's the same thing. If you start with the number 10 and you mark -1 in red pen, the final value is 9. If you start with the number 10 and you mark -1 in blue pen, the final value is still 9.

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But the point is that, especially in long programs, no one started with the number 10, or 6 as the case may be. The base mark had to be built up from nothing, it wasn't a case of everyone starting at the top and then the score being lowered on account of lower content.

You could say that if you start with the number 6.0, let's say (representing the hardest program imaginable at the time, performed perfectly) and then deduct for every potential skill that was not included or for everything attempted but executed less than perfectly, and end up with 4.5, the result is the same as if you start with, say, 3.0 to represent basic skating quality and then add 0.1 or 0.2 for every element performed successfully or semi-successfully, maybe 0.3 or 0.4 for really difficult ones like triple axels, and end up with 4.5, the final value is still 4.5 either way. But the first approach represents a subtractive approach and the second represents an additive approach.

And I believe that the second is more similar to the thought processes judges went through under 6.0 in establishing technical merit scores for long programs or base marks for short programs.

Actually it was more complicated than that. I think it's more like they would start with expectations of a certain range based on the level of skating skill and then adjust both up and down as the skater performed difficult or less difficult elements with various degrees of success or failure, especially for the first skater of the event.

For subsequent skaters the judges also had to decide where to place that skater in relation to the previous ones and adjust the two marks to slot them in where they intended.

Several different skaters could perform the exact same jump content (more likely in short programs than long) and get very different technical scores. The actual scores would depend on basic skating quality, quality of the elements, and skate order.

For example, non-jump-related and even non-first mark-related aspects of performance might lead a judge to want to rank skater Z ahead of skater X but behind skater Y. The judge might have boxed himself in with the marks in such a way that the only way to achieve the intended ranking was to assign a first mark quite different from what they'd have given Z if she were the first skater of the event.

If you've ever been to an event with open or semi-open marking, you'd know that judges use a median mark and a comparative system. If you give the first skater 5.0/5.0, was the next skater better or worse than the first skater in what that judge deems important? Was the skater after that better/worse than the first and second skater? And so on. Therefore, while scores were all over the place, ordinals were relatively correct and in line unless there was an error or a judge had something totally different in mind of what is important or was corrupt. Typically the judges group large groups of skaters into top 1/3, mid 1/3, bottom 1/3 and it's clear where each skater belongs, just not the EXACT ordinaly they may deserve (which is why ordinals are all over the place).

At lower levels, that median mark starts typically somewhere around the passing standard for that level unless the skater is clearly WAY better or WAY worse than the passing standard.

Before when the judges were known, they could get a suspension. Now they are free to go, whatever they do. That's not right. It can't be right.

Olympia said:

... 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.

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Olympia, thanks for your answer. I will also give more comments on this off-topic theme, sorry for that.
The field has always been opened for dance-skaters from any country, provided, they were good skaters. Torvill&Dean- a good example. Anissina/Peisera won in SLC without questions. I think that Russian couples mostly won past years because they (coaches and sportsmen) worked harder, were more innovative, creative, took the preparation process more serously, their will to win was stronger. In an interview Tatiana Tarasova once said that when she staged her new dances she used to consult stage directors from Moscow theaters, she asked for advices from ballet masters and choreographers, the musicians, etc. In Soviet times the famous fashion designers made the skaters costumes. Did coaches and sportsmen from other countires work that hard? Did they invest that much in their ice-dancing?

Now many Russian coaches were invited to work out of Russia. That also helped to raise the level of ice-dancing in other countries.
So, I do not agree that ice-dancing was blocked by Russia in the past. It was open for those who could compete at the highest level.

ImaginaryPogue, thank you for answering.

Ellen said:

Olympia, thanks for your answer. I will also give more comments on this off-topic theme, sorry for that.
The field has always been opened for dance-skaters from any country, provided, they were good skaters. Torvill&Dean- a good example. Anissina/Peisera won in SLC without questions. I think that Russian couples mostly won past years because they (coaches and sportsmen) worked harder, were more innovative, creative, took the preparation process more serously, their will to win was stronger. In an interview Tatiana Tarasova once said that when she staged her new dances she used to consult stage directors from Moscow theaters, she asked for advices from ballet masters and choreographers, the musicians, etc. In Soviet times the famous fashion designers made the skaters costumes. Did coaches and sportsmen from other countires work that hard? Did they invest that much in their ice-dancing?

Now many Russian coaches were invited to work out of Russia. That also helped to raise the level of ice-dancing in other countries.
So, I do not agree that ice-dancing was blocked by Russia in the past. It was open for those who could compete at the highest level.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Ice Dancing.

Russian Dancers have won many medals over the years because they were the best. And Russian coaches have helped raise up the standards in other federations which is good for the sport and has made it more competitive.

gkelly said:

But 6.0 judging was also erratic, especially if you look at large fields...

Skating programs are complex objects. Therefore a complex system is necessary for scoring them...

But what's the fairest way of rewarding the skaters?

Of course if you were only watching skating on US TV, you never got to see many skaters who weren't close to the best of their era.

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The killer argument in favor of the CoP (thanks to GKelly for keeping this front and center) is, I have come to believe, that figure skating is not just the top two skaters in the world battling it out for the gold medal. The scoring system must be useful and appropriate for all competitors at all levels, from 6-year-old Snow-plow Sam to adult recreational skaters and club competitors.

The only drawback is that CoP scoring does not bring in new casual fans of top-level skating competition as a spectator sport.

About complexity, from the point of view of the spectator, the unit of scoring in 6.0 is the judge. Tara beat Michelle at Nagano by a score of 6 to 3. That is as easy to understand as a football team winning the game because they kicked two field goals and the other team kicked one.

Under CoP the scoring unit is the individual point. Points can be accrued in a bewildering tangle of ways. They add up to 137.29. *shrug* Well, if you say so.