Originally Posted by wallylutz
No one's saying it's easy. Except we're not the ones training 20+ hours a week on the ice; that's like us saying that a surgeon didn't do a good job and them telling us to do it since we make it seem not as hard as it is -- no. That's why you spend your time practicing for what you're supposed to do, and that's why we do whatever we put our efforts in.
I don't think any of them would have held up at NHK. They were all off their best including Chan. The Quad was not the definitive point for me because several skaters at SC had quads and others did the air rotations. btw, I would say Falling is worse than two-foot landing.How can anyone tell how a skater would land after a fall? If you know something about physics, to land too much on the toe pick will cause an abrupt stop, if not a stumble or turn out. to land too much on the heel of the boot will force a skater to fall backwards. How can anyone imagine any kind landing - faulty or good if the skater Falls?
By definition, there are 3 parts to a jump element: The Take-Off (gives the jump a name. I can't imagine what the name of a jump is with a Wrong Edge Takeoff.) The Second Part is the Air Rotations (gives the amounts of completed circles made in the air.) The Third Part is the Landing (gives the flowout importance.)
It's obvious that a Fall on any part of a jump element is drastically WRONG. It doesn't mean a contestant can't do a proper jump; it means the contestant was not perfect on that partciular day or night.
I think you misunderstood the point of Mathman's post.
It is not the rotating that is the sport; it is the landing cleanly after the rotation, on a thin piece of metal on the ice, preferably landing with beautiful outflow, thus making what is very difficult look easy. This is an ice sport, not an air sport. The difficulty of landing well is the part that matters most: the contact with the ice itself. The thrill of seeing a skater rotating so much in the air, but still landing in a balanced manner, is one of the things that used to bring in a TV audience. How can an audience be thrilled by a splat? Of course interest in the sport has diminished among non-skating viewers.
In pole vaulting or high jumping, in the summer Olympics, knocking down the bar is not rewarded. It is clearing the bar that is rewarded. This is the nature of sport. Almost doesn't count.
Of course, reasonable people can disagree.
There is nothing "outrageous" about different interpretation within the rules. Whether it's Chan's 4 toe getting +2 or Oda's hand down on 4 toe getting 0 GOE. What I have an issue with is certain people who claim to have somekind of absolute authority and things they disagree with automatically = outrageous. I don't know what is more ridiculous here...
Knowing that 99.9 percent of skaters can't get 4 rotations ever, I'd say it's a lot harder to complete the rotations. Being able to do it without under-rotation is already quite something, with mistake or otherwise.
Jsut because something is hard does not mean that an athlete deserves points for attempting it unsuccessfully.
This whole controversy could be eliminated by simply giving zero points for a jump on which the skater falls. In soccer, for instance, you do not get any points for "attempts on goal." The ball has to go into the net.
Couldn't agree more!
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sitting back with my hot target username
As many have said, Chan was over marked, more so in the SP, but in the LP as well. As a long time skating fan I worry about bringing in casual fans to boost ratings and get more events on TV (not just Olympics, Worlds, and Nationals). this simply will not happen if skaters who can barely land jumps without looking shaky (hello Patrick) get much higher scores than those who do. Of course we cannot expect casual fans to appreciate many nuances of the sport but when someone falls on their *** 3x and still gets the highest (PCS) scores, I think it turns them off (not to mention many who do appreciate nuances).
Would you agree with them giving zero points for URs (that's not a triple, that's an attempted triple) and edge calls (that's not a lutz, that's an attempted lutz)?
Your comparison is deeply flawed. Surgeons who are trained and licensed are expected to be able to do the procedures. Skaters, 99.9 percent, will never be able to do 4 revolution jumps even when they train all their lives. It is incredible hard to train someone to do 4 revolution jump correctly, without cheating and all. Hence, mathman's comment is quite ignorant in my view. Being able to do Quads on its own is very much praiseworthy especially when they are done with such height and distance and effortlessly, regardless of fall or otherwise. That's why the rules are rewarding fully rotated Quads over clean triples by almost 3 times amount of points and many people think the rule changes this year is justified.
Respectfully, what you propose make no sense for the sport of figure skating. Such proposition would kill the sport by encouraging highly risk adverse behaviors. Your comparison to soccer is incomprehensible given the two sports are inherently different.
I admit that I flip-flop back and forth on the proper punishment for under-rotations and wrong-edge take-offs. I am undecided about how that aspect of the scoring system should go.
To me, a fall is in a different category than just, "oops, I did it again." The cardinal rule of ice skating is "keep the shiny side down." Stay on your feet, then we can take it from there.
Plus, in so far as skating is also a spectator sport, falls just kill a program in a way that other kinds of errors do not.
(Except, of course, Alissa Czisny's fall at the end of her amazing LP. I can overlook that.)
I really don't want to imagine what the protocols would look like it that were the case. God bless the young skaters who are learning to do jumps or upping difficulty. And what about moves in gymnastics or diving? Unless you botch it entirely, I believe one will still get marks for executing an element, albeit with poor execution/performance marks.
Joesitz, a fall is definitely worse than a step out, hand down, or two foot, which is why the GoE is different! That's fair enough IMO. I'm thinking about the way you broke down a jump; I would argue that all three aspects deserve to be considered, not just the landing.
I agree that skating is not like being a doctor; any doctor who puts in effort will be reasonably competent (and to begin with, the admissions process is sufficiently stringent to ensure this). Not every skater who puts in the same amount of effort will necessarily be able to land a quad or do a spin very well. This boils down not just to sheer hard work, but also talent. You could say the same for pursuits like dance and music. Wannabe professional musicians devote so many hours to practice. Do they end up with the same level of technical ability? No.
I was just taking your premise to it's natural end. After all, a soccer ball hits the bar and bounces out is the same as a soccer ball being shot thirty feet over the goal.I admit that I flip-flop back and forth on the proper punishment for under-rotations and wrong-edge take-offs. I am undecided about how that aspect of the scoring system should go.
To me, a fall is in a different category than just, "oops, I did it again." The cardinal rule of ice skating is "keep the shiny side down." Stay on your feet, then we can take it from there.
Plus, in so far as skating is also a spectator sport, falls just kill a program in a way that other kinds of errors do not.
(Except, of course, Alissa Czisny's fall at the end of her amazing LP. I can overlook that.
IMHO that is the one thing that we can never expect of any scoring system in figure skating -- logical consistency. This is not a criticism of the sport, it's just the way it is. Arguments of the form, "you believe this, therefore you must logically believe that," unfortunately do not really have much persuasive power amid the emotional sea of opinions about skating and judging.
But -- in the spirit of scientific analysis, not to mention irrelevant nerdy statistics -- should falls negatively affect program component scores? Here are the unfactored PCS in the SPs and LPs. Pretty consistent in this competition, I would say.
Chan: SP (3 falls) 39.48, LP (1 fall) 42.07
Oda SP 38.00, LP 37.14
Rippon SP 36.43, LP 37.58
Fernandez SP 32.42, LP 34.50 (this was deserved – his LP was better)
Reynolds 34.06, LP 34.75
Preaubert SP 34.14, LP 34.75
So it looks like they penalized Patrick by about 1.295 points per fall, in PCSs.
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