Men - Free program

[Blades of Passion]

If I recall correctly, the new updates to the rules means that there is LESS penalty for wonky jumps. I think that had something to do with some Olympic proportion sour grapes from the other side of the world?

"The other side of the World."

Nationalism.

The new rules have nothing to do with that regardless. What happened is whoever is in charge of coming up with the final version of the IJS rules for the season was extremely lazy and/or unknowledegable. They had to change the -GOE grades so that downgraded jumps don't get penalized with as harsh of a value as fully rotated jumps do. Unfortunately, instead of coming up with new GOE values for just underrotated jumps, they came up with new GOE values for underrotated jumps and lazily applied them to fully rotated jumps as well so that they wouldn't have to create a new table of values. This is a BIG, BIG mistake.

In 2006 under CoP, you received 5 points for falling on a Quad Toeloop. Gaining that many points for falling on an element was not balanced, so they changed the table of values. Now, for the 2010-2011 season, whoever finalized the judging system seems to have forgotten what a big problem this was and made it WORSE. You now get 6.3 points for falling on a Quad Toe and 4.5 points for falling on a Triple Axel. You also get 2.9 points for falling a Triple Lutz.

I've had a table of values setup for YEARS that details exactly how jumps should be scored, including underrotated jumps and their own set of GOE values. The people in power within ISU are ignorant, though.

The point is in THIS competition the scores were consistently applied. Again, in an international panel of judges, when all judges come up with basically the same scores, it's pretty hard to say that the scores are "cooked". I'd buy the argument if the judging was all over the map, but it wasn't

You don't seem to understand the way judges are influenced and the incentive there is for modulating the scores so that skaters who belong to powerful skating federations get scored higher when international competitions are held in their country.

Additionally, the IJS is set up so that if a certain judge's scores go too far outside the "corridor", the judge receives an infraction. Thus, judges are somewhat forced to conform more.

Regardless, it's not at all impossible that most of the judges were simply WRONG either. The bottom line is that Patrick Chan was overscored. It happens all the name to people who are "anointed". Suddenly everything they do becomes seen as better than the things "lesser" skaters do, even though that is often not the case.

The anointing of Patrick Chan + the politics of Skate Canada + the awful judging system + the poor judging all came together to create the drastically overinflated scores he received. Nobody is arguing he didn't deserved to win the LP, but that doesn't mean he wasn't overscored. ESPECIALLY in the Short Program.

[bekalc]

Wally, what I'm most angry with is that Short program score of Patricks sheer ridiculousness. 3 falls from Patrick only 3 points behind a clean skate from Adam Rippon and only 8 from a clean Nobunari. No.No.No. I can concede Patrick being better than Oda when Patrick skates well in the long. But I can't concede when Patrick gives a disasterous performance in the short that he's only 8 points better than Oda.

Why freaking have a competition when we get results like these. And a fall on a fully rotated quad being worth more than a 3lutz? Is the freaking ISU insane? I'm all for quads being worth more but thats when they are landed and clean. Not when they are fallen, not when they come up with a big stumble? How hard and ridiculous is it for the system to reward when clean and punish when they aren't clean.

[gmyers]

Lots of fans and powerful members of the ISU don't want the quad to disappear as it was in danger of after the results of 2008, 2009 worlds and 2010 Olympics. If a technical progression becomes so risky (and the quad with mistakes was going down to zero points) that skaters don't do it to many that is technical regression. When the three Japanese skaters at NHK all did quads the president of the Japanese federation was thrilled.

[bekalc]

Lots of fans and powerful members of the ISU don't want the quad to disappear as it was in danger of after the results of 2008, 2009 worlds and 2010 Olympics. If a technical progression becomes so risky (and the quad with mistakes was going down to zero points) that skaters don't do it to many that is technical regression. When the three Japanese skaters at NHK all did quads the president of the Japanese federation was thrilled.

Why not let them get 3 points for a fully rotated quad. That I can live with, and keep the high points for a LANDED clean one. But nobody should be getting 6 points for a fall.

[skatinginbc]

LMAO. You don't "need" to, the bullets are only guidelines, but yes judges tend to take it literally in most cases. For Patrick's Quad he certainly did NOT have #1, he didn't have #2, he didn't have #3, #4 is NO (/questionable) and it's RIDICULOUS that there is only one GOE bullet for both the height and distance of a jump when those are the most important qualities of a jump, #5 is questionanble, #6 is a YES, #7 is a YES, #8 is a NO.

He deserved +1 or maybe +1.5 if the GOE grades were allowed to be input like that (they should be).

Since you said with such authority that #8 is a NO , I would like to ask you if there is a more detailed official definition in the figure skating world regarding "element matched to the musical structure". I am not saying I am definately right, but to my trained ear, I--a person who had won a piano concerto contest, who had taught piano for living--could not agree with your assertion. Maybe in figure skating, the so-called "muscial structure" has a special definition. I don't know. Can you shed light on it?


If #4, #5, and #8 are debatable, #6 and #7 are definately Yes, it is not so outragious that he received +2 or even +3 for that element, is it?

[Blades of Passion]

Since you said with such authority that #8 is a NO , I would like to ask you if there is a more detailed official definition in the figure skating world regarding "element matched to the musical structure". I am not saying I am definately right, but to my trained ear, I--a person who had won a piano concerto contest, who had taught piano for living--could not agree with your assertion. Maybe in figure skating, the so-called "muscial structure" has a special definition. I don't know. Can you shed light on it?

Well, first of all, I should state that #8 is an awful criteria for determining the GOE of a jump and needs to be removed from the rules. The placement of a jump in relation to the music is part of choreography and interpretation. It should have absolutely no bearing on scoring the QUALITY of the jump itself. Spins and footwork are different because they last longer (and they also never have to be the same, whereas a Quad or Triple Axel or Triple Lutz, etc, is ALWAYS pretty much the same thing) so it makes more sense that one aspect of judging those elements, especially with footwork, is tied to their musicality.

That aside, if #8 is to be used to give an extra bonus to the GOE of a jump, it should only apply when the jump is used to interpret the music in an extremely special way. Patrick Chan's Quad did not have any special relation with the music.

[pangtongfan]

Do anyone think PChan could get this kind of points from COR? Let's see.

Only if he skated way better. If this particular competition were held in Russia he would get scores for the same performances of like:

Short program- 66 points
Long program- 158 points

I havent looked at the final point totals but he would be lucky to even be 3rd.

[mishieru07]

Well, first of all, I should state that #8 is an awful criteria for determining the GOE of a jump and needs to be removed from the rules.

That aside, if #8 is to be used to give an extra bonus to the GOE of a jump, it should only apply when the jump is used to interpret the music in an extremely special way.

I agree that it's quite nonsensical but the fact remains that it IS a rule, stupid or not. In this case, which skater or a particular jump do you feel merits this? I'm just curious to see what would merit such a point, because personally I can't really think of any, going by your standards.

I disagree that the base value of an attempted quad (or triple axel) attempt should have a lower value. That will just dissuade young skaters from trying to learn harder jumps. Why bother when it will be penalized badly if it fails? Might as well play safe and go for jumps that they can do well consistently rather than risk it. The costs will outweigh the potential gains.

Off topic: You do have some very valid suggestions that could be beneficial to the IJS. Perhaps you could get in touch with a judge or maybe the national FS association? I don't think they'd mind having feedback from the audience and at least there's a chance that changes might be made in the future. Which means we see better judging and less outrage at ridiculous (albeit by the book) scoring.

[Blades of Passion]

I disagree that the base value of an attempted quad (or triple axel) attempt should have a lower value. That will just dissuade young skaters from trying to learn harder jumps. Why bother when it will be penalized badly if it fails? Might as well play safe and go for jumps that they can do well consistently rather than risk it. The costs will outweigh the potential gains.

They won't be "penalized badly", they will be penalized FAIRLY. A fall on a rotated Quad should be worth the same as a good Double Axel, but not several points more (a fall on an underrotated Quad should still garner some points too...up until this season it didn't). Making a fall on a Quad worth way more than an easier, cleanly landed jump is bad because it promotes messy programs with Quads exclusively over excellent programs without Quads.

With the Triple Axel you similarly should not be getting a bunch of points for a badly botched attempted. You should still get SOME points to credit the rotation, yes, but not more than a really well executed Double Axel.

Off topic: You do have some very valid suggestions that could be beneficial to the IJS. Perhaps you could get in touch with a judge or maybe the national FS association?

Already have some tentacles wiggling around. I don't have the time to personally canvass all the judges (LOL...they are generally not the people who enact change anyway) and influential figures within all of the various National bodies, although it would certainly be easier to change things if lots more influential individuals could stamp my thoughts and let it be known.

[inskate]

IMy observation is that Oda's performance remained mostly at one level - the music did not suit him, it seems as though he was executing those movements b/c someone told him so, not because he wanted to. His choreography in general lacks sophistication b/c he didn't really understand what he was skating to, thus unable to accentuate or better personalize parts of his program to better capture the attention o the audience.

I totally disagree that the music didn't suit Nobunari.

He skated this LP in a local competition already, and the fan response was very positive (and the Japanese fans are quite strict and don't hesitate to point out anything they don't like about the program). A lot of people mentioned that that the program was a perfect fit for Nobunari and one of the best he's ever had. One person mentioned that "this is the program they've been waiting for" from Nobunari, bringing out his maturity, skating skills and charisma.
This reflected in the judges' scores, too - Nobunari usually gets the highest marks for SS, but this time two judges felt that his TR was equal or better to his SS, and in gereral all the components were scored quite highly.

That said, I don't think Nobu skated his program well here - if the fans' descriptions didn't mention that the program is supposed to switch from a serious mood to playful and comedic, I probably wouldn't be able to tell. The entire program seemed more "depressed" than "playful" to me.

I agree with chuckm that he probably knew he wasn't going to get the scores he needed no matter how well he skated, and, sadly, his disspirited performance just gave the judges all the more reasons to hold him down. I just wish he learned to leave his nerves on the rinkside and skate the lights out of the program...

[treeloving]

Both Hanyu and Oda just skated passed their music in very business like manner..

I haven't watched Chan video, but I already watched Yuzuru and don't understand how you claim that he just skate passed his music?. He may not has a divine skating skills ,but in term of interpretation , in my opinion, he is much better than Chan who skate with the same style of every music(except his SP this year). At least Hanyu movement suit the tones in Zigeunerweisen really really well, but Chan skate didn't capture the powerful music like Phantom of the opera at all.

From the result here I think I can already predicted who will be next olympic champion

[hurrah]

It used to be that I would conjure up images of Due South and Michael J. Fox and words like 'Canadian, eh?' and Michael Ondaatje, when I thought Canada.

[Joesitz]

Arguing about the merits of the quad is fruitless as is the whole system of GoEs. Why not have the judges just score each skating element on a scale of zero to ten as it is done in other judged sports. The scored element would then be multiplied by its base value factor. All the results of the factored elements would be added to the total score. You would really have a number representing the consensus of the judges as it is in Gymnastics, Diving, and other judged sports.

The judges should know, and probably do. the accepted definition of an element by the ISU. No need for a Caller and his team to be there. I find that insulting to the judges that they are incomplete.

[Joesitz]

There will always be disagreements among fans even those among fans who normally agree with you. SC's Men's results, for me:

All the contestants have shown better in the past, but it is what one sees presently that count as 'the best'. Fernandez did his quad, he was totally involved in the music, he has more than average flow, and his over all elements were standard perfect and there were no Falls to disrupt the program.

Javier Fernandez performed the best of that Night!! There is nothing like a clean skate. No point in discussing the merits or demerits of the other [U]well seasoned[U] skaters.

[Figure88]

Partick’s score in the FS is arguable because it could probably go both ways. However, I think his scores in SP was ridiculous. He received the highest PCS of about 39 points ---3 points higher than Adam and 1 point higher than Nobu’s flawless SPs despite 3 obvious falls that affected his performance. Some common sense should have been used when applying the skating rules…3 falls should not result in a top score and should have been deducted in the PCS at least...the mistakes were not adequately reflected in the scores. There are ways to prop up a skater and that’s at least partly of what was happening here---making sure that he wasn’t totally out of the competition so that he was still in medal position before FS to ensure his placement in the GPF.