Men's Free Program: 6:45 AM Eastern

[SkateFiguring]

Seeing that I survived, maybe, my first post, I now venture with my thoughts on the scoring system. COP is not perfect, never will be but I think it's a huge improvement over the 6.0. (How did somebody even come up with the number 6.0 anyway?) If a brand new system of scoring figure skating were to be designed from scratch today, wouldn't it be insane to decide to let judges slot over 20 skaters over hours of skating into places with fixed numbers, not just current placements subject to subsequent performances? Judges had to judge a skater in comparison to not only those before him/her but also those have yet to skate? With no real explanation/accounting required? It was scoring by impression and reputation, something amature watchers, aka fans, could do and therefore relate to and felt they understood. It was enpowering to the fans, an equalizer of experts and laypersons. It was also prone to festering corruption and politicking so a more accountable way had to be established for a highly technical sport which is also a very esthetic performing art.

I like COP which I find very educational for a geek and knowledge junkie like myself. There is something to refer to, or should be referred to, for debates , and it explains why marks are given for each element, with the tech panel independent of judges, and now with the aid of ultra slow motion videos available to judges. There will always be reasons to tweak the scoring, not just to improve the fairness and adapting to changes in the development of the sports, but also to utilize it as a policy tool, which unfortunately as for any law making government, can be too reactionary. So changes were made to accommodate charges of Jeff Buttle doing quads with little chance of landing them. Then with complaints of few skaters attempting quads with too high risk with insufficient rewards, changes were made again, resulting in new, or renewed, sets of complaints. But we - skaters, officials and fans - have to abide by existing rules and skaters doing the best accordingly should be rewarded accordingly.

Now, the PCS. The inherent problem lies in its similarity with the 6.0. It has guidelines but no tech panel, thus more subjecting to subjectivity, and it has set ceilings, making it necessary to score by comparison and unfortunately possibly resorting to reputation. However, such pre-judgements are likely to be more correct for somewhat preditable program componants than for high risk elements.

Then of course the big issue to viewers is that of the visible and not so visible errors. Falls are obvious and jarring for all to see, yet there should be a judged difference between the quality of a jump resulting in a fall after a difficulty entry and full rotations, thus qualified as the jump it is supposed to be, and a fall after a long stalking and being under-rotated. There are even different falls, ugly and quick recovering, uncontrolled and controlled as a way to prevent injury. (A forced jump and a forced landing can seriously injure a skater, which is the worst to happen.) OTOH, under rotated and wrong edged jumps can be so pretty and enthusiastically cheered by fans, yet they are rightly disqualifying of the element. These were not of concern in the 6.0 and unfair to technically superior skaters.

All in all, I still give the judges their dues as trained experts judging the skaters live in person, with rules and guidlines, as well as with technological aids these days. I'm glad I can scrutinize their opinions nowadays with the protocols made available to all. I wouldn't argue about their judgements without at least first looking at the detailed scores, in context of a competition and in comparison with relevent competitors.

I believe all athletes want to do their best and be chanllenged to achieve highest level possible or even not yet possible. The mourning for the demise of quads and digression of figure skating was indeed premature. It has become more multi-faceted and technically demanding. There is simply a transition period for switching of scoring system. The COP system has brought about some applaudable scenarios, among which are the opportunities for young talents to rise quickly, already evident in Ice Dance, and the different processes young skaters can progress and develop their various skills at different and individualized rates. It's exciting now that many COP babies are coming of age. Patrick Chan is the most precocious COP baby and unfortunately has to bear the brunt of much misdirected angst about the new system. But controversies aside, he's still extremely exciting as still developing and a work in progress, as much as he has achieved at his very young age.

[seniorita]

sorry to interrupt the serious mood but have you heard the story about mushroom banners?
Few of these appeared on the first day and by second day they multiplied!
I found it funny!

[janetfan]

I feel a little offended because you and some other posters bring up this issue over and over again as the most corrupt example of the judging system. You keep saying sloppy, subpar, less than stellar Yuna won very good Mao in LP. OK, Yuna's performance was nowhere near her own Olympic performance. But... How sloppy was Yuna? How good was Mao?

Anyway, Yuna went through mentally hard times befor the worlds and was not prepared enough and bombed in SP. But look at her LP. So sloppy? I see still stellar 3-3 and some good elements and a big fall and a fight.



Chan can win with three falls in SP but cannot win with three falls in LP. Anyone will never win the LP with three falls. Arguable?

.

Chan would have won with three falls yesterday except for the extra jump. Yes, the CoP rewards him for missing jumps and penalized him for a clean one........go figure.

I agree with remarks from Joesitz earlier the system needs more than a little fine-tuning. He said a major top to bottom overhaul and I think he is right. If it was easy to do and free I am sure it would be done. But it is easier said than done and costly and time consuming.

Maybe I should have mentioned Yuna's overall Worlds - her SP was uncharacteristically sloppy for her - and I found her LP not in the same league as what she showed in Vancouver. I thought Mao won the LP and so did many others. Since it didn;t change the result - discussion about it relates to the scoring system. Your remarks - generally very fair seem only about defending Yuna. My disagreement is with the CoP and not Yuna.

[Poodlepal]

What they should do is this: at the beginning of the skating season, a week or two before the the beginnig of the Grand Prix, they should have all the top skaters come together and do a run through of both of their programs without doing the jumps. They can show it on the internet or on Universal sports in the middle of the night, where skataholics can record it or stay up with a cup of coffee.

Anyway, the judges should assign a score for edges, speed, choreography, interpretation, etc. Basically, anything that is rarely fallen on. These base scores will be made public and every skater will know their competitors base score. This will do two things: #1, a skater with a bad base score will know what technical elements he/she must land and #2, if something doesn't seem right, they will have a week to file a complaint. For the rest of the Grand Prix season, that score will be automatically added before they even skate. Only if a skater makes dramatic changes--completely different progra for example--will they be able to have a re-do before World's. (They can do it again there, as it is several months later)

Let's say Patrick Chan gets a score of 82, because of his deep edges. He will automatically have 82 points. Let's say another skater gets a 69, because he has shallow edges and knee bends. He will know that he will have to land two quads to win, so he can adjust his technical content. Or let's say another skater feels he skates as well as Patrick Chan and can't understand why he has 10 points less than him to begin with. He can file a complaint and maybe get his own score improved. Also, I think this method would do two things: it would make the competitions more fair, because they won't set them up so that one skater is unbeatable no matter what he does (i.e, Patrick never meeting Daisuke throughout the entire Grand Prix), and I think the judges will not publicly give a skater a huge advantage over everyone else if they have to do it publicly. Someone like Patrick might get a one-jump advantage over other top skaters, but not three or four.

Ah, but they'll never take my advice!

[SkateFiguring]

Chan would have won with three falls yesterday except for the extra jump. Yes, the CoP rewards him for missing jumps and penalized him for a clean one........go figure.

Chan has never been awarded for missing jumps. He doesn't miss jumps but when he falls, he is penalized just the same as every other skater. He wins for doing all aspects of the program better over all than the competitors despite the falls. He was penalized for doing a clean jump because it's against the rules, just as it was for Oda. If there were no such rules, skaters could improvise and throw in all sorts of componants particularly favorable to them. How would they be judged fairly then?

Everybody has been focusing on the possibility of Chan winning without the invalid combo, but he could have more likely won the same way he often does, by fully rotating the quad. That would be more consistant but of course no less provocative.

edited to self correct before possible dressing down. Chan does sometimes miss subsequebt jumps of combo when he falls on the first one.

[evangeline]

What they should do is this: at the beginning of the skating season, a week or two before the the beginnig of the Grand Prix, they should have all the top skaters come together and do a run through of both of their programs without doing the jumps. They can show it on the internet or on Universal sports in the middle of the night, where skataholics can record it or stay up with a cup of coffee.

Anyway, the judges should assign a score for edges, speed, choreography, interpretation, etc. Basically, anything that is rarely fallen on. These base scores will be made public and every skater will know their competitors base score. This will do two things: #1, a skater with a bad base score will know what technical elements he/she must land and #2, if something doesn't seem right, they will have a week to file a complaint. For the rest of the Grand Prix season, that score will be automatically added before they even skate. Only if a skater makes dramatic changes--completely different progra for example--will they be able to have a re-do before World's. (They can do it again there, as it is several months later)

Let's say Patrick Chan gets a score of 82, because of his deep edges. He will automatically have 82 points. Let's say another skater gets a 69, because he has shallow edges and knee bends. He will know that he will have to land two quads to win, so he can adjust his technical content. Or let's say another skater feels he skates as well as Patrick Chan and can't understand why he has 10 points less than him to begin with. He can file a complaint and maybe get his own score improved. Also, I think this method would do two things: it would make the competitions more fair, because they won't set them up so that one skater is unbeatable no matter what he does (i.e, Patrick never meeting Daisuke throughout the entire Grand Prix), and I think the judges will not publicly give a skater a huge advantage over everyone else if they have to do it publicly. Someone like Patrick might get a one-jump advantage over other top skaters, but not three or four.

Ah, but they'll never take my advice!

Interesting idea...but I don't think it'll work primarily because many components of PCS vary from competition to competition.

For example, Stephane Lambiel normally deserves, IMO, high 8s or even 9s for IN and PE. However, if he gives a stiff performance like he did during his Olympics LP, those marks should go down, way down. I don't see how scores at the initial sessions should matter in a case like that.

Plus I think that many skaters would have much improved IN, PE, TR and CH scores if they weren't forced to leave space and energy to do jumps in their programs anyways.....

[evangeline]

Chan has never been awarded for missing jumps. He doesn't miss jumps but when he falls, he is penalized just the same as every other skater. He wins for doing all aspects of the program better over all than the competitors despite the falls. He was penalized for doing a clean jump because it's against the rules, just as it was for Oda. If there were no such rules, skaters could improvise and throw in all sorts of componants particularly favorable to them. How would they be judged fairly then?

But the issue here is, is Chan truly better in all aspects of his skating and programs other than his falls? And he is so much more superior in all the other parts of his skating that he wins with 4 falls over other top skaters who skate relatively cleanly?

The thing is, many posters have pointed out areas in which Chan is most definitely NOT clearly head-and-shoulders above his competitors....that is why some of us have issues with his scoring.

[mot]

PS. Agree with mot in many ways but I still think overall PCS should be lower than now.

I began to wonder introduction of choreo step sequence may be a contributing factor in higher PCS this season, after listening to the comments by Kurt Browing and Lori Nicol after Daisuke's LP at SA - now that the second step sequence does not receive level just GOE, skaters like Takahashi cannot distinguish themselves from others as much and all bundled into the second mark, or something like that. Just a thought though.

It seems that PCS has been getting higher every year, as well as a season progresses, in general too - comparing the scores of the same skater over time. Is this a reflection of progress of each skater? Do we see this as a result of 'recognitions by judges' or 'gaining reputations'? Will a young skater like Patrick eventually get the full marks, considering skating skills, performance, interpretation, etc tend to improve as a skater matures? Is it right to judge and give PCS relatively to each skater's performances across the season (ie. recognising each skater's progress over time), or should it be decided relatively to the other competitors' performances? If the latter is the case, PCS should be reset at each competition and we'll see a skater receive less PCS no matter how much they improves from the previous competitions, if the others are better. (This can be the case in GPS, as field of participating skaters vary from one competition to another.) Will we be satisfied even if Skater A receives less PCS with improved performance from the previous competition, because he/she is up against better skaters this time? If PCS are always relative to other skater's performance, then the only way to judge fairly is to do so after all skaters finish skating too.

I do not have answers to any of the questions above, and I do not think judges do either. It doesn't bother me much though. Thinking and talking about them with fellow FS fans is fun in itself. Besides puzzling scores and placements never spoil my joy of watching FS - I am more concerned about the skaters' performances and how much I enjoy them than what scores they are given by the judges. But then it is personal, and I am always comfortable in differences in opinions.

[seniorita]

What they should do is this: at the beginning of the skating season, a week or two before the the beginnig of the Grand Prix, they should have all the top skaters come together and do a run through of both of their programs without doing the jumps. They can show it on the internet or on Universal sports in the middle of the night, where skataholics can record it or stay up with a cup of coffee.

this is the most bizarre thing i have read here, it is meant to be a joke?
All other technical elements marks besides jumps plus the program components are supposed to reflect the day of the skate on a given competition, ok we complain about pcs inflation and judging in corridors, but this is the combination of both!!! This solution is like having a best student that deserves A for his mathematical mind and the day of exam he falters but still gets an A because he is capable of it.

Plus skaters tend to improve their components once they feel more comfortable in a program as season goes by. Many skaters never skate to their full potential on a day of competition and if pcs were given so blatantly from a prejudged event ..I dont know..this is not a sport, this would be a circus.

[pangtongfan]

I agree Daisuke makes up his low TES as much as, if not more than, Patrick by PCS.

Unlike Takahashi, Patrick is frequently overscored in both TES and PCS. His GOE are nearly always overly generous.

[mot]

whole post

[janetfan]

Everybody has been focusing on the possibility of Chan winning without the invalid combo, but he could have more likely won the same way he often does, by fully rotating the quad. That would be more consistant but of course no less provocative.

.

If people are discussing Chan could have won without the invalid jump combo there is a reason for it.
There is no maybe about this - and exactly how many quads has Chan ever tried in his career?
You said it like he has been showing the quad for several seasons when we all know it has been for two GP events. (Did he also try one at a summer comp?)

That is hardly enough to proclaim Chan normally rotates it....what is he 2 for 4? Or less?
I think it is too soon to say "Chan normaly rotates it."

It is also like going after Abbott. Nobody here has defended Jeremy's skating at COR.
Your opinions are fine but not sure if the facts support what you are saying here......

[pangtongfan]

Exactly what major events has Patrick won? Some GP event wins and one 4CC championship - so he seems to be exactly like Kostner in this regard. He has no world titles, Olympic titles, or GPF titles. He has no Olympic medals or GPF medals. He has got two World silver medals - and he absolutely did deserve those.

So where exactly are all these major events that Chan wins?? The argument that Chan will win everything no matter what simply holds no weight.

While Chan's silver at last years Worlds wasnt blatantly wrong many felt the judging was iffy there, and Chan was one of those scored on the slightly generous side. In anycase for the most part before this season Chan was scored within reason. However all of a sudden his scores have escalated to ridiculous standards, to the point with 4 falls he can beat anyone else skating cleanly. Which is quite proposterous since other than adding the quad he has improved in no areas from what he was before really, and in no way are his skills that far superior to the other top skaters.

So maybe in the past Chan was more like a Kostner, just a slightly held up skater who was inconsistent in jumps and had great skating skills. Now he is something entirely different altogether, something you couldnt even come up with a comparable example to really.

[silverlake22]

I doubt Verner would go to worlds and retry a jump in competition that he gave up on in his full programs in the GP season. Worlds has so much pressure. It would have to be Europeans. If it is not there he's probably not going to do it. I am not sure the theory of building up triples then to add the quad later still makes sense to me like it did earlier in the season because obviously he needs to work on programs with quads and triples. He can't do all triple programs and then train the quad separately and then add the quad. Everything needs to work together. This is what Verner himself is saying. The more he trains programs quadless the more difficult the quad will be in my opinion. I wouldn't even care that much if his past didn't have several good to great performances with quads and triples.

The second part about Lysacek and Joubert at the Olympics is true because Verner (and or his coach-Verner is used to encompass the whole Verner team) is just using a total copy of Lysacek's Olympic layout with just tiny modifications. He always gets edge calls on the flip but he didn't take that out to fix it! He just goes out and does edge call flips because he only gets an edge call. What about a Loop for Verner? Quads cause problems out- flip gets edge calls in -no problem.

Obviously this win is seen as a fluke because Chan fell and everyone is talking about Chan and no one really thinks much of this Verner win but he won and that's something.

Verner already changed his combination since CoC to 3lz-3t in the SP b/c of the flip edge call. I wouldn't be surprised if he changed his jump out of steps to a 3lo at the GPF now that it's worth essentially the same as a flip and he usually gets good GOE on his loop and can't get an edge call on it. He also said he might try the quad at at GPF because he has nothing to lose. I highly doubt he will put the quad in his SP this season, but I do think he may try it in the FS. His opening now is 3lz-3t right, so it's probably designed that he could do 4t-3t there instead and if he falls he adds the 3t to some other jump. Also if he does the quad then he could replace the 3f-2t-2lo combo at the end with a 3lz-2t-2lo combo and not have the do the flip which he gets edge calls on. Most skaters practice a few different arrangements of their programs so they can be ready to adapt in competition depending on what happens.

Verner's current layout is:

3lz-3t
3a-2t
3lo
x 3a
x 3lz
x 3s
x 2a
x 3f-2t-2lo

So the layout with the quad is likely

4t-3t
3a-2t
3lo
x 3a
x 3lz
x 3s
x 2a
x 3lz-2t-2lo

And if he falls on the quad or doesn't do it in combination he could do:

4t
3a-2t
3lo
x 3a
x 3lz
x 3s-3t
x 2a
x 3lz-2t-2lo

I tend to think he will eventually attempt the quad this season because if he does he can replace the flip combo at the end with a lutz combo and not get an edge call for it. He always did the quad before so I don't know why he would just abandon it now, especially where he was scored pretty stingily at CoC and in the SP here. I think the GPF will be telling. At Europeans I wonder if he might not do the quad just because he probably doesn't need it there to win a medal, and maybe the title. Worlds I tend to think he would go for it just because he probably realizes he's a bit of a longshot for a medal as is and the quad could make a big difference.

[dorispulaski]

sorry to interrupt the serious mood but have you heard the story about mushroom banners?
Few of these appeared on the first day and by second day they multiplied!
I found it funny!

I bite. What do the banners say?

Is it something like this, the American saying, "You're treating us like mushrooms. Keeping us in the dark and feeding us manure."?