If the ISU would rename the Skating Skills component to "stroking and edgework between elements." then there would be no need to argue about what the words "skating skills" ought to embrace.
Falls do, however, affect choreography, interpretation and performance/execution, IMO. As SkateFiguring mentions, some falls have a greater negative impact on performance than others.
When someone falls, they really have good precision in their foot placement? I don’t think so otherwise they would have landed the jump. Do they have flow and effortless glide across the ice, not on their skates they don’t, unless that bullet means any body part? Do they have cleanness and sureness of deep edges, power/energy and acceleration when they fall? Do they have mastery of one foot skating, or one foot falling? In pairs skating; did both show equal mastery of technique by both partners shown in unison? Especially if one fell; or maybe they fell in unison? Did the fall give them good ice coverage?
I’m not saying take a team that would have normally scored 8.50 and take them down to a 5.00 but the PCS scores need to reflect that the mistake was made in Skating Skills and/or Performance and Execution and it doesn’t look like that is being done.
A judge should also know the difference between a bad performance and bad luck. A broken blade should be deducted accordingly but it has nothing to do with bad skating skills.
As far as what happened to Aliona, she missed almost every bullet under skating skills and wasn’t penalized at all. I find it hard to believe it she had done the spin that they would have receive all 10s. I think that skaters are given too much of a benefit of the doubt.
Don't even get me started on UR jumps like D/R at 4CC.
Last edited by mousepotato; 02-28-2011 at 11:27 AM.
The throught of changing an official nomenclature puts fear into the conservative mind.Originally Posted by Mathman
The whole of the Sport of figure skating is a skill. Was that taken into consideration?
I would think changing the name to Basic Skills, would be a better heading for those guidelines, so as not to confuse it with the skills of elements.
You at least acknowledge it finally, but the fear of changing a regulation still frightens you to think a minus one (-1) deduction does not cover all the discrepancies of what a Fall causes.Falls do, however, affect choreography, interpretation and performance/execution, IMO. As SkateFiguring mentions, some falls have a greater negative impact on performance than others.
btw. What is the impact on scores, you mentioned. Examples, please. Imaginary Pogue listed and others added to it several top skaters where Falls had no affect on their PC scores.
Last edited by Joesitz; 02-28-2011 at 11:40 AM.
Joesitz, you have commented on the Quad list with similar rant but you fail to see that the list illustrates how much the penalty can be for a fall and other faults on a jump. Some of the quads earn just 2.00 point before -1 deduction, ending up 1 point total on the element for the program, less then most double jump's BV. And such reults are from the higest scoring jump, namely the quads. The consequences can be even more severe for lesser jumps.
By mousepotato's reasoning, doing lesser jumps makes a better skater, and means s/he has better skating skills. Well, scoring Skating Skill is easy peacy then. Skating competitions would be so pretty.
I wouldn't like skating skills to be defined as just between elements, especially because the footwork and spiral sequences are where skating skills are best seen and easiest to evaluate. When Chan falls in the footwork (Skate Canada 2010), I would hope there is a small lowering of his skating skills. When he falls on a 3A or 4T and gets up quickly (which he always does), I wouldn't expect to see much effect.
So let's see what the judges did:
Chan SP Skate Canada 39.47 (fell on f/w, fell on 3A, fell on 4T)
Chan SP CoR 40.42 (fell on 3A)
Chan SP GPF 41.82 (UR on the 4T, no falls)
So yes, it appears the judges took some small notice of the fact that Patrick fell some 3 times in the SP at Skate Canada. However, his PCS was still higher than Oda, who won the SP and got PCS of 38.00 and Reynolds, who placed second and got 34.06, and Rippon, who placed third and got 36.43. I'm perfectly fine with him getting 41.82 at the GPF, and very little less with one fall at CoR on a 4T. It's the SC PCS that still gripes my guts, and it's mainly because he fell on the step sequence. Heck several of the judges gave him -1 on the step when he didn't complete the element
Chan's SC SP Step Sequence was, firstly, downgraded from level 4 to level 2, reducing the element's BV. Then he received a bunch of -3 GOE, an automatic reaction of judges from jump evaluation. In fact, even for a fall in jump, -3 can be mitigated with positive aspects of the jump as long as the final is negative. For Chan's Step Sequence, he still had many strong features despite the fall so a few judges took that and the downgrade into consideration and gave him -1 GOE, all within the judging guidline. Chan ended up with 1.7 points, total 0.7 point after the -1 deduction for the fall, compared to his 5.9 on the same element at the GPF. No, he didn't get off easy.
Last edited by SkateFiguring; 02-28-2011 at 01:10 PM.
I think the idea behind the CoP -- for good or ill -- was to compartmentalize the perforamce into as many little distinct scoring modules as possible. You get so many points for a good or a bad triple Lutz, but that does not carry over into your score in your camel spin , your footwork sequence, or your "Stroking Between Elements" score.
Obviously, some overlap can't be avoided, as for instance in transitions into a jump element.
The three "second mark" scores, P&E, Ch&C, and INT, are intended to take into account how it all fits together. A footwork sequence that is intended to support a whiz-bang musical frenzy, but is marred by a bad fall, can really take the wind out of the program's sails. (Or sometimes, not so much.) In my opinion this should be taken into account there, not necessarily in SS and TR.
No, that isn't what I said. A fall on a double jump should carry the same penalty as a fall on a quad the only difference being the difference in the base value. I just think the judges are afraid to give skaters like Chan or Kim or D/W or S/S PSC scores under 7.50 even if they deserve it. Just like they won't give skaters like Evora and Ladwig or Shawn Sawyer 8.50 or higher even if they deserve it. Falls should be taken off of many areas of the score sheet where applicable.
Well, actually D&W did have some penalties for their fall at SA. (Both of them fell at the same time doing a transitional move, rather than falling on an element, and they got up immediately.)
SA Total 93.06 PCS 50.90
NHK Total 98.24 PCS 52.02
GPF Total 102.94 PCS 52.79
4CC Total 103.02 PCS 53.01
My rant on the CoP is piece meal. I'm totally and unequivocably against Partial Credit. That's how tough I am on the 'pretty' sport. Either a skater executes an element by definition, or he gets NO base value credit. Falls are not good Skating Skills. Tell me they are and prove it. I don't want to hear what the regulations say. I know what they say. A Fall with all its ensuing errors are bundled up into a -1 deduction to include the Tech as well as the PCs. Imaginary Pogue showed in her List that Falls do not affect the PCs. I presume you are ok with that.
Competitors, imo, should display perfect elements in competition or leave them out. That would make judging easier.
I'm inclining to not counting jump falls into skating skills. Skaters make many turns in the air. The more turns they make, the more chances that they might fall. If they only make one or two turns in the air, it could be sure that they'll land beautifully almost all the time. It shows a skater's athletic abilities, not skating abilities. Why is it counted as skating skills? It doesn't mean that falls are good skating skills. It just means that they do not belong to skating skills.
I, for one, support partial credit for the skaters with jump falls. Through this partial credit, we could push this sport into the direction of sports, encourage the risk taking, not just pretty, pretty skate figuring.
Last edited by Bluebonnet; 03-01-2011 at 10:00 AM.
^^^
Fall are ok then since they are not a part of skating skills? And falling on a footwork sequence is not a skating skill or sliding and falling into a camel spin is not a skating skill.
Trust me, if you skate, it takes skating skills to execute jumps, spins, and footwork on skates.
Well, we can disagree on Partial Credit. If the element in question was scored on a scale of 0-10, I would skip the partial credit but only award a Four to a jump fall (2 points for a take-off, and 2 points for the air turns. 0 points for the no landing} and that 4 would be for a perfect take-off and perfect air turns.
Sorry, but Incomplete Elements just are not sporty and not to my liking. Sport is about Perfection. Home Runs are scored by passing Home Plate, not Almost passing Home Plate (an no credit for the attempt).
But you do get "points" in your batting average for a base hit, even if you never score a run. In football, your team can kick a field goal if they can't score a touchdown (partial credit). In hockey, if the game ends up tied, you get one point in the standings (partial credit).
If you give no points for an attempt, then you discourage progress in skating. Look at the lamenting about last year's Men's Olympic Champion not having a quad jump. If you were to get zero points for an attempt, everyone would do single jumps and easy double jumps that they would be sure to land and no one would ever attempt 2A or triples unless they were 99.999999% sure they would land them. We'd go back to pre-Dick Button era content and that would be BORING. (This is, of course, just my opinion).
Exactly, that is why jumps should be considered in SS just like everything else.
You can't compare any sport, they are all different with different rules; but one thing is certain, no sport has perfection. Not even skating. It’s about building a program and the person with the highest points wins, that's all. If you have a choreographer that is good with numbers and you execute the program well, you will win. If you execute it well but the choreographer did a bad job of building the program, you will lose. It's as simple as that.Sorry, but Incomplete Elements just are not sporty and not to my liking. Sport is about Perfection. Home Runs are scored by passing Home Plate, not Almost passing Home Plate (an no credit for the attempt).
I think skaters should get credit for a jump even if they fall only because the landing is not the only element that goes into the jump. The entry, height or rotation are only a few things judges consider when a skater jumps, the skater should be penalized for a fall but not to the extent that the judges should discount that a quad (or whatever) never happened. If judges are only out for perfection any skater not getting a level 4 or all +3 shouldn’t have any element count, but that isn’t really fair is it? And who wants to watch that? Not me.
And not to pick on Umps, but there are been a fair share of baseball payers who have been clearly called safe/out at home plate when clearly the wrong call had been made so perfection doesn't apply there either.
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