Great site shows Protocols with Videos

Thanks mathman and gkelly for such excellent, detailed repiles. Both posts made me think and especially gkellys last remark:

"Which means that one individual is never in a position to declare that everyone else is wrong."

I am not sure if that is necessarily a good thing.

In football, a ref is sometimes proven wrong by use of replay. The NFL could get rid of replay and let the ref's r/t call stand. Or they could use a consensus opinion from all of the refs on the field to decide a questionable calls.

They don't do that and the use of replay technolgy has the sole purpose of getting the call right.

One offical reviews the play and makes the decison. It is not done by consensus yet the replay calls are IMO almost always (98%) correct.

Why isn't the use of replay by the tech panel which offers such an obvious advantage over a r/t impression being used with more weight?

It is nice the judges can all offer various subjective scores based on a r/t impression. Does it make sense for the TP to have a little more authority since they clearly have a better chance to assess the jumps more accurately?

Or maybe this is just to picky and the system is fine the way it is now. :think:

seniorita said:

thanx, i was just wondering. I saw nothing in real time myself neither replay, I m much worse. Even more so in live competitions, I sat once behind judges and found extremely difficult to focus on details without earplugs. I think if I were a judge Iwould push any button I would find in front of me,and then leave the fans of a skating board explain why i did it.

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Everyone doesn't see everything in real time, including the judges, the tech team, and us. The arguments put forth by the CoP that it is never wrong adherents would say is simply we don't have any other way to go. Well, if one looks at the Men's results, do you really need a nitty gritty CoP score to place Chan first and Taka second? The Protocols were totally unnecessary. Most events they are not necessary for podium results. Without cheating, the 6.0 would be the same. They are obvious. Occasionally the CoP comes in handy (or is there a better method) to discern who could have been 3rd in this case. Was it Gachinsky, Brezina, Takahashi, or Oda? IMO, only a slomo would show the correct placement on the elements because performance would not be counted. In such instances, my question would be: What is the Rush To Judgement?

Hernando said:

Why isn't the use of replay by the tech panel which offers such an obvious advantage over a r/t impression being used with more weight?

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The tech panel does use replay for everything that they can't determine in real time. There are no time-outs during a skating program, but there is time taken after each performance for the tech panel to review any questionable elements. Sometimes that takes more time than the program itself. The audience doesn't like to sit and wait 15 minutes for detailed review of 12 elements in a 4-minute program, plus the next skaters also get cold waiting, so that kind of overkill review is discouraged.

There are three people on the tech panel whose input all counts.

It is nice the judges can all offer various subjective scores based on a r/t impression. Does it make sense for the TP to have a little more authority since they clearly have a better chance to assess the jumps more accurately?

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The technical panel already does have more authority in terms of establishing what the element was and what the base mark will be.

Downgrades make a huge difference in the base scores, much more than the GOEs. As of this past season, there's also an intermediate rotation call that earns 70% of the base mark. Again, that's going to have much more effect on the score for the element than one judge's GOEs and usually than the whole panel's GOEs.

Same for calling levels on non-jump elements, or whether an element fails so significantly to meet requirements that it just doesn't count at all.

All of the above are the province of the technical panel, not the judges.

One area where both panels work in concert is penalizing wrong-edge takeoffs. The tech panel calls "e" if there was any question after the review, and then the judges each have to decide how much to take off from their GOE.

Or maybe this is just to picky and the system is fine the way it is now. :think:

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Well, there's always room for improvement, but at this point it's going to happen on an incremental basis, probably until there's some technological breakthrough that can identify elements and errors better than human perception.

Since so much of what actually counts in skating is qualitative, both in assessing the quality of elements (GOEs) and in assessing the quality of each program as a whole (PCS), there's always going to be a subjective element to the decisions.

In football, it doesn't matter how smoothly the ball goes into the goal, or how well timed to the music. And in or out is essentially a two-dimensional decision. Skating is more three-dimensional. Even just tech panels looking at rotation on a jump -- do they go by when the blade is in contact with the ice at all, or when there is weight on it?

In skating, the smoothness and depth of the curves does matter, and so does the musical timing, and the position of the skater's body, and so forth. Those kinds of assessments are necessarily going to be subjective. It's the nature of the sport.

There are some replay calls in football that are much more difficult than what you described. So much so that a call seen with a certain degree of regularity is that "the ruling on the field stands as not enough evidence can be seen to overrule it."

We seem to get that in skating from time to time with UR's and edge calls. Or what we more realistically see is that different tech panels and even different events have much different standards.

This must be mighty confusing to skaters when at one event their edges called are good and at the next event they are called bad. Same with UR's and I believe Frank Carroll has mentioned this (not in a good way).

The lack of transparency works against ISU on several different levels just as the inconsistent calls (strict vs lenient) do not do the skaters and coaches any favors.

It does lead to much dispute from the fans though, no?

Maybe in the future ISU will share the reviews with the fans as the tech panel is making it's decisions. Wouldn't that be fascinating. If they did that an extra minute or two between skates might be of greater interest than watching the K&C.

gkelly said:

Downgrades make a huge difference in the base scores, much more than the GOEs. As of this past season, there's also an intermediate rotation call that earns 70% of the base mark. Again, that's going to have much more effect on the score for the element than one judge's GOEs and usually than the whole panel's GOEs.

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Not all downgrades are genuine. A Lutz that switches over to the a Flip is not downgraded to a Flip but given a penalty only because it is believed that the skater attempted a Lutz yet a popup result on another jump is not considered an attempt, but a genuine single jump.

Since so much of what actually counts in skating is qualitative, both in assessing the quality of elements (GOEs) and in assessing the quality of each program as a whole (PCS), there's always going to be a subjective element to the decisions.

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It seems to me the only qualitative judgements are in the Elements with opinions in the GoEs. The PC scores are the same as they were in the 6.0 system. Opinions. No real change.

Skating is more three-dimensional. Even just tech panels looking at rotation on a jump -- do they go by when the blade is in contact with the ice at all, or when there is weight on it?

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It's more like a Pagaent. Talent, Beauty, and Promenading correctly. Every jump has a base value. One could argue if the values are correct. The rotations add to the difficulty. They do not affect the wrong edge takeoffs, and the landings. They are not blade-to-ice.

In skating, the smoothness and depth of the curves does matter, and so does the musical timing, and the position of the skater's body, and so forth. Those kinds of assessments are necessarily going to be subjective. It's the nature of the sport.

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Given the CoP's penchant for putting numbers wherever they can, it's impossible to do so in the PC scores. So yes those PC scores one sees in the protocols are pure 6.0 opinions.

Hernando - To make it more of an honest judgement, I believe, a slomo showing for jump take-offs, and jump landings should be added for the viewer. A replay is not enough.

When will the CoP do something about bad arm movements?

Look how distracting they are in this performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y8jTrUBELg

Straightline footwork (level 1). +3
Waltz jump + waltz jump (SEQ). +3
Back change catch-foot spiral. +3