Judging the "Old-Fashioned" Way

I don't know what 'gaps' have to do with scoring.

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Here is an example. In 1972 figures counted 50% and free skating counted 50%. At 1972 Worlds the results were:

Gold, Beatrix Schuba, 1st in figures, 9th in freeskating.

Silver, Karen Magnussen, 2nd in figures, 2nd in free skating.

Bronze, Janet Lynn, 3rd in figures, 1st in free skating.

Since free skating and figures were weighted equally, 50-50, how can we account for results like this?

The answer is, the point gap between 1st, 2nd and 3rd in figures was very large, whereas the point gap between 1st through 9th (!) in free skating was small. If you did well enough in figures you couldn't lose, even if you -- well, finished 9th in free skating.

And that was another reason that factored placements were introduced. No one understood how someone so "mediocre" could win.

That is really mind-boggling, Math! I had no idea Schuba finished so far back in the free skate. That certainly proves your point.

I started following skating late in the next Olympic cycle. I remember the huge fuss over here about the rivalry between Hamill and Dianne de Leeuw, who was an American also, though she skated for the Netherlands (and was I think the current World Champion). There was also talk about Christina Errath of East Germany, a former World Champion. (She eventually took the '76 bronze, I seem to recall.) But nowhere did I hear the name of Isabella de Navarre, who was I think from West Germany. Yet when we tuned in to the Olympics on the night of the short program (which was the first section televised), we heard that this Isabella was in first place. On the night of the free skate, she skated abysmally, falling all over the place. I just looked her up, and she came in fifth in the entire competition, which is pretty good considering how many times she fell. I guess factored placements (and the short program) saved us from her winning the gold?

Interestingly, after winning the OGM and two world championships, Shuba became a show skater for awhile, in Holiday on Ice and Ice Follies. I wonder how "showy" her skating was.

Mathman said:

Here is an example. In 1969 figures counted 50% and free skating counted 50%. At 1969 Worlds the results were:

Gold, Beatrix Schuba, 1st in figures, 9th in freeskating.

Silver, Karen Magnussen, 2nd in figures, 2nd in free skating.

Bronze, Janet Lynn, 3rd in figures, 1st in free skating.

Since free skating and figures were weighted equally, 50-50, how can we account for results like this?

The answer is, the point gap between 1st, 2nd and 3rd in figures was very large, whereas the point gap between 1st through 9th (!) in free skating was small. If you did well enough in figures you couldn't lose, even if you -- well, finished 9th in free skating.

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So what? Your example is only of one competition. What if Figures counted in Nagano? The name of the Sport was and still is, FIGURE skating. Better still, Live with it. There are no more school figures in the competitions call Figure Skating. So it has been corrected for the fans of CoP skating. (I just can't call that free skating. The great free stylists of yesteryear would never win a competition anyway. Think: Sumners, Bielman, Lynn, Magnusson, Kwan, etc. Well, maybe some local nationals, but never an Oly.)

Olympia said:

I started following skating late in the next Olympic cycle. I remember the huge fuss over here about the rivalry between Hamill and Dianne de Leeuw, who was an American also, though she skated for the Netherlands (and was I think the current World Champion). There was also talk about Christina Errath of East Germany, a former World Champion. (She eventually took the '76 bronze, I seem to recall.) But nowhere did I hear the name of Isabella de Navarre, who was I think from West Germany. Yet when we tuned in to the Olympics on the night of the short program (which was the first section televised), we heard that this Isabella was in first place. On the night of the free skate, she skated abysmally, falling all over the place. I just looked her up, and she came in fifth in the entire competition, which is pretty good considering how many times she fell. I guess factored placements (and the short program) saved us from her winning the gold?

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Factored placements weren't introduced until the 1980-81 season.

The short program did make a difference in 1976 (and 1980 to a lesser degree, not enough for Fratianne and her supporters).

There was never any guarantee that the winner of the school figures would win the whole event. It depended how much of a lead s/he had from the figures, and then how far behind s/he fell in the freeskating.

In 76, Navarre had a very narrow lead over Hamill in the school figures and was quite far behind in both short and long.

http://winter-olympic-memories.com/html/results/jp_3d/12_innsbruck/12_figure/12_figure_w.htm
http://winter-olympic-memories.com/html/results/jp_3d/12_innsbruck/12_figure/12_figure_w_ex.htm

Olympia said:

Interestingly, after winning the OGM and two world championships, Shuba became a show skater for awhile, in Holiday on Ice and Ice Follies. I wonder how "showy" her skating was.

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Shuba was an average free stylist. She was like many of the skaters of today. The one who lost big in that Oly was Magnusson, imo.

Trixie was virtually unrecognizable when she had made herself over as a pro.

Here she was winning Europeans in 72

http://youtu.be/OTwv03_sufg



Ice show in 74

http://youtu.be/fxS9hgkj8js

blue dog said:

Trixie was virtually unrecognizable when she had made herself over as a pro.

Here she was winning Europeans in 72

http://youtu.be/OTwv03_sufg



Ice show in 74
.
http://youtu.be/fxS9hgkj8js

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I really didn't see that much difference. I'm sure HOI was using her title. Any clip of Manusson inthat famour competition?

gkelly said:

Factored placements weren't introduced until the 1980-81 season.

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That's interesting. Factored placements is one of the things that were abandoned in the CoP.

Yeah.

Different decisions at different points in the sports history as to whether margin of victory in each phase of competition should count, or whether only the final rankings in each phase should matter.

Do the numerical differences in the scores reflect the consensus of perceived difference in the performances accurately enough to make it more fair to preserve them than to flatten them out into even increments?

Is it important to allow as many skaters as possible to be within reach of the title, or the podium, heading into the final phase? Does allowing many skaters to control their own destiny when the standings are close in the first phase make up for the fact that sometimes one skater leaves everyone else in the dust in that first phase and can afford to coast in the final?

Whichever approach you take, there will always be some competitions where the other approach will appear more intuitively to match the differences in the skating.

Mathman said:

That's interesting. Factored placements is one of the things that were abandoned in the CoP.

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And, of course, making more money by eliminating Figures was also a big FACTOR. Figures were eliminated before the CoP. Remember Tara and Michelle?
(Oh, these CoP defenders)

gkelly said:

Yeah.

Different decisions at different points in the sports history as to whether margin of victory in each phase of competition should count, or whether only the final rankings in each phase should matter.

Do the numerical differences in the scores reflect the consensus of perceived difference in the performances accurately enough to make it more fair to preserve them than to flatten them out into even increments?

Is it important to allow as many skaters as possible to be within reach of the title, or the podium, heading into the final phase? Does allowing many skaters to control their own destiny when the standings are close in the first phase make up for the fact that sometimes one skater leaves everyone else in the dust in that first phase and can afford to coast in the final?

Whichever approach you take, there will always be some competitions where the other approach will appear more intuitively to match the differences in the skating.

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I don't think factored placements make much sense in the IJS.
Back when there was a competition consisting of figures, a technical program and a freeskate it was an interesting question.

Looking at skating today, with the SP and LP basically separated primarily by duration just adding up the points seems to make sense.

This is ISU's best idea of what the public wants but it feels as if they are living in the past. Their use of technolgy feels dated as they haven't even figured out a way to let the fans know how these point total scores have been arrived at.

Sorry, but the vast majority of people who might tune in to watch a skating competition have no interest in searching the internet the next day to see the breakdown of the scoring. Even announcers, who get blamed for the diminsihed interest are not given the information quickly enough to explain it to the fans.

I doubt if that is an accident and it feels like just another attempt by ISU to keep the fans in the dark (and to cover themselves).

Once a score is posted there is no reaon why announcers don't have it right in front of them, and not just the point totals but the breakdown by judges (even if they are anonymous, why can't Scot let us know judge #3 really hammered a skater, or judge#4 marked a skater higher than the rest.

Why should casual fans get interested in a system that remains so secretive and is a mystery to them?

The history of the sport is full of politics and cheating and it really hasn't changed. That is not my opinion but ISU's own confession and even their declarative statement about the reasons for anonymous judging.

Some posters think skating has been cleaned up but ISU admits that nothing has changed. A system that was introduced due to a scandal and is designed to ty and keep cheating to a minimum and most importantly to prevent getting caught again is as strange as it's supporters who IMO know very little about sports and why fans care for a sport.

The CoP has made this clear and a system based on secrecy might catch on is less open society's but never in USA.

Will the day come when we will see soccer referees wearing masks so fans don't know their identity?
Will we ever see basebal when the balls and strikes are kept anonymous and fans will just have to assume a batter walking back to dugout must have been called out on strikes?

How about NFL football where penalties are called but not explained to the fans. Maybe like skating, fans will just have to assume or guess that a team was offsides or maybe there was a holding call.

If that ever happens football fans will go the way of skating fans and simply watch something else.

Some have said times change to justify the lack of interest in skating but we certainly see othe sports BOOMING. These are sports that are open and let the fans in on the decision making as it happens. There is no screcy or holding back information.

Would NFL football be better if fans had to go online the next day to see what penalties were called

^^^^
The bottom line is that the CoP can not quantify the execution of the elements. Who's to say that a particular 3A deserves a GoE of 2 or 3? Judges are human and can vary so there is no definitive score by adding GoEs. Skater X's 3A had 2 arms up; skater Y had l arm up and skater Z did the impossible by holding his hands on his hips. The arm placements are gimmicks and have nothing to do with definition of a particular jump. (They should be remembered in the Skating Skills of the PC scores)

Subtracting GoEs from the execution of the elements are necessary when the element fails to accede to the strict definition of an element. Diving, and other solo sports demand exacting elements. With Tennis and Golf scoring, there is no such thing as attempts with partial credit. That would make these other sports "sissy" sports, like oh, that lutz is much too difficult for that cute little girl, she should get some credit for the attempt. There is no credit for attempts in other solo sports that I know of nor in Team Sports.

There is no quantitative scoring in the PC scores. They are all like the 6.0 systerm, and opinions. The Pagaent Like System of scoring is based on Consensus.

Hernando's remarks about the secrecy of judging in scoring is true. For those fans who went to LIVE competitions knew the nationalities of the judges and exactly where they were sitting. When the scores went up, a fan knew which judged gave such a score. Nowadays, one wonders if the judges have the power of their convictions.

gkelly said:

Yeah.

Different decisions at different points in the sports history as to whether margin of victory in each phase of competition should count, or whether only the final rankings in each phase should matter...

Whichever approach you take, there will always be some competitions where the other approach will appear more intuitively to match the differences in the skating.

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I agree. I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other about factored placements.

It was kind dramatic, though, when factored placements led to a situation where a skater needed help from her opponent to beat a third opponent, like 2000 Worlds where Michelle squeaked out a victory over Butyrskaya, thanks to Slutskaya's free skate.

I guess it depends on whether we see the short program and the long program as the first half and the second half of a single game, or whether we have in mind the model of the semifinals, then the finals.

One thing I was sorry to see go, however, was the "6.0 brand." Even outside pf figure skating, if you did something extraordinarily well, someone might say, "I'll give you a 6.0 for that!"

This gave the sport a little bit of free advertising.

Mathman said:

One thing I was sorry to see go, however, was the "6.0 brand." Even outside pf figure skating, if you did something extraordinarily well, someone might say, "I'll give you a 6.0 for that!"

This gave the sport a little bit of free advertising.

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Name the skaters with that kind of 'Brand".

In CoP, the first Throw Quad was negated because P/T with their3rd GP, threw the awarding Pairs off the podium. The CoP lovers turn a deaf ear to anything negative about the CoP.

It wasn't negated. The team that did it is credited with doing it (Vise/Trent). Nor was their finish negated - they ranked fourth.

That said, how is this negative about COP?

Joesitz said:

Name the skaters with that kind of 'Brand".

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Michelle Kwan, Alexei Yagudin, and Torvill and Dean.

ImaginaryPogue said:

It wasn't negated. The team that did it is credited with doing it (Vise/Trent). Nor was their finish negated - they ranked fourth.

That said, how is this negative about COP?

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We know that. It's not news. Why are you implying that the CoP was not wrong to permit P&T to have a 3rd GP. If P/T didn't get a 3rd GP, Vise/Trent would have won a bronze medal. You've obviously never skated competititively where competitive skaters have dreams of medals. I didn't think you swallowed the CoP's exceptions for some skaters.

The Pairs coming up this GP series will again push someone away from a bronze medal, so I assume you are ok with that.

Mathman said:

Michelle Kwan, Alexei Yagudin, and Torvill and Dean.

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Well that's an OPINION and all within the time of when you discovered figure stating. I think a better way to say it, would be using the term "reputation".

There is a subdued factor in scoring on reputation. Not necessarily for winning medals.

Joesitz said:

Why are you implying that the CoP was not wrong to permit P&T to have a 3rd GP. If P/T didn't get a 3rd GP, Vise/Trent would have won a bronze medal. You've obviously never skated competititively where competitive skaters have dreams of medals. I didn't think you swallowed the CoP's exceptions for some skaters.

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If it's wrong to allow some skaters to do three GPs and not others -- I'm not taking a position on that question -- then the blame lies with the rules governing the GP entries.

It has nothing to do with the scoring system.

Seeded skaters were allowed three GPs for all of the time that the GP existed under 6.0 scoring, during 2003-04 when the IJS was used only at Nebelhorn and the GP, and during 2004-05 when it was adopted for all international events.

Then the GP selection rules changed at a different time and for different reasons than the scoring system changed. And now that particular rule has changed back again.