Men Free Skates | Page 53 | Golden Skate

Men Free Skates

ImaginaryPogue

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
You know, I think that is a big part of the problem right there.

Leaving individual skaters out of it, suppose the audience sees a skater fall, stumble, make obvious errors in execution, while doing nothing special in terms of performance art. Then the scores come up. WHOA! Look at those whopping marks! This was a spectacular performance, and if you don't believe it then you are an ignoramus who hasn't studied his CoP!

To me, there is a bit of ISU flim-flam going on. No, Speedy, the audience can't see the Emperor's New Clothes.

I largely agree.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
I don't have the rules memorized, and there are skates/wins that make me go hmmmmm, but it's not the IJS that makes me feel disenchanted by the sport...
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
You know, I think that is a big part of the problem right there.

Leaving individual skaters out of it, suppose the audience sees a skater fall, stumble, make obvious errors in execution, while doing nothing special in terms of performance art. Then the scores come up. WHOA! Look at those whopping marks! This was a spectacular performance, and if you don't believe it then you are an ignoramus who hasn't studied his CoP!

Let's put the individual skaters back in. Who are in the scenario you described? i.e. an actual skater (or a number of skaters) who falls, stumbles, make obvious errors in executions, while doing nothing special in terms of performance art and get the WHOA whopping marks.

Does the skating audience see and care about only errors and performing art?
 

Becki

Medalist
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Mathman, has something mysterious just happened? I saw you posting a reply to NMURA a minute ago and now your post disappeared…

Sorry. I had a question for NMURA about whether he had changed his mind about Hanyu from last year, but then it came to me that I was remembering NMURA's earlier posts wrong, so I deleted my question.
 

fscric

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Here's an "interesting article: http://www.thespec.com/sports/article/697292--worlds-are-nice-but-now-it-s-on-to-the-year-of-ontario

"To the layman’s eye, Chan’s work did not look nearly as laudable as it did to the practised one. But every member of the skating cognoscenti contacted by The Spectator said there was no doubt that Chan was the best skater of the day. Some even added “by far.”

- I seriously wondered if they contacted all Patrick Chan's fans...

And someone thought you're a fan of Patrick :)
 

Li'Kitsu

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Becki said:
Here's an "interesting article: http://www.thespec.com/sports/articl...ear-of-ontario

"To the layman’s eye, Chan’s work did not look nearly as laudable as it did to the practised one. But every member of the skating cognoscenti contacted by The Spectator said there was no doubt that Chan was the best skater of the day. Some even added “by far.”

- I seriously wondered if they contacted all Patrick Chan's fans...

That article looks pretty meh in general to me. I don't agree with: "Second, it’s becoming clear that, even when they’re not at their very best, [..] Virtue-Moir are usually better than anyone else in their field" at all, f.e. (took Chan out because this sentence looks extremly wrong to me especially concerning the IceDancers).
Add to that, that I'm getting tired of this "you're not smart enough for COP"-thing. I hear again and again how big part of what Chan has over Takahashi are his speed and the higher jumps - and no one needs to be an expert in skating to see that. The audience in france definitly could see that too. It didn't change their minds in favor of Chan though.
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Here's an "interesting article: http://www.thespec.com/sports/article/697292--worlds-are-nice-but-now-it-s-on-to-the-year-of-ontario

"To the layman’s eye, Chan’s work did not look nearly as laudable as it did to the practised one. But every member of the skating cognoscenti contacted by The Spectator said there was no doubt that Chan was the best skater of the day. Some even added “by far.”

- I seriously wondered if they contacted all Patrick Chan's fans...

Well, they did - the whole skating cognoscenti, who, along with all the judges, are all Patrick's ubers or minions.

I don't know what kind of carrot or stick he has, but apparently it works superbly. I'm scared into doing all his bidding for my safety.
 

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Here's an "interesting article: http://www.thespec.com/sports/article/697292--worlds-are-nice-but-now-it-s-on-to-the-year-of-ontario

"To the layman’s eye, Chan’s work did not look nearly as laudable as it did to the practised one. But every member of the skating cognoscenti contacted by The Spectator said there was no doubt that Chan was the best skater of the day. Some even added “by far.”

- I seriously wondered if they contacted all Patrick Chan's fans...

The Spectator's Steve Milton is known as a seasoned journalist and he writes about Figure Skating for decades, way before COP was even born. If he said he made an effort to contact skating experts, then that means he really contacted a wide range of pros in this sport or else he would have reported dissenting opinions as well. Milton was also on the record to say he didn't believe Chan had a chance of winning the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver (due to lack of a Quad and injuries) before the Games actually happened. Hence, this journalist is by no means a Patrick Chan's fan but nor is he a detractor.

As for skating experts contacted, why should you be surprised? In two years, there has to be at least over a hundred ISU and International Judges who all more or less came to the same conclusion, competition after competition. Is it so surprising those who actually studied the rules and are trained to give professional assessments all agree on the win? Patrick Chan himself knew he had done enough for the win before even leaving the ice, so did many other people. None of his closest competitors expressed doubts about the results, the only thing Takahashi wasn't fine with was in fact Hanyu beating him in the FS, not Chan beating him, which he made his discomfort / disagreement re: Hanyu very clear. When Takahashi got only 173 something and Hanyu was about 12 points behind after SP with a similar LP score, it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a LP worthy of 200, if absolute perfect, is not going to be knocked down by a fall worth about 5-6 points and a downgraded jump (3S=>2S) worth about 4-5 points. The mental math was actually quite simple but I guess it was only pretended to be shocking to largely disgruntled Takahashi die hards who obviously knew 173 was not going to make it unless Chan implodes in nuclear melt down fashion.
 
Last edited:

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
The audience in france definitly could see that too.

I am always amused when people pretend to be mind readers especially when they can't even see the people they are supposedly reading. Something tells me if we leave the decision up to the French audience to decide, Joubert and Amodio won't be off the podium and the same people thinking French audience is their ally will turn sour very, very quickly as well.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Let's put the individual skaters back in. Who are in the scenario you described? i.e. an actual skater (or a number of skaters) who falls, stumbles, make obvious errors in executions, while doing nothing special in terms of performance art and get the WHOA whopping marks.

I don't especially want to go searching for particular examples. It is more a general approach to how the sport is presented that I think is driving a wedge between the experts and rest of us. If the rest of us say, "I don't see what was so great about that performance," the ISU should say. "What can we do to make watching a skating competition more enjoyable and interesting?" Instead, they show us the rule book.
 

Becki

Medalist
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
And someone thought you're a fan of Patrick :)

LOL...I wish. He's a nice and cute person, and his skating skills are very good. However, there's something about his skating that doesn't speak to me....

For the record, I don't think he's light-years beyond his close competitors as the article suggests. He won the competition by a 6-7 point margin, not 30.
 
Last edited:

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
If audiences were to judge, the highest value element is head caressing, which however is not limited to two per program. Takahashi is able to do it five times, one in hysteria inducing combination, plus off ice demonstrations by popular request. Other high value moves would be Running Man, finger guns, finger licking, etc.

There are reasons there are rules for sport and games and their competitions. A Skating Idol TV show can have its own different rules.
 
Last edited:

Li'Kitsu

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
wallylutz said:
I am always amused when people pretend to be mind readers especially when they can't even see the people they are supposedly reading. Something tells me if we leave the decision up to the French audience to decide, Joubert and Amodio won't be off the podium and the same people thinking French audience is their ally will turn sour very, very quickly as well.

Yeah, argues someone who just some pages ago claimed to know better what someone wrote than that someone himself. But I'll not agrue with you too much, this designed-to-look-knowledgable posts that actually only consist of squeezing in meaningless numbers to make things sound completly different than they actually are, are not a huge motivation to do.
And they were booing Chan's score, booing through the interview, even some people when he received his medal - yet they cheered for Takahashi and Hanyu. They were fine with two out of three medalists - and they just badly wanted Amodio and Joubert in that podium? 4 people, 3 medals, no counting here. But I guess they're really just that stupid for you, so what :rolleye:

SkateFiguring said:
If audiences were to judge, the highest value element is head caressing, which however is not limited to two per program. Takahashi is able to do it five times, one in hysteria inducing combination, plus off ice demonstrations by popular request.

There are reasons there are rules for sport and games and their competitions. A Skating Idol TV show can have its own different rules.

Is it cool these days to think the audience is dumb?
They were already cheering their lungs out for Hanyu on the 2. jump he made - I must have missed the head caressing there.
I'd never say the audience should really make a final desicion oranything close to it, but I very well think their reaction is a good indicator for the PE and IN department.
 
Last edited:

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
I don't especially want to go searching for particular examples. It is more a general approach to how the sport is presented that I think is driving a wedge between the experts and rest of us. If the rest of us say, "I don't see what was so great about that performance," the ISU should say. "What can we do to make watching a skating competition more enjoyable and interesting?" Instead, they show us the rule book.

Do you feel the same about gymnastics, sync. divining / swimming and judo? A lot of sports require the audience to know the rules about the sport concerned. I am totally clueless about each of the above sport I named so I don't have the right to be outraged at something I don't understand or haven't put the time to study. Does that mean I can't appreciate the above said sport? Absolutely not. This is where our opinion differs. You are of the view that a person who has not invested the time to be proficient about a sport has a right to be outraged at something he/she doesn't comprehend, aka. average Joe. The truth is, virtually all sports have complicate rules and require some form of human judgement one way or the other. Take the like of baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer and football - all are complicate in their own ways with some well known and not so well known rules. I can say I understand baseball, enough to follow it and without feeling lost about controversial calls. I can also say I am just literate about basketball, soccer hockey, although not as much as baseball. Football is alien to me, I will get lost within 5 minutes of a game. Should the NFL changed its rules to accommodate someone like me? Because clearly, its rules are anything but simple otherwise I would have understood its games intuitively. Same goes for any number of other sports. I have to say the vast majority of complaints against COP seems to be from disgruntled Americans. Rarely do you hear Europeans or Asians complaining about the COP killing this sport. Could it be that those people actually took the time to learn the new system? :think:
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
The Spectator's Steve Milton is known as a seasoned journalist and he writes about Figure Skating for decades, way before COP was even born. If he said he made an effort to contact skating experts, then that means he really contacted a wide range of pros in this sport or else he would have reported dissenting opinions as well. Milton was also on the record to say he didn't believe Chan had a chance of winning the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver (due to lack of a Quad and injuries) before the Games actually happened. Hence, this journalist is by no means a Patrick Chan's fan but nor is he a detractor.

Are you sure? Milton sounded like a big Patrick fan in that infamous "six inches" article: http://www.thespec.com/sports/article/692757--chan-conquers-toughest-six-inches
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
If audiences were to judge, the highest value element is head caressing, which however is not limited to two per program. Takahashi is able to do it five times, one in hysteria inducing combination, plus off ice demonstrations by popular request. Other high value moves would be Running Man, finger guns, finger licking, etc.

There are reasons there are rules for sport and games and their competitions. A Skating Idol TV show can have its own different rules.

You are right.

But my fear is that figure skating is so right that it will right itself right out of existence.

All sports belong to the category "recreation and entertainment." If you do it yourself for fun, that's recreation. If you pay to watch other people do it that's entertainment. If figure skating wants to be solely recreational, then so be it. If it wants to be entertainment, then it must pay attention to its desired audience.

I don't see why we can't strive for some sort of balance. I do not see what the sport gains by telling it's audience, my way or the highway, chumps. Study the rule book or hit the road.

They will.
 

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Is it cool these days to think the audience is dumb?
They were already cheering their lungs out for Hanyu on the 2. jump he made - I must have missed the head caressing there.
I'd never say the audience should really make a final desicion oranything close to it, but I very well think their reaction is a good indicator for the PE and IN department.

Not dumb nor am I discounting audience connection and charisma. But winners cannot and should not be decided by audience reactions, which are not rational, can be nationalistic, personal, and otherwise very subjective. There will be a lot more discords if World Champions were decided by the audience in attendance. It is not a local event.

The audience cheered Hanyu's jumps regardless of how the tech panel may view them, which would make a big difference in the final score and his placement. Ditto everybody's jumps. The rules set out precise points for each jump in its various degrees of success. I know a lot of unhappiness has arisen from the so called invisible errors, but it's a highly technical sport and skaters train so hard, there have to be spelled out and fair valuations.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Do you feel the same about gymnastics, sync. divining / swimming and judo?

I would hate to see figure skating sink to the level of popular interest that those sports suffer.

But I think it is too late.

You are of the view that a person who has not invested the time to be proficient about a sport has a right to be outraged at something he/she doesn't comprehend, aka. average Joe.

No, not at all. I am not outraged. I am sad. I think figure skating is missing opportunities that would benefit, and in the past have benefitted, all skaters and all people involved in the sport.

WallyLutz said:
Should the NFL change its rules to accommodate someone like me?

All major spectator sports continually tweak their rules in an attempt to attract more fans and to provide a product to their market that is as attractive as possible.

Wally:Lutz said:
Could it be that those people actually took the time to learn the new system?

Could be. But why not also try to attract the interest of people who have not done so?

It's a win-win situation. Satisfy the customer. Then all boats rise with the rising tide.

The worst thing we can do is hunker down, secure in our righteousness and superiority, while fending off the teeming masses with the contempt they deserve. No, no. We are all on the same side here. :yes:
 
Top