Men's PCS at Worlds.

[Bluebonnet]

I think it I would be really stupid from ISU to think that the main problem is that the audiences are uneducated and can’t appreciate good skating .
Many people from the audiences are not hard core figure skating fans but people who watch figure skating once or twice a year, maybe only the big events and go to see live competitions or shows only if they have the opportunity. They like figure skating, buy tickets, fill the arenas but don’t feel the need to understand all the intricacies of the scoring system. And this is the normal attitude; one does not have to understand all the rules to “feel” greatness.
For example I do not know much about football, I don’t care to know everything about it, but when I see F.C. Barcelona playing I surely understand that those players are something special and it wouldn’t even cross my mind to question their win.
Also when I read a book I feel if the author is a great writer or not. I do not need a degree in literature to be able to appreciate it. I do not need to understand exactly why I was impressed and why I think I just read something remarkable.
The same used to happen and should happen in figure skating.
Great skaters manage to enchant the audiences, no matter the score system, current rules etc.
What happens if COP changes tomorrow? Will the audiences have to be re-educated?

I think gkelly said it perfectly. And I think you don't have to be educated to enjoy figure skating. You come and enjoy and root whoever your favorites are. But accept and respect what the judges gave to the placements because we do not know as much as the judges. The problem now is many people who do not fully understand the judging system (including myself) believed that they are as good as the judges and the competitions have to go their way or the results would be unacceptable.

[deedee1]

Unlike some of the members here, I am no expert in figure skating, nor music, dance, and/or any other form of so-called 'arts'.

One of the moments I appreciate very much in figure skating is; when a skater picks up the music, which is a completely unknown piece to me so that I have never listened before, or I have no idea what is the story behind the music if it's a part of ballet scores or movie scores, s/he skates to it beautifully and draw me into her/his performance.
As a result I come to love the music because of the programs, thanks to its choreographer and skater. I appreciate even more so if the genre (category) of that music is out of my usual range of, or out of my usual interest for the music.
Without watching it as a skating program, I doubt I ever come to love it, or I will ever be able to have an opportunity to listen to it in the first place.

For example, Blood Diamond by Stephane, Ararat by Jeffrey, or The Garden of Soul by Daisuke definitely belong to this category; I go back to repeat time and time again and never get tired of watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hlj7bSqa98

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypNSQb9heLA
-> This is from 2008 Worlds. I would much prefer 2007 Tokyo Worlds version because I loved the color of his shirt, but I cannot find any vids from 2007 Worlds...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsUplazBWp0

Whenever I get to watch these kinds of programs, I just forget it's actually a competition. How many points the skater is gonna get, or the placement, a quad or not, a fall on a jump, I do not care. I just enjoy the feast, delicious moments of figure skating.

Sorry, I did not finish my thought.
My point is:

When I encounter with these programs, its choreographers and skaters win tons of my respect. Becasue, by picking up less popular piece of music and go for a rather innovative/creative/experimental program, they expand the possibility of figure skating, while taking its risk. And I would like the judging system to allow them the space to gor for it, and reward them with high PCS, specifically CH and IN, when it works more than fine as a competitive program. This trend will aslo encourage future choreographers and future skaters.

In this regard, I respect and admire Daisuke and Kenji Miyamoto for his SP at Voncouver season 'eye', using the least popular music in the skating world, composed by the least known Japanese accordion player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyoV3...feature=relmfu

It may be just me, but I would much prefer these programs, than programs choreographed by Big name choreographers by using the same old warhorsed music and recycling every 3 seasons, or than programs skated by many top skaters 3876901 times the last 20 years.

[skatinginbc]

Enjoy the performances, regardless of placement.

I think gkelly said it perfectly...come and enjoy and root whoever your favorites are but accept and respect what the judges gave to the placements.

I'm afraid that kind of mentality will take a great part of fun out of a competition and further dwindle the fan base. It's like watching Top Model, where entertainment mainly comes from a bunch of beautiful women taking photo shoots, but it is even more entertaining if we get to see and discuss who gets kicked out at the end. "Come into my car. I'll give you a pleasure ride." "Eh, where are we going?" "You don't need to care. Just enjoy the ride." That doesn't sound inviting, does it?

ISU Public Education Program:
Level 1 Fan Certificate: Able to enjoy the performances without caring about the placement.
Level 2 Fan Certificate: Able to read protocols and name the base mark for each element.
Level 3 Fan Certificate: Able to tell the levels or planes of different edges and body movements.
Level 4 Fan Certificate: Able to survive a musically disconnected performance and still believe the performer is god.

[Olympia]

ISU Public Education Program:
Level 1 Fan Certificate: Able to enjoy the performances without caring about the placement.
Level 2 Fan Certificate: Able to read protocols and name the base mark for each element.
Level 3 Fan Certificate: Able to tell the levels or planes of different edges and body movements.
Level 4 Fan Certificate: Able to survive a musically disconnected performance and still believe the performer is god.

I fear I might not qualify for an actual level. >gulp< If we don't pass the test, do we have to leave fandom?

*examines lists of other sports* Hey, quilting isn't on here!

[gkelly]

I'm afraid that kind of mentality will take a great part of fun out of a competition and further dwindle the fan base. It's like watching Top Model, where entertainment mainly comes from a bunch of beautiful women taking photo shoots, but it is even more entertaining if we get to see and discuss who gets kicked out at the end.

So you think the ISU should model itself after producers of reality TV shows rather than federations governing other technical sports in the Olympic/amateur tradition? Giving the audience what it wants is more important than respecting the skills that built the sport and get top skaters to the top?

Obviously there is a market for skating as art and skating as popularity contest. But I don't think Olympic-eligible competition is the place to make those qualities more important than technique.

Given that the ISU is, first and foremost, a sports federation, can they develop an entertainment product that's not part of the Olympic movement but that is structured as a competition with a world championships and that involves audiences in evaluating skating performances according to art/entertainment criteria? Should they go into the business of producing an entertainment product instead of governing a sport, or in addition?

Or can they allow some outside organization(s) to meet that need while allowing individual skaters to participate in those outside events and still remain eligible to compete in ISU sport competitions?

In the old days of strict amateurism and limited TV coverage, I used to think of Olympics and Worlds as sort of like auditions for professional performing careers, including professional competitions.

Should that be made official? Have some elite-of-the-elite ISU-run competition league that skaters get hired to compete in on the basis of their entertainment value, in addition to earning prize money based on results? Name recognition and medals from the technical Olympic-style sport may be prerequisites to getting hired for this league, so all the participants will have been strong athletes with strong technique in many areas, but they have to turn into artist/entertainers if they aren't already to win in this league.

That might satisfy the art/entertainment fans.

But the sport will still go on for the benefit of the athletes who are striving to be the best skater in the world (in all athletic, technical, and presentation categories), and audiences who don't follow skating otherwise will still watch at the Olympics for the quadrennial worldwide event value.

Different competition tracks, one that appeals athletes and to devoted sports fans, one for athletic artists and art/entertainment fans. Both skaters and avid fans who enjoy skating in all its aspects could be free to enjoy both.

That could be one solution.

[skatinginbc]

So you think the ISU should model itself after producers of reality TV shows rather than federations governing other technical sports in the Olympic/amateur tradition? Giving the audience what it wants is more important than respecting the skills that built the sport and get top skaters to the top?

Hm, using the sport argument, eh? Then asking figure skating fans to enjoy a competition without caring about the placements is like asking baseball fans to watch a competition without caring about the points scored.

[gkelly]

I'm not asking fans not to care about the placements. I'm asking fans who don't want to understand how the placements are arrived at not to complain when the placements don't match their preferences.

That leaves several options.
Learn more and agree more and debate the fine points when you don't.
Or recognize that preferences based on only a few criteria are irrelevant to the actual placements and discuss your preferences on their own terms.

It's insisting that the actual placements are wrong and the rules should be changed to reflect only the few criteria that you care about -- especially insisting that the actual skating quality should be less important than the entertainment value -- that I object to.

[periperi]

^
Thank. You.

[Olympia]

Seriously, this time, bc....

Your point is solid, of course. A fan should become better informed. But what worries me in this process is that it's going to be harder to attract new fans. I'm not saying let's give up, but what do we do to make skating inviting to new viewers, without whom we'll lose what skimpy TV time we have now.

My tendency in situations that need solutions is to look for parallels. I would use gymnastics as a measuring rod for examination (some pretty arcane rules there also), but I realize that gymnastics doesn't get a lot of TV time either. (And men's gymnastics is barely a blip on the radar.) So I started thinking about skating in Japan, a country where skaters seem to be at the forefront of celebrity and fans seem very well informed. How do they keep attracting a wide audience? I'm asking; I don't have enough facts to come up with an answer. I suppose Korea is another example, though I'm reserving judgment, because still there's just YuNa. But anyone who has knowledge of that system might have some insights as well.

Anyway, that's my thinking whenever we start talking about fans' needing to become better versed in the rules. What do we need to do not just to understand skating but to help it grow, especially in North America? (Such an outcome would also lead to a larger pool of good skaters, as well.)

(And I might still get kicked out and sent down to quilting!)

[Bluebonnet]

I'm not asking fans not to care about the placements. I'm asking fans who don't want to understand how the placements are arrived at not to complain when the placements don't match their preferences.

That leaves several options.
Learn more and agree more and debate the fine points when you don't.
Or recognize that preferences based on only a few criteria are irrelevant to the actual placements and discuss your preferences on their own terms.

It's insisting that the actual placements are wrong and the rules should be changed to reflect only the few criteria that you care about -- especially insisting that the actual skating quality should be less important than the entertainment value -- that I object to.

Add me into the Thank You list! gkelly, you've said it so well!

[Mathman]

Obviously there is a market for skating as art and skating as popularity contest. But I don't think Olympic-eligible competition is the place to make those qualities more important than technique.

Given that the ISU is, first and foremost, a sports federation, can they develop an entertainment product that's not part of the Olympic movement but that is structured as a competition with a world championships and that involves audiences in evaluating skating performances according to art/entertainment criteria? Should they go into the business of producing an entertainment product instead of governing a sport, or in addition?

Or can they allow some outside organization(s) to meet that need while allowing individual skaters to participate in those outside events and still remain eligible to compete in ISU sport competitions?.

This is a difficult question. I do not think the ISU can or should try to stage professional competitions or shows. Last year Scott Hamilton put together an investment group to try to put on a series of pro-type competitions including (as I recall) both present and recent past champions. He got ISU approval "in principle," but I didn't hear anything more about it. It is not at all clear that there is a market for this type of thing any more, or for shows like SOI or the once-popular Ice Follies.

I do not think that any one thing in particular is to blame for this depressing (to us diehards) state of affairs -- i think it is just cultural drift. I will, in fact, be surprised if Japan doesn't start to drift away also before long -- on to different forms of entertainment. Well, skating had a good run.

Yes, we can say that Olympic eligible skating is for the athletes only, just as archery and swimming are. Certainly this was the case for competitions in tracing school figures.

But somewhere along the way -- somewhere between Sonia Henie and Janet Lynn, somewhere between pretty ladies in short skirts and vigorous leaps timed to rousing music, somewhere between flowing dance and the thrill of victory, agony of defeat, someone got the bright idea that, hey, you know what? We have something to sell! It seems like in the last decade or so figure skating has retreated a little from "having something to sell" and has turned somewhat more inward.

Should we care what the audience thinks? Only if we care whether there is an audience. (This is not rhetorical.) It seems like there could be some sort of compromise in the rules that would make skating competitions more exciting for audiences, some way to make the audience feel more involved, more like a stake-holder in the contest.

I don't see how it would harm the ISU to penalize falls more, bringing the CoP more into line with what the public regards, perhaps in ignorance, as good skating. I don't see how it would harm the ISU to give a more careful examination of what constitutes good performance art -- why do audiences shout and scream over this performance, feel meh about that.

Does the scoring system really need to give blanket uncritical 9's in interpretation and choreography whenever a skater displays strong basic blade-to-ice skills? Don't musical interpretation, choreography, and value as performance art have any independent meaning? I do not think that anyone need apologize for feeling that a rousing or an ethereal performance is better than one that lays an egg, and for expecting that this will be reflected in the scores.

I don't see why skating can't retain its purity as a sporting endeavor and still make a couple of bucks on the side.

[deedee1]

Seriously, this time, bc....

Your point is solid, of course. A fan should become better informed. But what worries me in this process is that it's going to be harder to attract new fans. I'm not saying let's give up, but what do we do to make skating inviting to new viewers, without whom we'll lose what skimpy TV time we have now.

One of the reasons I am for ISU introducing the new judging system, is that it has helped figure skating to make it look (or, make as if looked) more 'objective' as a competitive sport. By providing every federations and its skaters, to the same degree, the detailed CoP rule books with more concrete examples, and by providing the scoresheets (=protocols) to every skater upon every competition, based on the same criteria, ISU also encouraged/educated how to cope with it in a much more specific way, compared to before CoP era. What I see thus I value CoP is it has worked, in a much more effective and swift way, to the advantages for the smaller federations and its skaters (and against the co-called 'skating powerhouse' federations and its skaters; such as Russia and US). As far as they obey CoP requirements, the new system does allow smaller federations and its skaters to go up the rankings more easily than before.
In 2002, who imagined that we would be having the 2006 and 2010 Olympic female champions from the small federations in Asia, or, how many of us predicted we would not be having no 2010 Olympic champions from Russia, such powerhouse of the sport?

It has also helped to attract new viewers and die-hard fans. But at the same time, it did lose quite a number of casual viewers and long-term fans of this sport. Sad to say but it's true the new system is killing the popularity of this sport, partly owing to the increased difficulties to understand the complicated rules.

So one of the solutions I can think of, as someone already suggested elsewhere on this Forum, is 1) stop the anonymity of the judges, and 2) hold a post-competition press conference by the technical panel and judges. I believe this will work well to the benefits of both sides; for ISU to defend themselves from criticims and to educate fans/audience/TV viewers, and for fans/audience/TV viewers to accept whatever the outcome is and to be educated in a more civilized manner.

OT, but I opened my dictionary to doublecheck how to spell 'criteia', and found out it is a plural form of 'criterion'! I have known the word 'creteria', without knowing its original singular form for decades in my life...

[skatinginbc]

Learn more and agree more and debate the fine points when you don't.

That's never a major issue regarding the technical aspects of a performance, as Mathman stated clearly in Post #59 "I think that fans are quite content to leave it to the technical specialists" and I also stated in Post #4: "As far as Skating Skills and Transitions/Linking Footwork are concerned, I trust the opinions of the judges." Education, re-education, or even sending every fan to a training camp will not address the issue. Technical elements, skating skills and transitions are not the main issues. So why send us back to school to simply validate what we hardly argue against?

recognize that preferences based on only a few criteria are irrelevant to the actual placements and discuss your preferences on their own terms.

Although differences in a few criteria may be relevant to the final placements in a close competition, we pretty much did what you just said and focused on PCS only, especially presentation scores. As I have stated in Post #91, "if I have to give a score as an individual judge under the current scoring system and criteria...Chan won rightfully in my opinion". So, will further education solve my problem? No.

It's insisting that the actual placements are wrong... that I object to.

If the actual placements are indeed wrong, why should we not complain and why do you object to it?

It's insisting that...the rules should be changed to reflect only the few criteria that you care about...that I object to.

Who ever did that? Posters pointed out things for improvement, but none of them, as far as I have read, insisted that only those things matter.

It's insisting that...the actual skating quality should be less important than the entertainment value --that I object to.

That's not the issue, either. How many posters here have actually argued that entertainment value should be more important than skating quality? We are arguing that if figure skating uses music and if presentation is part of the judging criteria, it has to be judged accordingly to reflect that presentation aspect of performance. The current system tells us that the maximum score for skating skills is 10, and so is for interpretation. Since you advocate education so much, please educate me why Chan deserves a mean score of 9.21 in his interpretation based on the prescribed criteria, for example:

Effortless movement in time to the music (He had effortless movement but a significant part was not in time to the music)
Expression of the music's style, character, rhythm (He might have expressed the style and character very well, but not so in rhythm)
Use of finesse to reflect the nuances of the music (He had lots of finesse but missed many of the nuances due to musical mismatch)

If the CoP criteria cannot convince fans on this one, the education argument seems like a lot of hot air serving to brush off controversies.

Interpretation is a relatively subjective category, and therefore it is within reason to assume that it would be one of the components that show the greatest variances among the judges' scores. Nop, it is not what we saw. This is Chan's IN scores: 9.25 9.25 9.00 9.25 8.25 9.50 9.25 9.25 9.25. Besides one judge, the rest are very uniform. The variance (0.11) is no greater than the one in a more objective category like SS or TR.

It is also within reason to assume a greater variance among judges when a performance has more minor errors (e.g., timing problems) because different judges may reflect them differently (i.e., some may think timing is no big deal whereas some do). Nop, it is not what we saw. The variance among judges was greater in Chan's IN at 4CC where he had a cleaner program and better timing: 8.75 10.00 8.50 8.75 9.50 9.00 8.50 9.25 9.00. (Variance = 0.2145)

Can further education solve this big mystery in the mind of casual fans?

[Olympia]

OT, but I opened my dictionary to doublecheck how to spell 'criteia', and found out it is a plural form of 'criterion'! I have known the word 'creteria', without knowing its original singular form for decades in my life...

Good for you, Deedee1! That's a pet peeve of mine. Even very few native English speakers correctly use criterion when the mean the singular. I think it was a Greek word originally, so it forms the plural differently.

That's an interesting point you made about CoP removing some of the built-in advantages that the larger federations had in terms of winners. I hadn't ever considered that before, but it certainly seems that the rise of champion skaters from other countries besides the usual ones coincides with the advent of CoP.

[skatinginbc]

Even very few native English speakers correctly use criterion when the mean the singular.

And the funny thing is that the singular form of bacteria is NOT bacterion, but bacterium.