Men's PCS at Worlds. | Page 10 | Golden Skate

Men's PCS at Worlds.

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Actually, I don't disagree with anything that you are saying here. Maybe we are just misunderstanding each other.

Probably. We can get closer to the same page by using more specific examples, but then this thread and our posts will get even longer.

And, yes, the number of discrete variables means that the number of permutations is also large, but again, they are mathematically finite.
…Certain variables/aspects are only bounded by the limitations of human capability and physics (e.g. how "deep" an edge can go, or how fast they can skate, or the number of rotations, "hang time"/delay, and distance in a jump), but, again, these can be mapped to a numerical range of scoring effect.
…This is what was meant by the proposition that the technical elements can be viewed though a pragmatically Platonic lens.

Still not sure how this would work.

Is one of these closer than the others to what might be considered the platonic ideal of a layback spin?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnoRJ8gZpZU&t=0m55s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Ikxi6Zx4A&t=0m30s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5p3zrEI7N0&t=2m25s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4IFWjMlFVk&t=4m30s

-Sure, there are cultural differences, but those differences don't prevent viewers from learning to understand and appreciate other (human) cultural cues if they make a good-faith effort.

True. That's where education comes in -- educating judges and educating skaters/coaches and educating audiences.
There will still be some cultural and personal preferences, though. We're not going to get everyone to agree 100% on everything.
To re-emphasize, I am not against numerical scoring of itself. Any competitive endeavor, almost by definition, must have some numerical basis, however simple. Where I question COP is in the implied precision of the scoring for the artistic components (PE, CH, I), because the scoring increments cannot be persuasively shown to correspond to a set of discrete variables with fairly precise gradations of incremental fulfillment (in contrast to the "technical" elements).
The scores that the judges get to give (as opposed to the averages) aren't that precise, though.
On a scale of 0 to 10 that covers the whole range of skating ability, if 0 means "you didn't make the slightest effort," 5 means "about the minimum we'd expect at a senior international level," and 10 means "wow I can't imagine anything better -- different maybe, but not better," giving only integers with no decimal places would mean there's no way to distinguish between all the average-for-their level competitors in the same event. So what if we allow judges to give .5 scores in between those benchmarks? That gives them a little more control. .25 gives a little more than that, but there it has stopped. Any increments smaller than 0.25
are the result of averaging across the whole panel.

I think what you're proposing is to change the meaning of 1, 5, 7, 10 etc. from each competition to the next. I don't know how that would help.

Thanks for thinking things through here -- it's interesting.

As per my caveat, this is just a preliminary idea off the top of my head. But for the sake of discussion, how about this:
-Each "artistic" component (that is to say, this only applies to PE, CH and I, because I consider skating skills and transitions to be, in concept if not always in actual practice, "technical" and hence more amenable to precision) is scored separately. For each of these components scores, the skater receives a rank relative to the field. So if there are 30 competitors, there are 30 rankings.
-Each ranking number (e.g. #1, or "the best") can have, say a maximum of 2 or 3 names in that slot. In other words, two or three skaters can be tied in the #1 slot. Similarly for the #2 slot, and so on. This doesn't mean that it's mandatory for judges to put in the maximum number of names in each ranking slot. This is only if the judge feels that there is no clear choice for that ranking slot. So (assuming a maximum of 3 skaters per ranking slot) you could end up with, for example, 2 skaters ranked #1, 3 skaters at #2, only 1 skater in the #3 slot, and so on. What this means is that there may be 30 rankings, but they may only go down to, say, #20 (since there are multiple names in slots in some cases).

OK.

Is it acceptable to skip slots? E.g., if the best skater is miles ahead of everyone else on that component, is it acceptable to award that skater #1 and the next best skater (who really isn't very good) #3 or 4 or 5?

Or maybe there are three good contenders (all #1, or #s 1, 2, and 3 respectively) and then the best of the rest gets #5 or lower.

The big-picture theme, though, is that the increments are pre-determined and are not discretionary on the part of the judges.

This, I have a big problem with. It takes away the power of the judges to judge.

In 6.0 judging, it didn't really matter if, for example, a judge gave the #1 skater at a national competition 5.9s and the #2 skater 5.7s or if she gave them 5.8s and 5.3s, respectively. The second place skater still got a second-place ordinal. But the numbers did tell us a tiny bit of information about what the judges thought about the programs, and that was the only information we got. Meanwhile, the judges had complete control over their own placements.

In IJS judging, if the judge gives the #1 skater 8.5s and the next best skater 6.5s, that will make a difference in the results if #1 doubled a couple of jumps, for example, but was still significantly superior in the components. But the judges can't completely control the placements because they don't know the levels of the spins and they haven't memorized the point values of every element and don't have time to add them up.

-I am currently envisioning that the artistic components scores would be given by each separate judge for each separate component, as is the current practice. The key difference is that the judge is only responsible for determining greater than/lesser than/equal to, strictly relative the the field of that particular competition, and with no discretion for determining the precise magnitude of the scoring differential.

It sounds like what you're proposing is that the judges are not allowed to share with the skaters and the audience any information about how good they thought the skaters were in terms of general skill level, only who they thought was better than whom, or approximately the same. Nor, it seems, is "much much better" allowed to have any more weight than "just better enough that they don't deserve to share a ranking."

There's no way for the system to know before the competition takes place whether the skaters will be spread about evenly in ability
1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9-
or, if not, how they'll be clumped
1--------------2-3-4----5-66666-77-
111-222-33-44-5-6--8888-
1-2-3-4--5--6----7--8---9-

Fixing the increments in advance means that the judges can't really judge these skaters in this event in a meaningful way.

Ahh, you've got me, here :biggrin:. You're absolutely right that the logistical problem of handing out purely relative scores in a competition is probably the biggest issue.

It was an issue with 6.0 rankings. It will be even more of a problem if the judges have to rank skaters against a large field on multiple parameters.

My very preliminary thoughts as to a possible solution (and I say again for the eighth time that this is just an idea that I've been playing around with for a pretty short time):
-Have a separate panel of judges (who can be members of the general judging pool, but who are designated to judge only the artistic components at this particular competition).

I like this in theory. In practice, if it means more total officials, it would probably only be financially feasible at the most important events.

The artistic rankings (and, hence, the artistic component scores) are punched in and tabulated at the end of the SP and the FS. Thus, the "overall" score will only be known at the end of that day's competition.

Television will hate this. Essentially it takes coverage of the sport back to the days before computers when no one knew the results until everything was tabulated by hand.

This involves some incremental cost. One could theoretically have this done by one panel of judges responsible for both the technical as well as the artistic scores (as currently done), but this would leave open the charge that the judges can "manipulate" the artistic scores to achieve a desired result. How to achieve this as a practical matter is a separate issue; I'm just focusing on the concept for the moment. It would actually be even better, I think, if the "artistic" panel didn't know what the skaters received in their technical scores, but I haven't fully worked out the mechanics of that :p.

As I alluded to earlier, judges don't know what the skaters received in their technical scores now. They may hear the numbers announced in the arena, they may even write them down if they want to keep track, but while they're assigning PCS for skater Q they have no idea what technical score skater Q will receive. At best they can make a rough estimate if they have a good sense of how much each jump is worth in the scale of values.

I think it's even conceivable that this type of scoring procedure might heighten the audience thrill factor, particularly in cases where the technical scoring is close, and the overall results very much hinge on the artistic aspects, which the audience generally feels they can more readily relate to.

So would technical scores and/or technical rankings be announced after each competitor, but the audiences need to understand that they're only hearing half the scoring in real time and the results might swap around dramatically when the other half of the numbers are added in? Cinquanta will hate that. :D

My own personal viewpoint is that it might actually be easier to correctly rank the skaters on artistic components if done after all the performances are completed, and with more than a few minutes to make an assessment per score (the subject for scoring is both complex and holistic).

Again, I think this might be true with 6 or fewer skaters. The larger the group, the harder it will get. Each additional warmup group probably multiplies rather than adds to the difficulty of comparing.

Scoring skaters against external benchmarks rather than against each other makes it much easier to be accurate with larger groups.
There's a reason why US regional and club competitions split events into qualifying rounds if there were more than 18 skaters in the 6.0 era and increased that number to 24 after the adoption of the IJS.

It might, for instance, cut down on the cases where a skater received low marks simply because the skater wasn't in the final group.

Quite the opposite, I expect.

Give it a try -- sit down and watch a competition of 12 or 18 or 24 skaters in a row and try to rank them, giving scores as you go along. Then try with another group of the same size taking notes but waiting until after the last skater to come up with your rankings.

The judges will still be able, unofficially and privately, to keep a rolling tabulation as the competition moves along, and he'll still be able to utilize almost all of the "outside" principles of assessment that he/she has always done. Just not any reference to any skate (either personally ideal or historical) outside of that competition in assigning ranks,
How can you legislate the mental processes of the judges. If you tell them to keep track by any means necessary but not show the audience, they're absolutely going to be thinking things like "That looks like a 5.0 performance." How do you think they knew how to score the first skater in a 6.0 event? (There was a pause for the referee to share the median mark for the first skater with the panel so they could make sure they were all on the same page before proceeding to the second competitor.)

Under the above, I don't see how this would mean that base values would more often determine the results.
It depends on whether judges are allowed to reflect margin of victory within each of the components or whether they're locked into increments in the numbers the sizes of which have nothing to do with the sizes of differences in the performances.
5 triple jumps
8 triple jumps

You're going to get different results if the judges don't have the discretion to say that the former was at least one triple's worth better than the latter on each of the artistic components.

Of course they probably wouldn't have put the latter 2nd or 3rd on those components, and on Skating Skills and Transitions as well, at Worlds. But, since they're from the same country, what about at their nationals? What if the latter skater really is the second best in that field at most or all of those components?

:)I'm not in any way going all Tom Cruise in proselytizing for this idea. It's just a musing that I thought would make for interesting discussion, possibly highlighting some of the issues along the way.

Interesting discussion.

I definitely recommend that you give your system a try yourself to work out the details.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
skatinginbc said:
Simply count the number of listed criteria that involve music and count the total number of criteria. What's the percentage?

For Interpretation, 100%.

Interpretation

Definition: The personal and creative translation of the music to movement on ice.

To reward the skater who through movement creates a personal and creative translation of the music. As the tempo binds all notes in time, the ability to use the tempos and rhythms of the music in a variety of ways, along with the subtle use of finesse to reflect the nuances of all the fundamentals of music: melody, rhythm, harmony, color, texture, and form creates a mastery of interpretation.

Criteria:

Effortless Movements in Time to the Music (Timing)

The ability to translate music through sureness of rhythm, tempo, effective movement, and effortless flow over the ice surface by: rhythmic continuity, awareness of all tempo/rhythm changes in a variety of ways.

Expression of the music’s style, character, and rhythm

Maintaining the character and style of the music throughout the entire program by use of body and skating techniques to depict a mood, style, shape, or thematic idea as motivated by the structure of the music: melody, harmony, rhythm, color, texture, and form. The total involvement of the body and being should express the intent of the music.

Use of finesse to reflect the nuances of music.

Finesse is the skater’s refined, artful manipulation of nuances. Nuances are the personal, artistic ways of bringing subtle variations to the intensity, tempo, and dynamics of the music made by the composer and/or the musician.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003

Natalie Krieg! Natalie Krieg! :rock:

No wait, do you want to shout and stamp your feet or do you want to cry? If you want to cry, Caroline Zhang was indescribably beautiful, made more beautiful still by her back story. (If you say that her inspiring riches to rags to riches story shouldn't count in the scoring, I'm not listening, I'm not listening! ;) )

But Lucinda Ruh was the best. Did you notice her free leg position? This is education, peeps. A layback spin has nothing to do with free leg position, attitude or otherwise. :laugh:

Angela Nikodinov = Platonic ideal. :)

Overall: Natalie. No wait...
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
So under the CoP mentality, the official result is always "right".

No more or no less than under 6.0.

One critical issue you are still reluctant to "educate" me is why Chan's performance was justified for extreme high scores (9.2s) in IN. Did the judges faithfully apply the prescribed criteria to their scoring?

I can't read their minds, so I don't know what their process was.
I see a lot of positive qualities in Chan's use of the music that I guess you don't see. I also see even more positive qualities in the choreography. I don't think I would go into 9s for Interpretation for anyone that day. But I think that lower scores on combined PE/CH/IN for Chan than for Hanyu or Joubert are perplexing. That's your assessment according to your standards, so it's the right score for you, but it's not the right score.

I wish I had scored this event for myself before I knew the results so I could do it with no ulterior motives, but unfortunately that wasn't possible this year.

I really wish you and I could sit down together in front of a big video screen, or better yet sit at rinkside together, and discuss what we see. Maybe there are other emotional "halo effects" or the opposite coloring our perceptions. Maybe we just hear music and see skating movement differently -- and maybe with discussion we could get closer to understanding what each other is seeing and hearing.

However, if it takes me 5 minutes to go back and forth between watching video and typing to write a paragraph about a moment that took the skater 5 seconds to execute, you can see how it would be impossible to give a useful written analysis of a whole program in a reasonable amount of time.

Did I give Chan 0 point for his presentation? Other criteria are important too, and that's why I gave him a good score (7.75 is a top-10 finisher score, isn't it?).

Musicality has a global effect on presentation (PE + CH + IN).

For you, I think it has more of a global effect.
For me, I think things like flow over the ice and openness to the space and originality in the use of the blades have more weight.

Different emphases. Mine isn't more wrong than yours.

(And because you conflated three scores that are separate in the current judging system, I think you gave that effect more weight than it's intended to have, at the expense of all the other criteria in the Performance/Execution and Choreography marks)

Also, I think I saw more good moments in Chan's use of the music than you did.

Nay, that's not the issue here. The true issue is that Chan made more visible errors (obvious to everyone) whereas Dai's errors were almost invisible to untrained eyes. You are trained to look for superstimili with magnified glasses, just as a dance expert looks for pointed toes. The French fans "saw" with their naked eyes that Chan made multiple errors but they did not "see" Dai's.

But the judges did. E.g., I saw three great jump elements from Chan, several average-to-good ones, one bad, and one disastrous. From Takahashi I saw two good-to-great and a lot of mediocre ones.
I think both were overscored on their spin GOEs.
Chan had one disruptive error IMO (but not as disruptive as Hanyu's fall) and a couple of little glitches. Takahashi also had some little glitches -- spin traveling, two-foot landing, etc.

I think these are two of the all-time great step sequence skaters. Loved them both. I think both have been even better on those elements at other competitions this season.

I thought Chan filled the space better and projected to the audience better. (Yes, I know Takahashi's choreography is directed more internally and at his best he draws us into his world -- I think he did that better in other performances).

Neither of them has great extension, but I think Chan's is a little better overall.

So even after accounting for the fall disruption in the Performance/Execution mark, I would probably have those two about on par, certainly ahead of Hanyu whose posture and extension are too floppy in my eyes, and probably Joubert who is too stiff.

On Choreography I would also have both Chan and Takahashi ahead of Hanyu and Joubert. Same with Interpretation. I'd have to analyze in more detail to decide which of the two I'd score higher -- I don't know what

I saw Takahashi's performance online in a live webcast. I thought it was worthy of a world title but beatable, a little disappointing, not as committed to the music or movement, compared to what I remember as a magical performance earlier in the season. I didn't have the opportunity to watch the rest of the flight that day. I joked that Chan would probably fall once and win anyway and cause lots of controversy. I was right about that. :D By the time I got to watch his performance I already knew the results and knew the fan complaints, so I couldn't assess it honestly for myself.

Here comes the age-long debate: Should errors detectable only by the magnified glasses cost as much as those detectable by every one?

So how do we deal with it?
One approach: "Live with it regardless whether you are happy or not".
Another approach: Amend the judging system (e.g., two panels, one for global assessment, the other for analytical assessment) to minimize the problem.

If the global assessment is done by people who are trained to see the little errors (like Takahashi's two-foot landing or spin traveling), then their perceptions still might not match

To my understanding, "effortless flow over the ice" alone has nothing to do with interpretation unless it is done "in time to the music". Of course, I'm no expert in CoP. Will you cite that criterion in full context instead of just giving us that phrase? The criterion I saw from USFSA (http://www.usfsa.org/New_Judging.asp?id=289) is "effortless movement in time to the music".

In the Interpretation component, it's evaluated in time to the music. Which Chan's skating was most of the time as I perceived it.
In the Skating Skills component, it's absolutely central irrespective of whether there's any music playing at all.

So just as someone watching who's highly attuned to music might have their perceptions of the performance influenced by the music and the skater's use of it, a judge who's highly attuned to effortless flow over the ice will be influenced by that. If two skaters are both comparably in time with the music and one glides more effortlessly in the process, the latter will probably score higher for Interpretation as well as for Skating Skills.

Skating Skills
Definition: Overall skating quality: edge control and flow over the ice surface demonstrated by a command of the skating vocabulary (edges, steps, turns, etc.), the clarity of technique and use of effortless power to accelerate and vary speed.

Criteria:

Balance, rhythmic knee action and precision of foot placement
Flow and effortless glide
Cleanness and sureness of deep edges, steps, turns
Power/energy and acceleration
Mastery of multi-directional skating
Mastery of one-foot skating
Equal mastery of technique by both partners shown in unison (pairs and ice dancing)
Balance in skating ability of individual skaters (synchronized)
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
No more or no less than under 6.0.

I think there is a psychological difference that makes CoP less inviting to audience participation.

Ordinal judging puts it right in your face that the only thing that counts is, did a majority of judges like my fave the best or did they like the other guy? I can say, well I don't care what the judges say, I still like my guy the best. If the judging is unanimous I grudgingly have to concede, oh all right, I guess that verdict was the right one. But I still like my guy the best. And if it is a split decision -- hoo boy -- then I can say, well I agree with these three expert judges and those six are all wet.

But the CoP says, Tara 198.39, Michelle 196.88. What can I do? What can I say? Tara got 198.39 points. That's that. Should I boo the decimal numbering system for having the outrageous feature that 198.39 is bigger than 196.88?

At best I can only wander away muttering, I guess I just don't get the scoring system. I thought Michelle had it.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Well, Michelle may not have had it, but she had me, and that's my only power as a fan.

It has occurred to me that when people start threads on great SP's, LP's, or exhibitions, I've never seen a program by Katarina Witt (two Olympic golds) listed. I'm just saying, there isn't always a direct correlation between the person who scores the highest in any system and a skater for the ages. I'm not trying to make a point about any particular skater, but it's good to remember that there are many ways to be great in this sport, and also there can be more than one great skater at any one time. I think the latter statement is definitely true right now.
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
For me, I think things like flow over the ice..have more weight.
"Flowing over the ice" = 10
Relation to the music = 0
"Flowing over the ice in time to the music" = 10 × 0 = 0

Can you find "flow" in the definition of Performance? No, but you can find the big word "MUSIC". Performance "is the involvement of the skater/couple/teams physically, emotionally, and intellectually as they translate the intent of the MUSIC and choreography." You can even find the word MUSIC in the definition of originality ("Originality involves an individual perspective of movement and design in pursuit of a creative composition as inspired by the music"), style ("Style is the distinctive use of line and movement as inspired by the music"), unity ("a program achieves unity when: every step, movement, and element is motivated by the music"), phrasing and form ("movement and parts are structured to match the phrasing of the music"), and so on. Even the "variety and contrast" criterion has something to do with music: "Varied use of tempo, rhythm..."
So far as the CoP is concerned, musicality is a global factor in the presentation marks. "Live with it regardless whether you are happy or not," said the famous CoP saying.
 

ImaginaryPogue

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Performance/Execution

Definition: is the involvement of the skater/couple/teams physically, emotionally, and intellectually as they translate the intent of the music and choreography.

Execution: is the quality of movement and precision in delivery. This includes harmony of movement in Pair Skating and Ice Dancing.

Criteria:
Physical, emotional, and intellectual involvement: In all skating disciplines each skater must be physically committed, sincere in emotion, and equal in comprehension of the music and in execution of all movement.

Carriage:
Carriage is a trained inner strength of the body that makes possible ease of movement from the center of the body. Alignment is the fluid change from one movement to the next.

Style and individuality/personality
Style is the distinctive use of line and movement as inspired by the music. Individuality/personality is a combination of personal and artistic preferences that a skater/pair/couple brings to the concept, manner, and content of the program.

Clarity of movement
Clarity is characterized by the refined lines of the body and limbs, as well as the precise execution of any movement.

Variety and contrast
Varied use of tempo, rhythm, force, size, level, movement shapes, angles, and, body parts as well as the use of contrast.

Projection
The skater radiates energy resulting in an invisible connection with the audience.

Unison and “oneness” (Pair Skating and Ice Dancing)
Each skater contributes equally toward achieving all six of the performance criteria.

Balance in performance (Pair Skating and Ice Dancing)

Spatial Awareness between partners – management of the distance between partners and
management of changes of hold (Pair Skating and Ice Dancing)

The use of same techniques in edges, jumping, spinning, line, and style are necessary concepts of visual unison; both skaters must move alike in stroke, and movement of all limbs and head with an equal workload in speed and power.(Pair
Skating)
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
An interesting datum. In fact, all of these data are interesting. :)
The data does not support my hypothesis that marking reference datums on the ice can facilitate measurement of a skater's speed. :biggrin::p
My main beef is this. I like figure skating. But I love numbers. I hate like anything to see them abused. I hate to see them forced into unwilling service by taskmasters who do not respect what they are.
I went to a psychiatrist for treatment of my numerical abuse. He said there is no medical cure due to my brain size, which has stopped growing many years ago. :bang:
 
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skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
This is a question that has puzzled me for years: A great majority of skaters who already lagged behind the music would rather complete fully the choreography that had nothing to do with an element (i.e., final spin/jump) and run the risk of receiving the time deduction than simply abridge the rest and quickly make an end pose. Most of those choreographic moves, after the music had stopped, had lost their purposes and looked awkward without the music. Can't they have a plan B that contains only a few seconds to quickly but meaningfully end the program?
 
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ImaginaryPogue

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
In this specific case, I actually think Chan tried to but was simply too far behind. As for Chan, please - if h had an "interpetative plan b" it would just be another brick to throw at him.
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
In this specific case, I actually think Chan tried to but was simply too far behind. As for Chan, please - if h had an "interpetative plan b" it would just be another brick to throw at him.
Although his time violation reminded me of this long-held question of mine, it was not specifically about him. It is a genuine question I have had for a long time. In his case, I actually can understand why he had difficulty in catching up--His program was so jam-packed. Even his complex transitions seemed to demand a great deal of muscle memory that, I guess, could not be easily adjusted at will. As you said, "if he had an interpretative plan b". It implied he probably did not have one. So this comes back to my question: Does any skater have a Plan B in that regard? If no, why not?
 

wallylutz

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Although his time violation reminded me of this long-held question of mine, it was not specifically about him. It is a genuine question I have had for a long time.

I guess the fact you have to emphasize it's a genuine question says a lot about all the other "questions" you have had in this thread.
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
I guess the fact you have to emphasize it's a genuine question says a lot about all the other "questions" you have had in this thread.
I meant a true question, not a rhetoric question. For example,
Genuine question: Do you have any certificate from the Royal Conservatory of Music? What level is it?
Rhetoric question: When you said you received formal musical training at Royal Conservatory of Music, did you mean you attended the Glenn Gould School or Young Artists Performance Academy, or their community programs like Children's Programs? Since you are well-versed in music as you claimed, why haven't I come across any post of yours that analyzed a performance with the common language used in the musical field?
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Responding to gkelly.

Is the following a fair way to look at it? The Skating Skills component measures the level of mastery of a competitor's fundamental blade-to-ice skills. This is clearly the most important thing in a skating contest -- who can skate the best? Then the artistic components like Interpretation measure how well the skater put those skills to the service of the music.

The problem is, I do not see that the judges are doing anything more than copying the SS mark over into the INT column, regardless of skill level or evidence of musicality. I just looked at the men's SS scores at Worlds versus their INT scores. The biggest difference was 0.36 points, and except for two exceptions no one had a difference of more that .25 -- the smallest possible individual increment.

One would think that once in a while a skater would exhibit strong skating skills but deliver a performance that was not exceptional in terms of musicality.

Conversely, it seems like it is possible for a skater to have less secure mastery of complex technique but still to give a performance of relatively high musical merit. But this never happens. For the PCS we might just as well take the SS score and multiply it by 5. Why pretend?

SS...INT
9.11 9.21
8.39 8.43
8.71 8.82
8.18 8.43
8.21 8.39
7.57 7.68
7.89 7.86
8.21 8.43
7.50 7.86
7.04 6.86
7.57 7.43
7.04 6.79
7.18 7.21
7.68 7.61
6.89 6.68
7.46 7.50
7.61 7.57
7.61 7.61
6.32 5.96
6.25 6.29
6.29 6.14
5.96 6.18
6.54 6.71
5.93 5.89

Coefficient of correlation: r = .985. (This means we can use the SS score to predict the INT score and be really, really close almost all the time.)
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
I take Mathman's suggestion and multiply SS by 10 (5 components and factor 2) to compare with the PCS:


TES ... SSx10...PCS

88.56...91.10...90.14 Chan
91.99...83.90...83.00 Hanyu
88.16...87.10...85.78 Takahashi
81.41...81.80...81.66 Amodio
79.17...82.10...81.94 Joubert
78.78...75.70...74.92 Ten
75.86...78.90...77.02 Brezina
69.78...82.10...81.56 Abbott
75.84...75.00...75.50 Contesti
79.86...70.40...67.80 KVDP
73.55...75.70...73.30 kOZUKA
80.53...70.40...67.22 Song
73.45...71.80...70.80 Reynolds
69.34...76.80...75.66 Fernandez
77.09...68.90...66.14 Voronov
70.24...74.60...73.84 Rippon
65.94...76.10...74.34 Verner
64.48...76.10...74.08 Gachinski
66.14...63.20...59.78 Liebers
60.73...62.50...61.50 Caluza
61.57...62.90...60.36 Pfaifer
62.24...59.60...59.20 Lucine
57.62...65.40...64.50 Ge
53.24...59.30...58.02 Raya

With the exception of Contesti, every skater's SS is higher than the average of all components. However, for many skaters, IN is the highest scoring component.

Skaters with higher PCS than TES: Chan (1.58), Amodio (0.25), Joubert (2.77), Brezina (1.20), Abbott (11.78), Fernandez (6.32), Rippon (3.60), Verner (8.40), Gachinski (9.60), Caluza (0.77), Ge (6.88), and Raya (4.78).

Of these, quite a few were under-performing at Worlds, mostly with messed up jumps.

Skaters with higher TES than PCS: Hanyu (8.99), Takahashi (2.38), Ten (3.86), Contesti (0.34), KVSP (12.06), Kozuka (0.25), Song (13.31), Reynolds (2.65), Voronov (10.95), Liebers (6.36), Pfeifer (1.21).

Of these, some of them have a lot to work on presentation wise.
 

skatinginbc

Medalist
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
I take Mathman's suggestion and multiply SS by 10 (5 components and factor 2) to compare with the PCS....
Based on Skatefiguring's data, the correlation coefficient (r) between SS and PCS is 0.9943. And the result proves Mathman's claim that having all those subcategories of PCS is merely an act of pretense. The ideal correlation coefficient should be somewhere between 0.85 to 0.95 given that SS and PCS should be highly correlated, but not perfectly correlated. The 0.9943 coefficient tells us PCS contains one category and one category only, namely, Skating Skills. The evidence suggests that the ISU should either abandon the existing components or have a major surgery on CoP. And those who champion the current scoring methods are either fooled by the system or fond of fooling themselves and others. I'm thinking: Are people so easily fooled? Or is it not so much about logic as about politics or power or existing status?
Of these, some of them have a lot to work on presentation wise.
And some of them might have been underscored.





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Last edited:

Robeye

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Responding to gkelly.

Is the following a fair way to look at it? The Skating Skills component measures the level of mastery of a competitor's fundamental blade-to-ice skills. This is clearly the most important thing in a skating contest -- who can skate the best? Then the artistic components like Interpretation measure how well the skater put those skills to the service of the music.

The problem is, I do not see that the judges are doing anything more than copying the SS mark over into the INT column, regardless of skill level or evidence of musicality. I just looked at the men's SS scores at Worlds versus their INT scores. The biggest difference was 0.36 points, and except for two exceptions no one had a difference of more that .25 -- the smallest possible individual increment.

One would think that once in a while a skater would exhibit strong skating skills but deliver a performance that was not exceptional in terms of musicality.

Conversely, it seems like it is possible for a skater to have less secure mastery of complex technique but still to give a performance of relatively high musical merit. But this never happens. For the PCS we might just as well take the SS score and multiply it by 5. Why pretend?

SS...INT
9.11 9.21
8.39 8.43
8.71 8.82
8.18 8.43
8.21 8.39
7.57 7.68
7.89 7.86
8.21 8.43
7.50 7.86
7.04 6.86
7.57 7.43
7.04 6.79
7.18 7.21
7.68 7.61
6.89 6.68
7.46 7.50
7.61 7.57
7.61 7.61
6.32 5.96
6.25 6.29
6.29 6.14
5.96 6.18
6.54 6.71
5.93 5.89

Coefficient of correlation: r = .985. (This means we can use the SS score to predict the INT score and be really, really close almost all the time.)
Fantastic stuff. It provides some very provocative initial analytical foundation for a variety of conceptual misgivings I've had with PCS.

My take: while skating bodies philosophically buy into the idea that artistic components are independent factors in scoring, they are somewhat fainthearted in the actual application.

Which is why I focus on two aspects (as per my previous posts) that could go a long way to addressing the issues:

1) separate the technical judging from the artististic judging (which, in the most rigorous version, would include some mechanism for preventing the two groups from sharing scoring information), and

2) a procedure for artistic scoring that would force a scoring differentiation between skaters.

There could me ways to skin the cat other than my still partially-baked proposal, but I do think that any procedure that seeks to address the shortcomings of PCS, not only in concept but in practice, need to address those two points.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
With the exception of Contesti, every skater's SS is higher than the average of all components.

I think this is because Transitions are uniformly lower than any other component score. (This was so 23 times out of 24 at Worlds, the exception being Liebers who got 5.86 in TR compared to 5.82 in P&E.)

Why are Transitions the lowest? Possibly just because the ISU judges have drifted into this habit and can't change now without risking the dreaded corridor. :) Possibly the Joe Inman effect: "Hey, guys, before you start giving out 9s, show me some transitions." Possibly because transitions can actually be counted, measured, and evaluated for variety and difficulty; this category contains relatively less baloney than the other four and so is not so easy to pad.
 
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