ISU Congress Updates

[Mathman]

When we go to competitions, we make a game of guessing the scores while we wait for the numbers to come up. The person coming closest gets bragging rights until the next skater. We're usually right in the ballpark and the winner is usually within a point or two of the judges' score. And we don't find it hard to do at all.

That's very cool!

To me, though, the issue is not about whether the IJS is easy or hard to learn. It is the type of programs that it requires and encourages.

I was thinking about this when I was reading the new thread just started by Mao88 about historical performances that define the sport. Mao88 posted Michelle Kwan's 1998 U.S. Nationals performance of Lyra Angelica as her/his choice. If you look at this program from a CoP point of view, it has no transitions or footwork to speak of, the speed is not great, and the majority of the program is just gliding along setting up the next jump. And yet ... this is figure skating! It warms the cockles of our wee little hearts.

What we see now is wonderful if you are a skater, a skating parent, a coach, or a professional judge.

That's what I meant when I said that the IJS makes for a good sport for the participants and the inner circle of avid fans. For everyone else, the performances do not hold our interest as much as they used to -- much less hold our interest so much that we want to examine the protocols afterward.

[gmyers]

lots of unemotional and totally distancing and uninvolving busyness for busyness sake.

[blue dog]

In order to piggyback off what Mathman and gmyers (Americans! Must be uninformed, eh?) have said, I will use another activity, which many of you have probably never seen-- competitive intercollegiate parliamentary debate.

WHaaa? You thought debate was one-on-one arguing? Yep, that exists, too, but because that moved away from its original intent (proper communication), they invented this new form of debate that we speechies call "parli." It's based on British Parliamentary procedure.

Parli was created to make debate more accessible. In the beginning, original policy debate was accessible to the public--you can come in, watch a round, and decide for yourself who you thought won, because you could understand the speakers. As the times changed, they added jargon, they added acronyms--the communicability of the activity was LOST. Only judges and debaters understood what was going on. Then, participants were fed up because...lo and behold, people stopped watching debate. Why would you want to, when someone says the following:

T on their Def of sustainability. Predictability and Education (clear as mud?!)

So, long story short, Parli was born. Parli was like 6.0. Not only could you see artistic and technical performances, but those performances had the ability to MOVE THE SOUL. I could watch a parli round on world hunger, and be moved to do something about it, much like watching Kwan's Lyra at the 1998 Nationals made me want to pursue joy for joy's sake (oddly, Lipinski's performance in the Olympics that same year had the same effect--both performances just showed joy).

Now, like skating, parli has gone by the wayside. Back are the K's, T's, and other things audiences cannot understand. One of my art professors in college began our quarter of lectures at UCSD with "Art and Communication." Basically she meant that your art can be technically brilliant, but it means nothing if your meaning is not communicated. Many modern artists are annoyed that people come up with alternate interpretations; well, the splatters on the canvas did not convey suffering or joy to the viewer.

Skating has become that way, at least in the singles division (thankfully dance, of all places, is communicating?!). it's do this movement, bend your body that way, spin here, etc...all without meaning. Yes, many 6.0 skaters did not have meaning in their skating, but it seems more prevalent now to have even less meaning. No wonder why Liza Tuktamisheva has to get four programs -- even she is unable to be moved completely by her own program.

That's my uninformed post, and I'm sticking to it.

[Mathman]

Are you saying that CoP skating is more like rapid-fire?

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

[blue dog]

Are you saying that CoP skating is more like rapid-fire?

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

YES! Especially the laborious footwork sequences that have nothing to do with the music.

[dorispulaski]

May I recommend watching dance? both pre COP and post COP dance have some awesome performances

(A surprise from me, I know, )

[Dragonlady]

We're the 1%. Get a freaking clue, Dragonlady.

When I watch skating with people who aren't even casual fans, they understand that you get points for what you, bonus points for doing it well, and the person who gets the most points wins. The details are complex and but the concept is simple.

Much less difficult for the armchair viewer than ordinals and a majority of judges.

[Mathman]

B of P, a little courtesy never hurts.

Much less difficult for the armchair viewer than ordinals and a majority of judges.

True, but it was fun in the good old days to play tenth judge. Six judges went for Tara and only three for Michelle? Boo, my vote makes it 6 to 4. PLus, one of the judges looked a a little wishy-washy, like he could go either way, so in reality it was five to five. Which is a tie. A tie leaning a little bit toward the Michelle side. So basically, Michelle won.

It is not so easy for me to play judge in the big leagues with you and your friends. The judges gave my skater only 178.22? Boo, I thought it should have been 181.63 -- maybe 182.

May I recommend watching dance? both pre COP and post COP dance have some awesome performances.

I know! But it took me this long to memorize the scale of values for singles elements, now i have to start over from scratch and try to figure out what a carry lift is. (But let me take a stab at it. You lift your partner up and carry her?)

Seriously, I do have to give the CoP credit for one thing. Under 6.0 if you did seven triples and didn't fall down you were probably going to win. Now, knowing that you get six points for a triple Lutz and only 5.1 for a triple loop -- that gave me the incentive to try to learn the difference between these two jumps.

[Serious Business]

There are several factors that make results under the current judging system more opaque and unfathomable compared to the much older system, no matter how familiar one is with the COP and the rules:

Anonymous judging. Bloc judging was plain as daylight back in the day. Nowadays, though, we'll see one judge who gives a skater ridiculous high PCS marks compared to all the other judges, and we'll never know why.

Placement-altering point swings hinge on minute technical calls. Does that jump get an UR call? Did that footwork pattern get a level 3 instead of 4? These are all hinge on things so subjective, dedicated fans will sometimes begin their predictions by studying the history of the tech caller. Some minute (but enough to make a difference) tech calls are inconsistently called from competition to competition. Knowing the rules isn't enough. You have to know the specialists, and even that's not a guarantee.

And speaking of inconsistent scoring, there's the PCS. You can memorize the PCS guidelines by heart and still not know what to expect from one competition to another. That's because PCS judging is even more capricious, and with the judges being anonymous, there is no visible history for dedicated fans to make an educated guess on.

I will stress, though, that none of these are inherent flaws in the COP. They are all entirely fixable within its rubric. What is disheartening about the recent ISU congress is that no attempt whatsoever is made to address any of these issues.

And there are other issues. Even if the scores are predictable and understandable, it doesn't mean they're desirable. The thing is, if COP results matched with what most fans can see on ice and expect, they won't care about how byzantine it is! There have been more than a few competition results that defied the expectations of the skating audience. And then they find out that the disparity isn't a result of corruption or anything else, but esoteric technical details that they don't agree with. This is exactly similar to the situation figures were in back in the day: fans expected the free skate to count more than it did. Eventually, after a long, long time, skating gave in and did away with figures. We're in a situation now where fans expect falls on jumps to be a lot more costly than they are. It's not that they can't find out the numerical value of how much a fall costs, they just instinctively expect it to be enough change the placement. When it's not, they're going to be mad regardless of how much they understand about the COP. I am rather shocked that nothing about falls got adjusted at this congress.

And it is exactly because some fans understand that they are mad about PCScoring. It is because they understand the different categories and requirements of PCS that they can't understand why judges seem so blind to what's happening on the ice. They don't understand why a skater who is clearly inferior in interpretation would get a higher score in it than another skater, and so on. This may not be something that should or can be addressed by simply changing the rules, but rather something that judges will have to be educated on in their own time. So I'll let the ISU congress off the hook for this one.

So, I really don't think understanding the system is the real issue when it comes to fans enjoying skating. To know it doesn't help one to love it.

[let`s talk]

The ISU did give a clear reason for extended Speedy's term

So did Lukashenko.

Even Putin wasn't THAT arrogant as Speedy.

Skate Canada double standards at its best.

[blue dog]

So did Lukashenko.

Even Putin wasn't THAT arrogant as Speedy.

Skate Canada double standards at its best.

LoL To be fair, Skate Canada voted against extending Speedy's term. I wonder if that'll come back to haunt them. David Dore, the ISU VP from Skate Canada, rose through the ranks during Speedy's regime. He, along with Speedy, was the biggest proponent of the IJS (while USA, JPN, AUS, and even RUS fought IJS).

[aftertherain]

http://www.examiner.com/article/inte...p?CID=obinsite

On the agenda was the infamous Resolution No. 7 — an unprecedented and illegal request by the president of the skating union, Ottavio Cinquanta. Because he is age-ineligible to run for reelection at the ISU Congress in 2014, he asked that the ISU simply extend his term in office and that of other office holders by an additional two years, till 2016. Imagine a U.S. president finishing his last constitutionally permitted term in office asking Congress to please let him hang around the Oval Office another two years.

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't been able to find any other English news articles on Mr. Ottavio Cinquanta in general.

[100yen]

whole post

Blue dog thank you! I think you've captured the essence of what is "wrong" with skating today. People are seeing it...but what is the message? What's the connectivity?

[Mathman]

http://www.examiner.com/article/inte...p?CID=obinsite

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't been able to find any other English news articles on Mr. Ottavio Cinquanta in general.

Yes, the ISU Congress did vote to extend Cinquanta's term of office for two additional years.

Did you all notice this? In the first edition of this article Meryl Davis was referred to as "Merlyn Davis." That has now been corrected to "Merly Davis."

[mskater93]

Can anyone confirm/deny this? I haven't been able to find any other English news articles on Mr. Ottavio Cinquanta in general.

You can confirm on ISU website from the resolutions that were passed