The New judging system kills figure skating and loses the beauty of sport

[ILoveFigures]

The programs chosen are very much influenced by your views. So it has little reliability in explaining anything. I could find perfectly artistic, beautiful CoP friendly program, by the way, there are plenty, against a dull 6.0 program.

There is no point to ask for purely entertaining programs in competitions. So "The really entertaining program is very rare today" is no problem at all. And that should not be a reason against CoP.

I agree with this. The programs Plushyfan showed seem to be very much influenced by his/her own view on the situation.

I would also adress that I think some of you forget how much influence it can have on a sport in a country to have a dominant athlete. Do some of you honestly think figure skating would have been THAT popular in the USA if it had not been for Michelle Kwan? (It probably helped that she came right after the Harding/Kerrigan incident.) Not only that, but along with Michelle Kwan came a bunch of fabulous teenagers, and the USA totally dominated the sport. Now the USA have no one (not factoring Ashley's recent success here). No ladies. No men.

Recently I watched some vidoes from the world championships in Nagano in 2002 and it was evident that there were several seats available. At that time Japan only had Fumie Suguri and Takeshi Honda. Look at Japan now. Their skaters dominate both men and ladies and there are butts in every seat at every competition.

I think most of you neglect how much influence athletes' ability to gain medals mean for the popularity of a sport in a country.

[glam]

But isn't that exactly the point? To the casual, non-figure skating fan, maybe the new programs lack... well... entertainment value?

But figure skating should be mostly sport, not entertainment. It needs to be taken seriosly in order to progress and develope it. There are shows for people who just want to see entertainment. And there are entertaining COP programs, for example Fernandez's Chaplin program.

[plushyfan]

I agree with this. The programs Plushyfan showed seem to be very much influenced by his/her own view on the situation.

I like how you explain my choice. I wasn't ready for this poll, I chose quickly. Why were bad choice Chan or Dai? Candeloro was third in Nagano with this program. When I chose it, I wanted a really simply program-two foot skating, interesting but not too difficult footwork, etc- compared to the new programs. Do you think if I had chosen Yag's programs in 2002, those would have been losers?

[plushyfan]

But figure skating should be mostly sport, not entertainment.

Oh yes, but I remember to 2010.

[gkelly]

There's more to figure skating than jumps (which are probably the most entertaining aspect of the technical content) and artistry.

General audiences might not care about the actual skating technique, but without it there is no sport.

[Bluebonnet]

Oh yes, but I remember to 2010.

Completely understandable.

But I'm sure you remember this where he earned 157.52:

Plushenko's 2012 European Championship LP

[Daniel5555]

By the way, guys, sorry that I'll get a bit offtopic, or rather I'll go back some pages, but one of the things that frustrates me about threads like this is that there are are always people who propose changes to the system, usually quite a lot of changes, some of them directly affecting the foundations of the current system.

While I definitely do agree that the system can be improved, after all, there are also a lot of valid criticism of IJS and there were things that were better in 6.0, like spins were more interesting, still I think that one of the main problems right now that no one seems to address is that there are constant rule changes. After each season some tweaks are made to the system, some of them quite major. It all makes things way more complicated for skaters and coaches than they should have been. People complain all the time about the programs and quality of performances, but think about this - if you're a skater or a coach and you always deal with rule changes at the start of every season, you just have to spend time to adapt yourself to those changes. You could invest this time, perhaps, in polishing technique or improving the programs, but instead you have to fix your newly found faults and adapt to new changes.
I think that we just need 2 or 3 seasons without any changes at all and then, based on the information we can collect from it, we can make much more valuable and significant changes that will improve the system.

I do understand that it is very interesting to think about what rule changes you'd like to see, I myself would change a couple of things too, but I think when we are doing this, we are missing the point here. The only way we can really know if a change is good or not is to spend some time with it and see where it leads us. But if we are just constantly changing things we will never see what those rules actually may do with the sport and what are the best things that can be produced with them.

I think that skaters do understand this better than we fans do, because they always mention those rule changes. I think, we as fans, should also question if all those constant changes do any good to the sport.

[seniorita]

But I'm sure you remember this where he earned 157.52:

Plushenko's 2012 European Championship LP

176.52

[plushyfan]

Completely understandable.

But I'm sure you remember this where he earned 157.52:

Plushenko's 2012 European Championship LP

No, he earned 176.21

[plushyfan]

176.52

oops, yes you are right..

[LRK]

To those who keep harping on the fact that plushyfan's choices aren't scientific proof or whatever - well, of course not; she (?) already said so herself, so pointing this out is scarcely, if you'll excuse my saying it, rocket science. In fact, any poll or stastics rarely prove anything - or only prove some specific thing: for instance, a poll here on GS would only prove what we here on GS think - or those of us who happened to see the poll and bothered to vote on it. And even then it would very much depend on how the question was framed and what specifically was asked. To give a non-figure-skating example: I recently saw a poll asking if people would be happy with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing Batman in the Justice League movie; and I realised that I would be happy for him to do that - but would NOT be happy for him to play Bruce Wayne; however since this was not spelled out in either the question or the article, I could not vote on the poll.

So, can we just please take for a given that this doesn't scientifically PROVE anything, especially now that plushyfan has further explained her criteria for choosing these programs - and just move on? It's just an indication of something - not proof. A fun little spur-of-the moment experiment. So, let's not rediscover the wheel in post - after post after post - by pointing this out, shall we? Naturally, you may all do as you please, but I don't think it makes for either particularly interesting - or constructive - discussion. YMMV.

[Bluebonnet]

176.52

True! Sorry that I accidently took his preliminary round score.

[Binthere]

As a relatively 'serious' skating fan, I actually wish we could see more detailed scores during the actual event. This is antithetical to the notion that the complicated system with its numbers out to 2 decimal places is killing it in the eyes of the broader public that thrives on the equivalent of ordinals or letter-grades or a readily digested 6.0 or "!10" system but I want to see both the PCS components, and also which judge gave what mark. Half the fun in the old days was scowling at the obvious national bias in the judging, which surely has not gone away. If anything, I expect it has only grown.

[plushyfan]

[QUOTE=LRK;689665]To those who keep harping on the fact that plushyfan's choices aren't scientific proof or whatever - well, of course not; she (?) already said so herself, so pointing this out is scarcely, if you'll excuse my saying it, rocket science. ....QUOTE]

I'M "she"

[let`s talk]

The programs chosen are very much influenced by your views. So it has little reliability in explaining anything.

I agree with this. The programs Plushyfan showed seem to be very much influenced by his/her own view on the situation.

How so? I assume plushyfan simply took the last WC under 6.0 and compared it with the current WC under CoP. She couldn't influence the WC titles.