Time to finally replace COP/IJS? | Golden Skate

Time to finally replace COP/IJS?

Mao88

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 9, 2011
Patrick Chans 'win' over Denis Ten has been almost universally slammed. Indeed, if such a result were to be repeated in next years Olympics where the sport will be more under the global microscope, it would be a scandal of 2002 proportions, and it would probably be the final nail in the coffin for the sport as it were

In this article, Christine Brennen writes:-

Chan fell twice and made sloppy errors on two other jumps, but otherwise was given the world title over Ten who performed far better and should have won...inflation was back in full force, with too generous PCS.

Phil Hersh also weighed in with this article. He wrote:-

[Chan's] performance...wasn't much to write home about...Unless...someone wanted to add a chapter to the voluminous history of ridiculously unjustifiable judging in figure skating. A dose of home-cooked "inflation" allowed the Canadian to win his third straight men's world title.


The time has come to get rid of what has become a totally discredited judging system that is ruining the sport.
 

skatel80

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 12, 2012
The problem isnt so much with IJS as with how it is used, the problem is in the implementation. If the judges would use ijs to mark what they actually saw it would work wonderfully (yes I know this is unlikely to happen in figure skating) for skaters this system is great as they can finish a competition get their protocal and see exactly where they lost marks and what to improve for next time. In smaller competitions where there are no skaters with big reputations you ca reallly see its benefits, as the placements generaly reflect what you have seen and also it helps skaters to measure their improvement from competition to competition, as opposed to getting a 4.6 one time and then a 4.3 the next time with the same skate ( I used to find this very frustrating as a skater)
The problem lies in the judging, they really need to stop propping skaters up and marking based on reputation as this is making people blame the system when really it isnt that bad, it is far superior to 6.0 In my opinion having had direct experience of both ( 6.0 as a skater and IJS as a coach)
 

bigsisjiejie

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 22, 2009
I don't agree. I think the fundamental flaw of the IJS concept is that it tries to take a totality (a holistic program) and break it up into elements to such a minute degree. A skating program has so many dimensions that compose the whole, that when you try to score elements individually then sum everything up, you often end up with a bogus result because you focused on trees, thereby losing sight of the whole forest. Historically, figure skating has been about forests, not trees.

The IJS might be salvageable if the ISU would keep the TES idea relatively intact but change the GOE scale from -4 to 0 (no positives), and subtract -5 for every fall off the TES. On the PCS side, get it down to only 2 components: (1) blade-to-ice skills and (2) artistic/performance quality. The rest of what they currently have is all superfluous crap that can be reflected in the remaining 2 categories.

Eliminate levels or reduce down to level 1 (basic), level 2 (moderate/average), level 3 (complex) with redefinitions of each that allow for multiple ways to get levels 2 and 3, without having to resort to a Bielmann or a butt spin. Eliminate levels for the required step sequence, going back to choice of spiral, circular, or serpentine with simplified rules of having to turn in both directions and be directly relevant to the musical concept. The formulaic step sequences that look tortured and alike are IMO the bane of singles' programs.

Get rid of anonymous judging. If full rotations and proper lutz/flip edges are going to remain important, then allow for slo-mo replay for the tech controller, with instructions to judges to hold marking until the ruling is made. It doesn't take that long with current technology. I'd prefer no "e" edge calls, it's either a lutz or a flip, and if that gets skaters into Zayak rule problems, so be it.

I'm sure I could think of more ideas to try to "fix" IJS. But if someone said either choose IJS 100% or choose old 6.0 100%, I'd prefer the old system (or use the old professional 10.0 system). It was at least understandable to the audience, and don't underestimate what that might to do once again make skating more understandable to the mainstream.
 

elif

Medalist
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Like Artistic Gymnastic I don't think we need to Program Component Score. Transitions, speed awarded with GOE already. So just technical points enough for me.:biggrin:
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Well if there was any travesty done by the judges it had to be the free skate of Robin Szolkowy and Aliona Savchenko of Germany. Their music choice was horrible, they both fell and were generally sloppy and their costumes were awful. Yet, they were awarded the silver. Both Canadian pairs did a stellar job. Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford should have received the silver. As far as Patrick Chan goes, he did skate an outstanding short program, it was perfect. As always his musicality and artistry were outstanding despite his mistakes. Just about all the men made small mistakes, so Patrick was not alone out there. It was not a great night for any of the male skaters. Sometimes that is the way it goes. Don't forget there are two programs and usually the skater who earns the most marks in their short program has the edge over everyone else - nothing new there - figure skating is always subjective. It's too bad two medals can't be awarded, one for the short and one for the long. Maybe that is the answer, but unfortunately, it's two programs, one medal. I know Patrick wishes he had put down the same effort in his long program as he did in his short, but hey the guy is human as Kurt said. He promisses to deliver a better long program at the Olympics and I believe he will. Perhaps the answer is not changing the judging system but bring back figures to the game and get rid of the quad. I think the emphasis on the quad has ruined the quality of men's skating. It has become who can out jump the other skater instead of who lays down the most wonderful program.
 

blue_idealist

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
No matter what the system, there will be complaints. I think COP is better than 6.0, honestly, and it's too early to scrap it - it pretty much just came out in the last few years! There have been questionable men's Olympic gold medalists under 6.0, including ones that skated bad long programs (Scott Hamilton, Viktor Petrenko, anyone? although, granted, Scott had a figures lead).
 

Moment

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Nothing wrong with the result for me. Denis Ten is a mediocre skater and Patrick with two falls still deserved his title.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Nothing wrong with the result for me. Denis Ten is a mediocre skater and Patrick with two falls still deserved his title.

But that isn't how sports works. Sometimes a "mediocre" athlete or team has a great night or a great series and wins when it counts and sometimes a great athlete or team makes mistakes on the biggest stage and loses. Wild card teams have won the World Series (5) and the Super Bowl (6) after all. If skating wants to be taken seriously as a sport, it has to reward what happens at the competition.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I'd be fine with COP is errors were deducted in a way that reflects their impact on the performance, specifically falls should be punished more harshly and perhaps URs less so.
 

Icey

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
I don't think it needs to be replaced, just some adjustments , but I wonder if any will be made before the Olympic.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I don't think it needs to be replaced, just some adjustments , but I wonder if any will be made before the Olympic.

I expect there will be small adjustments between 2013 and 2014, and medium-sized adjustments starting in 2014.

I don't expect a major overhaul that soon, but one of these years there will probably be a big change of some sort or other. Maybe decades before anything as major as the removal of school figures or the switch from ordinals to adding up points.
 

Ravensque

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 31, 2009
Nothing wrong with the result for me. Denis Ten is a mediocre skater and Patrick with two falls still deserved his title.

ITA....plus Patrick had that magnificent 98 point cushion from the short......Chan haterz seem to forget about that. He landed his quads, and people seem to forget about that as well. His skating is sublime, and no one can touch him on the blade, but haterz forget about that too.
 

Icey

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
I was surprised on the telecast that I could here Kostner's and Chan's blades as much or more than other skaters. And I don't hate either.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
I don't agree. I think the fundamental flaw of the IJS concept is that it tries to take a totality (a holistic program) and break it up into elements to such a minute degree. A skating program has so many dimensions that compose the whole, that when you try to score elements individually then sum everything up, you often end up with a bogus result because you focused on trees, thereby losing sight of the whole forest. Historically, figure skating has been about forests, not trees.

The IJS might be salvageable if the ISU would keep the TES idea relatively intact but change the GOE scale from -4 to 0 (no positives), and subtract -5 for every fall off the TES. On the PCS side, get it down to only 2 components: (1) blade-to-ice skills and (2) artistic/performance quality. The rest of what they currently have is all superfluous crap that can be reflected in the remaining 2 categories.

Eliminate levels or reduce down to level 1 (basic), level 2 (moderate/average), level 3 (complex) with redefinitions of each that allow for multiple ways to get levels 2 and 3, without having to resort to a Bielmann or a butt spin. Eliminate levels for the required step sequence, going back to choice of spiral, circular, or serpentine with simplified rules of having to turn in both directions and be directly relevant to the musical concept. The formulaic step sequences that look tortured and alike are IMO the bane of singles' programs.

Get rid of anonymous judging. If full rotations and proper lutz/flip edges are going to remain important, then allow for slo-mo replay for the tech controller, with instructions to judges to hold marking until the ruling is made. It doesn't take that long with current technology. I'd prefer no "e" edge calls, it's either a lutz or a flip, and if that gets skaters into Zayak rule problems, so be it.

I'm sure I could think of more ideas to try to "fix" IJS. But if someone said either choose IJS 100% or choose old 6.0 100%, I'd prefer the old system (or use the old professional 10.0 system). It was at least understandable to the audience, and don't underestimate what that might to do once again make skating more understandable to the mainstream.

I like a lot of these ideas. Better yet, I like the idea of getting rid of the IJS altogether. I'd prefer 6.0 with honest judges--or a least accountable judges unlike the current ones, who hide behind anonymity.
 

Eislauf

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
But that isn't how sports works. Sometimes a "mediocre" athlete or team has a great night or a great series and wins when it counts and sometimes a great athlete or team makes mistakes on the biggest stage and loses. Wild card teams have won the World Series (5) and the Super Bowl (6) after all. If skating wants to be taken seriously as a sport, it has to reward what happens at the competition.

Exactly. Great analogy with the World Series and Super bowl. Plus "Cinderella stories" of underdogs winning make for an exciting competition and better, wider press - which skating desperately needs right now.

Also, since judging tends to reward good skating reputations more than it does a given performance, there's almost no point in having competitions if everyone can guess at the outcome. Medals may as well be awarded simply for average score over a season.
 

vlaurend

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
I love how, every time this topic is brought up (usually thanks to ignorant journalists who are remnants of the 6.0 era and have never embraced IJS), there are basically two responses: (1) We need to get rid of IJS because the PCS mark is too biased, and (2) We should go back to 6.0. And some people even manage to say both things in the same post, which is really ironic, seeing as the more subjective PCS mark is just a thinly disguised version of 6.0.
And of course it's always Patrick Chan who gets attacked as unfairly benefiting under this judging system. Remember when he was criticized for winning without a quad? So now he's landing gorgeous quads. So he has to be criticized for falling. Like no other skater ever won in spite of falling. If they change the system so that there are greater penalties for falls, then he'll just stop doing the riskier jumps. . . and then, that's right, people will go back to complaining about how he "shouldn't win when he didn't even attempt a quad or a triple axel!"
I think it's pretty clear that the real problem is not the judging system--which is already being modified every single season--but Patrick Chan. Maybe someone should just bang him really hard on the knee and take him out of competition so that we don't have to deal with one skater ruining the system for all of us by being head and shoulders above the rest in skating skills, transitions, interpretation, choreography and performance.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
And of course it's always Patrick Chan who gets attacked as unfairly benefiting under this judging system. Remember when he was criticized for winning without a quad? So now he's landing gorgeous quads. So he has to be criticized for falling. Like no other skater ever won in spite of falling. If they change the system so that there are greater penalties for falls, then he'll just stop doing the riskier jumps. . . and then, that's right, people will go back to complaining about how he "shouldn't win when he didn't even attempt a quad or a triple axel!"

It's interesting you bring this up. My first reaction is "of course he is benefitting because this was one of the worst WC winning performances ever." However, at every Worlds you have between 3 and 5 serious contenders for gold. This year they were Chan, Dai, and Yuzuru. We all figured the champion would come from that group, and Patrick did actually skate the best of those 3 across both programs. Favorites not only get good PCS but get GOE benefits as well, getting +2 and +3 on jumps with shaky landings. Maybe Dennis did skate better than Chan, but realistically no one had him on their radar and so it takes some time to develop the reputation needed to win the title. Having said that, I do wish Dennis did win because although Chan is better in PCS, Dennis is also very good and IMO was good enough there to overtake Chan with far superior TES.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
...so that we don't have to deal with one skater ruining the system for all of us by being head and shoulders above the rest in skating skills, transitions, interpretation, choreography and performance.

But Chan's NOT head and shoulders above the rest in all of those categories, however. E.g. skating skills? Yes. Interpretation? No.

And no amount of 9s the judges throw at him for crap performances like his LP at Worlds will convince me that he is indeed head and shoulders above the rest of the men in every single PCS category.
 

sweetskates1

Medalist
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
But Chan's NOT head and shoulders above the rest in all of those categories, however. E.g. skating skills? Yes. Interpretation? No.

And no amount of 9s the judges throw at him for crap performances like his LP at Worlds will convince me that he is indeed head and shoulders above the rest of the men in every single PCS category.

I agree! I feel nothing when I watch him skate and this is an spectator sport and I have the right to voice my opinion along with others (many!) that share it.
 
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