Plushenko: Chan Does Not Deserve World Title | Page 16 | Golden Skate

Plushenko: Chan Does Not Deserve World Title

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CanadianSkaterGuy

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I have no problem showing Lysacek's either. It was a really strong, well-rounded performance. And I doubt your friend would appreciate it any less just because he doesn't do a quad. I personally appreciate the content of Lysacek's 2010 LP to Plushenko's 2010 or 2006 LP... although Plushenko's 2006/2010 LPs are much more impressive technically, and the takeaway from me was just how absolutely dominant and consistent he was on the biggest stage.

You are beating up on a straw man. No one is arguing against you on this point.

That was in reference to the point of Chan's PCS being higher in spite of errors, when I was indicating that high PCS scores were also given to Hanyu's SP and Dai's FS in spite of multiple major errors, too.
 

drivingmissdaisy

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But if the officials of the skating federations are as upset as a few on this board, perhaps something will be done to shore up a system that allows someone to win when they've fallen twice. Frank Carroll can have his opinion just like the people here................but nothing will change the outcome of these Worlds.

I have mixed feelings about the scoring system. Clearly, if you focus on skating skills and choreography you can overcome jumps errors and still win. Everyone knows the rules and can choose to focus their training on better jumps or better programs. So, from that perspective, the guys who have mediocre choreography and don't win despite skating clean have no one to blame but themselves. Unlike the old scoring system, COP will not allow you to win unless you have top-notch programs.

Having said that, I'd like to see the scoring reward clean skating a bit more. This is a personal opinion, but I'd prefer seeing less difficult choreography if it means we will see cleaner programs. For me, the difficult transitions and fine skating skills compliment programs when all of the elements are presented masterfully; it just seems there isn't enough emphasis on doing the technical elements well.
 

Bluebonnet

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I wasnt impressed with Ten's long program ( liked his short). He stood on his feet but just skated through the music and I didnt find the emotion (IMO). Patrick on the other hand made his mistakes but there were couple of absolutely brilliant sections.

Ten's choreo was a lot easier than patrick's as well. It was a cookie cutter Lori program but dumbed down from what she would have given Patrick in the past.

Exactly! I know Chan didn't skate to his potential, neither did Ten. Even though Ten didn't have fall in his LP, on a whole, it was a careful, nervous skate throughout his LP except after the last jump which was near the end. This kind of performance wrapped up PE 8.89 was already mind boggling if using Chan basher's same mentality. Not to mention Ten's undeserving SS scores.
 

Jaana

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Look at it this way. Suppose you had a friend who you wanted to introduce to the sport of figure skating, hoping that they might take an interest in it. Would you show that friend the LP performance of the 2013 men's world championship?

I would show to my friend both Chan´s sp and lp and a couple other lp´s and explain why Chan won inspite of his falls. To get somebody interested in the sport of figure skating, one must get the friend educated a little bit. Besides, I believe that even to an untrained eye the way Chan effortlessly "floats" on the ice must look really impressive.
 

Bluebonnet

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I would show to my friend both Chan´s sp and lp and a couple other lp´s and explain why Chan won inspite of his falls. To get somebody interested in the sport of figure skating, one must get the friend educated a little bit.

Great choice! I'm sure someone won't mind to be involved into a sport with winners sometimes have falls, unless they are seeking figure skating for the purpose of pure performing art values. In that case, skating competitions are not right choice for them.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Here is the first thing that you could explain to your friend about the CoP. ;)

In the short program Denis Ten got 14 individual program component scores in the 7's. In the LP, which was not as well skated as the SP, he got no scores in the 7s and 15 in the 9's. Your friend asks, "What feature of the IJS justifies this discrepancy?"

Answer: At the beginning of the short program Ten was an also ran whose best finish at worlds, in four tries, was 6th, and who was coming off a 12th-place finish at Four Continents. Obviously such a skater only deserves a 7, and was lucky to get that.

In the LP this skater was a contender for a Worlds medal. Well, obviously contenders for Worlds medals deserve 8s and 9s.

Trying to "educate" fans about the CoP is suicide for the sport. Much better to show your friends the You Tube of Patrick Chan skating his heart out. Show them this, don't try to bamboozle them by showing them a sow's ear and trying to pretend it's a silk purse. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9LSJIzuQU
 
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gkelly

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Jul 26, 2003
If I were trying to get a friend interested in figure skating,

First I would enthusiastically point out all the great stuff that each of the skaters do -- a difficult jump element, a more difficult jump element that no one else is doing, and especially well-performed jump, a great spin and what's great about it, quality of movement over the ice -- speed, effortlessness, complexity, deep edges (how far the skater is leaning away from vertical, how big the curves are that s/he makes, how bent the skating knee is), beautiful body line, timing movements to the music especially well, expressing the character of the music especially well, telling a coherent story or having a coherent set of abstract images in the choreography, skating with energy and conviction, skating without mistakes (especially for a skater who has a history of making them but is having a breakthrough today).

Whatever happened to impress me most about each performance, I would share with my friend.

And if the skater did make a costly mistake, whether obvious to the casual eye or not, I would comment that it was likely to cost a lot of points.

I might make comments and guesses about how a given program, or a specific element, was likely to score. I might express surprise at a result or point out areas where I disagreed with specific decisions if known -- general PCS is the most likely while an event is in progress, we don't usually know about downgrades, GOEs, etc., until looking at the protocols after the fact.

But mostly I would focus on the skating first, not the scoring. I would try to get my friend interested in the actual skating first.

If I were trying to give a general idea of what is most valuable, what is likely to earn high scores and help skaters to win, I would focus on the quality of the skating skills and on the jump content, because those have historically been the most important determinants of results, under all judging systems. I would try not to give any impression that obvious mistakes like falls would or should automatically take a skater out of contention, because that has never been true. I would only acknowledge that the skater would lose points for the mistake, but I'd try to put the points lost in the context of all the other areas in which the skater was deservedly racking up points.

I watched the men's SP from Worlds with my 11-year-old nephew, and that's approximately the approach I took, tailored to his age and interests, including the fact that he's American and has the same first name as one of the competitors we watched.

If we were watching a long program, I would also mention short program standings and how much of a lead a skater might have had if a poorer long program looked likely to place lower than that skater had placed in the short.

Specific details about the scoring I would gloss over with a new viewer, except in response to a direct question. My aim would be to help the newbie appreciate the skating -- in all its complexity -- rather than to focus on whether the results were "correct" or not, and if not who was to blame.

If, on the other hand, I were watching with a lapsed fan who had followed skating in the 20th century and was trying to understand the changes in how the sport is practiced now, then I'd pay more attention to the kinds of program construction and content that the new scoring system encourages or discourages compared to the old system my friend used to know something about, how certain qualities are now significantly more, or less, valuable than my friend remembered. And we could share opinions about what we like better in one era compared to another.

But again, I wouldn't spend a lot of time focusing on specific PCS or other decisions that I and my friend disagree with, on what we might consider lapses on the part of the judges (or technical panel) or flaws in the way the system is designed, until the friend was already up to speed on how the system is supposed to work. It's hard to get a sense of the bigger picture by putting all the attention on exceptions.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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I think showing skaters the specifics/numbers of the system and the components scores is just confusing. What I would say to introduce them to the judging system:

Skaters have two marks - technical scores and program ("artistic") scores.

For technical score, they accumulate points for the elements that they execute (spins, footwork, and of course jumps). If they make errors on these elements, like falls or stumbles, they lose points. If they execute them well, they gain bonus points.

For the program score, you get scores out of 10 for how well you perform the program - like any dance competition, if you have choreography that is harder to do (more variety of steps, not simply skating around) and if you skate in time with the music and with good expression, you get more points. Simple choreography, less speed, poor expression all result in less-than-perfect scores.

You add these together to get a total of technical + artistic. This is done over two programs, a short program and long program. There is no ranking by the judges -- ranks/medalists are based on total accumulated points at the end of both programs. Sometimes a great jumper but bad performer will lose. Sometimes a great performer who makes too many technical mistakes will lose.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Having said that, I'd like to see the scoring reward clean skating a bit more. This is a personal opinion, but I'd prefer seeing less difficult choreography if it means we will see cleaner programs. For me, the difficult transitions and fine skating skills compliment programs when all of the elements are presented masterfully; it just seems there isn't enough emphasis on doing the technical elements well.

Yes! Imagine that, a skater being rewarded for skating cleanly. I do prefer the difficult choreography though. We've seen enough clean programs pre-IJS and it's nice to see that skaters are being pushed to make their programs and elements more intricate.

Like I said, it's really unfortunate when a lesser skater already has a 10-15 PCS disadvantage in each segment. It essentially nullifies any technical ability of theirs -- they essentially have to go clean in both segments just to end up slightly behind instead of grossly behind top skaters (even when these top skaters have programs riddled with errors). I agree that strong skating should be rewarded but it shouldn't hold anybody up. And as much as people say they are distinct, PCS should reflect errors made technically. There are plenty of skaters who if you look at the ranks of their TES and the ranks of their PCS, you're astounded at the discrepancy.
 

gkelly

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Sorry Mathman, maybe I misunderstood your original question about what to show a friend, focusing too much on your follow-up about Ten's scores, which I think is irrelevant for that purpose.

If I were choosing one or a handful of programs to show a friend to get them interested in skating, I probably would try to choose clean programs, and "great" programs.

Of course this would depend on what my friend tends to be interested in. E.g., if said friend really liked quirky avant-garde choreography and disdained classical style in dance, I might choose to show some examples of quirkier skating programs, to say "Yes, skating can do that too," even if I couldn't find videos of clean performances.

And of the hundreds of basically clean good performances I've seen and loved over the years, if I had to choose just a handful to show a friend, I would narrow down to styles I think my friend would like, or maybe a significant contrast to show the range I think the sport allows for.

If I were looking for all-time great performances to show, I think Chan's record-breaking short program from 2013 Worlds would be on my short list; I don't think any of the other medal performances from this year's men's competition would make that cut.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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If I were looking for all-time great performances to show, I think Chan's record-breaking short program from 2013 Worlds would be on my short list; I don't think any of the other medal performances from this year's men's competition would make that cut.

I think some of Yuzu's short programs from this year would count. As well as Javier Fernandez's LP at Europeans as an example of how astounding technical content can still work with good interpretation and choreography.
 
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Jun 21, 2003
Sorry Mathman, maybe I misunderstood your original question about what to show a friend, focusing too much on your follow-up about Ten's scores, which I think is irrelevant for that purpose.

I was responding to posts 303 and 304.

I would go with something like this (Shen and Zhao, 2003 Worlds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qqHEd0Bq9o

If my friend didn't like it, me talking is not going to help. Might as well switch over to the baseball game.
 

gkelly

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I think some of Yuzu's short programs from this year would count. As well as Javier Fernandez's LP at Europeans as an example of how astounding technical content can still work with good interpretation and choreography.

Yes, sorry, I meant from this year's Worlds specifically.

I was responding to posts 303 and 304.

Even so, I hope that post was just a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that after you start examining the details of the scoring, they don't always hold up to scrutiny.

I hope you weren't really suggesting that pointing to scores that don't hold up to scrutiny would be a good choice for "the first thing to explain to your friend about the CoP."

How can we even get a sense of when something is not working the way it's supposed to unless we first have a sense of how it's supposed to work?
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I hope you weren't really suggesting that pointing to scores that don't hold up to scrutiny would be a good choice for "the first thing to explain to your friend about the CoP."

No, I was making fun of the idea that explaining the CoP is a good way to introduce prospective fans to figure skating.

The first long paragraph of post 307 -- that's the way to go. :yes:
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Yes, sorry, I meant from this year's Worlds specifically.

I'd maybe show Ten's FS. There were some entertaining bits to it, even if it's not a great example of complex choreography. And his reaction at the end along with that of the crowd's was marvellous to watch too and a great way to show how the fans can really get into it.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
To me, the best performance was Davis and White's short dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7etC7yMjE-s

Again, the point I would make is this. If a prospective fan did not think this was charming, then there is nothing I can say to make that person feel otherwise.

I think this is what I would show to any of my friends who claimed ice dance isn't a real sport (which I sadly hear a lot, in spite of CoP changes that have certainly upped the difficulty).
 

plushyfan

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I really do not understand, if Patrick would have been second, D10 first, Patrick would be worse skater in figure skating fans's mind? No. But most of figure skating fans would be happy and peaceful. This is NOT GOOD FOR OUR BELOVED SPORT. The majority of fs fans are laymen, like me, despite I watched the fs in my whole life. The people want to see flawless World Champion! They need that feeling, "how much perfect he was"! Not such a champion, who fell more than once, but his opponent was flawless and amazing. And after the competition need to explain, explain and explain why he is the champion ...
 

noskates

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Jun 11, 2012
I guess I get what you're saying plushyfan but d10 was NOT flawless. And I believe that's the whole point of this dreary conversation. Had any of the top 5 men skated well - this loooooooooooooooooooooong thread would be pointless.
 

pangtongfan

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Jun 16, 2010
In the context of the horrible competition a skater who did a clean quad combo in both programs, triple axels, tons of other triples, had very good artistry and spins as well, and whose only "mistake" was doubling a jump, was flawless. Thus most will refer to Ten as such. Even if you nitpick and say he wasnt though he was very good in both programs, and also had a complete package of skating himself, and that makes him the clear winner to any casual eye over a bunch of guys who all skated very poorly in atleast one program (Chan's LP to anyone watching would be termed as a semi disaester and a poor skate). It is foolish to say Ten did not skate well to try and justify Chans ridiculous farcial victory.
 
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