Can someone break it down for me? (re. the draws)

I read the threads about the qualifying and the short program draws, and I keep hearing people say "I hope (skater X) makes the final group" or "(Skater Y) is only in warm-up group 4".

I'm a bit confused now...how are the warm-up groups decided? Are they decided by the skaters' placements, or what?

Thx. in advance.

For the qualifying round the groups are decided by a random draw, so regardless of ability, past placements etc any skater could be skating in any group.

For the rest of the competition however the groups are determined by the placements of the skater in the previous round of the competition.

So for example with the ladies. Sasha Cohen won her qualifying group so that guarantees her a place in the final warm-up group for the short program. Where in this group she skates is then a random draw with the other five skaters in the group. However if she bombs in the SP and finishes outside the top five but inside the top ten she will drop to the penultimate warm-up group for the free where again her skate order will be determined by a random draw with all other skaters in that group.
Conversely Irina only finished fifth in her qualifying and so is in the penultimate group for SP but if she skates a stormer she could move into the final group for the free or if she has a bad skate she could drop out to the earlier group.

Hope this explains it.

Diver Chick, not only does that explain it, I love your prose.

Mathman

Thanks, that helps.

I forgot to also ask in my original post: how are ties decided (at the end)?

Also, is there a specific advantage to being in a later group (I guess having more warm-up time, etc.)?

Red Dog said:

Also, is there a specific advantage to being in a later group (I guess having more warm-up time, etc.)?

Click to expand...

The conventional wisdom with the ordinals judging is that it hurts one's chances to skate early, since judges may have forgotten your skate by the time they have to compare it with the later skate.

Also, skaters who go last know how their competitors did. Sometimes, that means they can decide if they want to risk going for harder elements, or play it safe. Sometimes, though, this backfires. For example, in SLC Irina went last. She says she did not attempt a 3-3 combo because she already knew that Michelle did not skate well. It did not even occure to her that she could be placed behind Sarah.

I see, thanks very much.

Mathman, thank you very much for that compliment!

I do always try to make myself clear and understood, particularly now that I am trying to write a PhD thesis

what field?

Environmental Epidemiology is the official research area. I have spent the last two years conducting a study that aims to investigate peoples exposure to traffic pollution here in Wales and the associated health effects.