Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS

Blades of Passion · Mar 17, 2014

leafygreens said:
This is why it is ridiculous that the ISU will only accept protests within 30 minutes. It has taken the entire internet almost a month just to investigate the footwork sequence. How would an athlete be able to do this, at the competition?

Well, I analyzed Yu-Na's footwork as soon as I had a good recording of it (less than a day after the event) and determined that the level call was blatantly wrong. I didn't bother to look at Sotnikova's footwork at that point, because between the lack of an underrotation call on her 3Lutz+3Toe combination and the wrongful call on Yu-Na's footwork, it was already clear to me that Yu-Na deserved to win.

It was later on when I when noticed how relatively short Sotnikova's step sequence was (25 seconds) that I suddenly questioned how she received a Level 4. Skaters generally need to spend at least 30 seconds on the footwork to get a Level 4 with the way the rules are right now. So I looked at the sequence closer and saw that, no, it was not a Level 4. To prove it, I wrote down everything she did in the footwork sequence and then did the same for Yu-Na as well. It's a quite tedious process writing it all down (the tech panel does not need to go to nearly this detail during competition), but that's the only way to actually prove it.

Aside from further exposing the poor judging (and cheating), this all goes to show that the footwork rules NEED to be changed.

leafygreens · Mar 17, 2014

jenaj said:
Awarding a skater the wrong level is not proof of corruption. And in an case where actual corruption was discovered, in Salt Lake, the solution was to award a second gold medal, not to revoke the first one.

A second gold medal would be better than nothing. Not the least of which would be tacit admission of wrongdoing on behalf of the judging panel.

TMC · Mar 17, 2014

kslr0816 said:
lol month long kiss and cry

Lol Big Brother on Ice :popcorn:

Mathman · Mar 17, 2014

jaylee said:
What a coincidence that these multiple "field of play" decisions benefited one skater and disadvantaged one other skater. What a coincidence! Amazing how technical panels on the GP, GPF, and Europeans managed to call Adelina on her flutzes and level 3 footwork in the FS but somehow the Olympic panel somehow missed them. What a coincidence!

leafygreens said:
Yes, you can. There have been multiple instances of medals being revoked-rewarded after investigation of impropriety. Whether it be athletes being on drugs, lying about their ages, or judges' conduct exposed. It can be done. If a judge is discovered to be corrupt, their "field of play" decision is null and void. Just like one underage gymnast voids the entire team's medal, one or more corrupt judge will void the entire panel.

I think you would have to prove that the judges actually went into the contest with the intention of cheating.

The technical specialists could say, a month later, you know, I have gone over and over the tapes from different points of view and now I see that I miscalled this counter – she didn’t really get over onto the correct edge in time after all. I will try to be more attentive to the camera angle next time.

Likewise, there were four judges who liked Adelina’s performance, two of whom liked it a lot. They could just say, well, I reviewed the tapes and now I see that I was too generous in giving a +3 GOE for this element, it should have only been a +2. Next time I will keep a closer guard on my objectivity and not get swept up in the roar of the crowd.

It wouldn’t be right, but the aggrieved athlete would be out of luck.

skatedreamer · Mar 17, 2014

kslr0816 said:
lol month long kiss and cry

Lots more crying than kissing -- certainly for those of us who believed the podium order should have been different. :disapp:

But seriously, if the judging had been transparent and didn't look so dodgy on its face, I wouldn't be nearly so frustrated. It's one thing to disagree w/ a result but infinitely different to have good reason to believe the result was reached unfairly. It's a disservice to everyone, including Adelina, whose OGM will always be tainted in many minds (as if this hasn't been said a gajillion times before by people who are far more knowledgeable than I...).

jenaj · Mar 17, 2014

leafygreens said:
A second gold medal would be better than nothing. Not the least of which would be tacit admission of wrongdoing on behalf of the judging panel.

That will never happen. There has to be proof. Mistakes (and they are mistakes until proven otherwise) do not justify revoking a medal or awarding a second one any more than pointing out a bad call in baseball can turn a loss into a win.

capcomeback · Mar 17, 2014

Mathman said:
I think you would have to prove that the judges actually went into the contest with the intention of cheating.

The technical specialists could say, a month later, you know, I have gone over and over the tapes from different points of view and now I see that I miscalled this counter – she didn’t really get over onto the correct edge in time after all. I will try to be more attentive to the camera angle next time.

Likewise, there were four judges who liked Adelina’s performance, two of whom liked it a lot. They could just say, well, I reviewed the tapes and now I see that I was too generous in giving a +3 GOE for this element, it should have only been a +2. Next time I will keep a closer guard on my objectivity and not get swept up in the roar of the crowd.

It wouldn’t be right, but the aggrieved athlete would be out of luck.

For the judges that "loved Adelina'"s FS, they could easily say that they were caught up in the crowd. For the judges that who went ga-ga (or just plain insane) giving" her "all-time" type scores on virtually all of her scores, have some serious 'splainin' to do. There was no way, that her program should have received 10 "3" for GOE, let alone 8 (as one of the other judges gave her). 5 and 6 two others gave her was a stretch. By coincidence, Adelina's PCS also seemed inflated by four judges.

While Yuna's PCS did not seem as suppressed as Adelina's was inflated, there was one really blantant case. She received a 7.75 for Transitions/Linking Footwork/Movement score from one judge was a full point below the second lowest score. The same judge gave Yuna an 8.75 for Interpretation (the lowest score she received from any other judge was a 9.25). the same judge also did not give Yuna a single 9.0 on any component (all other judges gave her at least 4). There is no possible excuse for these scores considering how wildly they vary from the others.

Regardless of the footwork/turn sequences, this is just more fodder towards the argument a number of officials did everything within their power (with only one judge being completely obvious) to ensure Adelina would score enough to win (and ticky tack points away from Yuna when not too impossibly blatant).

The specter of cheating or unconscionable bias is hanging over Sochi. With everything that happened, the ISU needs to get their act together to do something about judging/officiating/scoring!

LRK · Mar 18, 2014

jenaj said:
That will never happen. There has to be proof. Mistakes (and they are mistakes until proven otherwise) do not justify revoking a medal or awarding a second one any more than pointing out a bad call in baseball can turn a loss into a win.

Or football/soccer. There are calls that are absolutely and incontrovertibly wrong - that make you hair stand on end - but what has been called has been called. The result of the match stands, even if a team has been done out of a goal they should have had.

leafygreens · Mar 18, 2014

jenaj said:
That will never happen. There has to be proof. Mistakes (and they are mistakes until proven otherwise) do not justify revoking a medal or awarding a second one any more than pointing out a bad call in baseball can turn a loss into a win.

Why do you assume that there will be no proof? All it takes is time for the phone calls to be recorded of the bloc judges admitting what they did. This is not a "bad call" it is "corrupt judging" which has been corrected in the past (2002) and hopefully will be corrected this time. It took ten years for the underage Chinese gymnast to be outed and medals re-awarded. It took over ten years for Lance Armstrong to be found doping and his medal revoked. It can be done, and has been. While the last two were not cases of corrupt judging it does prove that medals are not set in stone in light of new information.

qwertyskates · Mar 18, 2014

Vanshilar said:
I don't think it's that the sum of CW attempts has to be the same as the sum of CCW attempts. It's simply that at least 5 CW turns are done, and at least 5 CCW turns are done (and similarly for the steps, with 3 instead of 5). You can have more of one than the other, these are just establishing the minimums. So there's no requirement that a given type of turn has to be done in both directions to count. Since there are 6 types of turns, then the interpretation is that the skater could do 1) 5 types of turns, each done in both directions, with or without doing the 6th turn (in either or both directions), or 2) 4 types of turns in both directions, another type of turn in one direction, and the 6th type of turn in the other direction, to count as level 4. That's the interpretation that's being argued, as I understand it.

This also implies that with 6 types of steps for example, you could do 3 types in one direction, and the other 3 types in the other direction, and still satisfy level 4 with this interpretation; no step would need to be done in both directions.

Yes, this is how I understand it. Both directions are necessary, the minimum different number of types of turns and steps are necessary, all executed at least once but not counted more than twice, the total numbers of turns and steps exceeding the minimum in Level 3 (i.e. >9 turns), that to me sums up Complexity, and both Yuna and Adelina qualified under this criterion, ie. if BoP's counting is correct. The flexibility allows more types to be attempted, both turns and steps. If each turn or step, must be executed twice, once CW, once CCW, they would have clarified they wanted symmetry, instead of stating "at least once" but "not counted more than twice", which sounds like they desire more types of turns/steps to be executed...if they had meant "do each type of turn twice, but it won't be counted more than twice"...it just sounds bizarre.:scratch:

Yes, the wording is problematic...they should clarify. I tried to find the rules in another language, French, to see if it helps to clarify, but can't find them.

Overall, I do feel that the other Features that define Level 4, eg. 2 difficult combinations, full upper body movement, rotation, etc. may matter even more in awarding Level 3 or Level 4 than this minor "lapse" in Adelina's choreography.

As for musicality, rhythm, etc., they are skating to very different music, and they both NEED to perform according to the rise, fall, beat, rhythm, so it is illegitimate to compare them without their respective music.

Adelina needs to go faster, more exuberant, hit all the high notes, this can't be compared to Yuna's more languid Adios. This also explains why her SS is shorter, and she is much quicker in changing rotational directions, a feature for Level 4.

Yuna has received Level 3 SS in other competitions, can someone explain why, and did she change her choreography for Sochi to attain Level 4?

pangtongfan · Mar 18, 2014

leafygreens said:
A second gold medal would be better than nothing. Not the least of which would be tacit admission of wrongdoing on behalf of the judging panel.

Sorry but even as someone who feels the ladies results were a farce a second gold medal is the last resolution they should go to. A 2nd time in 12 years the general public sees skating award a 2nd gold, and the sport which is already on life support would be buried for good. There would probably not be a single event covered in North America, and unless they had a ladies contender figure skating at the Olympics would be sacked in Canada and U.S TV coverage entirely (if the sport even was still in the Olympics). That is exactly why NBC bit their lip and were the only country whose commentators tried to ignore the controversy and pretend like it didnt exist. They are the ones to blame for the first one that nearly ended the sport to begin with.

The right thing to do is for the ISU to do a thorough investigation of not only the ladies judging, but the entire figure skating competition at the Games, and hand out harsh suspensions to MANY people who were obviously involved in the fixed figure skating Olympics, again not just the ladies event. Since the ISU is run by corrupt people who only care about money though, not likely this will happen.

The reality is the judging has just gotten worse and worse since IJS came in. This quad has probably been the worst ever. 4 years of inflation and 5 or 6 farcial Chan wins/medals. The worst skating scandal in history other than 02 pairs (which was mostly an NBC fabrication anyway). Ridiculous scores of the top pairs and dancers. Manwhile IJS is creating some of the worst skating ever to, as the mens event at the last 2 games and last years worlds show. The direction the sport is going in they wont be able to hide controversies or keep their Emperors New Clothes thing going much longer. Someone with integrity has to take over the ISU and strip the whole thing down and redo it, as the sport is almost dead if someone does not.

leafygreens · Mar 18, 2014

pangtongfan said:
Sorry but even as someone who feels the ladies results were a farce a second gold medal is the last resolution they should go to. A 2nd time in 12 years the general public sees skating award a 2nd gold, and the sport which is already on life support would be buried for good. There would probably not be a single event covered in North America, and unless they had a ladies contender figure skating at the Olympics would be sacked in Canada and U.S TV coverage entirely (if the sport even was still in the Olympics). That is exactly why NBC bit their lip and were the only country whose commentators tried to ignore the controversy and pretend like it didnt exist. They are the ones to blame for the first one that nearly ended the sport to begin with.

The right thing to do is for the ISU to do a thorough investigation of not only the ladies judging, but the entire figure skating competition at the Games, and hand out harsh suspensions to MANY people who were obviously involved in the fixed figure skating Olympics, again not just the ladies event. Since the ISU is run by corrupt people who only care about money though, not likely this will happen.

The reality is the judging has just gotten worse and worse since IJS came in. This quad has probably been the worst ever. 4 years of inflation and 5 or 6 farcial Chan wins/medals. The worst skating scandal in history other than 02 pairs (which was mostly an NBC fabrication anyway). Ridiculous scores of the top pairs and dancers. Manwhile IJS is creating some of the worst skating ever to, as the mens event at the last 2 games and last years worlds show. The direction the sport is going in they wont be able to hide controversies or keep their Emperors New Clothes thing going much longer. Someone with integrity has to take over the ISU and strip the whole thing down and redo it, as the sport is almost dead if someone does not.

Not sure if either outcome - 2nd gold or harsh suspensions - would improve the image of figure skating but action must be taken.

DarR · Mar 18, 2014

qwertyskates said:
Yes, this is how I understand it. Both directions are necessary, the minimum different number of types of turns and steps are necessary, all executed at least once but not counted more than twice, the total numbers of turns and steps exceeding the minimum in Level 3 (i.e. >9 turns), that to me sums up Complexity, and both Yuna and Adelina qualified under this criterion, ie. if BoP's counting is correct. The flexibility allows more types to be attempted, both turns and steps. If each turn or step, must be executed twice, once CW, once CCW, they would have clarified they wanted symmetry, instead of stating "at least once" but "not counted more than twice", which sounds like they desire more types of turns/steps to be executed...if they had meant "do each type of turn twice, but it won't be counted more than twice"...it just sounds bizarre.:scratch:

Yes, the wording is problematic...they should clarify. I tried to find the rules in another language, French, to see if it helps to clarify, but can't find them.

Overall, I do feel that the other Features that define Level 4, eg. 2 difficult combinations, full upper body movement, rotation, etc. may matter even more in awarding Level 3 or Level 4 than this minor "lapse" in Adelina's choreography.

As for musicality, rhythm, etc., they are skating to very different music, and they both NEED to perform according to the rise, fall, beat, rhythm, so it is illegitimate to compare them without their respective music.

Adelina needs to go faster, more exuberant, hit all the high notes, this can't be compared to Yuna's more languid Adios. This also explains why her SS is shorter, and she is much quicker in changing rotational directions, a feature for Level 4.

Yuna has received Level 3 SS in other competitions, can someone explain why, and did she change her choreography for Sochi to attain Level 4?

I can't answer why Yuna received a level 3 on her step sequence in Zagreb, as compared to a level 4 in Nationals (iirc), but I'm also very curious as to what changes Adelina made to her step sequence that allowed her to be awarded a level 4 in Sochi (versus levels 2/3 in the other competitions she attended this season).

Edit: Watching back her Zagreb FS step sequence, I must say her team did make quite a number of changes to the choreography of the step sequence, especially in terms of her arm movement (I feel it was more timed to the music in Sochi than in Zagreb). Here's the links to compare her performances:
Zagreb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-LuRoxUhQw
Sochi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgXKJvTVW9g

Regardless, BOP has already analysed that Yuna's step sequence met the requirements for a level 4.

Sam-Skwantch · Mar 18, 2014

DarR said:
I can't answer why Yuna received a level 3 on her step sequence in Zagreb, as compared to a level 4 in Nationals (iirc), but I'm also very curious as to what changes Adelina made to her step sequence that allowed her to be awarded a level 4 in Sochi (versus levels 2/3 in the other competitions she attended this season).

Maybe it was when she waved to the judges :slink:

]

Meoima · Mar 18, 2014

DarR said:
I can't answer why Yuna received a level 3 on her step sequence in Zagreb, as compared to a level 4 in Nationals (iirc), but I'm also very curious as to what changes Adelina made to her step sequence that allowed her to be awarded a level 4 in Sochi (versus levels 2/3 in the other competitions she attended this season).

Has Sonitkova received level 4 for step sequence before? My friend told me she has received level 4 one or 2 times before but I haven't checked.

capcomeback · Mar 18, 2014

qwertyskates said:
(snip)

Overall, I do feel that the other Features that define Level 4, eg. 2 difficult combinations, full upper body movement, rotation, etc. may matter even more in awarding Level 3 or Level 4 than this minor "lapse" in Adelina's choreography.

As for musicality, rhythm, etc., they are skating to very different music, and they both NEED to perform according to the rise, fall, beat, rhythm, so it is illegitimate to compare them without their respective music.

Adelina needs to go faster, more exuberant, hit all the high notes, this can't be compared to Yuna's more languid Adios. This also explains why her SS is shorter, and she is much quicker in changing rotational directions, a feature for Level 4.

Yuna has received Level 3 SS in other competitions, can someone explain why, and did she change her choreography for Sochi to attain Level 4?

The notion that Adelina skated fast is a myth. Adelina's speed was actually slower than Yuna's My guess is the jerkiness of her motions in an attempt to follow the rhythm of her music made it seem like a frenetic kind of energy (her movements were not in synch with the rhythm of the music until the "Rondo" part, BTW and even then her dramatic timing was a bit off in few of her jumps and spins). This can be verified by looking at the Youtube fan cams that caught Adelina's and Yuna's Free Skates. They show that not only did Yuna skate faster, but she had far greater ice coverage. People will cite that Yuna did more cross-overs, but it seemed that Adelina's UR Triple-Toe was caused by her lack of speed going into the initial jumping pass (which started with the flutz).

jenaj · Mar 18, 2014

leafygreens said:
Why do you assume that there will be no proof? All it takes is time for the phone calls to be recorded of the bloc judges admitting what they did. This is not a "bad call" it is "corrupt judging" which has been corrected in the past (2002) and hopefully will be corrected this time. It took ten years for the underage Chinese gymnast to be outed and medals re-awarded. It took over ten years for Lance Armstrong to be found doping and his medal revoked. It can be done, and has been. While the last two were not cases of corrupt judging it does prove that medals are not set in stone in light of new information.

I don't assume there will be never be any proof. I do assume there will never be a "tacit admission of guilt" by awarding a second medal.

drivingmissdaisy · Mar 18, 2014

pangtongfan said:
IJS is creating some of the worst skating ever to, as the mens event at the last 2 games and last years worlds show.

While I generally disagree with most of your positions, I do agree with this. The IJS is essentially forcing single and pairs skaters to move across the ice with the intricacy of ice dancers, but also include all of the difficult jumps and spins. It is simply too hard for figure skaters to do all this. We saw Carolina gut the transitions from the second half of her LP, which led to an excellent performance in Sochi but her PCS suffered a bit relative to Adelina and Yuna. While I agree with Adelina's win based on how the scoring works, it wasn't as enjoyable a program as it could have been had she done fewer transitions and just skated more. The judges universally admired Adelina's long program, with only two marks of the 27 program/performance-related PCS scores below 9 (both at 8.75) but I wonder if the judges enjoyed the program or just thought it deserved to be scored high.

drivingmissdaisy · Mar 18, 2014

capcomeback said:
The notion that Adelina skated fast is a myth.

No it isn't. She isn't as fast as someone who does more than twice as many crossovers, but she was top 5 in speed. I don't even think Mao was as fast as Adelina in Sochi. What skaters aside from Yuna and Carolina would you say were definitely faster?

DarR · Mar 18, 2014

Meoima said:
Has Sonitkova received level 4 for step sequence before? My friend told me she has received level 4 one or 2 times before but I haven't checked.

She has received level 4 for her step sequences before, but not for her 2013/14 FS.

Japan Open: Level 3 http://www.jsfresults.com/InterNational/2013-2014/jo/data0205.pdf
GP China: Level 2 http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpchn2013/gpchn2013_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
GP France: Level 3 http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpfra2013/gpfra2013_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
GP Final: Level 3 http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpf1314/gpf1314_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
Russian Nationals: Level 3 http://fsrussia.ru/upl/ckeditor/protocol_rusnat1314.pdf (skip to pg 61)
European Championships: Level 3 http://www.isuresults.com/results/ec2014/ec2014_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf

Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be

leafygreens

TMC

Mathman

skatedreamer

jenaj

capcomeback

LRK

leafygreens

qwertyskates

pangtongfan

Match Penalty

leafygreens

DarR

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”

Meoima

Match Penalty

capcomeback

jenaj

drivingmissdaisy

drivingmissdaisy

DarR

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