How will the QR at Worlds work under COP?

Next year, World's will go to COP. If so, how is this going to be handled for the Qualifying Round?Are QR points going to be cumulative? How do the Powers That Be intend to compensate for the fact that completely different panels of judges are typically used for the two qualifying round, and even more potentially disastrous, that two different 'callers' will be used for the two rounds? Conceptually, in a perfect world, COP would make this irrelevant. But, in actual fact, some judges give very high grades and some low, and some callers are much tougher on underrotation than others. The opportunity to cheat is even higher, because an entire Qual round could end up with hugely higher scores than the other side of the round. And the program component scores are still hugely subjective.

The qualifying round has always suffered from the problem that the ISU makes no real effort to balance the two brackets. Skaters are grouped first by their performance at worlds' the previous year and then, if they did not attend worlds the previous year, by the first initial of their last name or some such. No compensation is used for skaters who are known to be excellent, but did not compete at last year's worlds ( think Winkler and Lohse). No preplacement is done for skaters who win Junior Worlds (think Ando). No attempt is made to keep all skaters from the same country out of the same round. It would be better, I think to group skaters by their total world ranking, which takes into account the last 3 years and includes performance in Juniors, than by finish at World's alone.

What are all your opinions of qualifying rounds, and how do you think they will be different under COP? What do you think could be done to make them more fair?

I think the QR should just be eliminated under CoP. Ostensibly, the QR was implemented because it would be too difficult to rank a group of 30 or so skaters. Since CoP is not based on rankings, they should just eliminate the QR, IMO.

Under CoP, placement/ordinals are not used; pure scores are. The highest score in Quali B could be the seventh highest score in total.

One factor that would always be there is skate time. The SP's and, outside NA prime time, final LP, are scheduled for 1pm local time. The second quali round starts at 2pm. Suguri and Kwan were the first and third skaters in the afternoon quali round, so they skated at most 2 hours earlier than they would have in any other phase of the competition. The skaters who must skate at 10am may be at a disadvantage. However, the lower-ranked skaters had the earlier practice sessions, which corresponds more to actual year-round practice time, and I think in this case, the higher-ranked skaters' expectations are the ones more jumbled by skating in the early quali round.

Different judging panels are the second factor. If there are two different controllers, then this is the third, especially if their standards are different.

BTW, according to the press book, in the interim system a different random draw is performed before each round, which means that the chances are low that any given judge will not be counted for at least one phase. I don't know if CoP has worked the same way.

I have just looked thourgh the ISU Congress Agenda. Apparently, there are many different proposals for eliminating QR. (Current rules have QR score multiplied by factor of 0.25) Here are some suggestgions:

• Have QR, but don't count it as a part of final score.From ISU
• Don't make everyone do QRs Use results from that year's Europeans and 4CC to determine those who can go straight to short program. I like this because it would immediately make 4CC very importantFrom ISU
• Allow top 20 from Worlds to skip QR at Europeans and 4CCFrom ISU
• Eliminate QR from Europeans & 4CC since the number of competitors is not that great anyway. From Russia
• Have a seperate Qualifying event instead of a QR at Worlds.From ISU
• For Dance Compulsories, if there are fewer than 30 pairs, don't seperate them into groups A and B.From Russia

Ptichka said:

I have just looked thourgh the ISU Congress Agenda. Apparently, there are many different proposals for eliminating QR. (Current rules have QR score multiplied by factor of 0.25) Here are some suggestgions:

• Don't make everyone do QRs Use results from that year's Europeans and 4CC to determine those who can go straight to short program. I like this because it would immediately make 4CC very importantFrom ISU

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Great point!

The rule is that QR will simply be given a factor of .4. They will still exist and will count towards the overall score, unless of course, that ISU proposal passes (which it blatantly shouldn't as it is just plain silly. EVERY skater should do the qualifying round. It is unfair to make the lower ranked skaters compete more just because they are lower ranked).

TV

THVU, some of the proposals are for making everyone do QR, just not to count it toward final score.

EVERY skater should do the qualifying round. It is unfair to make the lower ranked skaters compete more just because they are lower ranked

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I totally disagree. Not everyone should be made to retake a test just because some of the people failed it.

In Hollywood, for example, it's considered insulting to ask big stars to make screen tests, as their CVs are out there for all to see. If you're interested in Lee Iococa running your auto company, you don't ask him to get in line with 40 other applicants and fill out a standarized form.

The whole idea of asking skaters like Plushy and MK to "qualify" is absurd.

Berthes, I agree that in terms of "qualifying" it is absurd. However, I believe one reason for this is that it is a physical and emotional strain to have to perform 3 programs instead of two. This puts elite skaters at a further advantage. BTW, one of the suggestions in the ISU communique was by Russia -- to get reid of QR at Junior Wordls, precisely becuase it's too hard for many non-expirienced skaters. OTOH, I think one reason they chose to count QR as a part of the score was to make sure that elite skaters do not just do the most watered-down version of their program to qualify, whereas other skaters will be busting their ***s to get it. The fair solution to this is one of the ISU proposals -- to hold Qualifiers for non-top skaters as a seperate event. However, I think this is to difficult legistically. I mean, who is going to pay for it? Noone will be interested in watching a competition where no elite skaters participate.

I think the QR is interesting, in that it can make or break worlds, even for the elite. Look what happened to Joubert at 2003 Worlds, he bombed, as did Ilia and Sarah. I like that skaters have to hold it together for three skates, and I liked watching all three of them fight back to move up. I liked that they didn't give up.

While I can see just starting all skaters in the SP, and then the top 24 move on, I don't know that I want to be skater 45, when the judges are all cranky.

I also have heard that they use the free skate to qualify so that all competitors have a chance to skate their FS, and because the FS shows off their skills more.

How about we do the QR to determine the 30 who move on, and to determine skate order, but nothing else?

Laura

We all know that Qualis A and B are two diffeent competitions but one has to realize in the scoring that a third place in either A or B actually means you tied for 6th place overall. Kwan, in this recent Worlds was actually tied for 6th. for some reason her SP brought her up to 4th place and she made the top grouping for the LP where she took 2nd in the LP and was able to medal. (Johnny and Michael were lucky due to Sandhu and Klimkin.)

I presume the different weight factors used in the QRs, the SPs, and the LPs will remain. the same but only with the total scores of each and not with ordinals. Am I correct?

What I began to realize at Worlds was that subjectively, for the final LP skate, skaters are put into groups. Once in a group, it is most doubtful that a skater can move out of it. It seemed to me that the judges were scoring an individual contest for each group. For example, Jennifer Robinson skated an excellent LP and won her Group but did not move out of the group when there were skaters she should have beaten. Similarly, Kevin vd Perren skated a super LP better than some in the top group but he could not move out of his Group.

I am hoping that the CoP will ignore these groupings and allow for more movement of lower positioned skaters if they so deserve it.

Joe

I can understand some of the reasoning behind having the QR count as part of the competition, but I've never really been a big fan. It always seemed more exciting when the skaters in fourth and fifth after the SP actually had more of a chance for a medal...even the gold. It was also exciting when skaters could actually make huge jumps in the standings...like Tara did in 96 when she went from 23rd to 15th.

Well, for better or worse, in COP, a skater could come out of the QR with such a huge lead that lackluster skates in the SP and LP could still win, even though the scores are weighted lower. Suppose Miki Ando shows up at the QR and hits her 4S, 2 3/3's and goes on from there. She can then coast through the SP, and doesn't need to try the high risk 4S in the LP. And it may be higher risk, since the ISU is discussing deductions for falling. Or not.

One good note is what Joe mentioned. In 6.0, three skaters can be terribly close in a QR, and finish 1, 2, 3. The third skater is actually in 5th/6th overall and almost can't win without 'Help'. In COP, they are at say 152, 150, 148 points, and they are still very close, and the third place skater can still win it without any help at all. The problems would be if the judging is very ununiform between the 2 groups.


It will be interesting to see what the ISU comes up with.

Joesitz said:

We all know that Qualis A and B are two diffeent competitions but one has to realize in the scoring that a third place in either A or B actually means you tied for 6th place overall.

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Actually, they are tied for 5th. The ISU uses the odd numbers instead of the even. The two who finished finished 1st are tied for 1st, 2nd is tied for 3rd and 3rd for 5th, etc.

berthes ghost said:

I totally disagree. Not everyone should be made to retake a test just because some of the people failed it.

In Hollywood, for example, it's considered insulting to ask big stars to make screen tests, as their CVs are out there for all to see. If you're interested in Lee Iococa running your auto company, you don't ask him to get in line with 40 other applicants and fill out a standarized form.

The whole idea of asking skaters like Plushy and MK to "qualify" is absurd.

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Your analogy to Hollywood is irrelevent. They are competiting for jobs, not in a sports competition. If higher ranked skaters only have to compete twice in a competition, it puts them at an advantage over skaters who have to compete 3 times. I don't see why MK and Plush shouldn't have to qualify for the SP and LP. The whole point is to put all skaters on an even playing field within the competition.

The CoP will do this much better than 6.0 ever did IMO. DORISPULASKI, you do make a good point though. A skater could build up leads in the QR and SP, but I say, so what? If he or she is spectacular in those rounds, then he or she should be rewarded. The QR won't have as big effect though, as the factor is 0.4. I would say to use the same judging panel and technical controllers in both QR groups to keep it as uniform as possible.

TV

In the 6.0 System, I always felt that the previous winner of a Worlds should just skate the LP since anyone who wins the LP among the top 3 will win the event. The pevious Worlds winner would be just defending the title as it is in other Sports. If the 6.0 system is in use for Torino, I would allow Sarah to defend her title.

However, the CoP will be in Moscow and Torino and that is another kettle of fish. No way can one defend their titles except to skate from scratch in those competitions.

Joe