The Death of Figure Skating as Art

Thanks Gkelly for the feedback, I don't have much time to go through everything (very much neglected my day job already and so much behind on deadlines) so I will try to keep it short (ha yeah right)

1. By Experts

I mean some sort of external auditing team who has the experience to implement objective measurement and compliance methodologies to poke holes in the judging criteria. Ex Judges, Ex coaches, Ex skater, experts from music, dance, choreographers. Examiners/Educators who create those evaluation kit and their methodology, therefore valuable resources from outside the field (You don't need to be a skater to judge these specific things). How much longer should we tolerate judges put a finger in the air and goes "OOooo I am in a good mood, my gut feeling tells me that is a 8.75" (everyone else goes )


2. Trouble with Numbers. Pretend maths vs Rankings.

Can you tell me as an experience judge what does 8.25 vs 8.75 even mean?

Park So Youn received 2x 4.75s from one judge for winning the FS against bunch of juniors at recent Asia Trophy, what has that got to do with PCS? Why can judges can continue to do this, and skater just have to put up with it and dare not say a thing.

Absolute numbers are absolutely meaningless to me. For example what are the median for all these judges and how can you ensure everyone follows through on good conciousness? Ranking (at least for me) is far more objective than a numbered scoring. And as a theory, it will be interesting to see if they had rated the performance purely in terms of ranking, vs their scoring separately. How much more accurate do they match up to the model answers, vs. scoring through numbers. If ranking consistently prove to be more accurate, they should scrap the number system for PCS. It is because through absolute numbers, it create false momentum, benchmarking, inflation and opportunity for cheat, slant, influence, a target to instigate subjectivity. e.g Well if Patrick Chan got 9.5 with for that, then frankly we deserve 9.6 for doing this etc.


3. Elite Skaters dumbing down to level 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Surely anybody can try to dumb down their performance with choreography tweaked. Yes the choreography will be created specifically for PCS. Whether the judges can tell is why they need to be tested. Anyway, the point is they can try to dumb down, But there are always going to be objectified by the principle judge(s) and rerank it to a model answer. Again, I failure to get this difference level 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. At elite level, most PCS are certainly over 6,7s, so up to 10 there's really only 3 to 4 points difference separate them.


4. Human error and limitations. Secondary marking.

I understand the temptation to cheat (so there should be clause, that it requires explanation and requires the nationality of the judges to be revealed), but still the fact in any examinations, you are allowed to check your answers and make corrections. Judges are not robots. No one can be 100% perfect first time. As much as it can lead to cheating, this vulnerability actually breed cheating as well. Now the judges can justify why they under marked earlier flight skaters, while it is already a standard of believe the last flights can generally receive inflated scores. The only people I think want to keep this rule are the strong federations who already have their advantages and prefer to keep it.


5. Experiences judges? How experienced? How high the quality of expertise?

In any profession, there should be a system to separate the elites to ensure the highest standard possible. (Remove conflicted interest would be a good start) I just want the sport to have the highest consistent judging to have public trust and make it as fair as possible for the skaters to have the freedom to compete in anyway they wish. Tech, arts, great musicality, choreography, but clearly the current system doesn't support that. Surely having some sort of QA process to filter out the incompetent to those who out right cheats is not a bad thing. The only question is how?

Going back to the artistic aspect of the sport being increased or the raising of the bar if you will. Could we not solve all this by keeping all technical requirements the exact same and simply add time onto the programs. Add 45 seconds to the FS and 30 to the SP to allow for more drawn out artistic gestures in between all the fancy pants triples and quads?

I've always found the simplest adjustments to make the most effective changes.

Thanks for the discussion, os168. I love thinking this stuff through.

os168 said:

I mean some sort of external auditing team who has the experience to implement objective measurement and compliance methodologies to poke holes in the judging criteria. Ex Judges, Ex coaches, Ex skater, experts from music, dance, choreographers. Examiners/Educators who create those evaluation kit and their methodology, therefore valuable resources from outside the field (You don't need to be a skater to judge these specific things).

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I think this would be great and wish it had been done more thoroughly and more publicly before the IJS was adopted.

One way or another, we have to trust in some experts. The expectation that the ISU all international judges are corrupt (and thus anyone theISU brings in from outside is suspect by association) and all less experienced judges are incompetent will never get us anywhere.

How much longer should we tolerate judges put a finger in the air and goes "OOooo I am in a good mood, my gut feeling tells me that is a 8.75" (everyone else goes )

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I think there's already a bit more rigor than that. And much more so than there was under 6.0. But since we can't read minds, if we disagree with or otherwise don't understand a judge's marks, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that they didn't put much thought into them. That's not necessarily true.

2. Trouble with Numbers. Pretend maths vs Rankings.

Can you tell me as an experience judge what does 8.25 vs 8.75 even mean?

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The way I see it, there are two steps in arriving at each component score.

First, arriving at the general range -- the whole number bench marks, e.g., 8 = very good.
This should be completely independent of any other skaters in the same competition.
Judges should independently be able to come up with marks at least approximately in the same range for the first skater in an event, or for the only skater in a single-skater event/exhibition.

Second, fine-tuning with decimal places.
Say a judge has a clear mental benchmark for what he considers 7.0 and 8.0 Interpretation. And this skater was somewhere in between. Well, then the 0.25 0.5 0.75 options allow the judge to indicate that the skater's interpretation was better than 7.0 in his mind, but closer to 7.0 than 8.0. Or it was just about halfway between. Or closer to 8.0, but not quite there.
Still no need to compare to other skaters in the event.
As I understand it, that's how the process is supposed to work.

However, if a judge has already given 7.5 to a previous skater whose performance was also somewhere between 7.0 and 8.0, then he could consider whether the current skater's interpretation was pretty much at the same level (even if they used completely approaches and different styles of music) and therefore deserving of the exact same score, or if there was enough of a perceptible difference that he should score this skater 0.25 higher or lower than the previous one.

Under 6.0, if a judge thought the second skater was better (or worse) than the first, the difference in the two marks was more based on the maximum number of later skaters the judge expected s/he might need room to fit in between. With IJS, the number of other skaters is irrelevant. If the judges bother to compare one skater to a previous skater at all for any given component, or all five, the difference in the scores should be based on how much better (or worse) the judge thought this skater was. If they're about the same, it's perfectly acceptable to give them the exact same scores. Or to give them the same scores for the components where they're similar and different scores for the components where there's a more distinct difference. So if a judge is confident in his/her mental benchmarks, there's no need to compare each later skater directly to anyone who skated earlier in the event.

Park So Youn received 2x 4.75s from one judge for winning the FS against bunch of juniors at recent Asia Trophy, what has that got to do with PCS?

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I assume that judge had a mental image of what 5.0 should look like for those components and for one reason or another believed that Park did not quite meet that standard. We'd have to ask the judge what he/she thought was lacking.

Absolute numbers are absolutely meaningless to me. For example what are the median for all these judges and how can you ensure everyone follows through on good conciousness? Ranking (at least for me) is far more objective than a numbered scoring.

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So you would prefer a return to ordinal judging?

And as a theory, it will be interesting to see if they had rated the performance purely in terms of ranking, vs their scoring separately. How much more accurate do they match up to the model answers, vs. scoring through numbers. If ranking consistently prove to be more accurate, they should scrap the number system for PCS.

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This would not be part of judge training, but rather test events with already-trained and trusted judges to see whether ranking or scoring produces results that the community consensus considers more accurate.

And then if the decision is that ranking is more accurate, you need to scrap the IJS as it currently exists and either go back to 6.0 or come up with a completely brand new system.

It is because through absolute numbers, it create false momentum, benchmarking, inflation and opportunity for cheat, slant, influence, a target to instigate subjectivity. e.g Well if Patrick Chan got 9.5 with for that, then frankly we deserve 9.6 for doing this etc.

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Any system can suffer through false momentum, inflation, and opportunity to cheat, slant, influence, and subjectivity. Ranking even more than benchmarking.

If you don't trust the judges to judge honestly, then no system will produce good results.
If you do trust them, then the question is what system allows these honest judges to be as precise as possible in reflecting the quality of each performance in terms of each of the criteria that have been considered important enough to have been written into the rules.

Note that I'm using the concept of "benchmarking" to refer to a mental image of a general skill level that corresponds to each numerical score, irrespective of any specific skater. Of course, giving specific examples will require using real skaters, and at the highest levels those skaters are going to be people everyone has heard of. But the mental benchmarks should not have skaters' names attached.
How are you understanding the word?

3. Elite Skaters dumbing down to level 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Surely anybody can try to dumb down their performance with choreography tweaked.

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It probably takes more skill to dumb down a performance to a specific lower level than it does to skate at one's own highest or highest comfortable level.

And some things just become ingrained in the skater. E.g., once they develop the core strength to keep the upper body still and erect, they're not going lurch and readjust their balance in the same way as a beginner, even if they deliberately compromise their carriage and balance for effect.

How would you rate the skill level of Wanda Beazel?

A skater who is naturally musical will have a hard time ignoring the music. For purposes of creating a video, though, maybe you could give them different music to listen to while skating than will be heard on the video.

Again, I failure to get this difference level 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. At elite level, most PCS are certainly over 6,7s, so up to 10 there's really only 3 to 4 points difference separate them.

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Are we talking about training beginning judges? Experienced national judges first moving into international competition? Or testing experienced international judges?

There are at most only a couple dozen skaters in the world who might deserve 8s or 9s. Most judges will never have the opportunity to judge those skaters.

There are several thousand skaters in the world who might deserve 2s and 3s. Most of them will never compete at an international level, but they need trained judges too. And when a judge is in the middle of a novice event giving mostly scores in the 3s, and suddenly a skater comes out who is clearly much better than the rest of the pack, it's not enough to just say Oh, she's better, give her a 4. IJS asks judges to determine how much better.

Maybe this skater deserves 4.5 or 5 or even higher for some components. And quantifying "how much" better is important, because it gives a much more objective way to determine whether the better skater who skates with speed and complexity and musicality and strong double jumps but falls on a couple of triple attempts should and up ahead or behind a clearly weaker skater who stood up on weaker doubles.

With a ranking system, the judge decides first whether they want to reward the stronger basics and more difficult attempted content, or whether they prefer to reward the cleaner program, according to a gut feeling or a personal preference, and then they choose their scores to achieve that result.

With a scoring system, they just score each element and each component according to the standards. They won't have all the data pieces or the time to do the math to know for sure whether 5s in PCS will outweigh -GOEs and fall deductions and unknown spin and step levels.

The majority of international junior and senior skaters, hundreds of them, at all the senior B and JGP and other junior events, probably earn PCS in the 4s and 5s -- and some lower. I think that's where the "average" definition of 5.0 fits in. Those are the events that most international judges will spend most of their time judging. Even the lower-ranked skaters at the Junior World, European, and Four Continents championships will earn those kinds of scores.

And even the top championship judges will judge some of those lesser international events, and they'll often judge their own national championships and other domestic events with below-international standards. Even if they spend most of their time judging skaters who deserve 6s, 7s, and 8s, when they come across a skater who is clearly weaker than that skill level, it's important that they can identify how much weaker and not just pick a random lower number out of thin air.

IMO it is very important for all judges to have clear mental bench marks for all levels of skating. I think the training does need to include examples from lower and middle skill levels, not just the top elite skaters. Although the elites are more enjoyable to watch and can serve as useful examples of what to look for and how to distinguish good from better.

With experience, judges soon learn to distinguish these different levels of skating skill. But for components like Choreography and Interpretation, I think there needs to be more education about these qualities from outside-skating areas of expertise. I'd like to see clearer definitions, greater consensus, on what constitutes 4.0 Choreography or 6.0 Interpretation. Do those standards look different on an artistic weak technical skater with skating skills in the 3s or an self-identified jock with skating skills in the 7s?

I'm not going to get into the issue of cheating because I think that's the exception. Improve the system for the majority first, then figure out how to deal with the minority who seek to abuse it.

Thanks for the discussion, os168. I love thinking this stuff through.

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Please don't mistake my prior post as to discourage the ongoing discussion. I've enjoyed all the discussions I've had regarding this topic since I first started posting here at GS and all the insight I've gained. I just tend to look at things rather simplistically when I find myself in problem solving mode.

I'd started composing my response before you posted.

I don't think more time is needed for short programs. They used to be 2:40 max with 8 elements and are now 2:50 max with 7 elements. Yes, the elements themselves (spins and step sequence) take longer to execute. But there's no need to add a lot of extra stuff between elements in short program -- even the Transitions criteria can be fulfilled with direct links between elements.

For free skates maybe. At least I would poll the senior ladies whether they would like 4:30 programs like the men, one more element that doesn't have to be a jump, and consequently the opportunity to build in a choreographed breather.

I do think stamina is an issue with longer programs, but I don't know why men would have better stamina except for the fact that the jumps come more easily to them.

And it should be possible to use the extra time in ways that show skating skills while also allowing for muscle recovery.

E.g., either the skaters could use the choreo sequence for slower controlled edge work, or there could be another kind of element available as an option that would showcase it.

And there's always the option of using some extra time for meaningful posing or slow edge work, spirals, etc., as "in-betweens."

And there's always the option of using some extra time for meaningful posing or slow edge work, spirals, etc., as "in-betweens."

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That is exactly what I was thinking. A chance to hold your jumps out and transition back using meaningful choreography that lends itself to the program. A chance to breathe and acknowledge the crowd or get back into your program and save it if a fall or disruption occurs. Everyone says the movements seem rushed these days and this could loosen up extremely compacted programs and allow for the pretty to come out. I'd be hesitant to add another element other than a new artistic sequence or another choreographed sequence. If there even is a difference. Just more time to connect. I rember one of the Eurosport guys after Yulia's SC FS saying he wished there was more time to let that program breath. I could see it being a very pleasing thing.

Its maybe just a compromise to some but it seems like a cost efficient solution.

Something that I believe wasn't talked about is the current accessibility of figure skating world wide.

Huge events like Worlds, Euros, GP or Olympics have incredible high prices and too often are at countries which are hard to reach for "less wealthy" people. It can happen that a figure skating weekend at one of these events can easily cost you several thousand $$$ and this is hard to come by for most people, especially families who have to pay these expenses (tickets, hotel, flights) for multiple family members.

At the same time traditional - regional events have to fight very hard to stay alive due the lack of available money and income from ticket sales. If your event has to fight versus a top seeded event then a lot of skaters wont come and fans of these skaters stay home as well.

Our world has changed a lot in the past 30 years, sports which ones was a "wide spread" opportunity is now more than often a luxury and if you cant experience something live then how are you supposed to fall in love with it especially if the TV broadcast is done so poorly?

In my opinion Figure Skating but also other events in sports need to become more accessible again. Tickets should be for the poor person just like for the rich, at the same time the presentation of the sport in the media and from official side could be done better.

Too often are information very spare about skaters or events and this isn't because federations or skating clubs are lazy but because they do not have the men power. A lot in FS is done voluntarily and these people must be supported better and honored more in my opinion. If they leave the sport then what?

In my opinion changes are needed else those brave people who keep the sport alive will not be able to do it anymore, be it the fan who buys a ticket, the organizing committee, the journalist or the volunteer at the event and of course the skater him / herself.

In the same vein, one of the reasons that shorter programs have been kept for ladies is that there are typically more ladies competing at every level than there are men or pairs. If you increased the length of programs significantly, you would have more ice time costs.

Also, if you keep the ladies' programs shorter, you can accommodate more ladies. In the case of club events, money comes from entry fees more than from ticket sales, so being able to have more entrants is important.