The demise of the Qualifying Round | Page 4 | Golden Skate

The demise of the Qualifying Round

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Joesitz said:
Icenut - Thanks for reply. Any reason you may know why the ISU is cutting the Quali Round out expecially out of Euros.?
Because Icenut is unfortunately wrong. Worlds gets on average 12 more skaters than Euros since 1994. As gkelly (I think it was gkelly?) pointed out, the QR started in 1993 with the break -up of the USSR. Before that, Euros averaged about 25 skaters in each singles discipline. Now it ranges anywhere from 30 to 38, with 34 being an average.

Well, the cut-off mark is 32, so the QR is not always in place at Euros (for example, no QR for men in 03 and a QR for men in 04 just because they had 32 instead of 31 men.) Maybe the ISU agrees with me: having 24 skaters skate an entire LP extra just so the judges don't have to sit thru 2 more SPs is silly and unfair.

We're also going to naturally see a drop-off in numbers. It's one thing for a former Soviet with years of solid training to skate for a developing nation, but as they grow older and the new countries don't get strong federations up and running, the numbers are going to drop.
 

icenut84

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Joesitz said:
Icenut - Thanks for reply. Any reason you may know why the ISU is cutting the Quali Round out expecially out of Euros.?

I don't know. It might be because they are planning to eventually get rid of qualifying at Worlds too, and by taking it out of Euros first, it's like a stepping stone, testing the water maybe. Like maybe they're seeing how that works out before they get rid of it altogether at Worlds. (That's a guess though.)

This will be Euros biggest draw. I know several Americans are going to Torino for the Euros because they find the cost for the Olys prohibitive. Will they use the CoP?

What, at Euros? As far as I know, yes. It's being used for all major internationals this season isn't it?
 

icenut84

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
berthes ghost said:
Because Icenut is unfortunately wrong. Worlds gets on average 12 more skaters than Euros since 1994. As gkelly (I think it was gkelly?) pointed out, the QR started in 1993 with the break -up of the USSR. Before that, Euros averaged about 25 skaters in each singles discipline. Now it ranges anywhere from 30 to 38, with 34 being an average.

12 more skaters than Euros? You mean in one discipline, or 12 total over the 4 disciplines? I didn't think it was as many as 12 in one event (if Euros has an average of 34, that would mean Worlds has 46 - no way does it have that many.) If it's 12 overall, that's only 3 more in each event - not that huge a difference really. I thought the numbers were either roughly equal or Euros with a couple less. Hmm.
 

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Well, let's just take a look at the ladies only as an example. Pairs don't do a QR, only mens and ladies. Dance has compulsaries, which is different. Keep in mind that the magic number is 31. 32 or more, and there is a QR.

2002 euros 34 ladies (3 too many), worlds 40 ladies (9 too many) 6 more
2001 euros 34 ladies (3 too many), worlds 47 ladies (16 too many) 13 more
2000 euros 35 ladies (4 too many), worlds 45 ladies (14 too many) 10 more
1999 euros 35 ladies (4 too many), worlds 41 ladies (8 too many) 4 more
1998 euros 30 ladies (0 too many), worlds 39 ladies (8 too many) 8 more
1997 euros 37 ladies (6 too many), worlds 43 ladies (12 too many) 6 more
1996 euros 37 ladies (6 too many), worlds 40 ladies (9 too many) 3 more
1995 euros 30 ladies (0 too many), worlds 32 ladies (1 too many) 2 more
1994 euros 37 ladies (6 too many), worlds 42 ladies (11 too many) 5 more
1993 euros 25 ladies (0 too many), worlds 46 ladies (15 too many) 21 more

So, as you can see, euros only had about 3 to 6 extra ladies to fatigue the judges.
Worlds, OTOH, somtimes had as much as 16. I could see a case for 46 being too many to judge at once, that 1.5 times the fatigue cut off, but only 3 or 4 more when you've already done 31, that's not asking too much IMHO.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Here are the numbers of entries at ISU championships in the past four years:

2004

Four Continents
22 men, 1 withdrawal
26 ladies

Europeans
33 men
30 ladies, 1 withdrawal

Junior Worlds
44 men
47 ladies, 1 withdrawal

Worlds
40 men (including Klimkin who withdrew after SP), 1 withdrawal before quals
42 ladies


2003

Europeans
30 men, 1 withdrawal
34 ladies

Four Continents
21 men
27 ladies

Junior Worlds
45 men, 1 withdrawal
48 ladies, 1 withdrawal (w/o the withdrawal, one of the qual rounds would have been overloaded with 25 skaters)

Worlds
40 men
42 ladies


2002

Europeans
36 men, 1 withdrawal
34 ladies

Four Continents
broken link

Junior Worlds
40 men
48 ladies

Worlds
38 men, 1 withdrawal
40 ladies


2001

Europeans
35 men
35 ladies

Four Continents
21 men, 1 withdrawal
32 ladies

Junior Worlds
45 men
43 ladies

Worlds
43 men, 1 withdrawal
47 ladies



We can see that the numbers at Worlds are indeed considerably higher than at Europeans (or Four Continents), and at Junior Worlds they tend to be even higher.

Starting next year they've stopped counting the qual rounds at Junior Worlds, but I can't see them ever eliminating them.

And for Worlds there have been proposals to have some skaters qualify for Worlds through Euros and 4Cs and the rest enter a qualifying round at Worlds (which might or might not have to be broken into two groups and which would obviously not count toward the final placements) to make up the rest of the field for the short, but those proposals have not passed

The only way I can see eliminating qual rounds entirely would be if the Code of Points becomes standardized enough that you could break the short program into two or more groups and have the scores be directly comparable.

I'm not sure that the numbers of total skaters at Worlds and Junior Worlds will be decreasing any time soon, given the fact that there are more skaters being sent to Junior Worlds than to seniors. Those skaters are going to get older and in many cases go on to skate at senior Worlds

It's probably true that most of the growth from new countries will happen outside of Europe, so 4Cs should grow and Europeans may decline a bit, until they're pretty equal in size.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
icenut84 said:
What, at Euros? As far as I know, yes. It's being used for all major internationals this season isn't it?

Icenut - That's news to me. I am not aware of any CoP being used for USA or Canadian Nationals. I don't have a problem with CoiP except for a nitpick here and a nitpick there. I am anzious to see it work in the Majors and not just the GP which has limited contestants.

One other thing for Berthes Ghost and gkelly as well. As I said before, the point of eliminating skaters way back when was to keep only those skaters who have a statiscal chance of medalling. Only those skaters would go on to the Free skate, that could possibly make 3rd place.

So the cut off number for the Quali Rd today is somewhat strange to me. there doesn't seem to be a reason for cut off number. If the cut off number is 30, what does it matter if there are a few more skaters than that? It seems silly since there is no real reason for eliminating anyone except to make 5 groups.
And then why 5 groups and not six or seven?

Personally, I feel that after the quali rd and the SP, there should be a gran elimination of skaters except for those who statiscally can make 3 rd place.
but hey, that's me..

Anyway, if the Quali Rd is eliminated then the SP will be crucial before the LP. Interesting!!!! and if there is no eliniation then everyone gets to skate twice. :)

Joe
 

hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Joesitz said:
Icenut - That's news to me. I am not aware of any CoP being used for USA or Canadian Nationals.
Skate Canada announced last year that they would use CoP for Nationals in the upcoming season, regardless of whether it passed for 4C's/Euros/Worlds at the latest Congress. (One of the principal architects of CoP is Canadian.)
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Icenut:
What, at Euros? As far as I know, yes. It's being used for all major internationals this season isn't it?
Joesitz:
That's news to me. I am not aware of any CoP being used for USA or Canadian Nationals.

Nonsequitur. Europeans is not a nationals, it's an ISU championship, just like Worlds, Junior Worlds, and Four Continents.

Parallel to "USA or Canadian Nationals" would be Russian, French, British, Japanese, etc. Nationals.

The ISU makes rules for international competitions, including ISU championships, the GP and JGP series, and others. They have no say over how individual member federations conduct domestic events such as nationals, but it does make sense for those federations to adopt procedures that will prepare their international skaters for the rules of international competition.

How many of those federations will be ready and willing to adopt the new system for domestic competitions right away in 04-05, I don't know. US Figure Skating has explicitly said they won't be ready until at least 05-06.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
gkelly said:
Icenut:
]

Joesitz:

How many of those federations will be ready and willing to adopt the new system for domestic competitions right away in 04-05, I don't know. US Figure Skating has explicitly said they won't be ready until at least 05-06.

Interesting. Where did you read or hear that comment about 'being ready'. From what I read, the UsFSA are very much in favor of the CoP whereas the Russian Fed. is very lluke warm to it.

Joe
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
USFSA article on Grand Prix selection process:

http://www.usfsa.org/Story.asp?id=25740&type=news

Essentially, there are five different classifications of skaters for the Grand Prix Series. The classifications are the basis for the draw procedure.

1. Host Country Skaters/Couples
The host country of each event (e.g. the U.S. for Skate America, China for Cup of China) may select a maximum of three skaters/couples in each discipline for their own event. These can be seeded or non-seeded skaters, but there is a maximum of two seeded skaters per discipline per event.
2. Seeded Skaters/Couples
The top six skaters/couples in each discipline from the most recent ISU World Championships are entitled to skate in two events and may skate in three. Seeded skaters are selected in two separate draws, one for skaters seeded 1-3 and the other for skaters seeded 4-6.
3. World Championships Placement
Skaters/couples that placed 7-12 in each discipline in the most recent World Championships are entitled to skate in two events.
4. ISU World Ranking System
Each host country must select two skaters/couples from the top 36 in the ISU World Ranking System. These selections are outside the ranked skaters already drawn as part of the classifications listed above.
5. Host Country Selections
Each host country conducting an ISU Grand Prix event may select up to two skaters/couples in each discipline of their own choice from any ISU eligible skaters, regardless of world ranking or World Championships placement.

Joe, does this give you more of a sense that skaters who are not competing for medals at Worlds in a particular year may still be COMPETING with each other for other prizes, such as opportunities to skate in the Grand Prix the next fall?
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Thanks again gkelly. I do get the sense of how the GP works now., and I had no problem with the Worlds.

What I don't understand yet is why Angela Nikiinov is in Skate America, as the addional entitlement of the US for being the host country. am I correct to say that that was a host country appointee, and the ISU did not select Angela.

So, the ISU regulates the entries and the eligible individual countries select the skaters provided they come up to the criteria of the ISU. Am I correct?

The selection of Worlds skaters is completely decided by individual Federations.

Joe
 

hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
The host countries make all of the selections for their events based on the rules. The only selections that are not affected by the order of the draw -- e.g. each host nation picking a different number (representing select order) for each selection round -- are the first round selections, where the host nation gets to pick three of its own skaters for each discipline, with a maximum of two seeded skaters per discipline. (Hence, no Shen/Zhao, Pang/Tong, and Zhang/Zhang in Cup of China.) Since the USFSA chose two seeded skaters for Skate America, they had to choose a non-seeded skater as the third, and they chose Nikodinov. In the article itself, there's a description round by round of each rule and how the USFSA chose for Skate America.
 
S

SkateFan4Life

Guest
I for one, would welcome the end of the qualifying rounds. In my opinion, this aspect of the competition has ruined the podium chances of some of the best skaters. If one of the qualifying rounds contains the top three skaters in the world, while the other qualifying round contains none of the top skaters, the skater who wins the "other" round will have a jump start (no pun intended) on the skaters in the first round.

Certainly, I can understand that it would be difficult to judge a World singles event that contained, say, sixty skaters, and the qualifying round does serve the purpose of weeding down the competition to a more management number of skaters.

However, it just seems obvious to me that a certain standard must be obtained by all skaters who compete at senior worlds. For the women, all competitiors must have a consistent triple toe, flip, and salchow. If a female skater doesn't have those jumps (at least) she isn't a senior World-level competitior, IMHO.
It isn't a mystery that some skaters show up at Worlds with an obviously weak arsenal of jumps, yet they are at Worlds because their country is an ISU member and is entitled to send one representative to Worlds. While it's great to give up and coming skaters the chance to compete internationally, the Worlds is hardly the proper place to send junior-level skaters. The Grand Prix series and other competitions are appropriate vehicles to give these developing skaters the opportunity to compete in front of international judges.
 

hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
SkateFan4Life said:
The Grand Prix series and other competitions are appropriate vehicles to give these developing skaters the opportunity to compete in front of international judges.
The Grand Prix won't work for this, because the host nations choose the skaters who will appear at their events, and it's unlikely they'll choose a woman from Mexico with 1-2 triples and excellent presentation, when limited to a dozen skaters in total. I don't know how skaters are chosen for the next tier championships (Nebelhorn, Finlandia, etc.)
 

SusanBeth

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
It isn't a mystery that some skaters show up at Worlds with an obviously weak arsenal of jumps, yet they are at Worlds because their country is an ISU member and is entitled to send one representative to Worlds. While it's great to give up and coming skaters the chance to compete internationally, the Worlds is hardly the proper place to send junior-level skaters.

I do understand your point, but wonder if it might not be in the best interests of figure skating in the long run. Having countries with ''weaker'' programs participate with the best in the world introduces more people in that country to the sport. Everyone wants a hometown kid to cheer on.

I remember watching the first Chinese skater at the Olympics in 1976. He had string holding his skate together and an extremely high and slow sitspin. He placed last only because he couldn't finish lower. Yet, he forged the path for other Chinese skaters and the sport is better for it.

In light of figure skating's present condition, we can't afford to lose the opportunity for growth into new countries. The Grand Prix simply doesn't have the status that Worlds has and won't make the same impact.
 
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gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
SkateFan4Life said:
However, it just seems obvious to me that a certain standard must be obtained by all skaters who compete at senior worlds. For the women, all competitiors must have a consistent triple toe, flip, and salchow. If a female skater doesn't have those jumps (at least) she isn't a senior World-level competitior, IMHO.

Why triple toe, flip, and salchow specifically? For most skaters, flip is the fourth or fifth triple they learn, not the second or third.

If one were going to set such a standard, it would make more sense to define it as "consistent double axel and three different consistent triples."

And what would it be for the men these days? Five triples? Six? Five plus a triple-triple and/or a triple axel?

The vast majority of skaters who show up at Worlds -- i.e., considerably more than 30 men and 30 ladies, although generally not 40+ -- *are* capable of landing that kind of jump content. They won't all do it when it counts, but you can't predict in advance who will and who won't.

Some skaters are always inconsistent on the jumps they have because of technical weaknesses. Some are fairly consistent in practice or in lesser competitions but succumb to nerves at the big event. Some are reasonably or even extremely consistent when they're healthy and focused, but because of injury, illness, or distractions in their personal lives just happen to be having a bad day or a bad week when they get to Worlds.

Whatever standard you choose for a cutoff, it's going to vary from year to year anyway as older skaters retire or learn new tricks or lose their tricks permanently or temporarily due to injury and newer skaters come along who may have been practicing harder moves from an earlier age or who may not yet be finished learning all the moves they'll master eventually.

And some years there just happens to be a particularly good competition and you get skaters with who land three different triples in their qual round but still get cut; other years everyone's jumps are a mess and otherwise good skaters who land only one triple in the quals and one more in the short can make the cut.

Does anything count besides the jumps? Would you accept a skater who meets your jump requirements even if their basic skating quality is "junior level" or worse? How about if they're incapable of completing all the spins that meet the minimum requirements for senior programs? On the other hand, would you exclude a skater whose basic skating and spins are far above average but who is inconsistent on the jumps or only has two triples (ladies) or four (men) that they can really count on?

How do you define "consistent" anyway?

Leave it up to the federations to vet their skaters before sending them? Many feds already do this and won't send skaters who otherwise qualify in a given year if they don't have certain jumps or if they've otherwise not shown evidence that they have the potential to make it to the final round or top 12 or top 16 or whatever. Therefore some feds are already harsher than your standards. Others would take advantage of their discretion to send a skater by defining "consistent" as "we've seen her land it at least once."

Base admission to Worlds on performance at lesser events? Well, it has been proposed more than once (but voted down each time) to make Europeans and Four Continents qualifiers for Worlds. But even those proposals leave a certain number of open spots available to be filled by a single preliminary/qualifying round at Worlds for countries/skaters who didn't qualify through the continental championships.

Have a test event where the skaters have to skate in front of an international panel to see if they can do it? Gee, that sounds a lot like a qualifying event to me. And it's a lot more efficient to hold it in conjunction with Worlds than to hold it, e.g., at a location thousands of miles away a couple weeks earlier.

You could have the qualifying skate consist of a Top Jump-style contest. Prove to us that you have X number of consistent triples. Go out there and land X jumps for us. You get Y number of attempts. Anyone who succeeds can advance to the SP; anyone who fails misses the cut.

But how is this a better indication of overall skating ability than actually letting them skate their long programs?

And what happens if you get 38 men but only 16 ladies passing the test one year, and the next year the balance is the other way around?

As for the problem of unequal qualifying rounds hurting the chances of some medal contenders, there's a simple solution to that: don't carry over the placements (or scores, under CoP) from the quals to the finals.
 
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