Michelle Kwan's Short Program "Time" Issue

Mathman said:

Whenever I read debates of this sort it brings home to me what an impossible task the judges face. They, too, know that the difference in difficulty between a 3F and a 3R is 5%, that Arakawa had a tilt on the 3Z, and all the rest of it. Yet despite their years of training, we still see subjective appraisals and placements all over the chart. Mathman

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Definitely, Mathman. When we have so many disagreements online, imagine how it is for the judges LOL I won't comment on politics, I prefer to talk about the skating than conspiracy theories and I would wish that more posters would be like this... It's sad to see threads about skating turning into politics and blocs discussions where in the most part there aren't substantiated evidence or proof of it. I believe politics play a factor, yes, but when people get too caught up on the politics they forget to see what is going on on the ice. And sometimes they miss something that justifies a placement, while they are busy discussing the politics. Politics are a factor - not THE factor. THE factor is the skating. Besides, like we already said, even the judges disagree themselves, why can't those disagreements be attributed to different ways of watching the skating rather than being attributed to politics and corruption all the time? Maybe it's a wrong approach, but at least when we're talking about skating we have a basis, when we talk about politics there is only endless suppositions.

Hockeyfan, thanks for the post, it was interesting to read it and it definitely brought some relevant points But first, COP wasn't used, which means that under OBO rules the "factoring" can change. You were dealing with percentages and all it takes is the percentage in one rule to change and your analysis would have a different result. Also, COP isn't perfect, so I always take some exception when people use it to define elements in terms of quality. Yeah, but we gotta start from somewhere, though LOL So it was interesting to read your analysis of the programs with COP. Personally, I think Ando's loop would be considered a triple, but maybe I am wrong.

What about the rest of the ladies in the SP? Where would you place them? I thought this was one of the hardest portions of an event to judge. The top 6 skated clean, all with different jump combinations and of course, then the different strengths of each skater plays a role, and then there is the time problem on Kwan's program.

I have no problem with Kostner's placement in the SP. It was her placement in the FS that was outrageous. I would have ranked the FS in this order:
Arakawa
Kwan
Cohen
Suguri
Sebestyen
Ando
Rochette
Kostner

Which would have yielded these final placements:
Shizuka ARAKAWA
Sasha COHEN
Michelle KWAN
Miki ANDO
Julia SEBESTYEN
Fumie SUGURI
Carolina KOSTNER
Joannie ROCHETTE

hockeyfan228 said:

Arakawa had a tilt on the 3Z and a cheat on the 3T on her 3Z/3T, as well as a cheat on her 3F. Kwan had a small flutz and Cohen had a noticeable flutz....

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Considering that this was the technical portion of the competition, I found it interesting that some judges CHOSE to ignore the incompletion of the technical requirements, while others did not. How else can you explain the 6 x 5.8, & 1 x 5.9 tech marks out of 14 judges? Perhaps the Tarasova mystique was a factor in those 7 tech marks. Compare this convenient "judging" of Arakawa's MANDATORY non-deductions to the convenient "judging" of Michelle's
NON-MANDATORY deductions and one is left wondering why the judges go through the pretense of placing the skaters at all. It's not like the judges have to pay attention to the completed/incompleted elements or assess the quality of these elements in order that the skater's placements is a direct result of their performance. Who knows what the outcome of the competition would have been if the mandatory deductions were taken or the non-mandatory were not taken. How would these variables affect the implementation of each skaters LP strategy?

After the timing issue, I find the ISU decision to increase the sp timing to 2:50 seconds simply amusing.

RIskatingfan Quote:

"Politics are a factor - not THE factor. THE factor is the skating."

While I agree that politics are a factor, along with stylistic preferences etc... in a subjective sport, I believe that the problems occur when it appears that politics was the deciding factor in the placement of the skaters rather that the performance of that skater. Just like posters on messageboards, judges can rationalize any decision depending on what skating elements they choose to give the most or least importance. This is where I think the ISU should be even more specific in detailing how all skating elements should be valued so that the outcome of any competition would not change because different judges are on the panel. In other words all the judges are on the same page when it comes to assessing the quality of ANY skating element. If this could be achieved then the result of any competition would not vary whether you had 14 USA judges, 14 Russian judges, 14 Japanese judges, or one ISU judge. As it stands now, there are past competitions where the outcome would have been different if the panel of judges were changed.
Subjectivity should not have such a large influence on the results of any sport.

Hi, Kwantessence. What's your opinion on the CoP? Do you think that it will help the judges come to agreement about the quality of skating elements, or will subjectivity and possibly politics still rule the roost?

Mathman

Mathman said:

Hi, Kwantessence. What's your opinion on the CoP? Do you think that it will help the judges come to agreement about the quality of skating elements, or will subjectivity and possibly politics still rule the roost?

Mathman

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I believe that Cop has some very good things to offer and some that should be modified. On the whole I like the fact that skating elements have specific values and the assessment of their quality can also be be given specific numerical values. Theoretically it means that all skaters will get credit for the elements in their programs, whether they are ranked #1, or #50 in the world. What COP still doesn't adress is the variance in defining the quality of an element or program components. Hopefully the ISU has poured over the results of last year's grand prix, to identify the muddy areas that caused spreads of
-2 to +1 on Suguri's 3lz2t at the grand prix final. I am quite skeptical of any judging system that needs the "secrecy" of anonymous judges and random selection of judges marks, in order to get the correct results. What does that say about the underlying quality of the process?

As long as the criteria for assessing the quality of any element varies from judge to judge, then subjectivity will undoubtedly have a significant influence on the outcome of any competition. If the ISU can further fine tune the areas I have mentioned, then political marks should be much more readily identified, and those judges should not be eligible to judge any ISU skating event again.

Mathman said:

Actually, I was surprised that there wasn't much of a bruhaha. Everyone, Kwan fans and foes alike, pretty much agreed on his one. She went over the time. She got a deduction for it. That's sports.

Mathman

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Well, the "bruhaha" eminated largely from Michelle Kwan and her new coach, both of whom were upset over the technical mark deduction. However, the judges called this one fairly and squarely, in my opinion. Michelle was clearly still skating when her music stopped - anybody could see that.

My point is that the judges at US Nationals must stop viewing Kwan as some sort of icon (which she is, of course) and award her marks that accurately reflect her performance. Michelle also ran over time in her short program at Nationals, but she was not penalized for doing so. She flubbed her double axel, however, and she was marked down for that.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

I love MK and I love TFB, but I still don't get how she and her team allowed this to happen. I'm no skater, but I would think with time restrictions being integral to deductions, NO ONE would construct such a tight program. Can anyone give me the strategy behind timing a program?

SkateFan4Life said:

Well, the "bruhaha" eminated largely from Michelle Kwan and her new coach, both of whom were upset over the technical mark deduction. However, the judges called this one fairly and squarely, in my opinion. Michelle was clearly still skating when her music stopped - anybody could see that.

My point is that the judges at US Nationals must stop viewing Kwan as some sort of icon (which she is, of course) and award her marks that accurately reflect her performance. Michelle also ran over time in her short program at Nationals, but she was not penalized for doing so. She flubbed her double axel, however, and she was marked down for that.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

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I think the whole time thing is a little silly to be honest. I can understand why Michelle would be upset. After delivering a good program to hear you get deducted for something like a time deduction must be exceptionally frustrating. I don't think she came across as feeling entitled, just not sure how to express frustration. Even though she clearly went over it is never pleasant news to hear you were penalized for time instead of mistakes. And besides even with deductions some of her scores were much lower than I thought they should be. And really the only reason anyone cares is because it is Michelle. If it had been Kostner or even Ando I don't think there would be nearly the controversy over it.

It is up to the skater, the coach, and the choreographer to know what the rules are. They all know that there is a time limit for the program. If hearing the music can be a problem due to the crowds, why run the music right up to the time limit? End the music 3 or 4 seconds early so that if she goes past the end of the music, she will still be able to finish the program within the allotted time. It was very fair to make the deduction for going over on the time. I also think that the judges at Nationals should have taken the deduction as well.

I bet Michelle was also frustrated because no one mentioned to her the fact that she went overtime at Nationals. When you're on the ice, I imagine it must be the hard to tell the difference between ending on time and a few seconds, especially if the crowd is with you. True, it is her responsibility make sure she stays within rules but the USFSA also failed to do their part and at least acknowledge the fact that she went overtime at Nationals,instead of waiting until the whole "controversy" happened at Worlds. If she had been told at Nationals, she would have taken care of it ASAP and it wouldnt' have happened. She would have scored at least second in the SP (depending on which judges marks counted) and have gotten 4 6.0s. Hopefully now with the additional 10 seconds added to the SP time, she'll make sure not make such a mistake again.

katherine2001 said:

It is up to the skater, the coach, and the choreographer to know what the rules are. They all know that there is a time limit for the program. If hearing the music can be a problem due to the crowds, why run the music right up to the time limit? End the music 3 or 4 seconds early so that if she goes past the end of the music, she will still be able to finish the program within the allotted time. It was very fair to make the deduction for going over on the time. I also think that the judges at Nationals should have taken the deduction as well.

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I'm sorry but the ISU lost it's credibility on this time issue when they amended the rule after the fact. If the extra two seconds was such a crucial error, then why add 10 more seconds to the sp. Oh please don't tell me that it is because skaters can add more elements to their program, if anything, this extra time will be used up doing extra crossovers. :\

Wouldn't It be funny if Michelle changed her sp to 2.50 sec for next year?

Kwantessence said:

Wouldn't It be funny if Michelle changed her sp to 2.50 sec for next year?

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Do it, Michelle, do it!!! Then skate for 2:52 right in the judges faces, LOL.

Mathman

Ha ha...and the next thing you know, they'll be extending the short program time to 3:00

Chrystia Mee said:

I think the whole time thing is a little silly to be honest. I can understand why Michelle would be upset. After delivering a good program to hear you get deducted for something like a time deduction must be exceptionally frustrating. I don't think she came across as feeling entitled, just not sure how to express frustration. Even though she clearly went over it is never pleasant news to hear you were penalized for time instead of mistakes. And besides even with deductions some of her scores were much lower than I thought they should be. And really the only reason anyone cares is because it is Michelle. If it had been Kostner or even Ando I don't think there would be nearly the controversy over it.

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OK - at the risk of sounding like an old broken record, I am simply saying that the US Nationals judges should have done their job and deducted technical points for Michelle Kwan's short program at this year's Nationals. She clearly skated after the music had stopped. Had the judges taken the deduction, she would most likely have corrected the situation - rechoreograph the ending so her ending would be in sync with the music's ending, and she would have not made this mistake at Worlds. The US judges gave her a false sense of security by choosing to ignore this mistake.

Again - you have to be cruel to be kind at times.

I agree.

It's much ado about little. I ws there. The music stopped and she rushed for the final pose. big deal. she got the deduction and that's all there is, folks.

Joe

Joesitz said:

It's much ado about little. I ws there. The music stopped and she rushed for the final pose. big deal. she got the deduction and that's all there is, folks. Joe

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Sorry to sound like a broken record, but, the US Nationals judges did not deduct from Michelle's technical marks when she "rushed for the fiinal pose". She was clearly moving after the music had ended - and that calls for a deduction, plain and simple. Michelle did the same thing at Worlds - she "rushed for the final pose", and this time the judges (correctly) deducted from her technical scores.