The abhorrent state of PCS judging

I think there should be two sets of judges. 4 or 5 grading tech with the GOEs (so they might actually be following the guidelines for the GOEs instead of rewarding what "looks good") and 4 or 5 for the PCS and overall impression of the program and performance. They would all be accredited to judge both and would be assigned at random just before the comp.
Judges are not accurately marking both in GOEs and PCS but maybe it is because they can't. They have to concentrate on the tech so they loose the overall impression of the program and skating.

Meoima said:

How about the JGP in Russia where Yuna S was robbed of a medal?
Did you read my post? I never say JSF isn't politiking. They do. But their influence is pale compared to the big three.

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Well it's not the same, really.

If you look at the protocols scores were lower for everyone in the FS: for example Nugumanova got 115.83 with a cleanish skate and 126.02 in Estonia, 10 days later.
http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/jgprus2016/jgprus2016_JuniorLadies_FS_Scores.pdf

Also Yuna S. actually fell in the long program in Russia, while Sofia Samodurova lost to three japanese because of the lower GOEs and lower PCS, which is... let's say interesting, because she skate a clean free program. (and actually the most difficult program for ladies at that event)
http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/jgpjpn2016/jgpjpn2016_JuniorLadies_FS_Scores.pdf

Japan has the same influence as US, Russia and Canada, Satoko's scores are a proof.

There are three issues with PCS that need addressing:

1. The imbalance with TES. More and more Men have the potential to, and do, score between 100 and 120 for the LP TES regularly these days, mainly because they are able to do multiples high BV quads in the programs. But PCS is still capped at 100, the presumed reachable cap for TES at the time the scoring system was designed with the intention of giving equal importance to both technical elements and the holistic program.

2. The scores do not seem to reflect the strengths and performances of skaters relative to one another. This has become conspicuous, incomprehensible and controversial, becoming a hot topic of debates lately.

3. The above issue is especially pronounced at the top level, or at least the differences in levels of skills are compressed, resulting in what I call the logarithmic scale of scoring, exactly when it's the fine differences and nuances that differentiate these skaters.

Taken together, these issues make PCS irrelevant in ranking and development of skaters. This has been evident currently and is strongly indicated to continue. I think skating fans are expressing grave concerns because it diminishes, even destroys, the big draw of figure skating and points to an even more exaggerated imbalance and the demise of artistry and entertainment value of this unique sport.

Tahuu said:

Why Nathan got 88 PCS? Because his performance blew up the arena and the WWW spheres.

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Okay, I'm sorry but if you're going to argue that crowd support + online fan base = results, then ...

How about number of stuffed animals thrown onto the ice?

Hevari said:

Maybe the first step to fix the PCS problems is to make judges totally independent from national federations...

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It's still a problem as well, judges also seem to reward depending on how ''late the group is''.

Chances are there is similar factions within the ISU including one that have the concerns many expressed here. The system was almost to the other extreme back in 2010, when basically it wasn't even worth trying the quad unless you had it perfect because even a slight underrotation would make it a triple jump BV in addition to the -GOE. This is the state of things that allowed Evan Lysacek to win Olympic gold.

I have a feeling that the ISU will revisit this after the 2018 Olympics.

Ares said:

It's still a problem as well, judges also seem to reward depending on how ''late the group is''.

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This maybe can be fixed by returning compulsory figures competition as a qualification for SP starting order... And by the way - the result of compulsory figures competition may be used as a kinda benchmark for Skating Skills mark in SP & FS PCS...

Mrs. P said:

Chances are there is similar factions within the ISU including one that have the concerns many expressed here. The system was almost to the other extreme back in 2010, when basically it wasn't even worth trying the quad unless you had it perfect because even a slight underrotation would make it a triple jump BV in addition to the -GOE. This is the state of things that allowed Evan Lysacek to win Olympic gold.

I have a feeling that the ISU will revisit this after the 2018 Olympics.

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By the way - don't we see the same situation now in ladies singles? Medvedeva doesn't have the most difficult jump passes (only one lutz in two programs, 2-2-2 jumping pass and so on) but earns BV and TES points because of backloading/tanos and so on...

Hevari said:

This maybe can be fixed by returning compulsory figures competition as a qualification for SP starting order... And by the way - the result of compulsory figures competition may be used as a kinda benchmark for Skating Skills mark in SP & FS PCS...

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It's also a problem in Long Programs. Sure skaters that skate in later groups are usually better but skaters like Mao Asada in Sochi FS or Zijun Li or Alaine Chartrand in 4CC (both should get high 7s - to 8s - hence above 60 PCS in LP imo) this year get somewhat dismissed after not being in last flight.

Could be, but then Skating Skills & Compulsory Figures are not that close to each other. Midori Ito was pretty bad in that but you can't deny her very good skating skills.

Ares said:

It's also a problem in Long Programs. Sure skaters that skate in later groups are usually better but skaters like Mao Asada in Sochi FS or Zijun Li or Alaine Chartrand in 4CC (both should get high 7s - to 8s - hence above 60 PCS in LP imo) this year get somewhat dismissed after not being in last flight.

Could be, but then Skating Skills & Compulsory Figures are not that close to each other. Midori Ito was pretty bad in that but you can't deny her very good skating skills.

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So... the result of compulsory figures competition can be used as a starting order for both programs... I don't see anything wrong if the starting orders in SP and FS would be the same (in FS - excluding all skaters, who did not advance to FS according to SP results - like in EC or WC)...

As someone who does not like the men as much anymore, as back in the days with Plushy, I am happy, about a guy who can actually land his jump elements properly. This whole crash circuit has done more harm to the men´s event, than anything else.
If you watch the Olympics and hardly any men does a clean skate, then this is nothing but sad for the sport. I would even go that far and say, without Plushy in the team event, everything was forgettable about Sochi´s men.

There are some really good artists at the men´s bracket, but it all get´s ruined if they attempt quads, that they can not properly land.

Mrs. P said:

Chances are there is similar factions within the ISU including one that have the concerns many expressed here. The system was almost to the other extreme back in 2010, when basically it wasn't even worth trying the quad unless you had it perfect because even a slight underrotation would make it a triple jump BV in addition to the -GOE. This is the state of things that allowed Evan Lysacek to win Olympic gold.

I have a feeling that the ISU will revisit this after the 2018 Olympics.

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Not only that but the PCS differences used to be far more extreme for the most minor artistic differences. Chan used to get 6+ point PCS advantage against Hanyu even with a mistake ridden program. Sure, Hanyu's skating was not as good back then but I didn't think it was 1-2 jumps worth of difference. When the judging trend clearly changed in 2013 and Hanyu's PCS shot up to within 3 points of Chan I felt that PCS scoring was balanced.

The problem is that after the 2014 Olympics the PCS scoring swung to the other extreme, where Hanyu can do anything and get the same or better PCS as Chan, Fernandez gets within 1 PCS of Chan, Uno gets 2 PCS less than Chan with mostly crossovers, and now Nathan Chen is getting only 4 points less with nothing except decent SS.

Same thing happened in pairs where S/Z and V/T used to get at least 6 points PCS advantage over very slightly worse skaters like S/S, but now S/H at their best can only get about 2 points PCS over a clean D/R. The artistic difference between V/T and S/S was miniscule compared to the difference between S/H and D/R now.

UnChosen said:

Same thing happened in pairs where S/Z and V/T used to get at least 6 points PCS advantage over very slightly worse skaters like S/S, but now S/H at their best can only get about 2 points PCS over a clean D/R. The artistic difference between V/T and S/S was miniscule compared to the difference between S/H and D/R now.

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I like that you brought up pairs because I think there's a big issue with scoring in Pairs too. D/R were getting higher PCS than Sui/Han and comparable to S/K for a period of time over the last two years, for no reason other than their technical difficulty. Now that their technical execution has declined a little this year, their PCS has also fallen, but that just goes to show that PCS is only based on technical performance and not on skating quality, movement, transitions, flow, etc. which should not depend on technical elements. Anyways their PCS is still too high b/c D/R don't really skate across the ice as a pair...lots of individual skating/crossovers.

moriel said:

For me, the issue is not even weird PCs scores given, but lack of consistency in scoring.
For example, where the 10 points gap between Jin and Chen comes from?

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Do you think Evgenia Medvedeva’s PCS should be 11-13 points higher than other girls her age, e.g. Zijun Li?

Chen’s PCS rise is in fact the same as Medvedeva’s PCS rise. Medevdeva was the top junior before she turned senior. She won everything in junior and got bronze at Russian senior national in 2014-2015 season. (She won two JGP and got bronze in both JGPF and JWC in 2013-2014 season.) She continued to deliver after she turned senior. She didn’t become Russian no.1 until she won GPF in 2015 and her PCS kept rising.

Chen was the top junior before he turned senior. He won everything in junior, got bronze at US senior national before he had a surgery and withdrew from JWC & WC in 2015-2016 season. (He won two JGP and got bronze in both JGPF and JWC in 2013-2014 season. He skipped quite a few competitions due to injuries in 2014-2015 season.) He continued to deliver after he turned senior. He didn’t become US no.1 until she medaled at GPF last year and his PCS kept rising.

USFSA is doing exactly the same thing Russian Fed is doing. Why do Russian Fed and USFS push Medevdeva and Chen when they have so many skaters to choose from? Because both Medevdeva and Chen are the most consistent skaters (with no major weakness) in their respective country and they have been consistent since they were junior (or even novice).

Russian girls struggle with puberty. Most of their senior girls are one-season wonder. Medevdeva is the only Russian girl in recent years that stays at the top for more than one seasons.

American men struggle with quads. For years, American champs have been quadless and don’t have the tech to compete at international level. Chen is their first man with consistent quads in recent years to compete at the top (and he lands more quads than everyone).

You often hear fans saying Medevdeva will go into a slump soon due to puberty. You also hear many fans says Chen will break himself soon due to doing so many quads.

You see a few threads opened whenever Medvedeva wins a competition. Now, a few threads are also opened when Chen won something this season.

I know fans have issue with the way PCS is judged. But PCS (and GOE too) is really tier based. When you are in 1st tier, you get 1st tier goe and pcs, i.e. 2-3 goe & high 8s - low 9s pcs. When you are in 2nd tier, you get 2nd tier goe and pcs, i.e. 1-2 goe & high 7s - low 8s pcs. When you are in 3rd tier or in junior, you get 3rd tier goe and pcs, i.e. 0-1 goe & high 6s – low 7s pcs.

When you compare the pcs of a 1st tier skater with a 2nd tier skater, you will always see a big gap not justified by their performances & skills. It’s always been this way. When you compare the pcs of skaters in the same tier, the difference between their PCS is not huge. If you compare the pcs of Hanyu (94), Fernandez (93), Chan (92), Uno (92) and Chen (88), the difference isn’t that big. This allows the top tier skater with the hardest tech and cleanest performance to win and avoids controversy. (The deduction for a fall is only 3 points for a triple and 5 points for a quad. A pcs gap of over 5 points means a skater with a fall can outscore another skater with a clean performance. So you can’t really give significantly more than 5 points gap in pcs between two medal contenders if you don’t want to give controversial placements, especially when men and pairs attempt hard tech and fall so often.) When you give skaters of the same tier significantly different pcs and goe, you will see controversial results like 2012 WC and 2013 WC. In fact, after 2013 WC, we haven’t seen many controversial results at major championships. Top tier skaters don’t have significant goe and pcs advantage over each other. They only have significant goe and pcs advantage over 2nd tier or 3rd tier skaters.

How do you become a top tier skater? You need to have something really outstanding that no one has and you need to consistently deliver.

P.S. I’m a bit surprised that Medvedeva’s fans are also among the ones that complain about Chen’s PCS when Chen’s PCS rise is exactly the same as Medvedeva’s PCS rise.

gsyzf said:

When you give skaters of the same tier significantly different pcs and goe, you will see controversial results like 2012 WC and 2013 WC. In fact, after 2013 WC, we haven’t seen many controversial results. Top tier skaters don’t have significant goe and pcs advantage over each other. They only have significant goe and pcs advantage over 2nd tier or 3rd tier skaters.

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Denis Ten was considered a 2nd-tier skater at 2013 Worlds (where he skated light years better than anything he did prior to it) and that was one factor that prevented him from winning. While that is controversial then, Top tier skaters "only having significant GOE and PCS advantage over 2nd tier skaters" should also be deemed controversial now, as well.

There have certainly still been shady judging/controversial results, albeit not many to the extent of 2013 Worlds men (2012 Worlds wasn't really controversial if you look at how the system works and consider areas like low-jump GOE, a SP 4T+3T<< with -GOE applied to the quad as well, and lower tech difficulty i.e. number of quads, that kept Takahashi behind Chan -- although the PCS should have been closer in the FS, with Chan winning by not as much IMO).

WC2014 was arguably more controversial across all disciplines than WC2013 due to shady PCS judging and in many ways it was: Machida was arguably lowballed on his PCS and Hanyu overscored on his SP PCS (and arguably in the FS too with a tentative performance), giving Hanyu the win, while Machida was a lot cleaner and gave better performances overall. Again, another case where Machida wasn't really seen as top-tier, and a Japanese man won anyways so nobody made a stink... but if Hanyu were from another country, there would have been more of an outcry at Machida's silver. Ilinykh and Katsalapov almost got a controversial World title, thankfully were off the podium, but were a mere 1.5 points away from gold thanks to generous PCS (they received the highest SD PCS, in spite of bailing on the twizzles). Of course, that was also the WC where Kostner got bronze over Pogorilaya (just 3 triples in her FS... to Anna's 7... but still got the highest PCS of the FS, 73.78... even got 10's - with a fall).

In Worlds 2016, many people argued that Wagner should have been behind Pogorilaya, and I'm inclined to say it could have gone either way... Wagner definitely deserved a medal, although home ice definitely gave her higher PCS than usual (both personal bests), plus Anna was lowballed on PCS in the FS -- and I say that as somebody who likes Wagner more than Pogo. Satoko, of course, was lowballed on PCS in both segments - especially the FS - to ensure she didn't spoil the podium (and, of course, she was just shy).

You also have things like Lipnitskaia winning Cup of Russia 2013 over Kostner, Hanyu winning silver at Cup of China (two major errors in his SP but 44 PCS; 5 falls in the FS but 84 PCS -- both the highest PCS of each segment), and the biggie - the women's event in Sochi. Sotnikova's crazy-high PCS gave her the gold over Kim. And also, in the Sochi PCS judging ridiculousness, while not affecting the podium -- Lipnitskaia's FS got higher PCS than Mao, and Gold received 4 points higher PCS for her 1-fall FS in the individual compared to her clean FS in the team event. To me, even if it doesn't affect the podium, it doesn't make the judging any less abhorrent or worthy of scrutiny/mediation.

These are just the events that are at the top of my head, but I'm sure there are other events where shady PCS scoring (or technical panel assessment) has lead to weird results.

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

In Worlds 2016, many people argued that Wagner should have been behind Pogorilaya, and I'm inclined to say it could have gone either way... Wagner definitely deserved a medal, although home ice definitely gave her higher PCS than usual (both personal bests), plus Anna was lowballed on PCS in the FS -- and I say that as somebody who likes Wagner more than Pogo. Satoko, of course, was lowballed on PCS in both segments - especially the FS - to ensure she didn't spoil the podium (and, of course, she was just shy).

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Ashley got a huge boost in PCS over Anna, surpassing Anna's 4.5 point TES advantage, so I agree that it could have gone either way. Anna is not as engaging a performer as Ashley, Evgenia, or Kaetlyn, so I think she will always have a bit of trouble creating great programs to showcase her artistry.

Tahuu said:

Losing is bitter and you can't handle it. You are jumping out to attack the skaters now, aren't you?

Why Nathan got 88 PCS? Because his performance blew up the arena and the WWW spheres. We saw the fierce competition last night. Yuzuru was determined and gusty. He added a 4T on the fly after popping the 4S and put down a skate worthy of a champion. Nathan responded cold bloodily. He skated a difficult layout that he had not fully practiced because he wanted to win (I'd rather see him stick to his national layout and skate it clean). Watching the two skated back to back was simply magnificent!

The sport is going in the exciting direction not the doom and gloom you proclaim. Not taking anything away from earlier skaters, but watching the skating of the glorious days of your liking does feel juniorish nowadays.

BoP has a history of claiming he is the judge of IJS system. To BoP and those insisting that Nathan's PCS is inflated, I am saying it again: Don't lie to yourself thinking you are better than the 9 trained judges on the panel. You better sing your "inflated PCS" lullaby in your own bed so that you could get a better sleep. No body buys your crap

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ahhh, something to correct, blow up the arena? maybe it happened in U.S. but in 4CC, 2/3 of the crowds were coming for hanyu and I was there and at that moment most of us thought hanyu would win because chen just stepped out twice in front of my eyes, and I said to my friends hanyu would win let's celebrate! I checked with others and they hold the same opinion, so with the dominant number of hanyu fans there, I don't think the blowing up the arena thing had ever happened, maybe it is your illusion.

and also his music really is boring, it just looped the same tempo, made me sing to myself like : to jump to jump to jump to jump oh jumped (8 times!), i think to that point of view, yes , his performance quite suitable for his music choice. Good choice!

I do not agree with the PCS nor the GOE but I think I have expected that happen anyway. but your "blew up the arena" description amused me.... all around me were very disappointing and furies at that moment, maybe what you have heard is our shouting....

Still one more year to Olympic.
Those who had good luck here won't get the same luck again.
Federations will always play games.
But those who don't deserve will pay.

(Does that sound like a bad poem?)

Alex D said:

If you watch the Olympics and hardly any men does a clean skate, then this is nothing but sad for the sport.

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I think that this is a point worth stressing. A casual once-every-four-years viewer who turns on the Olympics to watch men's figure skating (both of them) are not going to become fans if all they see is a bunch of so-called world champions falling all over the ice. It is all very well that the commentators say, but he did a quad flip out of three turns and held his hand over his head! That's really hard and earns him a lot of points. But the bottom line is,"They gave the gold medal to that guy? He fell down twice! What kind of a sport is this?"

Mathman said:

I think that this is a point worth stressing. A casual once-every-four-years viewer who turns on the Olympics to watch men's figure skating (both of them) are not going to become fans if all they see is a bunch of so-called world champions falling all over the ice. It is all very well that the commentators say, but he did a quad flip out of three turns and held his hand over his head! That's really hard and earns him a lot of points. But the bottom line is,"They gave the gold medal to that guy? He fell down twice! What kind of a sport is this?"

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That's a good point. Although, I don't know. I do want figure skating to be a well-funded sport, but honestly I personally couldn't care less how many people get "converted" to non-casual fans. Like, I feel like beauty of skating, including the difficulty of the quads, speaks for itself? But then again, a lot of my personal favorite performances had major mistakes/falls, but it doesn't detract from the performance THAT much for me (if the skater doesn't let it, of course). Maybe that's just me.