CoP and the QR at World's

I am assuming there is still going to be a qualifying round at Worlds...How will this work with the CoP? Will everything simply be additive? Will the SP still have some meaning? If the QR is still 20%? Mathematically how will everything work out and be weighted correctly?

eliza88

eliza88 said:

I am assuming there is still going to be a qualifying round at Worlds...How will this work with the CoP? Will everything simply be additive? Will the SP still have some meaning? If the QR is still 20%? Mathematically how will everything work out and be weighted correctly?eliza88

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Good questions, Eliz - I'm assuming there will be at least 40 skaters for the QR (male and female). The established minimum to qualify for the SP is 30 (they will have 5 groups of 6 - the last 3 groups, imo, will not have a prayer of reaching the podium even with the CoP, but it will bring in revenue from independent TV sources.) I'm not sure whether they will throw out the scores for the QR or just keep them toward the final talley after the LP.

I'm sure the SP will still have meaning. All those costumes, music arrangments,choreographers, will have to mean something. How much? depends on whether the QR is maintained or thrown out.

Computers will be able to weigh the points with whatever decisions they make with the QR.

Joe

This is what I found in the ISU document:

Rule 353:I:3:b & c: In case of a Qualifying Free Skating, in the World Championships, the Total Segment Score of this Free Skating will be multiplied by a factor of 0.25. The results will be added (after the Short Program and after the final Free Skating).

In the World Junior Championships the results of the qualifying free skating in single events are not included in the final result and are used only for selecting the participants who qualify for the short program and for the draw of this program.

Pitchka - Does that mean the QR will count 25%? That an awful lot for skating an LP at 8 am in the morning. How much would the SP and LP count (each)?

Joe

If I understand correctly, they will take the TSS from the QR, and multiply it by 0.25. Then, that number would be added to your TSS for the SP and then the LP. So, if you got a TSS of 125 for the QR, you multiply it by 0.25 and get 31.25, which is then added to the SP and LP scores. Am I correct? So actually, the QR is worth 1/4 of everything else.

This is how I understand it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Let's take men because it's easiest. The Short Program score is multiplied by 1.0 (stays the same); Free Skate score is multiplied by 2.0 (doubled). QR is multiplied by 0.25. So QR is worth 0.25 out of 3.25; this turns out to be 7.69%.

For ladies the calculations are a little different (BTW, should be the same for pairs if they ever needed QR). SP is multiplied by 0.8, FS by 1.6. On the surface this loos identical to men, but then the QR comes in. If my logic is correct, then QR is 0.25/(0.8+1.6), which turns out to be 10.4% - a bit more important.

For dance luckily the compulsories take place of QR. The calculation then is very complex, as different elements of skating are weighed differently in different programs:
Compulsory Dance
Skating Skills........................... 0.75
Performance............................ 0.75
Interpretation............................0.5
Timing......................................1.0

Original Dance
Skating Skills...........................1.0
Linking Footwork/Movements..1.0
Performance............................0.75
Choreography/Composition.....0.75
Interpretation/Timing...............1.5

Free Dance
Skating Skills...........................1.5
Linking Footwork/Movements..2.0
Performance............................1.5
Choreography/Composition.....1.5
Interpretation/Timing................1.5

Ptichka, if your calculations are correct, that's unfair for the ladies. They should adjust the %, same as the SP and LP, so that the Q round counts for the same percentage.

Personally, I wish they'd just throw the Q scores out and start from scratch with the SP.

Hi Guinivere, well, you could just as well say that it isn't fair to the men. All that work to skate in the qualifying round and then it only counts 8%?

Mathman

Thanks Iceskater and Pitchka. It makes more sense now. I don't understand why the Ladies are scored differently than the Men but that's skating.

What gets me, if you've ever been to a Worlds, the QR is divided into as much as 20-20 for Parts A and B. I think they draw which of the two parts skates the first thing in the morning. Can you imagine getting up so early to do everything to wake up, and then go the rink with all your gear, warm up in the hallways, put on your costume, get called to do the competition warm up, and it's only 8:30 am. Whoa. Not easy. And your other competitors get to skate at 1pm. Whoa Not fair. That happend to Joubert but he pulled himself up in the SP and got a silver after the LP.

All this and you might place 16th in either of these groups and that's all there is folks. That happened to Zvonovich. Sad.

I would suggest a form of seeding a la Tennis. 10 top skaters skate against 10 lower tier skaters on two different days.

Joe

Joesitz said:

Thanks Iceskater and Pitchka. It makes more sense now. I don't understand why the Ladies are scored differently than the Men but that's skating.

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Because the men skate 30 seconds longer.

Ptichka said:

This is how I understand it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Let's take men because it's easiest. The Short Program score is multiplied by 1.0 (stays the same); Free Skate score is multiplied by 2.0 (doubled). QR is multiplied by 0.25. So QR is worth 0.25 out of 3.25; this turns out to be 7.69%.

For ladies the calculations are a little different (BTW, should be the same for pairs if they ever needed QR). SP is multiplied by 0.8, FS by 1.6. On the surface this loos identical to men, but then the QR comes in. If my logic is correct, then QR is 0.25/(0.8+1.6), which turns out to be 10.4% - a bit more important.

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I understand the rules the way iceskater051 understands them, "If I understand correctly, they will take the TSS from the QR, and multiply it by 0.25. Then, that number would be added to your TSS for the SP and then the LP. So, if you got a TSS of 125 for the QR, you multiply it by 0.25 and get 31.25, which is then added to the SP and LP scores."

According to the ISU documentation, the multipliers cited above are applied to the Program Components only and are already imbedded in the SP and LP mark. The only thing that isn't clear to me is whether the Quali skate is treated as like an LP: i.e.

Men: (TES + (2*TCS)) * .25
Ladies: (TES + (1.6*TCS)) *.25

or if the scores are taken without weighting:

Men and Ladies: (TES+TCS) * .25

However, the conclusion that "So actually, the QR is worth 1/4 of everything else" overstates the importance of the quali round:

Ladies: Average through GPF:

SP TES: 24.36
SP TCS: 29.01, after .8 factor applied: 23.21
SP Total: 47.57

LP TES: 41.40
LP TCS: 28.84, after 1.6 factor applied: 46.14
LP Total: 87.54

If the quali round includes the 1.6 factor for TCS, then quali points would be 87.54 * .25, or 21.89

47.57=30.3%
87.54=55.8%
21.89=14.0%
--------
157.00

If the quali round is the raw TES+TCS, then the total would be (41.40+28.84) * .25, or 17.56

47.57=31.1%
87.54=57.3%
21.89=11.5%
--------
152.67

Men--Average through GPF

SP TES: 30.46
SP TCS: 29.56, after 1.0 factor applied: 29.56
SP Total: 60.02

LP TES: 54.63
LP TCS: 29.80, after 2.0 factor applied: 46.14
LP Total:114.23

If the quali round includes the 2.0 factor for TCS, then quali points would be 114.23 * .25, or 28.56

60.02=29.6%
114.23=56.3%
28.56=14.1%
--------
202.81

If the quali round is the raw TES+TCS, then the total would be (54.63+29.8) * .25, or 21.08

60.02=30.7%
114.23=58.5%
21.08=10.0%
--------
195.35

Based on this year's average GP scores, the relative percentages of the programs are fairly close among Men and Ladies, and the impact of the quali round is similar, regardless of what base amount is used to calculate the QR score.

Of course, the Men are likely to score more points, because for TES, they do can do an additional element and their jumps elements tend to be harder than Ladies', and in TCS, because the ISU decided to counteract the technical score by weighing the program elements higher. The average raw scores, before weighting, were quite similar for Ladies and Men:

Ladies' SP avg: 29.01 vs. Men's SP avg: 29.56
Ladies' LP avg: 28.84 vs. Men's LP avg: 29.80

Joesitz said:

What gets me, if you've ever been to a Worlds, the QR is divided into as much as 20-20 for Parts A and B. I think they draw which of the two parts skates the first thing in the morning. Can you imagine getting up so early to do everything to wake up, and then go the rink with all your gear, warm up in the hallways, put on your costume, get called to do the competition warm up, and it's only 8:30 am. Whoa. Not easy. And your other competitors get to skate at 1pm. Whoa Not fair. That happend to Joubert but he pulled himself up in the SP and got a silver after the LP Joe

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I think Joubert should have won his quali group and come in 3rd in the SP, but that's me. But Sandhu was just as disadvantaged skating in that group, and Sandhu started three places earlier than Joubert. By the time Sandhu skated as #12, there were already two groups ahead of him and a zamboni break, which would have given him closer to an 11-11:30am start time, and Joubert 15-20 minutes later. By that time in the morning, Chait/Sakhnovski have completed their daily 2-hour practice session and have headed to off-ice training.

Skaters are used to getting up quite early for practices, although to a person they say that it's very hard to skate at 10am. Jet lag is likely to be more of a factor than the actual waking time, and Joubert, who is based in the same time zone as Worlds and a short hop flight, had an advantage there over Sandhu.

The way the quali groups are created, any of the top 24 skaters from the prior year who compete in the current year are divided alternately into groups A&B based on placement from last year. After that all other competitors are assigned to the quali groups in alphabetical order by country name and surname. Then there's a draw to see who goes first. So everyone has an equally good chance of ending in the early group; it doesn't go automatically to the second-place qualifier's group.

Qualification for the SP will not go on total scores across groups; the top 15 from each group will qualify for the SP, unless there is a tie for 15th, and then the tied skaters go forward, or if the host country doesn't qualify anyone, they get a bye. (That could come in handy if Zelenka doesn't qualify, particularly, since he'd get another bye into the LP. With Kostner and Marchei, the Italian team doesn't have to worry about the Ladies.) This maintains the "all of the skaters in the early group are in the same boat" aspect of qualification. However, if skating early means a lower score -- or one group of judges grades higher than the other -- one group is going to get an advantage when the score is factored into the total score. Qualification for the free skate is based on the top 24 aggregate scores of SP and Quali. Starting order is based on taking the bottom three from each group and drawing start numbers 1-6, then taking the next three from each group and drawing start numbers 7-12, etc. (A host nation bye always starts first and joins the first warm-up group.)

The difference -- both positive and negative -- is that last year, Joubert was stuck with his ordinal for the quali round, and he had to rely upon how other skaters placed, regardless of whether he had skated a .1 or 10 point lesser performance than Sandhu. He was considered to have skated the same skate that Lindemann did in the other group, regardless of whether he skated 5 points better or worse or the same. This year, the actual score will be counted.

Last year, almost all of the the top competitors skated at Worlds. Buttle, who hopefully will qualify this year, and Goebel, if he's healthy enough to qualify, are the exceptions. Any other top competitors are likely to be newbie surprises -- perhaps Ota if she does well in 4C's -- or veterans like Poth (if Pavuk is too injured) or Soldatova (if she beats Sokolova and Volchkova doesn't recover in time) making a comeback.

Whether Suguri qualifies could determine whether Group A includes Arakawa, Kwan, Kostner, Suguri, Slutskaya, and Group B includes Cohen, Ando, Sebestyen, Rochette, and Sokolova (if she qualifies), or if Slutskaya would be in Group B with Cohen, Ando, and Sebestyen, with Rochette slotting into Group A. (Rochette should be lighting candles for Suguri to win the skate-off, because she's got a better chance of being in the final six in Group B.)

Whether Weiss qualifies and Lambiel is healthy could determine whether Group A includes Plushenko, Lindemann, Weir, Zhang, and Dambier and Group B includes Joubert, Lambiel, Weiss, Sandhu, and Li. Whether Zhang is third-ranked after Joubert and Lambiel in his group or Weiss is, the groups will be pretty balanced if Lambiel is healthy, the usual suspects qualify, and if Goebel and Buttle both qualify and don't get alphabetized into the same group.

Total scores might give a better idea of which group actually was stronger on that day at that time, if the judging and calling is consistent between groups.

Hockeyfan, thanks for your analysis of the qualifying round. I think that's right.

About the 8:00 AM session, at Dortmund it was the ladies qualifying group that fell apart, with both Kwan and Suguri (the first two skaters) messing up big time. Only Arakawa skated well. At the time, not only was the early hour cited but also the fact that the skaters did not have adequate time to practice on the ice surface, which for some reason was harder for that session than the skaters were used to.

Mathman

Hockeyfan - I believe you have the whole picture at Dortmund and your figuring out Groups A and B from last year's Worlds will be a help for me to ponder. I've got to digest everything you wrote which I will do before New Years. (Busy today.)

And I agree with Mathman, that 8am is too early to skate competition and it did have an effect on more than a few. Getting up early to practice or have a lesson is not the same as getting up early and facing the judges. In all modesty I believe my suggestion of seeding the skaters and pairing the top tier with the lesser tier and have competititons on 2 separate days at 1pm should be considered by the ISU.

Joe

I can see now how much "easier" it is to simply have a point system :scratch:

Thanks for all the info!

eliza88

iceskater051 said:

If I understand correctly, they will take the TSS from the QR, and multiply it by 0.25. Then, that number would be added to your TSS for the SP and then the LP. So, if you got a TSS of 125 for the QR, you multiply it by 0.25 and get 31.25, which is then added to the SP and LP scores. Am I correct?

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This is the way I understand it as well.

iceskater051 said:

So actually, the QR is worth 1/4 of everything else.

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No. For general discussion purposes, the point totals for the short tend to be roughly 1/2 of the point totals for the long, so we have SP approximately = 1/2 FS. If the QR is counted at .25, then QR approximately = 1/4 FS (recognizing that most skaters will water down their QR performance slightly, so the raw point total for the QR before applying the 25% factor will probably be less than the raw point total for the FS).

Therefore, we have the event point totals of QR + SP + FS being approximately equal to 1/4FS + 1/2FS + FS = 1-3/4 FS or 1.75 FS. The QR is .25FS, so as a % of the total, we have QR weight = .25FS / 1.75 FS = about 14%.

Take that, Mathman.

Joesitz said:

Hockeyfan - I believe you have the whole picture at Dortmund and your figuring out Groups A and B from last year's Worlds will be a help for me to ponder. I've got to digest everything you wrote which I will do before New Years. (Busy today.)

And I agree with Mathman, that 8am is too early to skate competition and it did have an effect on more than a few. Getting up early to practice or have a lesson is not the same as getting up early and facing the judges. In all modesty I believe my suggestion of seeding the skaters and pairing the top tier with the lesser tier and have competititons on 2 separate days at 1pm should be considered by the ISU.

Joe

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They didn't skate at 8am, though. Qualis and CD's start at 10 am. I was still asleep in Dortmund at 8am, and I saw every quali program and CD.

There's no way they would extend this longer than a week. The qualis could be broken into two days, with both groups on the same schedule. It would mean, however, that either both Men's groups would have to start at 10 am, or both CD groups would. One group would have the advantage of an extra day's rest before the SP, and the Pairs wouldn't have a rest day. The advantage to both groups is not only the same start time, but the same panel of judges could be used.

Example:

Monday:
10 am: Dance 1st Group CD (A) or Men's 1st Group Quali (B)
1:30 pm: Men's 1st Group Quali (A) or Dance 1st Group CD (B)
7:00 pm: Pairs SP

Tuesday:
10 am: Dance 2nd Group CD (A) or Men's 2nd Group Quali (B)
1:30 pm: Men's 2nd Group Quali (A) or Dance 2nd Group CD (B)
7:00 pm: Pairs' LP

Wednesday:
1:30 pm: Ladies' 1st Group Quali
7:00 pm: Men's SP (A) or Dance OD (B)

Thursday:
1:30 pm: Ladies' 2nd Group Quali
7:00 pm: Men's LP (A-1) or Dance OD (A-2) or Men's SP (B)

Friday:
1:30 pm: Ladies' SP
7:00 pm: Dance OD (A-1) or Men's LP (A-2 and B)

Saturday:
1:30 pm: Dance FD
7:00 pm: Ladies' LP

hockeyfan228 said:

They didn't skate at 8am, though. Qualis and CD's start at 10 am.

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Oh. Sorry, my bad. I guess I was thinking of the early morning practice schedule that the skaters were complaining about. Johnny Weir mentioned how hard it was to have to get up, jet lag and all, for the 6:45 AM practice for his group. I believe that Michelle skipped her morning practice (7:30 AM) and later said she regretted having done so.

Mathman

BittyBug said:

Take that, Mathman.

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I can only bow to my better, Bitty Bug

Now if they would add a pre-qualifying round worth 1/8 of an LP, and a pre-pre-qualifying round worth 1/16 of an LP, then we'd be getting somewhere! This would give us the Horus Eye sequence, known in ancient times (see spell #17 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead) to stave off evil spirits -- or at least to placate the Skate Gods.

MM

hockeyfan228 said:

They didn't skate at 8am, though. Qualis and CD's start at 10 am. I was still asleep in Dortmund at 8am, and I saw every quali program and CD.

There's no way they would extend this longer than a week.

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Not worth quibbling over the 2 hours. Those skaters were in the arena when I arrived at 8am. I saw them in the hallways. It was still early and Joubert looked like he just woke up as did so many other skaters who skated first. Facing judges at early morning is not a breeze.

No I don't expect the ISU to listen to me and extend this longer than a week. Nor did I request that they extend it longer than a week. They have already made arrangements with the Arena officials through a contract.

I just thought they could have two separate days of Qualis for the same discipline starting at the same time. Maybe Mens A Group at 10am followed by lunch time and then Ladies A Group at 2 pm followed by Compulsory Dance at 5 pm

Next day: Mens B Group at 10am followed by Lunch and Ladies B Group at 2pm followed by Original Dance at 5 pm, Dinner and then Pairs SP at 8pm.

Practice sessions begin at 6am - not unusual for skaters and some in other arenas or rinks all day. As the disciplines comlete their final LP or dance, the practice sessions get larger in the main arena.

This is just the gist of my suggestion. Nothing is set in stone. The officials can rearrange this anyway they would prefer it. But the fact that the Single Skaters who have to go through the QR should go through it at the same time on two separate days. I think it is only fair.

Again, I don't expect the ISU to do anything like this, and if they were to consider it, it would be in the future. I am sure everything is well organized for Worlds right now.

Joe