PCS for ladies

Sorry if I'm not being very bright about this, but I don't understand why the PCS for the ladies in the SP is factored down. Why are they not given PCS in the same way as the men? It seems strange to see the top ladies' TES scores way above what they receive in PCS; for example Yu-Na's TES was over 43 points but her PCS only 32+. And if this is the way the SP is scored, why isn't the same being done for the FS? Or is it?

Can someone enlighten me? Thanks.

Here is the theory, as I understand it.

The goal is to make the technical element score roughly comparable to the program component score. Taking the men's short program as the base line, the ideal would be something like 40 points for tech, 40 points for program components. So far so good.

Now comes the men's long program. Since you have twice as many technical elemnts to perform, you would expect the TES in a long program to be about twice as much as in the short porgram. So to make the PCSs turn out to be of equal importance, you need to multiply them by a factor of 2.0

Now the ladies. Ladies don't do quads, most ladies don't do triple Axels, etc. In tech, a typical ladies program should earn about 80% of a man's program. So if we multiply the ladies PCSs by a factor of 0.8 in the short progam, that will make ladies PCSs work out to be about the same as the TES for a ladies SP.

To accomplish the same thing for a ladies LP, the factor is 1.60. This is twice the factor for a ladies SP and 80% of the factor for the men's LP.

That's the theory.

In practice, as you point out in the case of Kim's short program, the tech is gradually outstripping the PCSs. I suppose this is because you can always do a harder jump, but you are not going to start getting 9.5's for program component scores no matter what you do.

Maybe the ISU will adjust these multipliers in the future if they want to stick to the idea that TES and PCS should be about equal, and men can do about 25% more than ladies on the tech side.

Thanks very much for the explanation, which I'm sure is correct as you're so knowledgeable. I have to say, though, that their rationale seems questionable in two senses - a) it doesn't seem fair, and b) it doesn't seem to produce the results which are being sought. For instance, the only skaters who receive comparable sorts of marks on TES and PCS in the short program are those who are technically good but not outstanding, like Suguri or Meier. For all the rest (except the very technically challenged) the TES outstrips the PCS, and often by some distance.

I must admit I don't quite see the point of it. Why not just give the skaters, whether male or female, the marks they earn? It just seems to be adding even more complications to an already very complex scoring system.

But thanks again for your help.

I think one thing that happened was people started figuring out ways to gain extra points on the tech side by getting higher levels on spins and footwork. Also, the GOEs on non-jump elements seem higher this year than in the past.

While MM is definitely correct, you have to also consider that PC scores are not the same as the 'old' presentation scores. The idea, I believe is to reach the old concept of the 'whole package' by nitpicking the sum of various components of the technical. What judges do with that in the question of scoring a celebrity contestant is your guess as well as all of us.

goldenpleasures said:

...For all the rest (except the very technically challenged) the TES outstrips the PCS, and often by some distance.

Click to expand...

Another thing to keep in mind when thinking about what changes we would like to see in the scoring system is this: the same marking scheme is supposed to serve the needs of skaters and skating competitions at all levels, from beginners up to worlds champions.

So a child who can only do single jumps would probably have presentation skills only in the 2's, contrasted with the 8's for Yu-na Kim. It would be interesting to see if the same trend -- the tech running substantially ahead of the PCSs for the ladies' SP -- is true at all levels.