Controversial judging in men's figure skating stirs up debate on quad jumps

miki88 said:

I think the judging has regressed back to figures age where jumps are weighed less and other smaller things like edging and transitions count for more. But jumps are really the highlight of figure skating so I think skaters who do really hard jumps should be rewarded more. Joannie is the only lady who does all the basic jumps so having all the jumps doesn't seem to matter much under new system either. The 3-3 is also rare now. Only two women are doing them consistently (Rachel and Yuna).

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I believe Miki can do all 5 different triple as well.

jennylovskt said:

I think this controversy is a positive sign. Someone has to stand up and speaks out. CoP is rediculous. It can't distinguish the greats from the mediocres. It has to be changed.

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I also disagree. IJS distinguishes between the greats and the mediocres. What it does not do some of the time is distinguish between the greats and the ever so slightly less greats.

gsrossano said:

I also disagree. IJS distinguishes between the greats and the mediocres. What it does not do some of the time is distinguish between the greats and the ever so slightly less greats.

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Though I don't always agree with Patrick Chan's words, I like the way he kind of phrased the system. Anyone can put a quad in their program. But the set-up takes away from the program itself and requires less difficulty. To perform a full program, with the jumps (which admittedly he didn't complete 100% successfully) requires more from a skater than doing just cross overs with a full ice set up into one jump.

I think it was Evan who said he's spent a lot longer learning how to skate and move across the ice than he's spent learning the quad.

So true! Which should be rewarded more: Something that takes an entire career to learn, or something that takes a fraction of a career?

And another Chanism - if you can blend it all together - the jumps, connections, footwork, spins, etc - you've got the magic formula. To me (personally) the only person who fully attempted to do that in the mens event was Daisuke. He had a fully complete program and went for the tricks. The scores suggest that if he was successful in his endeavour he would have been the champion. Dai has found the magical formula. Some like Chan are still working on it (he's said he's still working on the quad, so he's not exactly complacent saying 'my transitions will forever save me'), while others, like Plushenko seemingly expect what worked years ago to still be perfect without trying to work out the new formula.

So to me, we need more skaters like Dai, and yes, Chan. Skaters who want to focus on what their career has been spent working on, and also want to incorporate those things that take a fraction of that time (we'll see Chan's quad in the future). Rather than those who want to just focus on big things that take barely any time to learn and perfect (relatively speaking).

The new system challenges skaters to re-learn the basics they learned when they first learned the sport and to push the boundaries of every aspect of the sport, rather than just the jumps. It also rewards different forms of presentation. No, Evan's might not be everyone's cup of tea, but he did have many components to his program. Just in a different way than Johnny, or Patrick or Stephane. Plush did as well - he focused more though on the skating skills (speed, etc) and the performance (selling it to the crowd) than he did the choreography and transitions.

Personally I'd rather see a skater get from one end of the rink to the other by doing difficult movements, gaining speed in different ways than by jsut doing crossovers to make it there. That's one of the reasons I prefer a Patrick or a Dai to a Plushenko. Barely any of Patrick's program was just plain crossovers, yet he still has outstanding speed and flow across the ice. I think that an Evan or a Patrick would have had a higher success at Plushenko's program (yes, quad included) than a Plush would have at a quadless Evan/Patrick program, because of its intricacies.

And for those who are complacent, the jumps are still the big scorers. But you damn well better be 100% on, because there's a buttload more to the sport. If it was all about jumps there'd be no music and skaters would just go, do a jump and wait for the marks. And where would be the fun in that?

Again, this is just one skating fan's personal opinion, and I know many disagree, but it's just my two cents.

I don't find Evan and Plushy very different types of skaters, although Plushy seems better and more gifted than Evan technically. It's not just the quad but the 3A and other jumps are better. I don't think Evan won other elements in quality, either.
In terms of presentation, I think that Plushy's LP had more personality than Evan's LP and Evan's SP had more personality than Plushy's SP. Yet, I do not find either of them most memorable in the world in the presentation department. But Evan played with the rules better than Plushy. Plushy left so many points on the plate when he could have done a lot more. He could have had more point-earning steps and spins. If Plushy had had more COP friendly programs, he would have comfortably won over Evan.
I don't think it worthless to do the quad in LP, but I do feel so in SP considering that it yields only 3.8 points difference from 3Lz-3T. Yuna could join the competition with her plus 2 GOE then. I think that Plushy should have had a greater lead in his TES (not PCS though) after SP.

I would find it more interesting if this controversy was between Plushy vs Chan or Plushy vs Jeff because it's apple and orange. But Evan vs Plushy, it's not too interesting because Plushy would have done CoP friendly programs if he had studied the rules better, and because Evan would have done the quad if he could have with better health. It's apple and apple to me.