- Joined
- Jun 3, 2009
Okay. The GP medalists have had something like 45 falls between them. Patrick Chan fell four times each en route to a gold and silver medal, over skaters who fell once at most (SC) or twice (CoR). There can be no argument about the fact that the high, medal-winning scores for skaters that have fallen is confusing the audience and doesn’t make for a great sporting event (and is only entertaining for those with a taste for schadenfraude). So, how do you penalize falls so that
a) Technical risk is rewarded, even when imperfect (or should it be rewarded when imperfect)?
b) Get the podiums that reward clean skating
c) Allow for program balance to be rewarded.
I’ll toss out a few ideas I’ve read here and there. I’ll include a podium analysis as well (if these rules were applied to COR, what would the scores/podiums be like, as CoR seems to be demonized for the rules, not corruption)
Reduce the element to 0
PRO: It is such a basic error to fall on any element that the element shouldn’t contribute to the overall total. We shouldn’t care whether or not someone includes an element if they don’t know if they can land it.
CON: This, by definition, will limit risk. Additionally, it argues that a fall on a higher risk element is worth a bigger penalty than a fall on a lower risk element. Forget about that: it argues that a fall on quadruple axel is worse technically than landing a single loop. With everything scrutinized within a point of its life, how many skaters will include a harder element if the risk is so great? This doesn’t penalize falls in between elements, which have happened multiple times this season (Sui/Han, Crone/Poirier, Davis/White). And what about a fall that happene d to Takahashi in his SP at Finlandia?. It’s also unfair in theory: a basic error in an element is one that doesn’t follow the definition of an element, which is not just a fall, but an edge call, a UR, etc.
COR scores/podium(does the program deduction still count?)
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Jeremy Abbott: 210.49 (or 212.49)
So Abbott beats Chan as long as Chan still does a fourth combo. Assuming he doesn’t and lands the 2A with 0 GOE, he takes silver.
Have a Sliding Scale for Falls: Each subsequent fall being more deleterious to the total than the last; same rules for GOE application
PRO: It recognizes that a program with one fall can still be technically/artistically superior to a clean skate and doesn’t punish the skater for going for a single high risk element and failing. It also punishes falls that happen in between the elements. But if you have three or four elements beyond your grasp that you include with the hope of making them or benefiting from the points a failed element gives you, no matter what your skills are, your program is a mess.
MIXED: It takes more out of the judge’s hands. People have complained about the technical panel having too much power. How do they feel about the judges having even less power here?
CON: This is a system that needs to apply to all skaters, whether novice, junior, senior etc. While a sliding scale makes sense for the senior skaters, I have to admit I’m not particularly enthused about the idea of a junior skater giving a program and then getting a negative score for it, regardless. A quick scan of the early JGPs suggests I’m over-reacting a little bit (the lowest score would be something ~4 points) But that also depends on just how big the deduction for the subsequent falls would be.
1st Fall: -1
2nd Fall: I’ve heard -2, -3 and -5.
3rd Fall: -3, -7 and -15
4th Fall: ????
5th Fall: ????
Now, a three fall short program would be affected by less than 10% according to the first method, 15% the second, and 29% for the third structure (pegging an SP to 72 points total. Arbitrarily). How much should a program suffer (and half that for a lp)? And what about when we get into the 4th and 5th fall?
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Patrick Chan: 222.21 (first system, extra -5 deduction)
3. Patrick Chan: 217.21 (second system, extra -8 deduction)
4. Jeremy Abbott: 216.21 (first system, extra -1 deduction)
5. Jeremy Abbott: 215.21: (second system, extra -2 deduction)
6. Jeremy Abbott 210.21 (third system, extra -4 deduction)
7. Patrick Chan: 210.21 (third system, extra -18)
8. Samuel Contesti: 207.30 (no falls)
Make a more Explicit Connection to PCS
PCS have the following instructions on specific components as to criteria of grading.
Transitions:
Quality
Performance:
In all skating disciplines each skater must be physically committed, sincere in emotion,
and equal in comprehension of the music and in execution of all movement.
Clarity is characterized by the refined lines of the body and limbs, as well as the precise
execution of any movement
PRO: To me, these are criteria that, as written, are affected by falls. But arguably, don’t falls demonstrate poor skating skills and interpretation as well (potentially). More specifically, your perception of a program on the whole IS affected by visible errors more so than by invisible ones – regardless of level of expertise. So it almost makes sense to have falls on element affect PCS to the same extent that we see it affecting TES score (~4 points per fall)
CON: Doesn’t this link PCS closer and closer to the elements? One of goals of the IJS/COP is to have a way of judging the non-element construction of a program. Closely linking the PCS to the elements has the effect of essentially weighing the TES higher.
MIXED: How else do you have a system that privileges SKATE above SKATER and PROGRAM.
Have a higher penalty in terms of GOEs for Falls
Currently, there are a handful of circumstances where a -3 GOE is mandatory
a) No combo jump in the SP
b) Less revolutions than required in SP (so if you do a 3-1 combo, you get a -3)
c) The dismount from a lift is done on two feet.
PRO: Having a specifically higher penalty on elements with falls (say -4) has the consequence that a fall doesn’t negate the element in its entirety but unless everything else is really high quality, you can’t make it up. Additionally a specific fall –GOE allows judges to more easily judge elements with multiple errors without falls. For example, Mroz scored a -3 from one of the CoC judges for his spin. But he didn’t fall, so it does seem that by definition, his spin should be better than if he had fallen on it. A triple axel is worth 8.5 fully rotated. 3A with a fall is 5.5, 4.5 with the program deduction (which doesn’t apply to the jump, so the jump still contributed 5.5). This would mean that the triple axel would now contribute 4.5 (3.5 w/ deduction), which truthfully, still seems rather high.
CON: The element still contributes something, which for some people is definitely a con.
COR Scores
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Patrick Chan: 223.51
a) Technical risk is rewarded, even when imperfect (or should it be rewarded when imperfect)?
b) Get the podiums that reward clean skating
c) Allow for program balance to be rewarded.
I’ll toss out a few ideas I’ve read here and there. I’ll include a podium analysis as well (if these rules were applied to COR, what would the scores/podiums be like, as CoR seems to be demonized for the rules, not corruption)
Reduce the element to 0
PRO: It is such a basic error to fall on any element that the element shouldn’t contribute to the overall total. We shouldn’t care whether or not someone includes an element if they don’t know if they can land it.
CON: This, by definition, will limit risk. Additionally, it argues that a fall on a higher risk element is worth a bigger penalty than a fall on a lower risk element. Forget about that: it argues that a fall on quadruple axel is worse technically than landing a single loop. With everything scrutinized within a point of its life, how many skaters will include a harder element if the risk is so great? This doesn’t penalize falls in between elements, which have happened multiple times this season (Sui/Han, Crone/Poirier, Davis/White). And what about a fall that happene d to Takahashi in his SP at Finlandia?. It’s also unfair in theory: a basic error in an element is one that doesn’t follow the definition of an element, which is not just a fall, but an edge call, a UR, etc.
COR scores/podium(does the program deduction still count?)
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Jeremy Abbott: 210.49 (or 212.49)
- SP Score: 77.61 (no falls)
- LP Score: 132.88 or 134.88 (2 falls)
- SP Score: 76.46 OR 77.46 (1 fall)
- LP Score: 131.52 OR 134.52 (3 falls)
So Abbott beats Chan as long as Chan still does a fourth combo. Assuming he doesn’t and lands the 2A with 0 GOE, he takes silver.
Have a Sliding Scale for Falls: Each subsequent fall being more deleterious to the total than the last; same rules for GOE application
PRO: It recognizes that a program with one fall can still be technically/artistically superior to a clean skate and doesn’t punish the skater for going for a single high risk element and failing. It also punishes falls that happen in between the elements. But if you have three or four elements beyond your grasp that you include with the hope of making them or benefiting from the points a failed element gives you, no matter what your skills are, your program is a mess.
MIXED: It takes more out of the judge’s hands. People have complained about the technical panel having too much power. How do they feel about the judges having even less power here?
CON: This is a system that needs to apply to all skaters, whether novice, junior, senior etc. While a sliding scale makes sense for the senior skaters, I have to admit I’m not particularly enthused about the idea of a junior skater giving a program and then getting a negative score for it, regardless. A quick scan of the early JGPs suggests I’m over-reacting a little bit (the lowest score would be something ~4 points) But that also depends on just how big the deduction for the subsequent falls would be.
1st Fall: -1
2nd Fall: I’ve heard -2, -3 and -5.
3rd Fall: -3, -7 and -15
4th Fall: ????
5th Fall: ????
Now, a three fall short program would be affected by less than 10% according to the first method, 15% the second, and 29% for the third structure (pegging an SP to 72 points total. Arbitrarily). How much should a program suffer (and half that for a lp)? And what about when we get into the 4th and 5th fall?
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Patrick Chan: 222.21 (first system, extra -5 deduction)
3. Patrick Chan: 217.21 (second system, extra -8 deduction)
4. Jeremy Abbott: 216.21 (first system, extra -1 deduction)
5. Jeremy Abbott: 215.21: (second system, extra -2 deduction)
6. Jeremy Abbott 210.21 (third system, extra -4 deduction)
7. Patrick Chan: 210.21 (third system, extra -18)
8. Samuel Contesti: 207.30 (no falls)
Make a more Explicit Connection to PCS
PCS have the following instructions on specific components as to criteria of grading.
Transitions:
Quality
Performance:
In all skating disciplines each skater must be physically committed, sincere in emotion,
and equal in comprehension of the music and in execution of all movement.
Clarity is characterized by the refined lines of the body and limbs, as well as the precise
execution of any movement
PRO: To me, these are criteria that, as written, are affected by falls. But arguably, don’t falls demonstrate poor skating skills and interpretation as well (potentially). More specifically, your perception of a program on the whole IS affected by visible errors more so than by invisible ones – regardless of level of expertise. So it almost makes sense to have falls on element affect PCS to the same extent that we see it affecting TES score (~4 points per fall)
CON: Doesn’t this link PCS closer and closer to the elements? One of goals of the IJS/COP is to have a way of judging the non-element construction of a program. Closely linking the PCS to the elements has the effect of essentially weighing the TES higher.
MIXED: How else do you have a system that privileges SKATE above SKATER and PROGRAM.
Have a higher penalty in terms of GOEs for Falls
Currently, there are a handful of circumstances where a -3 GOE is mandatory
a) No combo jump in the SP
b) Less revolutions than required in SP (so if you do a 3-1 combo, you get a -3)
c) The dismount from a lift is done on two feet.
PRO: Having a specifically higher penalty on elements with falls (say -4) has the consequence that a fall doesn’t negate the element in its entirety but unless everything else is really high quality, you can’t make it up. Additionally a specific fall –GOE allows judges to more easily judge elements with multiple errors without falls. For example, Mroz scored a -3 from one of the CoC judges for his spin. But he didn’t fall, so it does seem that by definition, his spin should be better than if he had fallen on it. A triple axel is worth 8.5 fully rotated. 3A with a fall is 5.5, 4.5 with the program deduction (which doesn’t apply to the jump, so the jump still contributed 5.5). This would mean that the triple axel would now contribute 4.5 (3.5 w/ deduction), which truthfully, still seems rather high.
CON: The element still contributes something, which for some people is definitely a con.
COR Scores
1. Tomas Verner: 230.31 (no falls)
2. Patrick Chan: 223.51
- SP Score: 80.96 (1 fall)
- LP Score: 142.55 (3 falls)
- SP Score: 77.61 (no falls)
- LP Score: 137.90 (2 falls)