Who will break Yuna Kim's record and when?
- Thread starter arewhyaen
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- Jan 28, 2014
Out of topic tho but this question occurred to me after reading OS' post. If ISU is pushing for more difficulty in jumps, layouts or combos, why did they increase the base value of the easiest jump? Why not increase the base value of harder jumps (Lutz, Flip, Loop, did not count Axel because its base value already increased) so that more skaters would try to do them [properly] more instead of, say, combos like 3T-3T? Isn't the reason behind elimination of a 3rd 2A in LP is so that skaters would try more difficult jumps? Aren't they contradicting themselves when they suddenly increased the base value of an easier jump but retaining/decreasing the base value of harder jumps? It's so confusing.
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Good point. I guess it can be argued like that:
1) 2 2A is to encourage more types of jump in LP.
2) Increasing base values of easier jumps is to reduce the gaps between more able skaters and less able skaters.
It's a battle of different school of thoughts. Russians value difficulty over quality. They prefer athletes push their limits. But the quality will suffer a little due to the increased difficulty. My guess is, after Vancouver Olympics, the Russian fed pushed the rule change to encourage more quads and ladies going for more difficult jumps because that's how they train their ladies and men and the next Olympics would be held in Russia.
North Americans value quality over difficulty. They train their skaters to try easier layout with cleaner execution. They don't like skaters try harder layouts but give messy/sloppy performances. (That's why USA and Canada have quadless champions.) My guess is, since the world championship will be held in the USA this year, USFS pushed the rule change to encourage easier jump layouts with cleaner execution, thus more deduction for falling on quads, but less deduction for UR quads and higher BV for easier triples.
Only skaters who can execute difficult layouts with exceptional quality can excel regardless of the rule change and the location of the competition.
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Hmmmm so jumping a perfect jump is not quality?
Currently, the criteria for awarding GOE is based on the number of bullet points a jump satisfies; see http://static.isu.org/media/207718/1944-sptc-sov-communication-2015-2016.pdf. For example, a jump with "good height and distance" and "good extension on landing / creative exit" means that a judge should award a GOE of +1. However, in the past, this jump would've been awarded a GOE of +0 -- "good" was not sufficient, the adjective used in the past was "excellent" if I recall correctly.
After the 2009-2010 Olympics season, judges in general were encouraged to maximise the awarding of GOEs and make use of the PCS range i.e. scoring skaters with '10s' instead of just '8s' or '9s' in the past.
Correction: "excellent" was not the word, the words ISU used were "great" and "superior" (2008); see http://static.isu.org/media/105798/1505-plus-goe-singles-and-pairs-communicat.pdf.
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It is. But going for more difficult layouts increases the risk and makes skaters more likely to mess up. So in general, there is a trade-off between difficulty and quality. Often, one cannot have both. (We rarely see a very difficult layout executed flawlessly with outstanding quality.) So if they have to choose, (most) Russians would choose difficulty and (most) North Americans would choose quality, or less mistakes. (I mean the singles skaters, not pairs or ice dancers.) The skater that has both difficulty and quality will be the leader.
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- Feb 25, 2014
3Lz is high enough relative to 3A. Maybe too high.
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- Feb 17, 2010
On the women's side, Ashley and Gracie have as much difficulty as the Russians. They generally fail to fully execute the difficult elements (Ashley) or randomly fail to execute a few jumps (Gracie). On quality, Ashley, Gracie, and Evgenia have edge issues on certain jumps, so I don't think it's accurate to say the North Americans have superior jump quality either.
I meant the execution quality of the whole program, not just the quality of a specific element or jump. If the overall program is difficult and has a lot of risk, then the skater is more likely to make mistakes. The best Russian girls can execute difficult programs with good quality (it might not be the best quality ever, but decent enough), that's why they are the leader.
The ladies are all attempting similar difficulty and maximizing their BV now. Unless a girl can jump 3A, the difficulty of their programs is capped. It's only a question of who delivers and how well they deliver.
The rule change after Vancouver Olympics happened when girls were not maximizing their BV and were mostly attempting 5-6 triples (easier layouts) and guys were not attempting quads at that time because the deductions for mistakes were harsh. The rules before Vancouver Olympics rewarded cleaner performances of easy programs over more difficult programs executed with minor mistakes. That's what North American skating community seems to prefer. After Vancouver Olympics, it's reversed. A difficult program with minor flaws will outscore a much easier program without flaws. That's what the Russian skating community prefer. Now, the rules are reversed again to punish falls on quads more harshly and less deduction on under-rotated quads. Visible mistakes on more difficult jumps are now punished more harshly. (Many Americans and Canadian believe quads ruin the quality and artistry of a performance.) The rules went back and forth to favor skaters of certain countries depending on where the major championship will be held. (I believe the rule change this season is targeting the men, not the women.)
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- Apr 1, 2014
Check out ISUResults protocals. Put them the data into a table and see it rise rise rise
before
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/owg10_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/owg10_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
after
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Ladies_SP_Scores.pdf
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
Did Adelina really get a higher TES than Yuna in the SP? Holy crap.
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- Feb 17, 2010
High levels and GOEs on the spins help a lot.
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- Oct 31, 2014
No, not really.
What is a North American? The last time I checked, Canada and the US were two separate countries with divergent interests, namely their own.
Canada and USA. They are both in North America geographically and they share similar values and philosophy/school of thoughts. Not just people from canada and USA have similar values. People from some other countries share similar values too. But USA and Canada are the leader in their school of thoughts.
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The only "North American", from amongst both Men and Ladies, fitting that description is Patrick Chan. So hardly "most".
When it comes to skating, it just isn't true that there is a "North American" school of thought. Isn't Elvis Stojko Canadian? He was the athletic type of skater you claim is typical of Russians. You can't generalize.
Frankly I don't even think Canada and USA actually have a particular style in each country.
Rafael Arutyunyan commented on the issue before in an interview. In the US and similarly in Canada, there isn't a program where children are made to compete against each other at an early age. If you have the talent, you try to make ends meet and try your best to keep improving. In North America, talent is more spontaneous rather than carefully nurtured and trained.
For example, Dylan Moscovitch has stated last year that the maximum funding a senior level athlete gets in Canada is only $28,000. That is peanuts for a coach who likely charges upwards of $80-$100 an hour. Patrick Chan has stated that his training costs exceed $100,000 and Gracie Gold has made a comment before that figure skating is at least 5 figures.
On the other hand, in Russia, the government covers most costs for the figure skating and children are put into groups already competing with each other.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture...e-skating-losing-the-cold-war-20150325?page=2
I think because of this system, Canada and US have diverse groups of skaters who all have different styles. Despite the media touting that the Olympic women's team was just 3 blond girls in 2014, we know they are very different skaters. Similarly between Alaine, Gabby and Kaetlyn.
Anyways, I am getting off topic.
I think in the back of mind I really hope Mao can top the record. I'm not sure if anything Satoko or Medvedeva puts out there will truly move me in the way Kim Yuna has in the past. Maybe if Medvedeva fixed her axel and tano position and Satoko with her jumps but those are not achievable in the near future. With the trajectory of scoring, they'll likely break the record soon.
I didn’t mean the styles are necessarily different, but the emphasis of skills, values and philosophy are different. There is a limited resources and time for each athlete. Learning one skill takes away his/her time from learning another skill. Unless the skater is a genius who doesn’t need much practice to learn new skills, he/she will have to make a choice on which skills are more important and should spend more time on them, and which skills are less important and will spend less time on them. (I don’t think anyone has unlimited time to spend a lot of time on every skill.) Russian coaches would emphasize more on athletic skills like jumps and American/Canadian coaches would emphasize more on artistic skills like skating skill, posture, carriage, etc. (Not sure if that’s the right way to categorize it, sounds like the athleticism vs artistry debate). It’s not that coaches would not care about other skills, just that they have different emphasis given the resources they have. It will depend on individual skater’s natural talent too. Some are more gifted in athletic/artistic skills than others. (Only the best of the best skaters can excel in every skill. That’s a very small number of skaters.) There are always exceptions. But the emphasis/value/philosophy of Russian skating in general is quite different from the Canadian/American skating. (Otherwise, we wouldn’t see this athleticism vs artistry debates all the time. Only USA and Canada have quadless champions as long as their skaters show good quality, skating skill and artistry. Russians would not reward big titles to a skater who do not have difficult jumps.)
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