Rescoring of 2010 Olympics

[4everchan]

Only God can have that confidence.

did you call me, child?

 

[yume]

did you call me, child?

Yes father. I had to. Only you could have written that sentence. Without a doubt.

 

[4everchan]

Yes father. I had to. Only you could have written that sentence. Without a doubt.

mmm... i am not that special.

so are we done with this rescoring of 2010? were people wanting to look at other competitions?

 

[Ziotic]

mmm... i am not that special.

so are we done with this rescoring of 2010? were people wanting to look at other competitions?

I would interested in 2018 ladies.

 

[FayD]

I'd like to see 2013 and 2014 Worlds men because I often see them discussed - if it can be done without resorting to Patrick/Yuzuru bashing, that is

 

[4everchan]

for pointers, just an observer/commentator here... i would participate remotely if someone were to run another event.

PS I agree with FayD : rescoring is fun as long as there is no bashing

 

[gkelly]

I am not able to do the technical tasks of compiling scores and calculating results.

I would be most interested in a judging (and tech calling?) exercise involving performances that the judges participating do not remember well, have not previously discussed in detail, ideally do not know the results or and/or have never seen before. See how folks can evaluate the skating on its own terms without memories of what the official panel did.

For anyone who is interested in putting themselves in the position of judging without prior knowledge, I'd be happy to find some examples, with known or lesser known skaters. But I'd need someone else to take care of the number crunching.

 

[yume]

2006 olympic men.

 

[Blades of Passion]

Huh?! How can you make that comparison? This was under 6.0 where jumps didn't get points. If Browning or Yagudin did the same thing under IJS where Oda had his Zayaks they absolutely would not have been credited accordingly. (And how do you know the judges didn't take into account the extra 3T? They didn't get 6.0's for technical merit so perhaps the judges did take that into account?)

The zayak rule was created under 6.0 and was never meant to be changed when IJS was created. It simply got coded incorrectly into the computer program, how many times must it be said? In these examples they received all 5.8's and 5.9's with incompleted quad attempts, plus Browning didn't even try a Lutz. There was absolutely no "double jeopardy zayak" deduction taken, otherwise the scores would have been lower. Not a single judging report or commentator ever said they had an important jump discredited...because they didn't. Compare that to Ilia Kulik at 1996 Worlds, who didn't do his second 3Flip in combination, and did have it taken into consideration by most judges, because the rule said one of them needed to be in combination to receive full credit.

And the rules are still the same. If someone does 4T+3T, and 4S+3T, then absolutely doing a 3A+3T would get no credit compared to a 3A+1T because of the rules that are in place.

That is NOT the rule. That is not how it was EVER supposed to operate. The rule stated that people would not get credit for more than 2 of the same jump, one needing to be in combination, and only 2 types in total could be credited. It absolutely never said "if you do extra repeated jumps, a whole other allowed jump in your program loses all value." The same goes for the number of jumps done in combination that was standardized with IJS; the actual rule as written was never supposed to make unrelated jumps be given a 0 value.

When hand calculated scoring was being done when IJS was being formulated, they did not discredit jumps like it ended up as in the computer code. It was finally fixed (partially) a few years ago and it's absolute insanity that it took over a decade to get addressed. People now get full credit for doing a 3Axel in that instance, as it was always supposed to be.

 

[gkelly]

The specifics of the "Zayak rule" have changed several times over the years since 1982-83.

Relying purely on memory (but I can try to search for documentation of the IJS-era changes if you're curious):

When the rule first was introduced, it was worded that only two triple jumps could only be repeated and if so must be in combination or at least one of those times. I remember reading a Letter to the Editor in a Skating magazine from that time in which the letter writer asked for clarification and an official or staff member offered several examples of what would or wouldn't be allowed. If I remember correctly, one example of a jump layout that would be allowed under the new rule was a solo triple toe and also a triple toe-triple toe combination.

By the 1990s, when I started paying close attention to the rules, that's not how it was being interpreted.

(It is possible that the person answering that question was incorrect or that the ambiguity of the original wording was soon clarified to disallow three triple toes in that manner even before the 1983 season began. It's also possible that I'm misremembering.)

Sometime in the 1990s, the wording was revised to specify that only two triple or quad jumps could be repeated and if repeated must be in combination or sequence at least one of the times. I remember some confusion over whether that meant that a triple and a quad from the same takeoff would count as the two allowed repeats of e.g., the toe loop. It was then clarified that triples and quads from the same takeoff were considered different jumps.

While not related to the Zayak rule per se, there was also an issue that the first iteration of IJS permitted only two combinations or sequences in the freeskate. Evgeny Plushenko lost the 2003-04 Grand Prix Final to Emanuel Sandhu because Plushenko did three combinations, which had been allowed for all of his previous senior career, and the whole third combination was asterisked out. After that, the ISU decided that they would amend the well-balanced program rules to permit three jump combinations after all.

When IJS first came in, jumps that were downgraded were called as the jump with one revolution fewer. So downgraded triples showed up in the protocols as doubles, and downgraded quads showed up as triples.

E.g., at 2003 Skate America Michael Weiss executed a 3T+3T combination (probably planned as 4T) followed by a downgraded quad toe. All appeared as 3T in the protocol. The way the computer program was written at the time, this meant that the quad earned 0 points.

(He also followed that up with a 3A+3T combination that earned no points for that officially fourth actually third 3T in the program, but did earn points for the axel.)
I think something similar happened to him at Trophee Lalique that year, but I can't find either the protocol or the performance online.)

The ISU realized throwing out downgraded quads completely because they "repeated" a triple from the same takeoff was not what they had intended, so they rewrote the rule and the programming. Specifically, they introduced the < symbol to the intended jump to indicate a downgrade instead of calling the lower revolution jump. That way, a downgraded quad would no longer count against the allowed repeats of the triple from the same takeoff.
(The distinction between << downgrades and < underrotations wasn't introduced until several years later, to address a different problem.)

At 2005 Worlds, Irina Slutskaya executed three triple loops in her freeskate: 3Lz+3Lo combo, solo 3Lo, and later a 3Lo*+2Lo combo. The last 3Lo was asterisked and she earned points only for the 2Lo (similar to what had happened with Weiss's 3A+3T* a year and a half earlier).

That seemed to me and many others like a reasonable way to handle such an occurrence. But the ISU decided, on purpose, to rewrite the rule and the programming so that in such cases the whole element earned no points. Eventually they saw the error of their ways and changed the rule again a few years ago so that only the extra repeated jump was thrown out and not the rest of the combination.

There were also changes in how repeated jumps without combinations were handled in IJS, originally being called as +SEQ, earning 80% of base value, and filling one of the three combo/sequence slots, and later being called as +REP with 70% base value and not counting against the number of allowed combos/sequences.

So there was a period when whole combinations could be thrown out earning zero points either if one of the jumps had been repeated too many times or if a +SEQ on an earlier planned combination that didn't materialize meant a later combination was considered the fourth combo in the program. Unfortunately for Nobunari Oda, much of his career fell within this era.

Other changes around this time were limiting the total number of double axels allowed in a freeskate to 2, although without requiring that one or both be in combination. Later, that restriction was extended to all double jumps.

And most recently, only one repeated quad is now allowed.

For some of these changes, it seemed that the ISU hadn't anticipated how to handle certain situations until after they happened in prominent events or started happening frequently or after several years of coaches/skaters/fans? complaining. And then they clarified/rewrote the rules. Other times they specifically wrote the wording of a rule and the programming of the computer to penalize unintended rule violations harshly. And then sometimes they changed their minds and rewrote the rules and attendant programming to be more forgiving after all.

 

[Mathman]

Other times they specifically wrote the wording of a rule and the programming of the computer to penalize unintended rule violations harshly. And then sometimes they changed their minds and rewrote the rules and attendant programming to be more forgiving after all.

To me, the biggest problem was the "unintended" part. In Oda's famous case, or that of Michael Weiss given above, any skater who planned a 4T+3T as the first element (and there were lots of them) was behind the eight ball if he tripled the first jump.

That would be bad enough -- although the solution would be, "don't triple the first jump." Sometimes, though, the skater could not be sure how the technical panel called the element. Depending on the call -- which is not always within the control or knowledge of the skater in real time-- he either should or should not make this or that adjustment to the rest of the program.

This was certainly an unfair burden to put on the skater. I think the current rules are not bad, though.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

To me, the biggest problem was the "unintended" part. In Oda's famous case, or that of Michael Weiss given above, any skater who planned a 4T+3T as the first element (and there were lots of them) was behind the eight ball if he tripled the first jump.

That would be bad enough -- although the solution would be, "don't triple the first jump." Sometimes, though, the skater could not be sure how the technical panel called the element. Depending on the call -- which is not always within the control or knowledge of the skater in real time-- he either should or should not make this or that adjustment to the rest of the program.

This was certainly an unfair burden to put on the skater. I think the current rules are not bad, though.

I don’t think it’s an unfair burden. A skater should be able to reliably execute their content and if they are prone to tripling a quad or zayaking then they need to address this. Skaters go through run throughs all the time and need to be prepared for scenarios where they need to modify their intended layout in accordance with the rules.

In IJS it was no biggie because judges gave their tech scores and artistic scores based on overall program execution and were probably ignoring the Zayak rules unless it was particularly obvious that a skater was repeating triples. Nobody cared about under rotations or glitzing or pre rotation or telegraphing. We still saw skaters with errors getting high scores to prop them up in the standings over cleaned skaters. Under IJS there became concrete values and executional requirements/deductions associated with elements and also contravening the rules (like zayaks) could legit affect a skater’s placement because there were points (or lack of points) attributed to that.

Thanks gkelly for the recap of Zayaking!

 

[Mathman]

I don’t think it’s an unfair burden. A skater should be able to reliably execute their content and if they are prone to tripling a quad or zayaking then they need to address this.

The part that was unreasonable was during the years when an under-rotation was counted as a jump of one less rotation. If a skater did a 4T with borderline rotation, he has no way of knowing whether it was called as a 4T or a 3T. Should he hope for the best and proceed with his program as planned, or should he fear the worst and leave out his planned 3Lz+3T?

It is all very well to say that he should have rotated the quad a few more degrees to remove all doubt. However, asking him to read the tech specialist's mind on the fly and drastically to revise his planned program based on a guess as to what the panel might or might not decide -- no, that was wrong.

Wrong in the sense that the whole purpose of having rules in the first place is to decide who skated the best. Reading tech specialists minds is not a skating skill. I was glad when the ISU revised the rules.

 

[Blades of Passion]

^ Yes, it's extremely unfair and illogical to have a system where someone doesn't even know what they are allowed to do throughout the program.

It's still a terrible, nonsensical rule even if they can know, because that's not something skaters should ever be worrying about. It has no bearing whatsoever on technical or artistic capability. Forcing the skaters to constantly think about this red tape just makes the performances more mechanical or strictly worse. Nobody should ever have to downgrade a planned jump to a 1Toe in order to avoid a huge penalty. That kind of thing is a totally absurdist nightmare, straight out of some kind of dystopian satire, and sadly we had to live with it for over a decade.

At 2005 Worlds, Irina Slutskaya executed three triple loops in her freeskate: 3Lz+3Lo combo, solo 3Lo, and later a 3Lo*+2Lo combo. The last 3Lo was asterisked and she earned points only for the 2Lo (similar to what had happened with Weiss's 3A+3T* a year and a half earlier).

That seemed to me and many others like a reasonable way to handle such an occurrence. But the ISU decided, on purpose, to rewrite the rule and the programming so that in such cases the whole element earned no points. Eventually they saw the error of their ways and changed the rule again a few years ago so that only the extra repeated jump was thrown out and not the rest of the combination.

That change wasn't voted on at ISU Congress. It's not something people wanted, and shouldn't have ended up like that. Definitely an example of haphazard bureaucracy at work. They were rushing to update many things within the overall rules and software for the Olympic season, with separate committees, and somehow that alteration happened. Given how confused people were in general about the new scoring system, there was a distinct lack of insight at work. It's always sad to see a populace conform to something that's worse, being too bogged down in convoluted processes to fix the issue, or just forgetting about important details. What figure skating is supposed to be and what the scoring system ends up doing, are two separate things. We should not think of something as correct just because it is codified; everything is open to further change.

 

[4everchan]

nobody here is saying they like the zayak rule and its many variations over the years....

what some are saying is that when the ruling is on, then the coaches and skaters are aware of them and they need to conform to them, otherwise, they will not be rewarded. If you decide purposely to throw in a backflip, you know you will lose marks (go Surya!) if you are not able to execute your planned content, then you have to adapt.... It is part of the sport... and what makes it competitive is that rules provide a canvas for scoring.

Any golfer will have to adapt if they don't hit the ball in the middle of the fairway. I won't give any more example, because there are so many... but in sport, competitors are trained to adapt to different scenarios, and if someone hasn't done that properly, it is their responsibility.

It seems that you (Blades of Passion) are looking at figure skating just on the perspective of the entertainment/artistic value. In that case, you are correct : adding an extra 3toe doesn't rule the program.... I am willing to give you that... just like a beautiful triple or double jump doesn't ruin a program (but will not count for a quad)... but we are talking about more than just a performance here. We are talking about execution of planned elements set within certain rules in mind, which is something the athlete must control.

 

[Mathman]

Any golfer will have to adapt if they don't hit the ball in the middle of the fairway.

The particular objection that I had was the version of the rules where the golfer was blindfolded and not told whether the ball was in the middle of the fairway or in the rough.

 

[Mathman]

I have to say, I do find Blades of Passion's basic idea an intriguing one. Figure skating is not an obstacle course; the rules should not be something for skaters to stumble over.

This is how I understnd BoP's proposal. Let's say your first element is 3Lo+3T+2T. Your rotation on the 3T is iffy -- the tech panel calls the element 3Lo+2T+2T (although the skater may not be aware of what the call was).

Now you do 3A+2T. BoP's idea is that you haven't Zayaked until you do the second revolution of the 2T. You should get 0 points for that illegal second revolution. But you did do a legal one revolution jump (with a bizarre spin-around on the landing ), so you should get credit within the rules for a 3A+1T combo.

I do not see any objection to that.

 

[4everchan]

we are splitting hair here....

a single toe is pretty much worth nothing

 

[Mathman]

we are splitting hair here....

a single toe is pretty much worth nothing

True, but under the one variation in the rules the skater would have lost the points for the triple Axel as well.

 

[4everchan]

True, but under the one variation in the rules the skater would have lost the points for the triple Axel as well.

that rule has been changed since however.