Good morning, everyone.
I have a question about the draw for the short program groups. We know that the order of passage has a great influence on the grading of judges.
How will these groups be formed?
Based on World Standings, the procedure is as follows
1) the Competitors will be divided into two approximately equal parts with the higher ranked Competitors being drawn in the second part (thereafter called the part “skating later”) and the lower ranked Competitors and Competitors with no ranking being drawn in the first part (thereafter called the part “skating earlier”); if the number of Competitors cannot be divided equally by two, the part “skating later” will include one Skater/Pair/Couple more than the part “skating earlier”. In case of ties in the World Standings on the border of the two parts, all those tied Competitors will be included in the part “skating later”;
2) there will be a free draw among Competitors with the highest ranking (1-6 for Single, 1-4 for Pair, 1-5 for Ice Dance) to skate in the last starting order group of the “skating later” part
3) there will be a free draw among Competitors with the next highest ranking (7-12 for Single, 5-8 for Pair 6-10 for Ice Dance) to skate in the next to last starting order group of the “skating later” part.
4) there will be a free draw among all other Competitors of the “skating later” part
5) there will be one more free draw among all Competitors of the “skating earlier” part. For this draw all these Competitors will be divided into two parts: Competitors with and without ranking, so that Competitors with ranking will draw for the later skating starting numbers
6) starting numbers are drawn according to the World Standings with the highest ranked Competitor being drawn first, the next ranked Competitor – second etc. In cases of ties in the World Standings there will be a separate draw between tied Competitors to decide the order of the main draw.
World Standings: