ISU announces Selection Criteria for JGPF

[flanker]

Isabeau Levito earned her spot in the final via her score. I've been keeping track of the numbers, because I thought the ISU would be logical and use that method, and because Zhilina got injured, Isabeau made it to the final. Again, based on her score, not just the fact that she won a gold. Lindsay is a different story.

Isabeau still skated only once, so no one can say for sure what she deserved based on her score but Samodelkina on both her entries and Zinina and Muravieva on their previous entries scored higher. Still only one of those three will be in the finals with the highest probability.

The ISU might have been scheming, or they might have been clueless, scrambling for an answer. However, the only group that is really messed up as far as who is going to the final and who should really be going is the men. All of the top Russian ladies except Samodelkina are in the final. All of the Russian Ice dancers who should be there will be there. I don't know what the hell happened with the pairs, aren't they all Russian anyway? So I take it you're specifically talking about the men? That you think that the ISU is trying to help some other country by making up crazy rules to help the men? Have you asked yourself why on earth they would do this? This is the Juniors. Why create a huge fuss, create a lot of anger and suspicion, for junior competitions? Personally, I think this has more to do with Russian pride. It's a very important sport there, and they don't like to lose.

Depends who are considered "top russian women". Putting Zhilina aside because of her injury, Muravieva is this year's russian nationals bronze medalist, so she should surely belong among the top, yet she has not her spot assured. Zinina didn't win a bigger medal yet, but throughout the last season she (apart from one exception) didn't place worse than 5th at any competition in her age category. So at least two of the group of three I dare to say to russian juniors probably won't be in the finals, while still skaters like Kulikova, Zakhareva or Berestovskaia may not be counted among the top but are better than the rest of the juniors in the world maybe apart Levito and Kim.

Yes! This is why I don't think is Zhilina shouldn't be allowed be in the final, since she's only been in one competition. Even if she won it, I don't think it's right.

Well there is a double negative so I have to guess a little that you are saying Zhilina shouldn't be allowed to go to the finals with just one attendance. I agree on that, the condition for the qualification to the finals should be to take part in two entries. Though this fact of late publication of the rules has the impact on more levels, like Kulikova for instance, Again, if they decided to apply those rules, at least they should have published it at the beginning, not now.

 

[pearly]

22 pages in less than four days? What the hell, guys?

 

[Leocadia]

It's not the people France doesn't want, it's that they don't recognize Russia's vaccine, because they made their own instead of using the ones everybody else uses.

That’s not true, France uses Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, like a number of other countries, and also recognises Johnson & Johnson. There are vaccines not yet recognised by France, but that’s not because they have their own vaccine, as they don’t (there is one being developed I think, but it’s far from ready).

 

[lariko]

What surprises me is that Levito skates nothing like Sasha. Sasha wasn't balletic. She obviously had the instruction and developed good turnout and line. Levito is not a second Sasha. I can't even think of another skater who she reminds me of.

I have never seen Sasha Cohen (before my time). I am looking forward to Levito’s performance in Linz!

The list of men who are likely to be in the final is the most screwed-up of any group of skaters if you compare it to what it would have been had scores been added together to choose the top six. With the women, there's only one Russian girl who is being replaced by an American who shouldn't be there. In ice dance, there's one American team who shouldn't be there, but they are taking the place of another American team. I don't follow junior pairs, but I'm guessing that all of them are Russian anyway.

We’ll be able to compare after Linz. In pairs Georgians have a fighting chance yet, but two pairs lost their ticket simply on ISU say so. Just like that. Scores, medals, none of it matters at all for them. They simply got cut against all previous rules and any reasonable expectations.

 

[lariko]

They said she was injured, and she's only skated one assignment. I hope they don't allow anyone a place in the final if they've only skated once.

that would will be breaking their own rule that clearly states that every gold medalists goes, independently of second performance. Otherwise Japanese skaters who skated zero times shouldn’t enter either.

The rules are clear, it is the single top achievement, independently of second result, medal first, then by score among silver medalists. If they forbid Zhilina from going that would be the second thing I would call actually strictly unfair, first being the pairs dropped to add wild cards without any prequalification required.

GP series have maximum chance to compete as individual athlete not as a flag bearer, and Russian athletes are not interchangeable, they all skate and enter selection separately.

For better or worse, too late, with some eyebrow rising exceptions, but ISU did announce the criteria. They better stick to it now, to maintain credibility.

 

[bostonskaterguy86]

That’s not true, France uses Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, like a number of other countries, and also recognises Johnson & Johnson. There are vaccines not yet recognised by France, but that’s not because they have their own vaccine, as they don’t (there is one being developed I think, but it’s far from ready).

I believe GretchenG was referring to the fact that Russia made their own vaccine, not France.

 

[Leocadia]

I believe GretchenG was referring to the fact that Russia made their own vaccine, not France.

Oh I misunderstood! It does make more sense this way.

 

[lariko]

So, Linz started, and Brown/Brown are ahead of L/W after rhythm dance, in 2 and 3. Men are next!

 

[alexocfp]

Actually no. First of all, the start date was moved back twice. Second of all, they didn't even know how many teams would be able to compete so not all the divisions had the same number of teams. This affects rankings. The pandemic didn't halt the season - the pandemic delayed the season and some teams didn't even join the season. Some teams moved due to the pandemic/travel reasons/changing affiliates before the season began. Some teams changed divisions for the season (the Canadian teams). Three teams decided not to compete/participate in the season at all.

And they didn't know how the AHL playoff format would work. They were told scheduling and the format would be determined later. What they determined was that they would cancel it with two weeks left in the season but that divisions were free to have their own playoffs if they wanted or whatever method they wanted to determine the winner of their division. Usually the first two rounds of the playoffs would determine division titles. Most divisions decided to go by points at end of the season (which they didn't know until two weeks before) and one division decided to hold their own playoffs. So no, they didn't know the playoff format. The season started middle of Feb and it wasn't until end of April that the AHL announced what they would do with the playoff/division titles - which was cancel calder cup and let divisions decide for themselves division titles.

There you go. You just described in a few paragraphs why the AHL is a minor league. This is ISU like.

We are trying to elevate figure skating by demanding they be run professionally. Haha

 

[kwanatic]

I have never seen Sasha Cohen (before my time)...

Definitely worth it to check out Sasha Cohen. Very flexible, gorgeous lines, amazing extension, beautiful posture, excellent presentation, lovely programs...she was a beautiful skater but not the best competitor. Unfortunately, she competed the majority of her career under 6.0 which rewarded clean skating which was not her forte. She would often make major errors in her FS so she ended up missing a number of gold medals she'd have won had she skated cleanly.

Still, Sasha was prototype for the "baby ballerina" skaters that would follow which helped influence the skaters we see today:

She was the pioneer of the I-spin that everyone does nowadays. Skaters spin faster and get even more flexible positioning now, but Sasha was the one who popularized that spin.

The skidding edge change move Medvedeva and Shcherbakova do is reminiscent of Sasha's skid spiral--hers was outside to inside, the one they do is inside to outside.

The Charlotte spiral that many do poorly as a transition was perfected by Sasha. Michelle Kwan "brought the move back" so to speak, but Sasha did it better, achieving that perfectly vertical split.

We don't see too many fan spirals anymore (thank goodness because only a handful of skaters could actually do them correctly and the rest were fugly) but during the early years of the IJS, everyone tried to do this one because it added another feature to the spiral element.

You may have never seen Sasha Cohen but you can still see her influence today. Same goes for a lot of skaters from the past.

Here are a few good programs to watch if you're interested in Sasha:
2004 Malaguena SP - Still the best program I've ever seen for this music...
2004 Swan Lake FS - A rare clean performance and a beautiful program...

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

I agree that sometimes the people who qualify shouldn't make the final because they got lucky, but I put some thought into this. I liked the idea of adding everyone's scores together and sending the top six to this season's JGPF. When I first heard the idea, I figured that that's what the ISU would do, because it's logical, I started thinking maybe they should always handle the GP with total scores. The thing is, it would take the fun out of it. In my opinion. A lot of us fans really look forward to the release of the GP assignment list. It's a lot of fun to see who's going to be competing against each other, and trying to predict who's going to win each week and who can make it into the final. I feel like if we always went by score totals, what would be the point of running around to different countries? We could do something similar to what we did last year, only have an international judge panel go to each country. Think of the money it would save. I would hate it.

The problem is that the judging panels are different for each competition, and a skater could get an advantage if they are on home ice. I never really liked total scores to determine tie breakers because competitions vary in their nature.

 

[lariko]

Definitely worth it to check out Sasha Cohen. Very flexible, gorgeous lines, amazing extension, beautiful posture, excellent presentation, lovely programs...she was a beautiful skater but not the best competitor. Unfortunately, she competed the majority of her career under 6.0 which rewarded clean skating which was not her forte. She would often make major errors in her FS so she ended up missing a number of gold medals she'd have won had she skated cleanly.

Still, Sasha was prototype for the "baby ballerina" skaters that would follow which helped influence the skaters we see today:

She was the pioneer of the I-spin that everyone does nowadays. Skaters spin faster and get even more flexible positioning now, but Sasha was the one who popularized that spin.

The skidding edge change move Medvedeva and Shcherbakova do is reminiscent of Sasha's skid spiral--hers was outside to inside, the one they do is inside to outside.

The Charlotte spiral that many do poorly as a transition was perfected by Sasha. Michelle Kwan "brought the move back" so to speak, but Sasha did it better, achieving that perfectly vertical split.

We don't see too many fan spirals anymore (thank goodness because only a handful of skaters could actually do them correctly and the rest were fugly) but during the early years of the IJS, everyone tried to do this one because it added another feature to the spiral element.

You may have never seen Sasha Cohen but you can still see her influence today. Same goes for a lot of skaters from the past.

Here are a few good programs to watch if you're interested in Sasha:
2004 Malaguena SP - Still the best program I've ever seen for this music...
2004 Swan Lake FS - A rare clean performance and a beautiful program...

I am just going forward. I tried watching older gen skaters, but I found them not as interesting as the current ones, and without the drama and the stakes of the competition, it’s just not the same. So for me figure skating sort of started with Uno and Zagitova in 2018

 

[chasingneverland]

There you go. You just described in a few paragraphs why the AHL is a minor league. This is ISU like.

We are trying to elevate figure skating by demanding they be run professionally. Haha

AHL is a professional league. Furthermore, all AHL teams have NHL affiliates. (The NHL also made interesting decisions during the pandemic season (like only intradivisional games which definitely affects ranking)and they ARE the top hockey league in the world.)

Also we're talking about the JGPF. So, junior skaters. That's definitely comparable to AHL/junior hockey. Also, you said the comparison wasn't analogous. I was trying to point out that there are other professional/amateur sports that have been affected by the pandemic and have had to make unusual decisions.

 

[Baron Vladimir]

The problem is that the judging panels are different for each competition, and a skater could get an advantage if they are on home ice. I never really liked total scores to determine tie breakers because competitions vary in their nature.

And how giving a placement is different excuse-moi? Actually, by basing your rules on a placement you are throwing away much more variables connected with the skating performances. Whatever placement you want to give to some individual skaters who earned in one competition scores 194, 195 and 196, their numbers are just a product of a mathematical system ISU is working with. In 'objective system' all of those 3 numbers are basically the same if you use statistical probability of the errors system is working with. So, in those situations to claim how 196 is 1st, 195 is 2nd and 194 is 3rd doesn't have sense at all, because that kind of a difference is more likely product of the system itself than skaters performances. It's more reliable to just add more numbers (when you have it) and then make a difference, because by adding more numbers there is more probability to make a better difference between the skaters performances (after 3 competitions one of those skaters will have total score of 400, the second one 390 and the third one 380, so the difference will be statistically more reliable).

 

[Skatesocs]

And how giving a placement is different excuse-moi? Actually, by basing your rules on a placement you are throwing away much more variables connected with the skating performances. Because whatever placement you want to give to the skaters who earned 194, 195 or 196, their numbers are just a product of a mathematical system ISU is working with. In 'objective system' all of those 3 numbers are basically the same if you use statistical probability of the errors system is working with. So, in those situations to claim how 196 is 1st, 195 is 2nd and 194 is 3rd doesn't have sense at all, because that kind of a difference is more likely product of the system itself than skaters performances. It's more reliable to just add more numbers (when you have it) and then make a difference, because by adding more numbers there is more probability to make a better difference between the skaters performances.

Just to put what you said more understandably... and correctly...

If we criticize using scores as being from "different judging panels" and therefore not worthy of use... then we can equally criticize the placements based off those scores, because the simplest argument is "the judging panel at GP A could have scored and therefore placed the skaters at GP B differently than the judging panel at GP B did".

 

[Baron Vladimir]

Just to put what you said more understandably... and correctly...

If we criticize using scores as being from "different judging panels" and therefore not worthy of use... then we can equally criticize the placements based off those scores, because the simplest argument is "the judging panel at GP A could have scored and therefore placed the skaters at GP B differently than the judging panel at GP B did".

Yes, that was my first point The second one Mathman can explain more understandably

 

[el henry]

And how giving a placement is different excuse-moi? Actually, by basing your rules on a placement you are throwing away much more variables connected with the skating performances. Whatever placement you want to give to some individual skaters who earned in one competition scores 194, 195 and 196, their numbers are just a product of a mathematical system ISU is working with. In 'objective system' all of those 3 numbers are basically the same if you use statistical probability of the errors system is working with. So, in those situations to claim how 196 is 1st, 195 is 2nd and 194 is 3rd doesn't have sense at all, because that kind of a difference is more likely product of the system itself than skaters performances. It's more reliable to just add more numbers (when you have it) and then make a difference, because by adding more numbers there is more probability to make a better difference between the skaters performances (after 3 competitions one of those skaters will have total score of 400, the second one 390 and the third one 380, so the difference will be statistically more reliable).

I could come up with a veritable laundry list of variables that affect using scores across comps, your eyes would glaze over (more than they usually do when anyone reads my posts) and I would be writing and writing and writing.

I won't do that.

Of course, in a judged sport, no metric is perfect and no metric is objective. Scores across comps are not objective. (And so very circular, using the numbers to justify the number) Placements across comps are not objective. None is more objective or less objective than the other.

Except of course the decision of the ISU, who satisfied no one

 

[Skatesocs]

Lol

I won't do that.

But I think the rest of us are free to do that and discuss other aspects of skating, just out of interest, on a skating forum Not a particularly horrible idea IMO.

 

[Funt]

I am just going forward. I tried watching older gen skaters, but I found them not as interesting as the current ones, and without the drama and the stakes of the competition, it’s just not the same. So for me figure skating sort of started with Uno and Zagitova in 2018

thank God, there were no social networks in those days

Montage - Yagudin vs Plushenko

The battle between the great Russians. Enjoy!Music is the theme from 'Requiem for a dream'

youtu.be

 

[lariko]

thank God, there were no social networks in those days

Montage - Yagudin vs Plushenko

The battle between the great Russians. Enjoy!Music is the theme from 'Requiem for a dream'

youtu.be

No, not the drama behind the scene, just how the competition unfolds, how the individual careers shape up, when the outcome is unknown

For example, the junior women are starting just now, and I am on the edge of my chair