Why do more skaters not file protests against the results?

[NanaPat]

I also think gray means GOE zero. That's why it's very rare. And I have definitely seen the box turn from/to gray/red/green as more marks come in if the GOE is near zero. I've seen all 3 (briefly) on the same element!

Sometimes I've felt sorry for skaters with a lot of reds who finally get a better element, only to get gray. I've even yelled at the screen: "somebody give them a +1! don't be so mean!"

 

[Baron Vladimir]

Hmm, I always thought gray=review later, replacing yellow. I looked it up back when I started watching FS in 2018, and never looked if there were any changes:

"yellow "Review" indicates that the judges aren't quite sure and will need to review it, which is why you'll notice the yellow quickly turns green or red."

Gray means its zero GOE - the panel of judges didn't evaluate the element as a 'positive' or a 'negative' one in real time. It is not like for example in NBC/last Olympic broadcast where yellow means that the element is called for a review, if that was the message of the yellow flag, i guess... because i'm usually watching Eurosport or other European networks...

 

[Miller]

Tech panel is calling for the review in a real time, and all judges are watching the review after the programme is finished. In this particular occasion, no one in the tech panel called Kaori lutz edge in real time for the review, only we who saw the review on our tv screens (as the commentators) could see it was not a right edge - but judges didn't see (or didn't want to call to see) what we are seeing on a TV review. And for that matter, i know coaches are putting skaters lutz in a specific spot on the ice rink to be harder for the judges to clearly see a change of edge (or unclear edge) in real time.

A possible explanation. Is the tech panel always in the same position on the rink (to the right of the judges looking outward) and grouped together? (I remember Evgenia Medvedeva always putting her slightly questionable Lutz in the bottom left hand corner of the rink i.e. as far away as possible, plus in the near corner as well)

If so Kaori's jumps would both have been directly in front them (see at 1 mins 11 seconds in both the SP and LP - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF4f_MJu5DY&list=PLuiPiC1Hk8eJDGEUYzTQhpXtEu6_aGpTN&index=1&t=270s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVhmsOY-Y44&list=PLuiPiC1Hk8eJDGEUYzTQhpXtEu6_aGpTN&index=42), and their viewing angle would not have been the best.

Hence slow motion replay (with whatever angle the judges use, or at 4mins 25s and 5mins 58s in the above videos) may not have come into it at all, as they didn't even think the jumps needed reviewing in the first place.

Of course I would expect experienced technical specialists of the type you would get at the GPF to be wise to this, and pick up on it, but it is a possible explanation for what's going on, plus it's not exactly clear how you might solve it - presumably they have to be grouped together for talking purposes, and a 2nd camera angle for example isn't going to solve things if something doesn't get called in the first place.

During the program the technical specialist called the name of the element and one of the tech panel members said "Review." So it was flagged for review, but they didn't review it yet while the rest of the program was going on.

Therefore the judges didn't yet know what the results of the review would be, so they just input their GOE based on what they had seen at the time.

AFTER the program the tech panel reviews the elements that they had questions about during the program, and they add calls to any jumps that they found errors on. At that time, judges are supposed to reduce their GOEs to reflect any calls, if they hadn't already reflected those errors based on what they saw in real time.

Therefore it is very common for elements to have full base value and positive GOE on the scoring box that shows to the home viewers (but not to the judges) during the program, and then after the reviews to get calls that result in lower GOEs from the judges and lower base values for <, <<, and e calls.

I would have hoped some of the judges at least (those to the far left of the judging panel looking outwards) would have spotted something, but perhaps in the case wrong edges they defer 'knowing' that they're going to get the chance later on to re-mark - it is possible some judges could have lowered their GOEs anyway, but Kaori's brilliant 2A typically only gets a +4 so it is somewhat doubtful that the +3's she got reflect lowered GOEs input at the time of the original jump - I note however that it very common for judges to spot UR's in real time - you often get jumps with lower GOEs than what you might expect in the scoring box, and, hey presto, at review time the jump gets called and the BV and GOE goes down.

 

[gkelly]

A possible explanation. Is the tech panel always in the same position on the rink (to the right of the judges looking outward) and grouped together?

I haven't noticed whether that is always the case at international events.

The only time I attended US Nationals in IJS era, IIRC the judges were spread across much of the length of the ice and the tech panel was one level up behind them, on the right side from the panel's point of view.

In events at local rinks rather than large arenas, the location of the panels and the camera may vary depending on the architecture of the venue.

Of course I would expect experienced technical specialists of the type you would get at the GPF to be wise to this, and pick up on it, but it is a possible explanation for what's going on, plus it's not exactly clear how you might solve it - presumably they have to be grouped together for talking purposes, and a 2nd camera angle for example isn't going to solve things if something doesn't get called in the first place.

Good point.

 

[Diana Delafield]

I haven't noticed whether that is always the case at international events.

The only time I attended US Nationals in IJS era, IIRC the judges were spread across much of the length of the ice and the tech panel was one level up behind them, on the right side from the panel's point of view.

In events at local rinks rather than large arenas, the location of the panels and the camera may vary depending on the architecture of the venue.


Good point.

In the 6.0 era, before the addition of technical specialists and before the filming of all events, not just the biggies, placing a skater's weakest jump close to the boards on the judges' side in a corner was a common trick. The judges, seated in a row, would have to lean forward to see the landing, and their heads would block each other's view except for the one at the nearest end. Gossip was that one particular judge didn't bother to watch, just assumed particular skaters would wrong-edge the landing of their weak jump and marked the jump down automatically.

 

[throw_triple_flip]

I don't know the stats for all sports but at least in tennis there are much fewer disputes when the Eagle Eye (the camera system) decides the dubious balls and not the human eye. I think it has a similar effect with VAR in football. Anyway, I do not think complaints and protests are the real problem such a system aims to solve but ensuring accurate scoring and judging.

VAR seems to cause MORE disputes in football.

 

[throw_triple_flip]

Those calling for more technology in figure skating ought to be careful what they wish for. It could end up having some unforseen consequence.

This reminds of when people were clamouring for VAR in
football back in the day after some poor reffing. It sounded like a great idea at the time. Now the prevailing sentiment seems to be that it's ruining the game.

Any technology they come up with for scoring will have human input somewhere- and the errors/bias will slip in somewhere. They could be inbuilt into the whole system.

 

[lilimum]

Those calling for more technology in figure skating ought to be careful what they wish for. It could end up having some unforseen consequence.

This reminds of when people were clamouring for VAR in
football back in the day after some poor reffing. It sounded like a great idea at the time. Now the prevailing sentiment seems to be that it's ruining the game.

Any technology they come up with for scoring will have human input somewhere- and the errors/bias will slip in somewhere. They could be inbuilt into the whole system.

I think the VAR in soccer is more or less the same system like the actual judging system in figure skating - if there are doubts the referees are supported by slow motion videos and decide according what they see. A sensor based system would be the next level and hopefully faster

 

[Andrea82]

I haven't noticed whether that is always the case at international events.

The only time I attended US Nationals in IJS era, IIRC the judges were spread across much of the length of the ice and the tech panel was one level up behind them, on the right side from the panel's point of view.

In events at local rinks rather than large arenas, the location of the panels and the camera may vary depending on the architecture of the venue.

It is recommended by ISU "if possible" that the technical panel is an elevated position. So in GPs and ISU Championships they are positioned up.
At Nebelhorn they are usually 3-4 levels up!
However, in small international competitions, it is not rare to have the technical panel at the same level of the judges because the rink are small and it would be not feasible to accomodate them in a different spot.
For instance, here is 2023 Bosphorus Cup, at 7:37:00 mark officials are introduced and they are all at the ice level. Tech panel on the left of the judges.

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When they are one level up, they are usually behind the judges (well, behind some of the judges as judges are spread across much of the length of the ice as you said) but it is not aways the case in Challenger Series or smaller events.
For example, here is Denis Ten Memorial (8:35:50 mark is the introduction of the officials for one event), technical panel is on the right of the judges, in a big table elevated but not behind the judges, just next to them.

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[Andrea82]

The JGP tech panel was quite strict, maybe they need to be promoted and the one's that officiated in the singles senior GP finals demoted. Controversial?

Technical controllers and specialists officiating in Junior GPs and in Senior GPs have the same qualification (ISU status is required).
At GP Final, actually the same panel officiated in both Junior and Senior (different panel for Men and Women).

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

That is true only for determining jump prerotation. (And determining whether a fall occurred, in borderline cases.)

For other replays, they can watch in slow motion.

That is good to hear that they do have slow motion replays for most things. But, it still would be advantageous to have it for everything.

Funny story. Yesterday, a few of us were watching the coverage of the French Championships. In the Pairs SP, there was a moment during Camille and Pavel's programme where she touched the ice on landing the Triple Toe. But whereas I saw it as a double hands down, @EdgeCall saw it as one hand down.

Here is the direct link to the moment within the archived livestream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt2x7Vb8hhw&t=7054

This morning, I was writing the report for the Fan Fest, and because there was a difference in opinion as to how many of Camille's hands touched the ice, I went back to the stream to check. There is no question over her right hand touching; that was obvious. But, her left arm was partially obscured by her body, and it was only very briefly in sight. After watching it again, I agreed with @EdgeCall's assessment that it was just the right hand that touched the ice.

Because I had seen it differently this second time to how I had seen when watching LIVE, I decided to have another go. And this third time I hadn't a clue! And the the more times I watched it, the more confused I got. Then I remembered that YouTube allows you to change the speed that the videos are played at. So, I played it at quarter speed, and that confirmed that the left hand had also touched the ice.

So in this case, it was definitely beneficial to have the slow motion replay.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Those calling for more technology in figure skating ought to be careful what they wish for. It could end up having some unforseen consequence.

This reminds of when people were clamouring for VAR in football back in the day after some poor reffing. It sounded like a great idea at the time. Now the prevailing sentiment seems to be that it's ruining the game.

But that could just be because it's football.

From what I have seen on occasions when my Dad has had rugby on the TV during meal times, the more extensive use of technology there has greatly benefitted the game.

In football, they don't seem to be utilising technology in a way that they get the full benefit out of it. And I would say that is because there was so much opposition to it in the first place. The powers that be in football don't seem to want to progress the game. They just want things to carry on the same way they always have.

For goodness sake, in football the clock doesn't even get paused when there are stoppages to play! They let the clock carry on, and then estimate how much time the game was stopped for, round it off to the nearest minute, and add this onto the end of the half. What a palava! And totally unnecessary. In rugby, the clock does get paused when there are stoppages, and it makes everything so much simpler, and more accurate too. Mind you, this accuracy is spoiled by the way that rugby matches carry on after the match length is reached until the ball goes out of play. When time is up, it should mean time is up!

I also like the way that the referees and their assistants in rugby have microphones, so we can hear what they are saying. It means that we can hear the decision making processes, and understand them better. Makes everything more above board.

I should add, I have no interest in either sport. And I think rugby is too dangerous to players' health and should be banned (along with all the other rough sports that have "football" in their name despite the ball hardly ever going near the feet). But, I have to take my hat off to rugby for they way they are using technology to improve the game.

Football could learn a lot from them. But they don't want to.

Just like the ISU!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[kolyadafan2002]

The main issue is that every skater makes mistakes that aren't called, or does something clean that the panel thinks is a mistake. Protests ars difficult as there will be 100 counter protests, and it will take many months to know the result of a competition if everybody starts filing them.
Take stsq - there's an argument that almost all of the free skaters don't correctly execute turns, this protesting could go on for ages as tech panel reviews every single step sequence after protest.


You are however allowed to ask ref & tech controller reasons behind deductions and they can explain. It can allow skaters to know the mistake and change for next time.

With flutzes, I the entry kaori uses, the simplest solution is to have a secondary camera on the side of the rink and allow tech panels to look at it for edges. Most lutz edges not called can be easily revealed when looked from another perspective. This for me is the quickest and simplest solution for ISU championship level events.

 

[Miller]

With flutzes, I the entry kaori uses, the simplest solution is to have a secondary camera on the side of the rink and allow tech panels to look at it for edges. Most lutz edges not called can be easily revealed when looked from another perspective. This for me is the quickest and simplest solution for ISU championship level events.

This would work provided you had enough time to do all reviews, re-marks etc. before the next skater. Also it would need to be the case that 'if in doubt, review' so that the jump gets reviewed in the first place.

Re the time, there would typically be 3/4 jumping passes to review per program, plus you'd need something like split screen technology with the cameras synched in time so that the reviewer is not flipping backwards and forwards between different screens - you just don't have enough time to do NFL type reviews before the next skater starts.

What I don't know is if all 3 members of the panel are looking at the skaters all the time, but if at the moment one starts doing reviews while the skater is still skating (meaning there's only 2 people looking for review items...) then this would certainly be more feasible.

However presumably the ultimate solution is, without knowing anything about it, AI - it's easy enough for us humans to identify lutz or flip entries, plus determining when the toe pick hits the ice should be easy enough (someone earlier in the thread was mentioning weight transfer to the picking foot, but presumably this is virtually instantaneous). At that point it's just case of identifying if it's inside edge, outside edge or something inbetween, plus I guess there's always humans at the rink to act as some type of backup.

 

[gkelly]

What I don't know is if all 3 members of the panel are looking at the skaters all the time, but if at the moment one starts doing reviews while the skater is still skating (meaning there's only 2 people looking for review items...) then this would certainly be more feasible.

Under the current system, all 3 members look at the skaters all the time during the program and all reviews happen afterward.

If one were to stop watching the skater and start watching a video review immediately after each jump, then that person would miss the next element -- which might be another jump, or might be a leveled element in which all 3 sets of eyes are needed to see everything that needs to be seen in real time.

If you want to save time after the program by having someone review elements during the program, then you probably have to add an extra someone to the technical panel. Either way you're going to add costs of some sort.

Also, if that someone is reviewing jump A immediately after the end of jump A, then they might not end up seeing jump B live at all. So for a singles program, if the idea is to have an extra camera angle and someone reviewing that angle during the performance, they might as well just spend the whole program watching that video feed, rewinding as necessary, and not watching the live skating at all while the main panel continues to watch the skater throughout the program.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

Skaters have been trained from age-old to take what they get without complaining, and to keep on truckin'. They have been indoctrinated to be seen and NOT heard; to go along to get along; to be thankful and grateful they even get a chance to compete in the first place; to explain their existence and to summarize their mistakes, but NEVER to complain about their results!

This is why we usually hear skaters repeat the mantra: "I'm focused on personal goals; on doing what I can do; on having fun out there; on controlling what I can control -- how I perform." Skaters have no power or leverage in how the sport of figure skating is run and judged, especially not during their competitive careers.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

In the short program and free skate Kaori received mostly 3's and even one judge gave a +4 for the following 3Lz jumps.

If a skater was given an edge call for a lutz, why wouldn't they simply protest the result and provide clear photographic proof as I have done that a precedent has been established where a lutz doesn't require an outside edge.

To me this is very straightforward.

It's not a criticism of Kaori. She does not require such favours in order to win.

A skater's coach might be able to do what you have suggested, but must be careful to pick and choose their battles, eh!

In fact, Vincent Zhou's coach, Tom Z, once lodged complaints about a UR call, with video evidence. While Tom was praised in some quarters for doing so, he was also ridiculed and heavily critiqued by others. The calls against Vincent were not changed, albeit that Tom was likely protesting in order to protect Vincent from receiving future harsh calls.

I guess it was brave for Tom to step up on behalf of his skater, but the best option was working with Vincent on eliminating questionable landings, which they did achieve, to some success.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

Clearly it's okay to use an inside edge for a lutz

Who says that it's okay? Just because the tech panel does not always call wrong edges on takeoffs, does not suddenly make it okay to enter the lutz on a wrong edge.

The judging system, as we know, has a lot of holes in it. Shoma was given 3.85 GOE for a visibly and terribly bad wrong edge/ sloppy entry on a quad flip at his first GP. I guess the tech panel was asleep, or else hypnotized by Uno, the Magician.

The slo-mo video of Shoma's flip entry and exit was shown on social media and the judges were mocked. At Shoma's next GP, NHK, he was heavily scrutinized and had markdowns in his fp. Yuma won NHK. Shoma's followers were outraged. But at least, Shoma worked on trying to clean up his flip entry for GPF. It was much better, but still not the best technically. However, Shoma's smooth, mesmerizing skating and his incredibly deep knees, help camouflage his technical weaknesses.

 

[Miller]

If you want to save time after the program by having someone review elements during the program, then you probably have to add an extra someone to the technical panel. Either way you're going to add costs of some sort.

Also, if that someone is reviewing jump A immediately after the end of jump A, then they might not end up seeing jump B live at all. So for a singles program, if the idea is to have an extra camera angle and someone reviewing that angle during the performance, they might as well just spend the whole program watching that video feed, rewinding as necessary, and not watching the live skating at all while the main panel continues to watch the skater throughout the program.

That actually sounds a very good idea (cost notwithstanding). They just spend the entire 3/4 minutes of the program looking for potentially reviewable items (on whatever video feeds are available). If it's already been marked for review there's nothing to do, a lot of the time everything's OK, but if something is worth/needs reviewing they mark it as such, and then it goes back to the other 3 members of the panel to consider at the end - whether the extra person should be included in the discussions I don't know (you'd be looking at a 3 to 1 majority, or 2/2 + casting vote system), but if it finds something that otherwise might have been missed then that must be a good idea, plus I guess the other thing is to somehow include extra video feeds (hence my idea above about split screens and cameras synched in time), or does the panel just look at the ISU's feed, or does the extra person just look at that as well - I think it would be far better to have at least 2 feeds viewable and included in the discussions, though really only 2 should be needed - if you can't spot something on 2 separate feeds you're really going down to an unnecessary level of detail.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

That actually sounds a very good idea (cost notwithstanding). They just spend the entire 3/4 minutes of the program looking for potentially reviewable items (on whatever video feeds are available). If it's already been marked for review there's nothing to do, a lot of the time everything's OK, but if something is worth/needs reviewing they mark it as such, and then it goes back to the other 3 members of the panel to consider at the end - whether the extra person should be included in the discussions I don't know (you'd be looking at a 3 to 1 majority, or 2/2 + casting vote system), but if it finds something that otherwise might have been missed then that must be a good idea, plus I guess the other thing is to somehow include extra video feeds (hence my idea above about split screens and cameras synched in time), or does the panel just look at the ISU's feed, or does the extra person just look at that as well - I think it would be far better to have at least 2 feeds viewable and included in the discussions, though really only 2 should be needed - if you can't spot something on 2 separate feeds you're really going down to an unnecessary level of detail.

But an automated system can do it fine for cheap, and doesn't need travel expenses, and further spares time for the regular Tech Panel?