59th ISU Congress: Watch and Discuss

[4everchan]

. After all, your favorite Patrick Chan skated with 7 or even 8 jumping passes and you liked what he delivered.

Not the same. Triples were quite easy to integrate into the choreography. This is what was so cool a while ago. Jumps could come out of nowhere and be part of the program. Now, the long skate skate skate to the end of the ice jump and repeat for every quad has taken that away.
Regarding women skating : give the field time. There are women chasing the triple axel and the quads out of Russia. Not as many and perhaps not as successful, for now. It will take several years but it will come. It always has done so.

 

[Mathman]

Anyway, no longer watching if it's too boring is always an option, so, yeah, this is something to worry about in 2026.

Again, different fans have different notions of what is boring. The trouble with discussions like this thread is that each of us wants to convince others that they should be bored by the same things that I am bored with.

As for me, I have never attended or watched a figure skating competition that did not have programs that held my attention (not every program, of course). I enjoy local club shows featuring skaters at all levels from beginners on up. I once had the opportunity to attend some sessions of the U.S. Adult Championships -- I was blown away by the elegance of the men (plus, there were a couple of triple Axels) and the panache and dazzle of the ladies presenting their skills. Never a boring moment.

 

[Mathman]

Not the same. Triples were quite easy to integrate into the choreography. This is what was so cool a while ago. Jumps could come out of nowhere and be part of the program.

John Curry's 1976 Olympic LP had 9 jumping passes, with each jump in perfect complement to the musical structure and the choreographic vision. Scoringwize, he set the all-time record in that version of 6.0 with 192.74 points ) Michelle Kwan's first world championship LP (1996) had 8 jumping passes (7 triples). She got seven 5.9s and two 6.0s -- in presentation.

 

[lariko]

Two quads, particularly if they are two different ones, is a solid jumping content.

I like Selevko, but I would have preferred if he skated at Worlds the same way he skated at the Worlds, without popping into doubles, as I would have preferred that more skaters at the Worlds delivered their announced content the way Malinin did.

Triple doesn't look as big as a quad, and a double is basically nothing there kind of experience, save for 2A. It is the same in quality of experience as a spin that ends prematurely or a spiral when a person just lifts the leg then sets it down. But if anyone prefer triples, 7 jumping passes promotes including more triples, for sure.

Any botched move is a botched move. Botched moves are not aestetically pleasing.

The audience always supports the athlets, whatever they do, but to say that people prefer failure over success is ass backward.

 

[FlossieH]

I know only one or two people who can call correctly, but they are not vocal detractors of the jumpers. The people who loud and proud bash jumpers and use PCS to thinly veil their misogyny rarely know anything and therefore can judge fairness of the evaluation no better than me. So when they put up airs of defenders of high art and the storied past, that's time for the middle finger, because they have no clue what that are talking about.

I don't understand why you are claiming that people who want to see balanced programmes are misogynists. In what way is it sexist and prejudiced against women? If anything, I think the opposite would apply and someone who was a misogynist would be more likely to favour the 'masculine' jumps over other elements and programme components. (Note, before anyone gets upset, I am not in anyway trying to say that females cannot or should not jump, I'm just trying to think logically about how someone who was misognynst - i.e. was prejudiced against women in a way what degrades them - might view figure skating programmes).

 

[Mathman]

@FlossiH I think it might be something like this. The view that “lady” figure skaters are delicate little flowers, pretty but that’s all, is certainly both old fashioned and a put-down of female athletes. Now along comes a lady like Trusova who quads the pants off many male skaters (so to speak), and all she gets for her efforts is criticism for not being as delicate a little flower as Elizabtet Tursynbaeva.

 

[el henry]

Calling criticism of Trusova, or skaters like her, "Misogynist" is laughable.

IME, posters who dislike unbalanced programs dislike them for men and for women. If Sasha T. skates a balanced program, good for her. If she doesn't, then she needs to skate one (I can't say for sure, I may watched her skate maybe twice? three times? Definitely not anything that interested me, and that has Jackson B Squat to do with "pretty princess" vibes. It has to do with is there a program in addition to jumps. And that I find women's skating in general less interesting).

To claim otherwise and to use inapplicable language seems like a red herring meant to deflect. Oh look, a squirrel!. Taking away from the legitimate conversation around balanced programs.

 

[TallyT]

To claim otherwise and to use inapplicable language seems like a red herring meant to deflect. Oh look, a squirrel!. Taking away from the legitimate conversation around balanced programs.

Especially since the vast majority of the discussion of this new rule on this thread has been about Malinin who to the best of my knowledge is not a woman.

 

[Mathman]

If Sasha (Trusova) skates a balanced program, good for her. If she doesn't, then she needs to skate one.

I suppose this whole sidebar is off topic for this thread, but I think this is a bad rap. Yes, if you do 5 quads and rack up goo-gobs of points for them, then you can't possibly get enpugh points in other areas to mathematically balance eveything out.

But in Trusova's Olympic LP she got higher PCSs than anyone else except Anna Shcherbakova and Kaori Sakamoto, In fact except for Loena Hendrickx, Trusova beat everyone else on all 5 components -- Young You, Wakaba Higuchi . Alyssa Liu, Mariah Bell, Anastasia Gubanova, Yelim Kim, ... "complete and balanced skaters" one and all. (Versus Hendrickx Sasha scored dlightly higher on Skating Skills and Performance/Execution, slightly less in Music and Choreography, and tied in Transitions.)

Was her program aesthetically engaging and and emotionally satisfying? That's a different question altogether, IMHO.

 

[TallyT]

I suppose this whole sidebar is off topic for this thread, but I think this is a bad rap. Yes, if you do 5 quads and rack up goo-gobs of points for them, then you can't possibly get enpugh points in other areas to mathematically balance eveything out.

But in Trusova's Olympic LP she got higher PCSs than anyone else except Anna Shcherbakova and Kaori Sakamoto, In fact except for Loena Hendrickx, Trusova beat everyone else on all 5 components -- Young You, Wakaba Higuchi . Alyssa Liu, Mariah Bell, Anastasia Gubanova, Yelim Kim, ... "complete and balanced skaters" one and all. (Versus Hendrickx Sasha scored dlightly higher on Skating Skills and Performance/Execution, slightly less in Music and Choreography, and tied in Transitions.)

Was her program aesthetically engaging and and emotionally satisfying? That's a different question altogether, IMHO.

Which adds to the argument, along with the PCS histories of other jump wizards, that a correction is way past due.

 

[Mathman]

There is another point of view, though. Which is that excellence is more important than balance. We wpuld not praise a "balanced" program that has bad tech and equally bad blade to ice skills and that is equally lacking in aesthetic merit. The idea that each skater can assess his own strengths and weaknesses, build on his strengths while working on his weaknesses -- that's Ok, too. I have no problem with competitions that feature one program with whiz-bang jumps and another with blade wizardry and cool moves in the field and yet another that touches my heart. (All three at once is the best of all possible worlds, of course).

But, yeah -- the big jumpers will always win. I think that it has always been that way (starting back in the 1950s anyway) -- the jumps provide a floor and then other factors come into play after that. Lysacek beat Plushenko oon TES, not PCs. Boitano beat Orser because he did 2 triple Axels to Orser's 1. Dick Button won the 1948 Olympics by being the first skater to land a double Axel. Then he won the 1952 Olympics by being the first skater to land a triple jump (loop)

Yuzuru Hanyu won the 2018 Olympics because he landed 4T+3T, 4S, and 3A in the short program, while Nathan Chen "made as many mistakes [on jumps] as I possible could." Of course Hanyu also got hige GOEs on every element to go along with a flood of 9.75s and 10.0s in components. Still, earlier in the year Chen had prevailed over Hanyu at 2017 Rostecom by landing 3Lz+3T, 3F, and 3A in the SP, then holding on for the win.

 

[gkelly]

But, yeah -- the big jumpers will always win. I think that it has always been that way (starting back in the 1950s anyway) -- the jumps provide a floor and then other factors come into play after that. Lysacek beat Plushenko oon TES, not PCs. Boitano beat Orser because he did 2 triple Axels to Orser's 1. Dick Button won the 1948 Olympics by being the first skater to land a double Axel. Then he won the 1952 Olympics by being the first skater to land a triple jump (loop)

Well, there was more to that than jumps always winning in the 1950s through 1980s. School figures often made a big difference in the overall results.

And even in the free skate alone, there are plenty of examples where the skater with the highest jump difficulty but weaker other qualities lost to a skater with adequate jump difficulty and superior skating and/or presentation.

Even in early IJS that could be true.

With IJS in the era of multiple quads, it's more likely that the base values of the quads can mathematically overshadow the other qualities. Especially if judges don't believe, or don't use the numbers to reflect their belief, that the skater with somewhat less jump difficulty was significantly better in other areas.

If they don't believe the difference in PCS was that significant, then jumps can legitimately be the deciding factor in otherwise close contests. But if they do see a significant difference, they need to use the PCS and GOEs to reflect the difference that they see . . . and even then, the Scale of Values might overrule them.

 

[el henry]

whole post

I was trying to say that I was not offering an opinion on Trusova's programs because I did not see enough of them. Granted, I ddi not see enough of them because they bored me. And, as an aside, they bored me. I have never tried to say that everyone in the world should find boring what I find boring, or be excited by what I am excited by, And of course, absolutely none of it is due to misogynism, as the same type of programs, if skated by men, also bore me.

I suppose one could say I found them boring due to their imbalance, so maybe I am dodging the question.

 

[Mathman]

Well, there was more to that than jumps always winning in the 1950s through 1980s. School figures often made a big difference in the overall results.

Yes, certainly figures were important back in the day -- much more so than Skating Skills are today. Maybe there is some significance to the fact that the ISU's determination to get rid of fingures was based on the perception that figures were boring to audiences.

If [judges] don't believe the difference in PCS was that significant, then jumps can legitimately be the deciding factor in otherwise close contests. But if they do see a significant difference, they need to use the PCS and GOEs to reflect the difference that they see . . . and even then, the Scale of Values might overrule them.

Whenever I look at the succession of scale of values documents, what pops out is 10 points for a quad this, 11 points for a quad that, 12 points for a quad the other. Everything else is overruled, if not, indeed, overwhelmed.

But anyway, in so far as this is a thread about Ilia Malinin, I do not see how any of these minor rules changes can effect the arc of his career. Maybe he will win his events by only 18 points instead of 24. Of course he has to land his planned content or all bets are off. Still, he'll be OK until the next guy comes along -- the one with quad-quad combos.

Predicting the future is always tricky, but I fully expect to see at least a respectable attempt at a quad-quad combo by the 2026 Olympics, and by 2030 we wil start seeing 4Lz+4T, etc.

 

[TallyT]

Yuzuru Hanyu won the 2018 Olympics because he landed 4T+3T, 4S, and 3A, while Nathan Chen "made as many mistakes [on jumps] as I possible could."

And we shouldn't forget and give due when Chen also used his skill in jumps to move from what 15th? to 5th with a jam-packed and clean FS. Plus, it was quite probably Shoma falling on an early jump in the FS that cost him his chance to overtake Yuzuru (who was skating while still badly injured and therefore couldn't go all out in the second program), but that the rest of his program, including jumps and everything else (Shoma is one of those with a lot of everything else, after all), enabled him to overtake Javier Fernandez for the silver. Jumps do matter, a whole lot.

OTOH, the more jumps matter, the more splatfests we will continue to get.

And also, and as we are speaking of 2018 - a stellar men's event, probably the best of the IJS era with a whole bunch of skaters who could be included in the best of all time ranks - the biggest explosion of excitement and joy and screams from that and many other audiences including the probably biggest ever (GIFT) came in Yuzuru's Seimei at that point after the jumps where he flung out his arms and swept into that iconic-of-icons ending sequence. If the ISU are looking to strengthen audience appeal (I read somewhere they have said so, and it would be daft for them not to) then they need to try and reward the jumps, the skating skills and the programs as a whole but also give the audience such moments. And it isn't only the jumps - maybe not even mainly the jumps - that can do it.

 

[AxelLover]

And also, and as we are speaking of 2018 - a stellar men's event, probably the best of the IJS era with a whole bunch of skaters who could be included in the best of all time ranks - the biggest explosion of excitement and joy and screams from that and many other audiences, including the probably biggest ever (GIFT) came in Yuzu's Seimei at that point after the jumps where he flung out his arms and swept into that iconic-of-icons ending sequence.

What an event! You made me feel so nostalgic. I would argue, however, that 2017 worlds were even better.
Sorry for getting even more off-topic.

 

[TallyT]

What an event! You made me feel so nostalgic. I would argue, however, that 2017 worlds were even better.
Sorry for getting even more off-topic.

You have a good argument there, I admit I was thinking of Olympics but hey, a thread on which were the greates Olympic and/or Worlds event in each discipline could be good for even more arguments!

 

[gkelly]

Yes, certainly figures were important back in the day -- much more so than Skating Skills are today. Maybe there is some significance to the fact that the ISU's determination to get rid of fingures was based on the perception that figures were boring to audiences.

And required a lot of expensive ice time, which was not covered by ticket sales/broadcast contracts, because of the lack of interest to audiences.

Some fans find IJS-style step sequences almost as boring. Personally, I tend to find good step sequences the most interesting part of the program, and at least as many interesting ones in IJS as under 6.0. YMMV.

But anyway, in so far as this is a thread about Ilia Malinin, I do not see how any of these minor rules changes can effect the arc of his career. Maybe he will win his events by only 18 points instead of 24. Of course he has to land his planned content or all bets are off. Still, he'll be OK until the next guy comes along -- the one with quad-quad combos.

Predicting the future is always tricky, but I fully expect to see at least a respectable attempt at a quad-quad combo by the 2026 Olympics, and by 2030 we wil start seeing 4Lz+4T, etc.

I hope the discussion is not about any specific skater.

I do expect more jump difficulty of the type you describe to show up in men's free skates in coming years. Especially if the number of jump passes is reduced. (And perhaps the best-jumping women's free skates to start resembling men's of 5-25 years ago, with or without Russian women.)

I'm sure we all have different opinions about what kind of competition format would best reflect what we each like best to watch. I made a poll for sharing our preferences.

 

[Mathman]

I hope the discussion is not about any specific skater.

I looked at the men's 2024 worlds LP for a guide as to how the new rules, especially the 6 instead of 7 jumping passes, might play out. Superficially at least, we can just delete each skater's lowest-valued jump. Melinin's lowest-valued jump was 4S, base value 9.70, with GOE 12.61. FA's lowest was solo 3A, base value with second half bonus 8.80. Everyone else would not lose all that much (Kagiyama 3F, Britschgi 3Lz, Brown 2A (popped to 1A at worlds), Uno 3S.

As for adding a choreograph spin, maqybe that would help Brown increase his overall lead over Britschgi of 0.24 points by a few tenths.

By the way, my favorite men's program of the whole competition was Yuma Kagiyama's short program. For one thing, short programs do not tax my powers of concentration, plus in LPs there is always that anxiety-filled moment late in the program when I shout. "OK, OK, OK. Now stop jumping before you fall and spoil everything!"

I'm sure we all have different opinions about what kind of competition format would best reflect what we each like best to watch. I made a poll for sharing our preferences.

I looked at the poll but could not make up my mind. Can I vote for all of the above? So much depends on the individual program and performance rather than the classification to which it belongs. As a spectator I certainly got swept up in the quad-o-ramas by Nathan at the 2022 Olympics and by Ilia at the recent Worlds. But I also enjoy having a good cry every time I rewatch Michelle Kwan's Fields of Gold exhibition from the 2002 Olympics.

One of my most satisfying experiences as a spectator and fan was a performce by an adult skater at a local club show. She was an officer of the club and also active in USFSA at the national level. I don't remember if she did any (single) jumps or not, mostly gliding moves and spirals, but for some reason the [erformance spoke to me and I remember it 20 years later.

However... trying to incorporate things like this into the scoring system, to me that is fraught with peril. There used to be a bullet point for Performance & Execution that read "the skater creates an invisible connection with the audience." I can see what they are trying to get at here, but stilll... we do not crown the winner of the Super Bowl on the basis of all the invisible touchdown passes that the quarterback threw, nor on the basis of how many fans might rewatcht the game on YouTube later.

 

[Arigato]

I would argue, however, that 2017 worlds were even better.

Top 4 men all had 2 quads in the SP and 4 quads with 8 jumps total in the FS. The guy who went for 6 quads came in 6th. I rewatch that WC all the time. It's a blast, and some really funny moments in the green room. Not to mention, Tracy Wilson's face in the K&C after the Men's FS. I like the 2017 WC for many reasons and it shares something with the 2024 Worlds — they each have a guy who did poorly in their SP, ending up with a medal on the podium. Yuzu went from 5th in the SP to 1st in the FS and winning the gold. He set a world record in the FS.

And in 2024 Adam went from 19th in the SP to 2nd in the FS, winning the bronze. I have never seen a look on a guy's face like that at the end of his program. You'd think he just killed a person. I think FS Adam killed SP Adam and circled the body lying on the ice.