Tuktamysheva: The Views of Frank Carroll

[Bluebonnet]

So he thinks COP is a crappy system and he says why. You seriously think that's wrong??

I don't think MM thinks CoP is a crappy system. Math loves numbers as if fish loves water. He just sees the flaws and wants to better this system, that's all. Oh, well, ask him.

 

[Spun Silver]

Figuring out MM, what fun. I think he's at war with himself. Loving the numbers, yet deeply pessimistic about what this super-numerical system is doing to his sport. A tragic figure. Yet one who can joke in the face of death. Like Mercutio....

 

[Tonichelle]

To me, figure skating is half sport, half --- not art, but entertainment. If this were not the case, there would be no need for costumes, for music, or for skaters to display performance skills. “No entertainment value” was the rationale, for better or for worse, for the elimination of required figures.

Like everyone in the sport and entertainment industry, the ISU must pay attention to what the public thinks of its product. To tell the fans, “learn to like the current scoring system or go watch something else” – I think that’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I think we're forgetting the third part of why CoP came to be - the IOC was ready to drop figure skating because of the poor decisions and media nightmare that was the Pairs competition in 2002. THEY called for change and David Dore and Co. seized the moment to push for their new scoring system to come into play. It was rushed to competition and they've spent the better part of 10 years fixing it. It's not like it was perfect (or markted as such) out of the gate. The IOC wants more sport, not entertainment - they're just as much to blame for taking out yours (and my dad's) favorite element of the sport (which I don't agree with either of you on. I still have bloody knuckles while watching my favorites skate... I still get nervous and excited. To each their own).


Bottom line is - the X Games are getting more and more popular - it's why we're seeing snowboarding, snowcross, etc in the olympic games - they're performing tricks for judges just like skating, but the tricks are bigger and riskier and the crashes are incredible... the only difference? They fall one time and they're out of medal contention. not sure that's the solution we're looking for either.

 

[sorcerer]

An image of Liza, mouth half open, reading this thread that bears her name on the title ... flashed somewhere in my brain for about 0.35 second.

 

[Dragonlady]

I think we're forgetting the third part of why CoP came to be - the IOC was ready to drop figure skating because of the poor decisions and media nightmare that was the Pairs competition in 2002. THEY called for change and David Dore and Co. seized the moment to push for their new scoring system to come into play.

It was not David Dore who seized the moment, it was Octavio Cinquanta, the President of the ISU, Speedy to the rest of us. CoP was Cinquanta's proposed system. He had tried to introduce it some years earlier and had been voted down. After SLC, Speedy proposed the CoP system at the ISU General Council meeting that June, but he presented it as a "test, not a rule". He knew that the Figure Skating section would not vote for the change so he had the General Council vote because he knew the speed skating federations would go along with whatever he proposed.

David Dore had nothing to do with this. He wasn't even on the ISU Council at the time. Where the Canadians became involved is that Ted Barton from BC Section, was involved in writing the software that the system uses.

 

[heyang]

Haven't read through all the pages, yet.


one point to consider is that we don't know if she'll handle the pressure of expectations. Her current level of performance for her age has set the bar higher for her. Just as Mirai and Sasha have struggled to live up to their hype, this young lady will also need to do the same next year. Right now, it's just exciting and new to her and no one really expects her to win. After watching her this year, I'm gonna guess that many will start to hail her as the next Olympic champion - if not in 2014, then for 2018......

 

[bestskate8]

Here is the Philip Hersh's new article which also contains his opinion on Tuktamysheva's performance at Skate Canada:-

Philip Hersh article

Please stop calling Elizaveta names like tuk, tak, tut, plushygirl,.. it is understandable that many got very jealous that she is not American, but Russian.
But what did she do TO YOU personally, so you would call her names?
She has beautiful name Elizaveta ( for English speaking would be Elizabeth ), and if you are lazy to white long name, then for shot you can call her Liza.
Sorry didn’t want to offend anyone, but I wouldn’t want myself to be called names and you?
IMHO

 

[burntBREAD]

Please stop calling Elizaveta names like tuk, tak, tut, plushygirl,.. it is understandable that many got very jealous that she is not American, but Russian.
But what did she do TO YOU personally, so you would call her names?
She has beautiful name Elizaveta ( for English speaking would be Elizabeth ), and if you are lazy to white long name, then for shot you can call her Liza.
Sorry didn’t want to offend anyone, but I wouldn’t want myself to be called names and you?
IMHO

Nobody's doing it to insult her....

 

[gkelly]

It's not his job to provide the constructive proposals. He's not a technical specialist or skater, he's a bigtime, super-articulate, respected fan -- who's also a professor trained to tell the truth, not to endorse errors. So he thinks COP is a crappy system and he says why. You seriously think that's wrong??

This (post 143) is what I had in mind. Maybe I'm confusing Mathman's complaints with his characterization of Hersh's complaints.

All sports depend on fans today, regardless of how it was in 1850 or 1900. It's normal for sports to change to address fan needs and desires. Which baseball field now is getting torn up so batters can hit more home runs? (That seems hilarious to me.) Of course not all fans will agree, thank the Lord. And fan feelings are not the sole factor in changing a sport. But they are a valid factor since, yes, they ultimately buy the product and thus pay the bills, and I don't think skaters are happy about the shrinking audiences. How could they be?

1) Baseball is a professional sport. Figure skating really isn't.

The very highest levels -- ISU championships, Olympics, Grand Prix -- attract attention comparable to professional sports and pay a tiny minority of its athletes enough to make a living. Most of the athletes are self-funded or funded by their national federations, not by the ISU.

If there could be a way to ensure 6-figure salaries (before training and travel expenses, or including those expenses) for every skater on the Grand Prix/top 24 at Worlds, then it might make sense to have different rules for the athletes at that level, designed to appeal to fans/sponsors/broadcasters to earn more money and pay the athletes more.

But as long as the income from those sources goes primarily toward the expenses of running the competition in the first place and a small portion toward paying the athletes, I don't think we can subordinate the athletes' needs to those of some viewers.

In order for there to be high-level competitors that casual fans enjoy watching, there need to be lower level competitions that reward skill development. It's hard to be artistic while tripping over one's feet on every step (which is not the same thing as falling once or twice or even three times on a risk move -- which can include deep edges and tricky steps in addition to jumps). We wouldn't expect rules to privilege artistry over technique at the developmental levels, or else there would be no incentive for skaters to develop their skills.

Most competitors at ISU championships, not to mention junior-level and senior B events, are really still in the skill development phase, as well as funding it out of their own pockets.

So at what level should rules be designed with fan appeal in mind and at what levels should the finer points of technique take precedence?

2) Encouraging and recognizing more quads (and comparable elements in other disciplines) would be comparable to facilitating more home runs. Rewarding staying-on-one's feet, or emotionally engaging audiences, at the expense of established values of skating skills would be more comparable to giving bonus points for error-free baseball games or football end zone dances. That might appeal to some sports fans and disgust others.

Same with any change made to skating purely to appeal to fans. All fans do not speak with the same voice, think with the same brain, or feel with the same heart. Nor, of course, do all skaters or officials.

3) Skating audiences may have shrunk in the US since 10-15 years ago, for many reasons, but have grown or remained stable in other markets. It does so happen that the US market is in a position to provide the most income to the ISU if skating catches its collective fancy. Making changes to appeal to a large subset of one country's fans in hopes of increasing viewership and income from that country could backfire if the increased viewership doesn't materialize for reasons outside the ISU's control and meanwhile the changes also turned off a smaller subset of that country's fans and other countries' fans who have different preferences.

One could argue that that's what happened with the introduction of IJS -- in trying to appeal more to hard sports fans, it lost a lot of the art/entertainment fans.

 

[jenaj]

Suppose we rewrite the requirements to something like the following:

Maximum 12 elements (I'd prefer to make it 13 and give them a little more time)

Jumping passes: minimum 5, maximum 8 (same requirements and restrictions)
Spins: minimum 2, maximum 5 (same requirements -- either the combo spin or the spin in one position can fly if the skater only does 2 spins; all must have different codes)
Step sequences: minimum 1, maximum 2 (second is "choreo" sequence w/o level)
Miscellaneous: maximum 2 different types (these could include choreo or leveled spiral sequence, field moves sequence, school figure variations, etc.)

I think that allowing 8 jumping passes for the ladies is a very interesting idea. I haven't worked out all of the permutations of what it would mean, but wouldn't it encourage skaters to do all of the five types of triples? Maybe the number of double axels would have to be limited. As I said, I haven't worked it all out. As for free skating, why not eliminate levels in the free skate? Let skaters be more creative and not have to do a foot grab on a layback, for instance. Just judge the spins on centering, speed, etc. Same for footwork. Just some random thoughts!

 

[demarinis5]

Phil cracked me up with his comments about Ice Dance. He sure changed his tune. He has always hated it and I believe in one of his articles right before the last Olympics he wrote that he could not understand why ICE Dance was even in the Olympics. He said very nice things about Elizaveta.

He must have taken a happy pill before writing this article because he really did not diss any of the skaters, he was a little harsh on Rachael but given her performance at SC I can understand why. Phil does not like COP, huh.

 

[Olympia]

Figuring out MM, what fun. I think he's at war with himself. Loving the numbers, yet deeply pessimistic about what this super-numerical system is doing to his sport. A tragic figure. Yet one who can joke in the face of death. Like Mercutio....

I just love this comment, Spun! I bet it gives Mathman a chuckle, as well.

 

[Mathman]

I think he's at war with himself.

That's it exactly. I do not dislike the IJS. I do think that the ISU, whether intentionally or not, has given the impression that they do not care much what the fans think. Like all regulatory and oversight bodies, they send out a kind of "my way or the highway" vibe, somewhat (in my opinion) to the detriment of the best interest of the sport.

I do not have an alternate scoring system in mind that I advocate for. And for that matter I am not much interested in winning arguments on the Internet. But here is what causes me unease about the concept of point-total scoring in general.

Let's say that we, philosophers all, undertake to write the world's greatest essay on some immediately intuited phenomonon, like consciousness, or free will, of the sense of self. We start in to analyze out chosen subject. Quite to our dismay, the first thing that happens is that we prove that such a thing as consciousness does not and cannot possibly exist.

In my opinion, this exercise does not actually say anything about consciousness, free will, etc. Rather, it tells us something about the process of analysis. Analysis is such a powerful weapon that it destroys whatever we apply it to.

Thus figure skating. By slicing and dicing it into tenths and hudredts of a point, we are are in danger of dissolving away the thing itself.

 

[bsfan]

Please stop calling Elizaveta names like tuk, tak, tut, plushygirl,.. it is understandable that many got very jealous that she is not American, but Russian.
But what did she do TO YOU personally, so you would call her names?
She has beautiful name Elizaveta ( for English speaking would be Elizabeth ), and if you are lazy to white long name, then for shot you can call her Liza.
Sorry didn’t want to offend anyone, but I wouldn’t want myself to be called names and you?
IMHO

I have noticed some sort of less unrespectful comments towards Liza since she came out compared with other Russian talents. Is it because she is a student of the same great coach as Plushenko? She is a young girl without big-mouthing others at all. All she has done is working hard. And it is out of topic but Coach Mishin and Plushenko have contributed a lot to this sport. They are just Russians.

 

[Mathman]

Please stop calling Elizaveta names like tuk, tak, tut, plushygirl,..

She has beautiful name Elizaveta ( for English speaking would be Elizabeth ), and if you are lazy to white long name, then for shot you can call her Liza.

I see what you mean. But people don't intend any harm. If she wins the Olympic Gold Medal in 2014, newspapers all over the English-speaking world will be unable to resist the headline "Queen Tukt." This is cute word-play on the famous Eqyptian boy-pharaoh King Tut, plus it is short enough to fit in a banner headline. They will say things like, "Queen Tukt amassed a pyramid of points in her free skating program."

I hope that Elizaveta will take it as a compliment. They still call Michelle Kwan "the Kween" as a play on her last name.

 

[gmyers]

Her name is so long sometimes I have used Liza or Tuk or any number of contractions of her name. Sometimes I wonder if Liza is OK. I don't want to use a nickname that has its roots in a insult!

 

[dorispulaski]

I have to admit, I use a nickname because I keep forgetting the proper spelling of Liza's name (and it would be insulting to misspell it), and since I don't know her personally, using Liza seems disrespectful; so I was calling her Queen Tukt, as MM mentioned, because she is part of skating royalty, because of the Kween, Queen Yu Na, not to mention King Tut.

 

[bestskate8]

Her name is so long sometimes I have used Liza or Tuk or any number of contractions of her name. Sometimes I wonder if Liza is OK. I don't want to use a nickname that has its roots in a insult!

Liza is absolutely great.

Mathman

This is cute word-play on the famous Eqyptian boy-pharaoh King Tut, plus it is short enough to fit in a banner headline. They will say things like, "Queen Tukt amassed a pyramid of points in her free skating program."

she is not Eqyptian, if you want to compare by names why not compare to Russian Tsarevna Evizaveta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia

 

[bestskate8]

This may be the real reason that Coach Carroll attacked Liza's PCS. He has almost nothing to pick about her technique. So he would try to prevent her from getting right PCS, which is still subjective and "controllable".

Another name for this is “influenza” on judging through the media, same old tricks, very dirty.
I don’t see any other purpose of this article, and hope judges are not going to be that stupid.

 

[blue dog]

Her name is so long sometimes I have used Liza or Tuk or any number of contractions of her name. Sometimes I wonder if Liza is OK. I don't want to use a nickname that has its roots in a insult!

There's one way to solve this problem. I'm just gonna ask her. She actually compared herself to Lady Gaga the other day on her facebook--not because she wears dresses made out of meat, but that she loves her fans.