Protesting Scores: Something that Figure Skating needs?

[janetfan]

If the rule allowed it, I would make a call for Flatt's dubious downgrades at the Olympics. The slo-mo showed she was fine. They would have to give it to her.

About Mirai at 2010 Nationals, all slow-mo would show her underrotation, so that money would go into USFS's piggy bank.

That is another good example. Quite a few skating fans thought Rachael was victimized by phantom dg's in Vancouver. What recourse did her team have?

Per BOP's topic here the answer is NONE.

And that feels wrong.

 

[Mathman]

The argument was that he had gotten into the required position (handstand) before "dismounting" (he fell!) and ending the routine. Originally they called it as him missing the handstand.

That's kind of interesting, too. It's like when a skater falls but gets in the required rotations first. According to the current rules, the element gets full base value.

Another comparison with gymnastics scoring and skating's IJS occurred with the Russian women's balance beam routines. They were awful. Huge distracting balance checks after every element. Teetering and tottering that was obvious to the most casual of fans watching.

Yet -- they did some hard tricks. So they ended up with pretty good scores and a silver medal.

 

[snowflake]

Thanks Tonichelle. Do you know if gymnastics uses video replay during the event or do they make those deduction calls via real time only?

The gymnastic judges never use video replays during the events. They judge what they see in real time. If they had used replays I guess they had got it right for Ushimura from the beginning.

If this is what you asked/meant?

 

[Bluebonnet]

Another comparison with gymnastics scoring and skating's IJS occurred with the Russian women's balance beam routines. They were awful. Huge distracting balance checks after every element. Teetering and tottering that was obvious to the most casual of fans watching.

Yet -- they did some hard tricks. So they ended up with pretty good scores and a silver medal.

Maybe in the meantime, figure skating fans should learn from gymnastic fans as well.

To go back to the first post in the thread. Yes, I think it can be done like in gymnastics. I wonder why it hasn't? Should the coaches and the federations have pushed that long time ago already? I'm sure this is not a new idea.

Like many have said in this thread, only tech panel could be questioned. It cannot open the door to the performance questioning, or it'll have wildly crazy consequences.

 

[janetfan]

Maybe in the meantime, figure skating fans should learn from gymnastic fans as well.

To go back to the first post in the thread. Yes, I think it can be done like in gymnastics. I wonder why it hasn't? Should the coaches and the federations have pushed that long time ago already? I'm sure this is not a new idea.

Like many have said in this thread, only tech panel could be questioned. It cannot open the door to the performance questioning, or it'll have wildly crazy consequences.

I think the reputation of figure skating judging (atleast in N. America) is so damaged that Speedy decided no questions or protests would somehow prove the infallibilty of the IJS.

As usual he was totally wrong.

 

[Serious Business]

immediately after the Japanese team saw that they were 4th the coach filled out the paperwork, grabbed the cash and ran over to the referee. The judges/officials then immediately looked over the replay of the Japanese gymnast's pommel (sp) horse (which he fell out of the dismount). The argument was that he had gotten into teh required position (handstand) before "dismounting" (he fell!) and ending the routine. Originally they called it as him missing the handstand. They reversed it after reviewing the footage for several minutes. It happened in a very short span of time during the end of competition.

Falling has a specific definition in gymnastics scoring. He didn't fall during that routine. At issue were the difficulty scores involved, not the execution score, which hinged on whether he got into a handstand position at some point during his flailing dismount. I looked around and couldn't find a good answer on exactly how the rules define a handstand position in gymnastics. Near as I can guess, it has to do with whether the core of the body achieves a vertical position while being entirely supported by the gymnast's hands. I guess in slo-mo, at some point, Uchimura accidentally hit a vertical position. It seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but I'm not a gymnastics expert.

My gut feeling though, is that the judges made the right call on review. I have a really tough time believing that the judges would be willing to overturn such a deciding call by one of their own at the biggest event of the sport unless they really thought the initial decision was an error. And if there was some bias or preference towards propping up the Japanese, they would've done it during the competition rather than let the Japanese team sink to 4th place. As for bribery/pressure/backroom deals in the space of a few minutes in front of all those cameras, that's just not remotely plausible.

 

[Macassar88]

I wish that in the protocols, judges would have to explain which bullets were checked for both levels as GOE.

 

[Mathman]

At issue were the difficulty scores involved, not the execution score, which hinged on whether he got into a handstand position at some point during his flailing dismount.

To me it seems like controlling the element well enough to exit it should be part of the criterion for whether the element was successfully executed. But what do I know?

 

[Serious Business]

I wish that in the protocols, judges would have to explain which bullets were checked for both levels as GOE.

That is a great idea (though separate from what we're discussing). In fact, judges shouldn't even give GOE checks. They should just have a checklist of GOE criteria and select ones they deem applicable. If enough of the bullet points stack up for a certain level of GOE, that's what gets added in for that judge's score.

To me it seems like controlling the element well enough to exit it should be part of the criterion for whether the element was successfully executed. But what do I know?

I'm guessing they have some criteria for what counts as an attempt and Uchimura was deemed to have achieved that much in the inquiry. Not necessarily how I'd have wrote the rules, but as per my reasoning above, I believe the judges were following the rules.

 

[Tonichelle]

when I said grabbed the cash I was not suggesting that they were bribing anyone, I hope it didn't come accross as such.

and from an "average joe" perspective, I wouldn't consider his handstand down to the floor portion of the dismount as him being in control, i'd consider it more of a fall out. Not that that's how the rules are played out, but since we're so worried about how the average joe responds to the sport of figure skating I guess perception should be taken into account in the example, yes?

 

[seniorita]

^ I was going to write that Uchimura didnt fall, he would have a big deduction if it was a 'fall", but you wrote it way more technical than I could.
Mathman Komova has the hardest beam, she had some balance checks and problem in dismount but I still think her talent in beam is amazing.
The reason they got silver is that Romania and China have more issues to solve.

 

[Serious Business]

when I said grabbed the cash I was not suggesting that they were bribing anyone, I hope it didn't come accross as such.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that's what you meant. I was just typing out my internal thought process over whether the judges made the right call in the inquiry. I just can't think of any valid reason why the judges would prop up Japan at that point and not before.

 

[janetfan]

^ she had some balance checks and problem in dismount but I still think her talent in beam is amazing.
.

She began her dismount in London and landed in Brazil.

 

[Tonichelle]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that's what you meant. I was just typing out my internal thought process over whether the judges made the right call in the inquiry. I just can't think of any valid reason why the judges would prop up Japan at that point and not before.

I agree, and am generally not a fan of conspiracies. However, one could probably argue that they didn't expect Japan to flub up badly enough to be off the podium, so...

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I think what also makes it hard to implement in figure skating is that the judging standards vary widely from competition to competition. As someone pointed out, the 3-3 of Yuna's that was DG didn't look any less rotated than her other 3-3's. I have noticed that some competitions have many more across-the-board downgrades, which makes me think some panels are stricter on everyone at certain competitions. Also, in FS you have a few different set of eyes looking at these elements with replay so it seems less likely that there would be an argument for errors that could be overturned. Even if there was some shady judging, any judge who wanted to fudge the numbers to help a skater could easily do so in the PCS marks, so it seems to me that having scoring protests would be more trouble than it's worth (competitions already have a tough time staying on schedule, creating some panel to be the final arbiter, etc.)

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

I think so, Blades. I'd be interested in seeing a mechanism put in place where the technical scores could be protested.

 

[Dragonlady]

I have a friend who is a national level gymnastics judge and he said that Ushimira's appeal should have been upheld, and that he had achieved the required elevation to be credited for the handstand, absolutely. To me, it just looked like inflation but I only watch gymnastics every four years and know next to nothing about the technical aspect of the sport or its judging.

 

[Serious Business]

I agree, and am generally not a fan of conspiracies. However, one could probably argue that they didn't expect Japan to flub up badly enough to be off the podium, so...

That is entirely possible, but likely in a different way than what you said: I'm sure just like the smartest and most dedicated skating fans on this forum can predict results before official scores are released, officials judging gymnastics events have a pretty good idea of how things will turn out. As Uchimura was the last competitor of the event, I'm sure all the officials involved eyeballed it and came to a conclusion what the result would be. Now I'm not sure if the inquiry is ruled on by the same panel of judges that decided the initial difficulty score, if it is, then this argument is moot as they would most certainly have a pretty good idea of how the E score would go, and know that the D score they decided on at that point would vacate Japan from the podium. However, if the inquiry is voted on by a panel with a different composition of judges (I tried googling which is which for about 3 minutes, and then I gave up), it could be that some of those officials expected Uchimura to have a higher D score, and were glad to have the chance to overrule a mistake by their peers. In this case, the system still worked as it should. Yet another possibility is that the panel reviewing the decision is not only made up of different officials than the ones who decided the initial D score, but also officials who happen to have some bias for Japan, but never got to fix the podium until the inquiry gave them the chance, like a bunch of sleeper agents who never got activated until the crisis happened. It's certainly possible, but I find it unlikely.

 

[Mathman]

Mathman, Komova has the hardest beam, she had some balance checks and problem in dismount but I still think her talent in beam is amazing.

I know. It's like when someone does a quad-triple but can't hold the landing. It is impressive that anyone can do such a hard trick, but the stumble takes away the wow factor from the audience's point of view.

 

[Tonichelle]

I know you dislike the idea that the audience entertainment value shouldn't be a real factor to the scores, but when you grade your students math papers do you give a full 0 for a wrong answer when they show their work and the answer was incorrect because of a misplaced decimal point, or they maybe swapped numbers? Or do you give partial credit for using the correct methods/work?