I got so tired of scandalous judging and getting into details of figure skating technique - and then forum pundits in this amazing thread
http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...ing-explanation-in-ladies-event-for-beginners
admitted that fast movements of the footwork are impossible to capture by human eye to judge them correctly anyway.
Just to clarify, what I meant was that it is impossible for an untrained eye, even someone who knows what all the turns are but hasn't spent years doing them herself, to identify all the turns by name in real time. The specialists can do it.
Also, it's not possible for one person to count the turns and simultaneously also count the amount of time spent turning both directions and doing upper body movement (especially in pairs when there are two sets of feet to watch). That's why the panel splits the duties.
The judges have a different job -- to evaluate the quality of the step sequences, including how well they go with the music. They'll notice more or less how difficult the steps are, but it's not their job to determine the level.
There were no judges in figure skating event! You see, the skate has to touch the ice to do all the wonders so there were inbuilt sensors in skates. There were two big screens; on one of them there were displayed the marks left on ice. Colored lines marked edge change. On the second screen was the table of points where the points were added just as the skater did the move. Somebody – probably Joubert – did the footwork, the hundreds of points were running up and the crowd was wowing “Ooooooh!” There was also the upper body sensor – I guess a normal movement sensor we often have at home that for safety reasons, just smarter - it brought deductions after fast pose change in spin and falling out of sinc and then the crowd did “Ooooooh!” again.
Well, then I woke up and I realized it might be actually the future in decades from now.
Theoretically possible. Sensors in the skates -- especially if they could be attached to skates during competitions and removed for practice -- would be more feasible, more affordable, than putting sensors in the ice. I'll leave it to engineers to figure out the details, but it wouldn't surprise me if someday there could be sensors that identify steps and turns, and also jumps including takeoff edges and amount of rotation, and also number of revolutions and speed and centering in spins.
You might need only one official whose job is more like the data entry operator now to make sure the data coming from the sensors is properly translated to the computer through the correct rules for what's allowed in each kind of program, what adds points in each kind of element.
So essentially this would replace the current technical panel, and maybe add some information about quality, Skating Skills, Transitions, that is currently evaluated by judges.
Maybe timing for the pattern dance part of the short dance, or other such compulsory sequences, if those still exist by whatever decade such technology would be ready for adoption.
Of course, there are still aspects of skating that are not technical, like choreography, aesthetics of move, or integrity of execution so judges have to be kept in the business. But they should award no points! Why should they if that’s subjective anyway?
Essentially, removing subjective judgment from the scoring would mean that pretty much nothing that is currently evaluated under Performance/Execution, Choreography, or Interpretation would have any value in determining the results.
I don't think upper body sensors would be able to determine the beauty or "clarity" of a position, and certainly not whether there is any emotional connection, or whether the skating matches the music, etc.
So there would be no reason for skaters to work on those areas.
The results would be much more objective and indisputable, as long as we trust the technology. But would audiences be interested in the kinds of skating that would result?
They should only approve skaters’ routines in a pre-season round and then follow if they stick to the chosen routine. That’s all.
This is not feasible. Even just looking at junior and senior level, there are thousands of skaters around the world. They compete locally, and the best ones in larger countries move on to national events (in smaller countries these are the same thing), and then the best of those compete internationally. There are different sets of judges. A skater who has never competed internationally before might not be on the radar to have a routine pre-approved by international judges, but then if she does well at her nationals, she's on her way to ISU an championship later in the season.
Skaters have always had the right to change their programs over the course of a season, or even to make changes on the fly during a performance. They're evaluated on what they actually do during the competition. Skaters have never been judged on how closely they stick to a preapproved plan.
They are evaluated on how well they fulfill the requirements/rules/restrictions for that kind of program. The potential danger in deviating from a plan is in violating rules -- the short program requirements and Zayak rule under 6.0, and in IJS also the requirements/limits on types of spins, number of jump attempts, etc. Determining what does or doesn't get credit is currently a job for the tech panel, not the judges.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting the judges would do at all? If they're not going to evaluate the quality of performance on the actual day of performance, then quality doesn't matter and judges are not needed at all.
