What is "skating against the book?" | Golden Skate

What is "skating against the book?"

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
In the recently contested Nutmeg State (Connecticut) Figure Skating and Rifle Shooting Games (July 15-16)

http://www.nutmegstategames.org/content.cfm?page=06results

the senior ladies results are listed as

1st place: Book 3
2nd place: Book 2
3rd place: Book 1
4th place: Jessica Imbro

http://www.nutmegstategames.org/content.cfm?page=06fskrssat15

(The Book sisters rule!)

In novice ladies it was

1st place Christina Perfetto
2nd place: Book 1
3rd place: Hillary Cooke

What does this mean?

MM :scratch:
 

Fredegunda

Rinkside
Joined
Jul 4, 2006
Hehe, Mathman, I like your explanation of the 3 Book sisters :laugh:

I thought it could be a coding error. The command could be "Book" as in, you book the names of the skaters. The names of skaters might have been assigned a number: in this case, 1, 2, and 3. So rather than entering names into a spreadsheet, the results were entered as the competitor's number. The computer program should have replaced the number with the name when it was entered. A bug in the program could have caused the number not to be replaced by the name in these three cases. So the results were published, not having been looked over, as Book 1, 2, and 3.
 

Sylvia

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 25, 2003
"Competing against the book" ("book" in this context means the rulebook, ISI or USFSA) -- here's a typical statement from one competition announcement:
"When only one competitor is entered in an event, that competitor will be given the option of competing against the book or performing an exhibition."

I don't know exactly how "competing against the book" works, though -- perhaps someone in the know can fill in the details for us? :)
 

Jasper

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 29, 2005
Maybe competing against the book is like competing against a past personal record? Or against an average book record? Lol, I have no idea.
 

Spirit

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Ha ha, Book Sisters.

Comment overheard at a tennis tournament: "The Bye family has several people entered."
 

JonnyCoop

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 28, 2003
THE NUTMEG STATE FIGURE SKATING AND RIFLE SHOOTING GAMES???

Do they do both at the same time?? Is this some sort of weird biathlon?? Can you hear the music and properly assess artistic interpretation with all those guns going off??
 

Mafke

Medalist
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
JonnyCoop said:
THE NUTMEG STATE FIGURE SKATING AND RIFLE SHOOTING GAMES???

Can you hear the music and properly assess artistic interpretation with all those guns going off??

I can see the presence of all those rifles as being _very_ motivational...
 

JonnyCoop

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 28, 2003
Mafke said:
I can see the presence of all those rifles as being _very_ motivational...

It would certainly hope those who have problems in the "Speed" department... :laugh:

If anyone has the results of the Idaho State Gymnastics Meet and Fish Fry, please let me know......
 

isk82

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 30, 2003
I'm sure I won't explain this very well - it's just off the top of my head - but here goes. Skating against the book is when there are no other skaters in your group (happens frequently on the local level) and you are judged by the requirements for the level you are competing at. You may complete all of the required moves, but may not have done them at a 6.0 level (for example), so you receive 5.5's. I've had friends get 3rd place skating against the book - that kind of stinks when that happens! Basically there isn't another person to compare you to for a placement. Hope that helps some.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Thanks for all the answers. I did a little research and found a few references.

At one competition (I don't know if this is a universal rule or not) it said

"When competing against the book the skater must earn 80% of the total possible points in order to place first."

And here is a cute blog entry from a young skater named Stephanie from Indianapolis:

"Gold medal!

"My freestyle event was this afternoon. I had asked to be allowed to compete against the boys instead of having to skate against the book (that's when you have no competitors, so they judge you against the test standards, and you don't necessarily get first place). They combined a couple of events so I'd be competing against one of the boys who was in my age group, but he didn't show up, so I had to skate against the book after all.

"There were hundreds of spectators cheering everyone on. It was wonderful -- I don't think I've ever skated in front of such a large audience. Debbie put me on the ice, and I skated well. I didn't land my loop, but just about everything else felt good, and I even heard the audience clap for me a couple of times during my program. I didn't shake afterwards, either.

"I placed first, which means that I get to skate in the ice show on Thursday night. My medal is gorgeous and very heavy. It's engraved on both sides, and I wore it all evening."

Stephanie beat the book! :rock: Go, Steph!!!
 

Numbers Cruncher

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Against the book

I've been tearing apart my rule manual, can't find anything official about this. I do know that it usually comes up at Basic Skills competitions. Drives me crazy, you have to create imaginary competitors and jury rig some marks for them and then print out the paperwork and try to cover up those non-existant names just to give one kid a second or third instead of a first.

At our locals comps, if there isn't anyone for a skater to compete against they are usually given the choice of a refund or doing an exhibition with or without a judges critique. This mostly happens to the Boys and Men and the upper level skaters and they do like to get critiques. We don't get any results for these events, so we don't have to run papers.

Now with the IJS we do enter in the numbers so the skater can see their scores.

:)

NC
 

Yazmeen

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
I own a bunch of gold medals for ISI competitions because I skate against the book quite a bit, as I'm 48 and often the only adult in the local competition!!

Unlike USFSA, ISI comps don't cancel your event or offer you an exhibition/judge's critique if there is only one skater, so the skater usually gets gold; HOWEVER, if the program has required elements and you don't complete the necessary percentage of them, you could get silver or bronze or lower. Also, if you do a higher level element that shouldn't be skated in that Freestyle or Elements (compulsory), you can also be bumped down from gold.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Spirit said:
Ha ha, Book Sisters.

Comment overheard at a tennis tournament: "The Bye family has several people entered."

Comment overheard at a college graduation: That Cumlaudi family is really large! How amazing that they have so many members graduating at the same time.
 
Top