Exactly! So hypothetically, a skater who underrotates a little for several of her jumps may get less than one who rotates everything but falls a couple of times, which is really ridiculous. Underrotations are bad but so are falls and lack of graceful movements on the ice. I get the argument that this is a sport, but it's not just a sport about jumps; it is also about grace and presentation. So if one skater is not as good as in the technical aspect and one is not good in the artistic department, shouldn't their scores even out? But Flatt has a great margin over Mirai, which means the system is biased toward technical.
NYT article "Skate Scoring Has Little for Artistry"
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Exactly! So hypothetically, a skater who underrotates a little for several of her jumps may get less than one who rotates everything but falls a couple of times, which is really ridiculous. Underrotations are bad but so are falls and lack of graceful movements on the ice. I get the argument that this is a sport, but it's not just a sport about jumps; it is also about grace and presentation. So if one skater is not as good as in the technical aspect and one is not good in the artistic department, shouldn't their scores even out? But Flatt has a great margin over Mirai, which means the system is biased toward technical.
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That's what I thought , but hadn't realized it equalled four splatts...Urgh!
But then...shouldn't the clear superiority of her other elements have made up for that , assuming that her program had a suitable degree of difficulty ? I'm not intending to take anything away from Rachel for what she did , and consistency is admirable...still...there is no mark for that, is there..
But then...shouldn't the clear superiority of her other elements have made up for that , assuming that her program had a suitable degree of difficulty ? I'm not intending to take anything away from Rachel for what she did , and consistency is admirable...still...there is no mark for that, is there..
It doesn't "really" equal four splats. First of all if the judges think the jump liked fine, they can add GOE to the score. Second a fall comes not only with the -1 deduction but also normally -3 in GOE. So a fall also normally costs you four points. Not to mention the bad effect falls have on a performance.
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- Jun 21, 2003
How can that be? If you land with your blade sideways, how could it be easier to control than if your blade is aligned with the direction of motion (backward). Aren't the majority of falls on jumps caused by underrotation?
By the way, on the gala exhibition shown just now on NBC, Dick Button came on to show slow-motion replays of Mirai's triple Lutz to explain about underrotation. Said Dick, "That's a no-no and that's why she lost."
(To me, the slo-mo replay was not convincing one way or the other. It is just so hard to tell what the exact angle of the blade is at the exact moment of touchdown.)
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- Oct 31, 2005
Actually, it can exceed four splats. As in the case of Mao Asada and her 3axels. A downgrade on that to a double axel causes her to lose 4.7 points. And judges by and large always give negative GOE on downgrades. And even worse, if a skater's double jump at the end of a combo gets downgraded, the negative GOE is calculated on the scale of the most difficult jump. This is why a skater can do a 3lutz/2loop</2loop< combo that looks fine to the naked eye, but she'd been better off repeating a 3lutz and have it be calcuated as +sequence.
Of all the penalties under the COP, an under rotation call causes the most severe loss of points. You lose less points on a fall, an edge call, an illegal element, time violation or costume violation. And of all those mistakes, under rotation is one of the hardest for the audience, experts or even the panel of judges to detect. Having such minutiae determine a sport that involves so much more is unsupportable.
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- Nov 12, 2009
Lepisto is a beautiful skater, but I wouldn't say her spins and spirals are gorgeous. They are nice, but she doesn't have the best extension in her spirals and her spins are not that difficult, she doesn't even attempt a biellman. Her strength comes from her speed and edges, IMO many skaters have better spins and spirals than she does.
:yes: in my opinion, it should go like this (from most to least)
1. illegal element
2. Fall
3. edge call/underrotation (about even I say)
4. Time violation
5. Costume violation
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- Jun 3, 2009
I thought her first spin in her Euros free was gorgeous, but I take your point.
Not if a skater is use to landing the jump cheated they won't fall.
Well, if UR's carry such heavy penalties, I don't see why certain skaters like Mao don't take the time to fix her UR problems like Flatt did, rather than request a whole overhaul of the system just to suit their own skating style.
There's probably also a rationale for the heavy penalties against UR's. ISU is probably trying to deter skaters from intentionally cheating their jumps. A fall, otoh, is unintended mistake, so it is probably penalized less. UR cheated jumps were also probably a rampant problem among skaters in the old system that ISU is trying to deter.
And as I've mentioned before, I think lot of the CoP criticisms are started by fans who have ulterior motives because their favorites aren't winning under the current system, and not likely started because of genuine concern for the fairness or integrity of the judging system.
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Fans always suspect the judges are up to something when what looks like an awesome program does not win.
I wonder if the UR calls were because her take off's were clearly forward. She landed slighlty more than 1/4 turn. They might have forgiven the 1/4+ turn if she did not take off clearly forward.
http://gofigureskating.com/img/miraiLP/Mirai2Lz1.JPG
The technical panel and judges are trained to see these things and the fans are not. The fans just see the beautiful program that it was, and it certainly was beautiful from begining to end.
How do you know Mao doesn't take time to fix her UR problems? From what I see, UR takes a long time to fix and may not yield immediate results in competition even if they land them well in practice (i.e. Miki's case with her 3/3). I don't think any skater intentionally tries to cheat his/her jumps. It's a problem with their execution, which it's doesn't make it different from a fall. Maybe some fans have ulterior motives but not all criticisms are started that way. The CoP has been criticized since it started because it has its flaws as all judging systems.
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- Jun 21, 2003
Thank you for posting that. Is she going up or coming down? How far around is she? What is her direction of motion coming into the jump, compared to how far she has turned in the picture? How much time has transpired so far, how far off the ice is she in the picture, how many degrees has she turned in the air so far and how many degrees did she rotate of the ice before take-off?
Can the technical panel and judges really see these things?
(One more reason why I am not a figure skating judge.)Even here there is controversy.
Alissa Czisny's final jump in her LP was a triple toe / double toe combination, well executed. She received 0 points for it. If she had just done a solo triple toe, and not added on the extra 2T, she would have received 4.4 points.
However, the combo was an illegal element because she had already done three multi-jump combinations.
Except, of course, that she hadn't. She did a 2A+2A sequence and an earlier 3T/2T combo. But she also did a 3Lz that was intended to be a combo, and then another solo 3Lz.
The solo 3Lz that was intended to be a combo, but wasn't, was scored as a solo 3Lz, which it was.
The second solo 3Lz, which was executed as intended, was scored as a "3Lz + combo." In other words, it was scored as if there were a second (unnamed) jump done in sequence, but in fact there wasn't. Indeed, the second solo 3Lz was an "illegal element" but the only penalty was a reduction of base value of 20%.
However, since the second solo 3Lz counted as a combination jump, she now had three combinations on her score card, so her final one counted (in CoP-land) as the fourth, even though she had only done three.
So she got zero credit for the 3T+2T, not even the credit she would have gotten if she had just done a solo 3T.
Nobonari Oda lost a world bronze medal a couple of years ago because of this rule.
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- Jan 15, 2010
You can get dinged for costume violation?!
Actually, I think a good argument could be made for making that the worst offense. And here is is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlAekfUfIrI
Kidding aside, do you REALLY lose more points for UR than fall?? Or am I misunderstanding.
Yea, this is all a bit complicated. But I think it should count the most because the skater should have time to plan out their layout wisely. Also it should penalize those who try to do tricks just for show (as I recall one female skater tried a backflip at Olympics before).
Apparently, there is a rule for appropriate wear at competitions, so I guess so
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- Jan 15, 2010
Also it should penalize those who try to do tricks just for show (as I recall one female skater tried a backflip at Olympics before).
Apparently, there is a rule for appropriate wear at competitions, so I guess so
That was Surya Bonaly and I think it wasn't because she did it "just for show," I think it was because she'd already fallen and knew she wouldn't medal. I guess she decided that because she couldn't medal, she'd just go out in style.
And I didn't know there was a rule for appropriate wear, but i guess it does make sense. Do you know what the rule states?:think:
This event is not the first and it won't be the last where legitimate skating experts think the winner is one person based on what they see with the naked eye (and not a little sentiment or excitement mixed in) and what element values, GOEs and replay dictate. The most glaring example I can recall off the top of my head (and in fact the polar opposite of this event in terms of what type of skater was thought to have won) is ESPN's call of the men's LP at 2008 worlds. Uncle Dick, Browning and Wylie wrere all convinced Joubert would win in a walk after his jump filled LP. But they ignored or missed his ommitted combos, lower levels on spins and footwork, simpler choreography and the margin he had to make up after his SP mistakes.. Buttle met all the requirements of the system and won fairly easily in the end.
It's a disservice for media outlets to swoop in to cover a sport after years of absence only to not take the time to understand how the sport works and instead to try to work an old, tired angle to gain readers. This would not fly in sports reporting for football or baseball where a clear understanding of the rules and technical requirements goes hand in hand with being a fan. Just look at the piece of cr#p articly Bonnie Ford wrote on espn.com about dance at Euros. She erroneously reported the DomShabs won all three segments and were not impacted in their scores by either their injury or their content. Totally wrong and substandard reporting. This NYT tripe is more of the same. Comparing Rachel to a boxer? Totally off base. Shameful.
This is the same sort of ridiculousness D/W had to put up with for years b/c they didn't look like they were going to a garden party whenn they skated. Midori encountered the same thing. Look at her programs on youtube (especially 88 Olympics). She had plenty of presentation, just a different type. But she wasn't a runway model, so she got pegged as lacking artistry.
That's why I get so annoyed with the four plus year long PR battle NBC (and the rest of the US media by extension) has been waging against the IJS. It serves absolutely NO useful purpose but to sour casual fans on skating. It creates this false nostalgia and implies that only one type of pretty, frilly skating (for women) or pyrotechnic skating (for men) should be rewarded just like 6.0 did. This is a sport not a performance art, at least when you are trying to make the Olympic team. If it is to be treated seriously as a sport, the the technical aspects have to matter (and Rachel met them) as much as the artistic ones. She may not be as flahy in doing them but she did them. If Mirai had done the same, I would have no trouble with her winning, but she didn't. Public whining and pining for 6.0 (a system even more flawed than this one) is a fruitless endeavor. It's not coming back. The old wives tale of poorly constructed programs under IJS becomes less ans less true each season as the skaters get more comfortable with its demands.
I was glad NBC took the time to show clearly two of the three URs for Mirai tonight. They were pretty clear. To Scott's credit, he did notice the third UR in real time last night. Mirai was wonderful. But the Carmen theme did not work perfectly for me on her. At least not at her age. Rachel won fair and square IMO and skated with much more energy than in past years. I think getting this monkey off her back will further free her to skate with greater abandon. She does not deserve some of the brutally harsh and juvenile comments she's been getting on this site in the last 24 hours and in the NYT article. Mirai and Rachel are both deserving Olympians. They are both incredibly young and hopefully will be competing with Ashely for the next for years and pushing each other to be their best. Good luck to both of them in Vancouver.
It's a disservice for media outlets to swoop in to cover a sport after years of absence only to not take the time to understand how the sport works and instead to try to work an old, tired angle to gain readers. This would not fly in sports reporting for football or baseball where a clear understanding of the rules and technical requirements goes hand in hand with being a fan. Just look at the piece of cr#p articly Bonnie Ford wrote on espn.com about dance at Euros. She erroneously reported the DomShabs won all three segments and were not impacted in their scores by either their injury or their content. Totally wrong and substandard reporting. This NYT tripe is more of the same. Comparing Rachel to a boxer? Totally off base. Shameful.
This is the same sort of ridiculousness D/W had to put up with for years b/c they didn't look like they were going to a garden party whenn they skated. Midori encountered the same thing. Look at her programs on youtube (especially 88 Olympics). She had plenty of presentation, just a different type. But she wasn't a runway model, so she got pegged as lacking artistry.
That's why I get so annoyed with the four plus year long PR battle NBC (and the rest of the US media by extension) has been waging against the IJS. It serves absolutely NO useful purpose but to sour casual fans on skating. It creates this false nostalgia and implies that only one type of pretty, frilly skating (for women) or pyrotechnic skating (for men) should be rewarded just like 6.0 did. This is a sport not a performance art, at least when you are trying to make the Olympic team. If it is to be treated seriously as a sport, the the technical aspects have to matter (and Rachel met them) as much as the artistic ones. She may not be as flahy in doing them but she did them. If Mirai had done the same, I would have no trouble with her winning, but she didn't. Public whining and pining for 6.0 (a system even more flawed than this one) is a fruitless endeavor. It's not coming back. The old wives tale of poorly constructed programs under IJS becomes less ans less true each season as the skaters get more comfortable with its demands.
I was glad NBC took the time to show clearly two of the three URs for Mirai tonight. They were pretty clear. To Scott's credit, he did notice the third UR in real time last night. Mirai was wonderful. But the Carmen theme did not work perfectly for me on her. At least not at her age. Rachel won fair and square IMO and skated with much more energy than in past years. I think getting this monkey off her back will further free her to skate with greater abandon. She does not deserve some of the brutally harsh and juvenile comments she's been getting on this site in the last 24 hours and in the NYT article. Mirai and Rachel are both deserving Olympians. They are both incredibly young and hopefully will be competing with Ashely for the next for years and pushing each other to be their best. Good luck to both of them in Vancouver.
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- Jan 15, 2010
I'm just disappointed that they didn't show it last night in the K&C. Maybe this huge debate would've been smaller.
And like I've said before, I hope Rachael and Mirai make the most out of their first Olympic experience.
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- Jul 26, 2003
ITA:agree:
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