videos on UR calls | Page 2 | Golden Skate

videos on UR calls

sk8rdad

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 2, 2009
I agree with this completely, however, I think the main issue I have is with the rules as they are curerntly written. I don't understand the logic of, for example, lambiel practically sitting down and putting a hand down on a quad that was less than 1440 degrees rotated (but not more than about 45 degrees short), receiving far more points than a quad that is about 1340 degrees rotated but is landed on one foot with some flow out.

It's a difficult one to try to fix and whenever i try to think of a fix i created more problems that need fixing, but one thing i'd like to see is a cumulative -GOE with a maximum scale of greater than 3 (probably more closer to 5 or 6) so that if you under-rotate and fall on a triple flutz, you are hitting the maximum.

Ant

ITA and I think we have the current rules because they were the ones that the majority could agree on when the system was created. I certianly wouldn't be opposed to increasing the GOE range and defining it so that for falls on an element the element is scored zreo. The current system is basically a seven point scale so the question becomes should it be even around the zero GOE point or asymetric.

We can debate what the rules should be but until the ISU decides to revise those rules the current ones are what the skaters have to work within and any skater who expects to do well needs to focus their energies on reducing the possibility of having a call go against them. If the system changes down the road then the skaters revise their priorities.
 

Barb

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
The prerotation is pretty visible.

But another issue that I've been wondering is whether or not the deeper edge at the takeoff should be deducted in counting the total amount of rotation esp. in the cases of edge jumps. I feel that that is the part of mechanism of the edge jumps.

Besides, if we compare Sal and Lutz, Lutz needs a greater amount of revolution than Sal. Isn't this also a part of the mechanism of the jump? Jumps become difficult in the oder from sal, toe loop, loop, flip, lutz, to axel, partly because of the amount of revolution needed.

yes, the 1/2 prerotation in the loop its ok, then that 1/2 rotation count like turn, 3loop is actually 2.5 spins in the air
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
We can debate what the rules should be but until the ISU decides to revise those rules the current ones are what the skaters have to work within and any skater who expects to do well needs to focus their energies on reducing the possibility of having a call go against them.

It is certainly the case that skaters, coaches and fans have little input into the ISU decision-making process. Still, I don't think we should give up.

The IJS, as you note, rewards skaters who can work the system. When the system started giving extra points for a Biellmann position, skaters filled their programs with Biellmann's, come hell or high water. When Jeff Buttle figured out that he could score more points by falling on a quad than by standing up on a triple, he choreographed a fall on a quad into his program.

At present the hammer of CoP justice falls heavily on underrotators, while letting other miscreants, equally culpable, slide. We may not be able to do anything about it, but we can at least raise our feeble banner of protest at the distortions that the judging system is causing.
 
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schiele

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
I certianly wouldn't be opposed to increasing the GOE range and defining it so that for falls on an element the element is scored zreo. The current system is basically a seven point scale so the question becomes should it be even around the zero GOE point or asymetric..
I agree with most of the comments you all are making, however I still find this too harsh. While i agree that the penalty on underrotation is too askewed especially compared to a fall, giving 0 points for a badly executed element (fall) is simply too black and white and again will distort risk taking terribly.. The system also must ensure that skaters are encouraged to push forward and not working the system and remaining safe.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
We are never aware of what the Tech caller sees in real-time or in his special video box. We do know his call is final and remains part of the score. To say that the Caller is incompetent or biased can not be proven easily. He has 2 other panelists to back him up in real time.

Why there is so much fuss about URs which do not disrupt the program, and are not as terrible as a Fall which does indeed disrupt the program and a wrong-edge-takeoff which loses the name of the jump are less serious are much more serious, imo.
 
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sk8rdad

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 2, 2009
It is certainly the case that skaters, coaches and fans have little input into the ISU decision-making process. Still, I don't think we should give up.

The IJS, as you note, rewards skaters who can work the system. When the system started giving extra points for a Biellmann position, skaters filled their programs with Biellmann's, come hell or high water. When Jeff Buttle figured out that he could score more points by falling on a quad than by standing up on a triple, he choreographed a fall on a quad into his program.

At present the hammer of CoP justice falls heavily on underrotators, while letting other miscreants, equally culpable, slide. We may not be able to do anything about it, but we can at least raise our feeble banner of protest at the distortions that the judging system is causing.

ITA that we shouldn't give up. The reality from the athlete perspective is that the need to work within the current rules. The fact is that the rules do change and change quite frequently. In the opinion of the coaches I know far too frequently. The biggest issue from a coaching standpoint is the never ending changes to footwork rules and the endless "clarifications/changes" in dance. From a skater perspective the current rules regarding jumping are fairly well accepted and most of the skaters I know simply strive to eliminate any possibility of a call going against them.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Jen's blog on this issue.

I think this is pretty much everybody's take.

sk8rdad said:
ITA that we shouldn't give up. The reality from the athlete perspective is that the need to work within the current rules. The fact is that the rules do change and change quite frequently. In the opinion of the coaches I know far too frequently.

Taken as a whole, I think the changes tell an interesting story. I think the time line went something like this (someone please correct me if I am remembering wrong.)

When the CoP first came out there were no specific deductions at all, it was just assumed that the judges would mark skaters down for obvious errors in the GOE. The first mandatory deduction was the one point fall deduction, tacked on because the ISU felt that, well, really, if you fall down, that's pretty bad. Everthing else properly falls to the discretion of the judges.

But in practice the judges were too lax and never gave out much in the way of negative GOEs. So the ISU decided to take some of that power out of the hands of the judges and give it to the technical panel. First the "e" call, then the "<." Accompanying these calls were instructions to the judges that they could not give positive GOE, that they must give a certain amount of negative GOE, etc.

Then they decided (after a lot of protests) that they had gone too far, so they lightened up with the "!" and with allowing the judges more leeway even on < calls.

For people who like figure skating politics and conspiracy theories :rock: , one way to imterpret all this is as a power struggle between Cinquanta and the National Federations. The supposed reason for implementing the CoP in the first place was because the National Federations were forcing their judges to cheat. The tech panel, on the other hand, is (in principle) beholden only to the ISU, not to any individual federation. So...take the power out of the hands of the judges and give it to the tech specialis, Speedy wins. Give some of the power back to the judges, Speedy loses, federatipn chiefs win. ;)
 
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gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Mathman, I think your recollections are more or less acurate for edge violations but not for downgrades.

I can't find documentation, so I'm relying on memory.

As I recall, for the first year or two of the new system, jumps that were short of rotation were called as if they were the same takeoff with one less rotation. E.g., a cheated triple lutz would be called as a double lutz. So the downgrade penalty existed from the start. I'm not sure what the instructions were to judges about what kinds of GOEs to give in that situation.

This led to some problems with the Zayak Rule. IIRC, at one of the fall competitions Michael Weiss did a quad toe that was downgraded to triple toe, and he also did two triple toes in combination. Therefore his last combination didn't count.

I don't recall any such examples, but you can see how it would be a problem for anyone who attempted a triple axel combination and had it downgraded to a double axel in the short program, where a solo double axel would also have been required and no repeats are allowed.

Meanwhile, Skate Canada had already instituted the < symbol for downgrades in domestic Canadian events. That allowed calling a jump as what it was intended to be, so that the computer wouldn't disqualify "repeat" jumps that the skater might have no way of knowing in real time whether they were considered repeats, and it gave a visual way of indicating in the protocols why the element received a lower base mark. The ISU then adopted that notation ca. 2005-06.

In other words, there was never any time under any version of this system when underrotated jumps were not harshly penalized in the base mark. The changes have been in the notation, the boxes that they filled for the computer program, and the rules about whether judges are alerted which jumps are downgraded and whether they're required to give negative GOE.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
There is far too much emphasis to downgrade URs, and when the UR does not disrupt a program, it is disaster for the skater. A simple -2 would more than suffice the jump and avoid the Zayak rule. If the UR does disrupt the program with a Fall, then we have an UR and a Fall. If the UR has a wrong edge takeoff and a Fall, what are the penalties issued in scoring?

Scenario

Attempted triple Lutz with a wrong edge takeoff followed by
2-l/2 air rotations due to UR followed by
a Fall because of lost balance on the landing

With the above scenario, how is the attempt scored? What can the judges judge? if the penalties are automatic.

Simple solution, imo, would be to give equal automatic deductions to each of the big jumping errors.
 

vlaurend

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Mathman, I think your recollections are more or less acurate for edge violations but not for downgrades.

I can't find documentation, so I'm relying on memory.

As I recall, for the first year or two of the new system, jumps that were short of rotation were called as if they were the same takeoff with one less rotation. E.g., a cheated triple lutz would be called as a double lutz. So the downgrade penalty existed from the start. I'm not sure what the instructions were to judges about what kinds of GOEs to give in that situation.. . .
In other words, there was never any time under any version of this system when underrotated jumps were not harshly penalized in the base mark. The changes have been in the notation, the boxes that they filled for the computer program, and the rules about whether judges are alerted which jumps are downgraded and whether they're required to give negative GOE.

Yes, I competed under IJS for the first time in summer 2005 (which may have been using the new 2006 season rules) and I remember landing a double salchow with good control and outflow and then seeing it marked as a "1S" with -3 GOE on my scoresheet because it was underrotated. I was told at that time that the -3 GOE was standard for downgraded jumps, even if there were no other flaws in the jump. It was *painful* and I'm glad they got rid of that mandatory -GOE rule for downgraded jumps.
 

vlaurend

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Why there is so much fuss about URs which do not disrupt the program, and are not as terrible as a Fall which does indeed disrupt the program and a wrong-edge-takeoff which loses the name of the jump are less serious are much more serious, imo.

Because the whole point of IJS was to DEFINE figure skating elements so that they could be MEASURED objectively. Just think. . . If you don't downgrade a jump that is just over 1/4 turn underrotated, then at what point will you downgrade it? 1/3 turn? 1/2 turn? Will you score an overrotated double as an underrotated triple? Will there be a fixed % decrease in the value of each jump depending on exactly what degree it was underrotated? Let's say they did that. . . How would you like seeing a whole slew of 3-1/2 revolution "quads" (and what would they call them anyway?) and 3 revolution triple axels (would they call them two-and-a-half-axels?). The point is that when you want to DEFINE something, you must draw the line somewhere. It's just like law.

I wouldn't have a big issue with flutzes being scored as flips or lips being scored as lutzes, but then you run into the balanced program element issues. If a skater flutzes (and some skaters only do it sometimes, so they aren't expecting to take off on the wrong edge) and that lutz attempt gets called as a flip, that is going to result in zero points for the final flip in the program if there were also two flips. That is not a fair punishment for a slight change of edge on a jump takeoff. When you look at the value of a flutz after -GOE, it is going to be less than the value of a flip, so it's fair, IMO.

As for falls, how could anyone find it fair to negate an entire element just because the skater falls at the end of it? That's like saying your life was worthless because you died at the end. :laugh: But seriously. . . A jump is made up of the takeoff, the rotation in the air, and the landing. There is no way that a fully rotated triple axel with a bad landing (i.e., loss of balance on landing that leads to a fall) should get the same score as a waltz jump. Only the best skaters in the world can fully rotate a triple axel, whether they stay upright on the landing or not.

If your major concern is what disrupts the program for the viewers, you might prefer ice shows and exhibitions, where they never attempt anything very difficult and hardly ever fall.
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Scenario

Attempted triple Lutz with a wrong edge takeoff followed by
2-l/2 air rotations due to UR followed by
a Fall because of lost balance on the landing

With the above scenario, how is the attempt scored?

For the UR, the base value is reduced from 6.0 points to 1.9 points.

For the fall alone the judges would take off -3 GOE and for the wrong edge they would take off -2. However, the lowest you can get is -3, so if the skater got -3 for the fall they judges cannot take off any more for the wrong edge.

After factoring, this results is a loss of 1.0 point in GOE, bringing the total for the element down to 0.9 points.

Then they apply the extra -1 point fall deduction.

Grand total for the element: negative 0.1 points.
 

champs

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Because the whole point of IJS was to DEFINE figure skating elements so that they could be MEASURED objectively. Just think. . . If you don't downgrade a jump that is just over 1/4 turn underrotated, then at what point will you downgrade it? 1/3 turn? 1/2 turn? Will you score an overrotated double as an underrotated triple? Will there be a fixed % decrease in the value of each jump depending on exactly what degree it was underrotated? Let's say they did that. . . How would you like seeing a whole slew of 3-1/2 revolution "quads" (and what would they call them anyway?) and 3 revolution triple axels (would they call them two-and-a-half-axels?). The point is that when you want to DEFINE something, you must draw the line somewhere. It's just like law.

Do you actually really need to draw a line for underrotation for a judging system to work?

Every time I look at people arguing "that looks rotated enough to me" "no, that looks underrotated" on every figure skating discussion board and not reaching any definite conclusions, I always wonder why the line must be drawn at all, especially by a crew consisting only of three members. Why can't the tech panel just decide the levels of spins/spirals/step seqs and let the individual judges decide how much to add or subtract from the base value of the attempted jumps, taking rotation into his/her GOE evaluation? I bet individual judges also have differing evaluations of how bad the underrotation of a certain jump attempt appeared to his/her eyes, in real time and with a close look at the slo-mo playback. I mean, what are so many people sitting at the juding panel for? Not to take varying opinions into account?

For this matter, instead of allowing the judges to choose a GOE value from a set of only 7 possible values (---, --, -, 0, +, ++, and +++), I say give them more freedom so that wider aspects of jump quality can be accomodated and distinguished.

I rarely follow all these judge system discussions so my opinion above may have been addressed and repeated and even torn completely to shreds, so I apologize in advance if this is just another rehash.
 

Bennett

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
yes, the 1/2 prerotation in the loop its ok, then that 1/2 rotation count like turn, 3loop is actually 2.5 spins in the air

Then do the tech specialists start counting the rotation of 3 loop at the take off and ratify it if it has at least a 2 and 1/4 revolutions in the air, instead of at least 2 and 3/4 revolutions?
 
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gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Do you actually really need to draw a line for underrotation for a judging system to work?

Yes, you have to draw a line between double and triple.

Logically, it would make more sense to draw that line at 180 degrees short rather than 90.

It would then be necessary to build in the potential for sufficient penalties that a jump that is significantly underrotated but not downgraded and has no other errors would be worth more than a jump that is significantly underrotated but not downgraded and has multiple other errors.

So if judges have 3 grades of negative execution to award, which they can apply for underrotations if they see them, and the tech panel determines fall deductions, then also allow the tech panel to apply an additional deduction for moderately cheated jumps. Then the worst jumps will get downgraded to the lower basemark and -3 and fall deductions; the bad jumps that were not quite 180 degrees short and had other errors would get the cheat deduction, -3 GOE, and fall deduction if applicable; jumps almost 180 short with no other errors would get the cheat deduction and average -2 GOE; jumps a little over 90 degrees short with no other errors would get the cheat deduction and GOEs of -1 from judges who saw the cheat, 0 from those who didn't, and +1 from those who didn't see it and saw other aspects of the element to reward.
 

kareliz

Rinkside
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
I think it is reasonable to take off points for an under rotated jump. But I think the penalty is too severe. To only value the jump as a double, instead of an under rotated triple does not seem right.

I know the system is already complicated, but couldn't they have a value for an under rotated triple that was a little higher than for a triple that literally turned into an unintended double - a pop? To me the pop is a bigger mistake.

In other words, a double jump has a base value, a triple jump has a base value, and so would an under rotated triple, because even though it is not perfect, it is still harder than a double jump.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/current/content/measuring skating.htm
I know these articles are not favourites with some ppl but nice article overall.. Sums up some of the points discussed here.

Rossano strikes again! :rock: Thought-provoking as usual.:yes:

As I read it, the thrust of the main body of the article is that the IJS lacks a coherent translation of the relative difficulty of various on-ice accomplishments to the number of points that these accomplishments earn. Thus, the IJS is not necessarily absurd in principle, it's just that the "ISU minions have squandered its potential."

However, the first three paragraphs point to even more profound difficulties.

The system that has been created provides neither accurate, precise nor repeatable measurements, nor does it include a completely defined absolute standard on which to score performances.

The question then becomes, is this possible even in principle? To me, the key word is "repeatable." If the exact same performance gets a different score on Wednesday than it did on Tuesday, how can we claim that we are "measuring" anything?
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
For the UR, the base value is reduced from 6.0 points to 1.9 points.

For the fall alone the judges would take off -3 GOE and for the wrong edge they would take off -2. However, the lowest you can get is -3, so if the skater got -3 for the fall they judges cannot take off any more for the wrong edge.

After factoring, this results is a loss of 1.0 point in GOE, bringing the total for the element down to 0.9 points.

Then they apply the extra -1 point fall deduction.

Grand total for the element: negative 0.1 points.
tee hee, no emoticons for this?

Catch me wondering where the points went, as Murphy says, if it can happen, it will. Can you imagine a contestant wondering why he got a minus score? IJS knows, they approved of these silly deductions.
 
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