The New judging system kills figure skating and loses the beauty of sport | Page 5 | Golden Skate

The New judging system kills figure skating and loses the beauty of sport

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Well, we may be beating a dead horse here, but gotta make glue somehow, right? My 2 cents on the COP is that the basic framework and premise of the COP is awesome and necessary. Competitors building scores from scratch, with baseline values and everything clearly delineated in a score sheet afterwards. It sure explains a lot more than the unfathomable black box that was the 6.0 score.

That doesn't mean I like how the IJS implements the COP, though. First of all, I loathe the anonymous judging system. Transparency is the most basic ingredient in holding officials accountable. Without it there is no accountability. That's the biggie.

Secondly and secondarily, the IJS too often confuses complexity/busywork for difficulty/achievement. Witness the current death spiral. But the ISU has been curbing a lot of that lately, with the choreographic sequence being a lovely bit of simplification that's working out great. Now they just need to apply some of that to spins, the death spiral, pair and dance lifts, etc.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps most relevant to the topic at hand, the PCS needs to reward artistic performance more. Right now, PCS seems to mainly reflect skating skills, which is only one of the many components. Now I love good skating skills, and I love how much it's being emphasized in every discipline now. But I absolutely hate it when I see a skater or team give a remarkably beautiful or musical or emotional performance and not have the relevant PCS reflect that just because that skater/team doesn't have the greatest skating skills. When that happens, it will naturally encourage more crowd-pleasing performances to emerge, among other kinds of increased artistryacross the board.
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Well, we may be beating a dead horse here, but gotta make glue somehow, right? My 2 cents on the COP is that the basic framework and premise of the COP is awesome and necessary. Competitors building scores from scratch, with baseline values and everything clearly delineated in a score sheet afterwards. It sure explains a lot more than the unfathomable black box that was the 6.0 score.

That doesn't mean I like how the IJS implements the COP, though. First of all, I loathe the anonymous judging system. Transparency is the most basic ingredient in holding officials accountable. Without it there is no accountability. That's the biggie.

Secondly and secondarily, the IJS too often confuses complexity/busywork for difficulty/achievement. Witness the current death spiral. But the ISU has been curbing a lot of that lately, with the choreographic sequence being a lovely bit of simplification that's working out great. Now they just need to apply some of that to spins, the death spiral, pair and dance lifts, etc.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps most relevant to the topic at hand, the PCS needs to reward artistic performance more. Right now, PCS seems to mainly reflect skating skills, which is only one of the many components. Now I love good skating skills, and I love how much it's being emphasized in every discipline now. But I absolutely hate it when I see a skater or team give a remarkably beautiful or musical or emotional performance and not have the relevant PCS reflect that just because that skater/team doesn't have the greatest skating skills. When that happens, it will naturally encourage more crowd-pleasing performances to emerge, among other kinds of increased artistryacross the board.

Thanks for writing such a well-thought-out, interesting post! I'm inclined to agree with most of it - perhaps that is why I like it so? ;)
 

ILoveFigures

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
So what happens if the TS and the ATS agree with each other, but the TC has a different opinion?

Then the TC's opinion is left out. It is the opinion of the majority of the panel that counts. If there are unclear cases the benefit should always go to the skater.
 

glam

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
In order to test which program the kids prefer, I think it would have been better to use the same skater. That way you could have eliminated the fact that the kids might have actually preferred the skater instead of a program. You could have used Plushenko form the pre COP era and Plushenko now. I think the reason they preferred Candeloro for Takahashi was that Candeloro's musketeer program is very entertaining, now it could have been a show number and it's understandable that young people prefer those kind of programs, they go to see Disney on Ice for example.
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
In order to test which program the kids prefer, I think it would have been better to use the same skater. That way you could have eliminated the fact that the kids might have actually preferred the skater instead of a program. You could have used Plushenko form the pre COP era and Plushenko now. I think the reason they preferred Candeloro for Takahashi was that Candeloro's musketeer program is very entertaining, now it could have been a show number and it's understandable that young people prefer those kind of programs, they go to see Disney on Ice for example.

But isn't that exactly the point? To the casual, non-figure skating fan, maybe the new programs lack... well... entertainment value?
 

plushyfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Country
Hungary
In order to test which program the kids prefer, I think it would have been better to use the same skater. That way you could have eliminated the fact that the kids might have actually preferred the skater instead of a program. You could have used Plushenko form the pre COP era and Plushenko now. I think the reason they preferred Candeloro for Takahashi was that Candeloro's musketeer program is very entertaining, now it could have been a show number and it's understandable that young people prefer those kind of programs, they go to see Disney on Ice for example.

I said that voting wasn't scientific, I chose quickly. But most of the students were 17 y.o., so they understood very well my question. But do you think they chose Plushenko as a skater and not Chan?! Oh ,no, no that's unbeliveable!! Plushenko who is only a jumper, who hasn't skating skills, who skates jumps to jumps, who hasn't footwork, and lack of artistry??? That's totally impossible..:biggrin:( Sorry for my sarcasm )

I agree with you LRK, probably they voted to the more entertaining program, not to what is more difficult. The really entertaining program is very rare today.
 

seniorita

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2008
Mybe you should make the experiment with Candeloro exhibition that he takes his shirt off, the sex bomb by Plush and Petrenko with Mambo doll:laugh: Oh and Verner's "I m sexy and I know it"!:agree:
 

Ice Diva

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
What an excellent discussion - best I've seen on this forum so far. I would like to add to one poster's comment about anonymity of the judges. I believe the audience should know how each judge scored. This would reduce any politicking and deals (especially prevalent in ice dance) and make judges accountable.
 

Bluebonnet

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
I said that voting wasn't scientific, I chose quickly. But most of the students were 17 y.o., so they understood very well my question. But do you think they chose Plushenko as a skater and not Chan?! Oh ,no, no that's unbeliveable!! Plushenko who is only a jumper, who hasn't skating skills, who skates jumps to jumps, who hasn't footwork, and lack of artistry??? That's totally impossible..:biggrin:( Sorry for my sarcasm )

I agree with you LRK, probably they voted to the more entertaining program, not to what is more difficult. The really entertaining program is very rare today.

The programs chosen are very much influenced by your views. So it has little reliability in explaining anything. I could find perfectly artistic, beautiful CoP friendly program, by the way, there are plenty, against a dull 6.0 program.

There is no point to ask for purely entertaining programs in competitions. So "The really entertaining program is very rare today" is no problem at all. And that should not be a reason against CoP.
 
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ILoveFigures

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
The programs chosen are very much influenced by your views. So it has little reliability in explaining anything. I could find perfectly artistic, beautiful CoP friendly program, by the way, there are plenty, against a dull 6.0 program.

There is no point to ask for purely entertaining programs in competitions. So "The really entertaining program is very rare today" is no problem at all. And that should not be a reason against CoP.

I agree with this. The programs Plushyfan showed seem to be very much influenced by his/her own view on the situation.

I would also adress that I think some of you forget how much influence it can have on a sport in a country to have a dominant athlete. Do some of you honestly think figure skating would have been THAT popular in the USA if it had not been for Michelle Kwan? (It probably helped that she came right after the Harding/Kerrigan incident.) Not only that, but along with Michelle Kwan came a bunch of fabulous teenagers, and the USA totally dominated the sport. Now the USA have no one (not factoring Ashley's recent success here). No ladies. No men.

Recently I watched some vidoes from the world championships in Nagano in 2002 and it was evident that there were several seats available. At that time Japan only had Fumie Suguri and Takeshi Honda. Look at Japan now. Their skaters dominate both men and ladies and there are butts in every seat at every competition.

I think most of you neglect how much influence athletes' ability to gain medals mean for the popularity of a sport in a country.
 

glam

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
But isn't that exactly the point? To the casual, non-figure skating fan, maybe the new programs lack... well... entertainment value?

But figure skating should be mostly sport, not entertainment. It needs to be taken seriosly in order to progress and develope it. There are shows for people who just want to see entertainment. And there are entertaining COP programs, for example Fernandez's Chaplin program.
 

plushyfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Country
Hungary
I agree with this. The programs Plushyfan showed seem to be very much influenced by his/her own view on the situation.

I like how you explain my choice. I wasn't ready for this poll, I chose quickly. Why were bad choice Chan or Dai? Candeloro was third in Nagano with this program. When I chose it, I wanted a really simply program-two foot skating, interesting but not too difficult footwork, etc- compared to the new programs. Do you think if I had chosen Yag's programs in 2002, those would have been losers?
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
There's more to figure skating than jumps (which are probably the most entertaining aspect of the technical content) and artistry.

General audiences might not care about the actual skating technique, but without it there is no sport.
 

Daniel5555

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
By the way, guys, sorry that I'll get a bit offtopic, or rather I'll go back some pages, but one of the things that frustrates me about threads like this is that there are are always people who propose changes to the system, usually quite a lot of changes, some of them directly affecting the foundations of the current system.

While I definitely do agree that the system can be improved, after all, there are also a lot of valid criticism of IJS and there were things that were better in 6.0, like spins were more interesting, still I think that one of the main problems right now that no one seems to address is that there are constant rule changes. After each season some tweaks are made to the system, some of them quite major. It all makes things way more complicated for skaters and coaches than they should have been. People complain all the time about the programs and quality of performances, but think about this - if you're a skater or a coach and you always deal with rule changes at the start of every season, you just have to spend time to adapt yourself to those changes. You could invest this time, perhaps, in polishing technique or improving the programs, but instead you have to fix your newly found faults and adapt to new changes.
I think that we just need 2 or 3 seasons without any changes at all and then, based on the information we can collect from it, we can make much more valuable and significant changes that will improve the system.

I do understand that it is very interesting to think about what rule changes you'd like to see, I myself would change a couple of things too, but I think when we are doing this, we are missing the point here. The only way we can really know if a change is good or not is to spend some time with it and see where it leads us. But if we are just constantly changing things we will never see what those rules actually may do with the sport and what are the best things that can be produced with them.

I think that skaters do understand this better than we fans do, because they always mention those rule changes. I think, we as fans, should also question if all those constant changes do any good to the sport.
 
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