Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS | Page 57 | Golden Skate

Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS

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Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
Well said, Mathman.

Bottom line: it's certainly possible Putin bribed his way to Adelina's victory. But even if Yuna had won, we can't stand up and yell, "The sport is saved!" If only it were that easy.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
I can't tell you how many people laugh at figure skating "not being a real sport" because it's all based on "corrupt judges". That's the average person's opinion of figure skating.

There were times in the 1970's and 1990's that skating was very popular in the US. Did that coincide with periods of "less corrupt" judging? No, they corresponded with times in which there were very good US skaters. As Scott said, figure skating is a sport and 7 is more than 6, so that explains the outcome sufficiently to most viewers. I think if you told the average person that "this is a sport, but the skater who did weaker spins and fewer jumps should win because she is caressing her face during her program" would make that person think the sport is a farce.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I think if you told the average person that "this is a sport, but the skater who did weaker spins and fewer jumps should win because she is caressing her face during her program" would make that person think the sport is a farce.

There would be no reason to put it like that. If Kim had won (or for that matter, Kostner), we could say that the skater won who presented an error-free program that combined technical precision with artistic maturity. As it turned out, we can say that the skater won whose performance was technically challenging and who skated with verve and panache.

Or we could just sit back and let our friend the average viewer judge for him/herself. Then we could invite that viewer to join an internet skating forum to read what other people thought.
 
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makaihime

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 20, 2014
All this talk about the "average person" thinking this, thinking that. Let me just say this.

Most of the reactions around me seemed to be "Yeah I saw it, it was nice :yes: but the the seats were so empty haha" So...yeah. :unsure: Alot people watch it without really caring about it tbh, they watch it cause its the Olympics and everyone on TV was talking about it, and at the end of the day 95% of the average viewers I know didn't even realize that there was a judging controversy, while the other 5% forgot about it in 1-2 days cause hockey was on.

I think you guys are overestimating the attention span/interest of an average viewer. :laugh:

*Also the "average american" didn't really care about the results because there was no american on the podium, so I think nationalism plays a big part in the popularity of FS here.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
Mathman, your posts are full of win. Maybe you deserve the OGM, lol.

Or, perhaps, the average viewer could be unsure who should've won. Most of the people around me believe who watched (granted, not a lot of people, haha) thought both ladies turned out great performances, and they couldn't say for sure who should've won. Yuna skated with beauty and precision. Adelina skated with hunger and determination. Whatever one thinks of the judging, I think we should respect both of them as athletes. We can discuss and debate the results... hopefully without insulting either of them?
 

cooper

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
All this talk about the "average person" thinking this, thinking that. Let me just say this.

Most of the reactions around me seemed to be "Yeah I saw it, it was nice :yes: but the the seats were so empty haha" So...yeah. :unsure: Alot people watch it without really caring about it tbh, they watch it cause its the Olympics and everyone on TV was talking about it, and at the end of the day 95% of the average viewers I know didn't even realize that there was a judging controversy, while the other 5% forgot about it in 1-2 days cause hockey was on.

I think you guys are overestimating the attention span/interest of an average viewer. :laugh:

*Also the "average american" didn't really care about the results because there was no american on the podium, so I think nationalism plays a big part in the popularity of FS here.

this.

no one really cares about figure skating outside of the figure skating community...

ehh.. if you asked them about the judging controversy.. most of the reactions were.. "well.. nothing new.." "what do you expect? it's s judge sport".. "figure skating is not a sport.." etc.. :laugh:

but i wonder if an american was involved.. i would expect to be another russia vs. usa.. and the US media will cry foul.. :eek:hwell:
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
The rise in popularity that figure skating experienced in those times was due to the gradual elimination of compulsory figures (all skating fans should know this).

Even more important was the impression that competitions became more fair and reflective of what the audience saw.

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The reason being because previously, the audience only watched the free skate. Often the best skaters at figures were not the best free skaters, and vice versa. But since figures made up most of the score, the audience would watch the free skates and wonder how (in their opinion) could the best skaters always seem to lose? Well, because of the outcry from fans, who saw the scores as unacceptable, beginning in 1968 the free skate score was made equal to the figures score. When the short program was introduced, compulsory figures became even less important. This put more emphasis on the free skate (and later the short program too), and since those were the segments the fans actually watched, the scores and placements more and more reflected what was seen at large.

And THAT is why figure skating gained in popularity -- the skaters trained less for figures and more for the short program and free skate.
As a result, the audience got to see better and better performances, and they also became more and more satisfied with the placements at competitions.

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Now, let's explore the further evolution of figure skating from that point. Once compulsory figures began going away, the audience collectively thought, "Finally! The skaters that look the best (in the free skate) are finally winning!"

"And look! Their programs are getting better and better!"

Eventually, however, this novelty reached a saturation point, and the audience gained a more discerning eye. The same thing happens in many walks of life ... think about when color television came out. First, people didn't care how good the programming was ... the shows were all in color, not black and white! But after awhile, they started to pay closer attention, and they started to tell good shows from bad, or even great shows from merely decent shows.

In figure skating, the same thing happened. The audience gained a greater ability to appreciate really good Skater A over really good but not quite as good Skater B. This caused a problem for the ISU and the federations, because as Mathman pointed out, corruption has been endemic to figure skating since the sport was first created. Under 6.0, the skaters were more or less ranked according to some combination of not only their abilities, but also backroom politicking. Federation trade-offs, bribery, what have you. Of course, the skater had to be good enough and deliver, but when two skaters are equal, who wins? Or even if skater 2 is slightly weaker than skater 1, can conspirators flip placements at the margins?

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Fast forward to 2002. By that time (if not before), the public had seen the same elements done to the same musical programs time and time again over the years. Gone were the days when the audience merely accepted that x number of skaters were good enough to win, but according to the judges, this person won because of this reason. No ... the audience could tell for itself not only great skater from good skater ... it could tell Gold Medalist apart from Silver Medalist, even among the greats.

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And so let me ask you this ... what did the ISU and the figure skating community do when the 2002 cheating scandal reached critical mass and was revealed? Did it clean up the system and embrace fair play? Did it foster a sport that anyone can watch and enjoy because they can see with their own eyes who does the best and deserves to win on that particular day?

Or did the ISU and the federations intentionally create an inexplicable scoring system meant to confuse the audience back into passive submission? Did they not create a scoring system they labeled as more objective, but its real aim was to allow the cheaters to get back ahead of the game?

I'm afraid that's where the sport of figure skating is now. The ISU and the major federations are so rife with corruption that they intentionally created a scoring system that would better allow cheating to take place. CoP in theory is a good idea, but in practice, the numbers are made up and goal-seeked. 6.5 or 9.25 for one of the PCS categories ... sure there are guidelines but are they followed? Not really. Grades of execution? Did you not see certain skaters barely get off the ice with their jumps and get +2s at these last Olympics? What about URs or edge calls? Levels? You know none of this stuff is scored accurately or even meant to be scored accurately. As with 6.0, the skaters are more or less ranked heading into a competition based on some combination of their abilities and backroom deal-making. After that, as long as the skaters more or less stay on their feet, the scores are just made up and goal-seeked to confirm the predetermined results.

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Anyway, it seems the ISU and the federations would rather let the sport die than give up their influence on the results. And apparently, that's what is happening, if the ISU is indeed going bankrupt. We know for a fact that fewer and fewer people watch the sport on tv or in person every year ... and the reason is because the sport is run by cheats who are more interested in continuing their cheating than they are in resuscitating the sport.
 

sk8in

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Something that would be nice during broadcasts are more graphics indicating the different program elements after their programs are complete. A smart way of approaching it too would be to create an iPad/Android app that lays out all the skaters' programs, and their BVs.
 

Vanshilar

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
See the Pre-Rotation Questions thread in the Figure Skating References section of this forum.

A degree of prerotation is necessary on all jumps.

Yes, but that's why I said it was due to pre-rotation, but I didn't say it was cheated. While a degree of pre-rotation is necessary, there's still a question of how much. For Adelina, for both jumps of her 3T-3T combo the toe pick (left) foot is pretty close to facing directly forward on takeoff (though it doesn't look like she was past forward i.e. cheated). (For the first one, she also pretty clearly has the entire blade of the toe pick foot down on the ice, and it's also the blade catching on the ice that propels her upward, not to the toe pick itself, but I don't know if this is fine or not for a toe loop jump. For the second one, the video I have is too blurry so I can't really tell definitively.) For Yuna, on her Lutz the toe pick (right) foot is still facing the backward half when it leaves the ice -- she has over 90 degrees of margin, so it's an example of a jump where she was still facing backwards (or at least, the backward half) rather than forward. For her toe loop jump, the toe pick (left) foot is in the forward half but not close to directly forward. Another difference, though I don't know if this is germane, is that Adelina pivots on her toe pick while for Yuna there's not much pivoting going on -- the toe pick foot is at pretty close to the same angle when it leaves the ice as when it hit the ice, probably less than about a 45 degree difference. It may be because Adelina uses the blade rather than the toe pick to block for the jump though, so the toe pick naturally ends up pivoting before her foot leaves the ice.

The point in mentioning it is that the claim is that Adelina jumped really high for them is inaccurate -- or at least, if she did, then so did Yuna. Both were in the air for the same amount of time for both jumps. Yuna also rotated faster. The difference is that Yuna did more of her rotation in the air, while Adelina had less rotation to do in the air since more of it was done on the ice -- and is hence able to open up for the landing earlier. (This brings up an interesting question: If there's that much leeway in pre-rotating jumps, then why doesn't Yuna, or some of the other skaters for that matter, pre-rotate more? It would obviously help with the landing, and the jump does look much better when the skater can open up in midair before landing. It's hard to say it's for the GOEs when Adelina got slightly more GOE for her jumps.) I guess you can that completing the rotations before landing means extra height, but then I think it's a matter of semantics at that point -- I'm looking at height from a physics point of view, i.e. the maximum distance between the skater and the ice during a jump, which can be computed from knowing how long the skater was in the air (with some basic assumptions).

Additionally, the link specifically said Adelina's jump was under-rotated because of pre-rotation, while Evangeline said the jump's landing was clearly fully rotated. That's conflating the two sources of under-rotation, intentionally or not, and doesn't actually address the link's argument while misstating it, making an inaccurate claim in the process. That's what I was addressing in my post.

Actually, the main thing they have access to is front-row seats to the actual live performance.

Primarily, they're judging what they see with their own eyes in real time.

Only if a jump looks questionable in real time will the technical panel go back and review the video for underrotations and wrong edges. As noted above, they are not allowed to use slow motion to look for prerotation.

So you mean they're inputting GOE values as the skaters are doing their elements? What are they doing after the performance then? Does it take 3-5 minutes to decide on the components scores?

Or I don't know if what you mean is that the judges are busy taking notes during the performance (i.e. "this jump looks clean, that jump may have been underrotated, this spin was good", etc.) and post-performance they're double-checking questionable elements and double-checking their GOEs and stuff. So say 70% of the GOEs will already be given out during the performance and then the time after the performance is to check the more borderline elements.

A related question is, why did they set it so that judges are not allowed to use slow motion on video replays? It's certainly not a technological limitation if they have the videos already.

If the judges are judging primarily (or as a first pass) with their eyes, then I'm a bit more confused on why they didn't pick up on Adelina's flutz in the LP. I thought it might have been because of the camera angle -- for us viewers at home, the camera was pretty much side-on so it wasn't that obvious that she took off from the wrong edge. But looking at a fan cam of the performance, when she jumped she was moving directly away from where the judges were sitting, so they should have been able to see her wrong edge clearly. So why didn't they? Seems kind of odd to me.

Oh, I think if you took any two performances, a group of fans with an agenda to "prove" that one skater deserved higher scores and the other deserved lower could find and invent a similar number of "mistakes" in the technical calls.

1. Granted, anybody can make any claim, but for it to be credible it should be backed up by sufficient evidence or persuasive reasoning. For example, I don't buy people saying "but skater X was so much faster than skater Y" for jumps for example unless they can point to something to back it up. Internet statements are just that, internet statements.
2. If deceptive viewing angles are so persuasive and significant, then should we revisit dismissing the nationality of the replay operator so quickly? I thought people said all he does is select the videos from the cameras when the judges and technical panel review elements, so he wouldn't have much influence over the score. But if he's able to select viewing angles that "hide" certain aspects (such as edges) when the judges review the replays, then maybe it indicates a fault with the way the system is set up and his potential role in affecting scores shouldn't be discounted so quickly. Additionally, I'm not sure if the viewing angle is something that the rest of us can control. Sure the ISU has video from all sorts of directions, but we're limited by what the media broadcasts. We can't just create our own videos of each performance that easily.
3. A good amount of what occurred can be determined by video evidence, even regardless of the viewing angle (or, not very dependent on it). For example, how many back crossovers Yuna did prior to her double axel is a factual matter, not a matter of opinion, and can be backed up by video.
4. I assume when possible the actual rules should be referred to, and that there will be people who know what the correct interpretations are, should people give incorrect interpretations. For example, how much under-rotation is allowed on a landing is explicitly given in the scoring guidelines, including that the skater gets the benefit of the doubt (which covers things like if fans start arguing it was actually 92 degrees under-rotated and thus should have been flagged, etc. -- it should be clearly under-rotated). Therefore that should be used to judge whether or not jump landings were under-rotated. For pre-rotation, it only says if it's a "clear forward" take off, which is not a clearly defined metric. However, people in the pre-rotation thread have said this is interpreted as 1) the edge foot should still be moving (or skidding) in the same direction, backward for non-axel, when it leaves the ice, essentially a quarter turn margin 2) the toe pick foot should not have rotated more than 180 degrees prior to leaving the ice, i.e. should never be facing directly forward, essentially a half turn margin. Unless someone else says otherwise, then I (and I assume other casual forum-goers) will take this as how the rule is interpreted. Granted, if nobody knows what the rules really mean, or if the people that do know doesn't speak up, then this assumption breaks down, but in that case, then that information (i.e. the correct interpretation of the rules) is not made publicly available anyway, so it becomes sort of moot. If people disagree on the interpretation of rules, then it comes down to who can more persuasively point to how the rules are commonly interpreted in figure skating. The interpretations aren't arbitrary (i.e. "I can interpret them however I want and you have to follow my interpretation"). It should go without saying that I also assume people can understand plain English in terms of interpreting the plain meaning of words and phrases, even if that assumption isn't always true.

So I don't see how those are really problems.

Judges are just giving GOEs and PCS. For most elements there can be two or more "correct" GOEs according each judge's assessment, depending how they balance the strong and weak aspects of the element.

There's no "correct" score for any of the program components. There are ranges of numbers the judges are supposed to use depending what they each consider to be average, above-average, good, very good, excellent, outstanding. But they each have to come to their own determinations of whether a performance was closer to very good, for example, on the criteria for each component than it was excellent or just good. Other judges and fans may honestly disagree. And all may be unconsciously influenced by expectations, personal preferences, and the level of excitement the skater generates in the live performance.

Once again though it comes down to whether or not fans can construct a persuasive argument. A fan could say that a skater should have only gotten a 2 on some PCS score but I doubt anyone would take him seriously. And constructing persuasive arguments will likely entail pointing out specific elements of the performance, and possibly comparing to other performances, which can't be simply "made up" -- or at least, can be refuted if it is. Also, yes some of the scores are somewhat subjective; however, a number of them aren't, and have pretty clear rules. And videos can be used to determine the proper judging for a good number of them.

Note that what I'm saying is no different than what (I believe) judges should be doing anyway. Essentially we should be replicating their process, with more in-depth investigation (such as slow motion replay) and explanation, to be taken seriously. And in doing so I don't think the scores would actually vary by that much, as long as each forum poster is actually willing to look at the evidence.

8 triples, one was a 3A. Still second highest TES with some questionable downgrade. :popcorn: sorry, I couldn't resist.

The consideration of Mao pretty much destroys the "won because of one more triple" argument. If this argument were true, then Mao should've had the highest long program score (or at least, technical elements score). Once somebody says "but she had under-rotations and a wrong edge call" then the response is "by whom? By the judges." In other words, it's implicitly admittedly that the judging -- how the points were given out or taken away from each element, not simply the number of elements -- is the actual deciding factor, and therefore it's the judging that needs to be looked at -- whether or not it was in accordance with the scoring guidelines -- not simply the number of triples. So it's hard to believe that someone's still trying to use the "one more triple" argument.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Under 6.0, the skaters were more or less ranked according to some combination of not only their abilities, but also backroom politicking. Federation trade-offs, bribery, what have you. Of course, the skater had to be good enough and deliver, but when two skaters are equal, who wins? Or even if skater 2 is slightly weaker than skater 1, can conspirators flip placements at the margins?

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Fast forward to 2002 ... what did the ISU and the figure skating community do when the 2002 cheating scandal reached critical mass and was revealed? Did it clean up the system and embrace fair play? Did it foster a sport that anyone can watch and enjoy because they can see with their own eyes who does the best and deserves to win on that particular day?

Or did the ISU and the federations intentionally create an inexplicable scoring system meant to confuse the audience back into passive submission? Did they not create a scoring system they labeled as more objective, but its real aim was to allow the cheaters to get back ahead of the game?

This is what I think. In the wake of the 2002 Olympics the iSU was under the gun from the International Olympic Committee: "Don't ever get caught cheating again or else!" The reaction of the ISU was the Interim Judging System -- 6.0 but with anonymous judging. The party line was that anonymity would protect judges from being pressured by the bad guys -- the heads of powerful federations -- but I don't think anyone bought that. The real reason was so that people would not be able angrily to confront French judges, forcing them into tearful confessions.

I am willing to give the ISU and its technical committees the benefit of the doubt with respect to the CoP. The idea of scoring by giving a prescribed number of points for particular tricks had been in the process of development for some time before 2002, and I don't think that this concept itself was put forward with the intent of enabling cheating. It is easy for me to believe that the CoPers were sincere in thinking that they were improving the sport, and maybe they were right.

But… it is easier to cheat with the IJS than with ordinal judging. The reason is that under 6.0 the majority of judges cannot be outdone by an individual biased or crooked judge, nor by a conspiring minority. The Salt Lake City ladies result is a good example. No matter how strongly the four Irina judges thought that Slutskaya deserved to win, she didn't -- because five judges thought otherwise. In contrast, under any add-up-the-points system, a single judge can skew the results, and two or three acting in concert can do so badly.

(Eliminating the highest and lowest marks somewhat mitigates this undesirable feature of the IJS -- if carried to the extreme, i.e., using the median instead of the mean -- this would almost bring us back to ordinals. :) )

JMO, of course. :cool:
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
The most significant cheating is done legally, by manipulating the rules.

The ladies rules, post 2010, deliberately favor skaters other than YuNa. The base value points for a triple axel and for doing a 3 jump combo with a half loop as the second jump were increased. Neither of these skills were part of Kim's repetoire. On the other side, three double axels, something Kim used, were no longer allowed.

And this adjustment of rules to deliberately favor some skaters over others is nothing new. The Zayak rule was meant to favor skaters other than Zayak. Unlimited double axels were allowed, but triple toes were limited to 2 per program. Worse, the triple toe walley was decreed to be a triple toe loop, so that Zayak couldn't do two triple toe loops and two triple toe walleys. Declaring the toe walley and toe loop to be the same is equivalent to saying the flip and the lutz are the same jump.

YuNa chose not to adapt to the new rules in a way that increased her base value, which left her vulnerable.

This method of skewing the results by changing the rules is not fool-proof. The short dance coupled with the elimination of CDs was designed to favor skaters other than V&M and D&W. It turned out that D&W and V&M were just as dominant under the new rules as they were under the old rules.

Rule change machinations do at least give competitors the opportunity to adapt, if they can.

As Robert Heinlein wrote, "Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet you can't win.”


― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love."
 
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Alain

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 28, 2014
For me this sport is not dying. My favourite skaters are competing. I am sorry if yours are done.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
The point in mentioning it is that the claim is that Adelina jumped really high for them is inaccurate -- or at least, if she did, then so did Yuna.

So you're not counting failure to penalize for prerotation of one of the many errors in the scoring of these two skaters that you complain about. Fair enough.

Both Sotnikova and Kim jumped high, and both were rewarded for it in GOE. It's only one bullet point for each jump.

So you mean they're inputting GOE values as the skaters are doing their elements? What are they doing after the performance then?

From what I have observed at the local level (where no replay is available to judges -- only to tech panels, except at very small club competitions where it's all done by hand and eyeball with no computers or video) -- during the performance judges are watching the skater, barely looking away from the ice to make notes and/or input GOEs.

After the performance they have to go to a different screen to input the PCS. Some already know exactly which scores they're going to give by the time the program ends; others may have to think for a few seconds about how to turn their observations for each component into numbers.

Even if they put in all the GOEs during the performance, they need to go back and check that they didn't make any input errors. They also have to wait for the technical panel to finish the reviews, because if the tech panel adds <, <<, or e calls that they weren't expecting or weren't sure of, they may need to change their GOEs.

Does it take 3-5 minutes to decide on the components scores?

No. Most of those 3-5 minutes after the program when we're waiting for the scores to be announced, the judges are also sitting there waiting for the tech panel to do their thing. It's the reviews that take time.

Or I don't know if what you mean is that the judges are busy taking notes during the performance (i.e. "this jump looks clean, that jump may have been underrotated, this spin was good", etc.) and post-performance they're double-checking questionable elements and double-checking their GOEs and stuff. So say 70% of the GOEs will already be given out during the performance and then the time after the performance is to check the more borderline elements.

Yes. As I say, I'm not familiar with how it works at levels where judges have access to video review. But I would doubt they review anywhere near 30% of the GOEs. For most skaters they might review no elements, or maybe one. It would be too time consuming to review step sequences or spins -- tech panels need to do so sometimes to determine whether certain features were indeed met (adding to the wait time between program end and scores announced), but judges wouldn't need to. Most jumps are clearly either adequate rotated and landed on one foot, or not. For underrotations and edge calls, judges might just wait for the tech panel calls to confirm what they saw in real time, or they might go back and rewatch for themselves. For suspected free foot touchdowns, they would need to rewatch.

If the judges are judging primarily (or as a first pass) with their eyes, then I'm a bit more confused on why they didn't pick up on Adelina's flutz in the LP. I thought it might have been because of the camera angle -- for us viewers at home, the camera was pretty much side-on so it wasn't that obvious that she took off from the wrong edge. But looking at a fan cam of the performance, when she jumped she was moving directly away from where the judges were sitting, so they should have been able to see her wrong edge clearly. So why didn't they? Seems kind of odd to me.

Not sure. But remember that the official video camera will be next to the technical panel seats, not the judges. If the fan cam was closer to the judges, that could make a difference in the angle available in the replay.

2. If deceptive viewing angles are so persuasive and significant, then should we revisit dismissing the nationality of the replay operator so quickly? I thought people said all he does is select the videos from the cameras when the judges and technical panel review elements, so he wouldn't have much influence over the score. But if he's able to select viewing angles that "hide" certain aspects (such as edges) when the judges review the replays, then maybe it indicates a fault with the way the system is set up and his potential role in affecting scores shouldn't be discounted so quickly.

The replay operator does not "select" video angles. There is only one official video, only one angle. The replay operator inserts time marks on the video of the whole program so that they can select the correct element -- so when the tech panel asks to review element 3, they can go directly to element 3.

Additionally, I'm not sure if the viewing angle is something that the rest of us can control. Sure the ISU has video from all sorts of directions,

No, only one official angle. All the other cameras at televised events belong to the television networks.

4. I assume when possible the actual rules should be referred to, and that there will be people who know what the correct interpretations are, should people give incorrect interpretations. For example, how much under-rotation is allowed on a landing is explicitly given in the scoring guidelines, including that the skater gets the benefit of the doubt (which covers things like if fans start arguing it was actually 92 degrees under-rotated and thus should have been flagged, etc. -- it should be clearly under-rotated).

Well, it's not "clearly" 92 degrees. The human eye can't measure that precisely, even with slow-motion video replay. 92 will look very similar to 90, so that would likely be a benefit-of-doubt situation.

Therefore that should be used to judge whether or not jump landings were under-rotated. For pre-rotation, it only says if it's a "clear forward" take off, which is not a clearly defined metric. However, people in the pre-rotation thread have said this is interpreted as 1) the edge foot should still be moving (or skidding) in the same direction, backward for non-axel, when it leaves the ice, essentially a quarter turn margin 2) the toe pick foot should not have rotated more than 180 degrees prior to leaving the ice, i.e. should never be facing directly forward, essentially a half turn margin. Unless someone else says otherwise, then I (and I assume other casual forum-goers) will take this as how the rule is interpreted.

It's very very rare for jumps to be called as underrotated or downgraded due to prerotation, especially at the elite levels. That call should only happen in very obvious examples of very bad technique. The tech panel is not allowed to use slow motion for those calls.

Therefore fans who slow down jumps to discover prerotation and argue that the tech panel was incorrect not to call underrotation are themselves interpreting the rules incorrectly. That's the point I was making in my previous post.

Once again though it comes down to whether or not fans can construct a persuasive argument. A fan could say that a skater should have only gotten a 2 on some PCS score but I doubt anyone would take him seriously.

I'd only take them seriously if they made a persuasive argument

Even so, with PCS, different judges use the numbers differently. So a fan (or judge) could argue why they would have scored this elite skater only 2 ("poor") in a certain component for good reasons, and I might be convinced that that is a valid score for this performance according to that fan's or judge's use of the numerical scale (if it's clear that the fan has a frame of reference that includes familiarity with the full range of lower-level skaters who do often earn scores in the 2s). But other fans or judges might make equally convincing arguments in favor of different scores according their own use of the scale.

And if the fan's reference point for "poor" is clearly average junior-level skaters or better, I would not likely be convinced.

Note that what I'm saying is no different than what (I believe) judges should be doing anyway. Essentially we should be replicating their process, with more in-depth investigation (such as slow motion replay) and explanation, to be taken seriously. And in doing so I don't think the scores would actually vary by that much, as long as each forum poster is actually willing to look at the evidence.

This thread started to analyze step sequence calls, primarily as technical panels do. We can also make those kinds of analyes for jumps and spins (and pair elements where relevant).

We can also look at GOEs and program components as judges do.

I love to do those kinds of analyses. I wish we could have had a thread looking at the ladies' event in Sochi in an objective spirit of honest inquiry. Watch all or many of the performances as if we were technical specialists, or as if we were judges, and compare notes on what we come up with.

My personal agenda at Golden Skate tends to be toward encouraging that kind of analysis.

But that was impossible for this event because as soon as the event was over partisans of the top skaters (many in favor of Kim, a few individuals supporting Sotnikova, or Asada or Kostner) started making heavily one-sided arguments about why their favorite was worthy of gold and the other skater was not.

Many supporters of skaters other than Sotnikova mocked and insulted her directly, as well as using every apparent error in her favor as evidence of corruption by all officials.

There have also been insulting characterizations of Kim's performance by other posters.

There have been misunderstandings and misreadings of the rules on both sides.

So the whole discussion was emotionally charged and biased from the beginning.

Maybe we can come back to it in 10 years when newer fans won't even be familiar with these performances or htis controversy and the rest of us will have gotten a decade of perspective. Of course, reestablishing what the 2014 rules actually were could be an issue -- how well could we now discuss 2006, for example, without reference to rules that were introduced since then?

The ladies rules, post 2010, deliberately favor skaters other than YuNa. The base value points for a triple axel and for doing a 3 jump combo with a half loop as the second jump were increased. Neither of these skills were part of Kim's repetoire. On the other side, three double axels, something Kim used, were no longer allowed.

I don't think any of those rules were specifically targeted against Yuna Kim.

I do think that allowing 3A in the ladies' short program was specifically targetted to benefit Mao Asada.

Changes to the 3A base value would have been made primarily with the men's event in mind.

Limits on repeating double axels would have been most relevant to juniors and lower-ranked senior ladies who couldn't do enough triples to fill up their alloted jump passes.

Very few skaters were doing half-loop sequences before that rule change because of the sequence penalty. There were arguments made at Golden Skate, as well as in actual elite skating circles, that that scoring approached undervalued the actual skills involved. Once this was redefined as a combination with full base value, more skaters started developing the skill, although it still remains relatively rare. Who would have predicted "Skater A can already do this. Skater B is likely to be able to learn it easily. Skater C probably can't learn it. We want to handicap Skater C's chances, so let's pass this rule."?
 

qwertyskates

Medalist
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
See the Pre-Rotation Questions thread in the Figure Skating References section of this forum.

A degree of prerotation is necessary on all jumps.

Here's what the Technical Panel Handbook has to say about prerotation:



Actually, the main thing they have access to is front-row seats to the actual live performance.

Primarily, they're judging what they see with their own eyes in real time.

Only if a jump looks questionable in real time will the technical panel go back and review the video for underrotations and wrong edges. As noted above, they are not allowed to use slow motion to look for prerotation.

The judges would check video for even fewer jumps than the technical panel. Maybe some judges are more likely than others to check video to confirm what they saw in real time, or to second guess the technical panel calls that show up in their computers after the tech panel reviews. For many the main priority after the end of the live performance would be inputting program component scores.



Oh, I think if you took any two performances, a group of fans with an agenda to "prove" that one skater deserved higher scores and the other deserved lower could find and invent a similar number of "mistakes" in the technical calls.

That number would include not only

-real mistakes by the technical panel
-"correct" calls according to the rules by technical panel due to deceptive viewing angles

but also

-borderline calls where the technical panel follows the rules in giving benefit of the doubt to the skater for whom the biased fans intentionally choose the harsher interpretation (and vice versa for the fan-favored skater)
-borderline calls where the viewing angle and video resolution make a significant difference, so the fans were relying on deceptive video
-incorrect interpretations of the rules by the fans

Judges are just giving GOEs and PCS. For most elements there can be two or more "correct" GOEs according each judge's assessment, depending how they balance the strong and weak aspects of the element.

There's no "correct" score for any of the program components. There are ranges of numbers the judges are supposed to use depending what they each consider to be average, above-average, good, very good, excellent, outstanding. But they each have to come to their own determinations of whether a performance was closer to very good, for example, on the criteria for each component than it was excellent or just good. Other judges and fans may honestly disagree. And all may be unconsciously influenced by expectations, personal preferences, and the level of excitement the skater generates in the live performance.



According to Tatiana Tarasova, Sotnikova's freeskate "shows how people are torn between the classic and modern dance. Everything goes, in general, from the classics, but in my heart there is a break, and one half of a person is drawn to classical art, the other is already seized plasticity of modern times. As two different directions coexist in man as he tries to combine them, and in the end it turns out that happiness, because it turns out to be possible and then, and more ... New Life joins the old. "

But there's no requirement for a competitive figure skating program to have a theme. That's one consideration among many under the Choreography component.

Thank you so much for the clarification on judging.:agree:

And also for the concept behind Adelina's LP. I did think it was a modern number about being pulled in different directions by strings.

Themes don't matter, I agree. It's the skating performance that should speak for itself.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
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Country
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:bow:@gkelly :bow: @dorrispulaski :bow: @Mathman

Thank you for your insight. It's much appreciated :yes:
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
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:bow:@gkelly :bow: @dorrispulaski :bow: @Mathman
Thank you for your insight. It's much appreciated :yes:
Me too!!! :bow: Personally I don't think there are rules which are specifically targeted against any skaters at all. Allowing 3A in the ladies' short program is just a move to encourage ladies go for more difficult jumps.
The game is always rigged if you don't adapt to it. Plushy, despite all his shortcomings, still tried to adapt to the Cop with all his best.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
Well, the way I see it:

Figure skating got intensely popular in the '90s because the whole Nancy-Tonya debacle brought unprecedented attention to the sport. Its popularity declined because after Michelle Kwan retired, there weren't any (female) US stars remaining. Perhaps that is why there is such push/hype behind Gracie Gold--the sport needs another star.

Granted, IJS certainly didn't help things, because it's become incomprehensible to the casual viewer--some made an effort to learn it, but many people I spoke to just gave up. There's also the difficulty of balancing innovation with clean programs. The past quad with two Worlds and one Olympics won by only triple jumps and this quad with two Worlds and one Olympics won by a guy with falls... neither of these things make the sport look very good. I wouldn't say 6.0 is the "fairer" system, but it is simpler, easier to understand, and encourages victories through performance rather than victories through math.

(BTW, I don't see the rule changes as a way to screw over Yuna. Why shouldn't the triple axel be well rewarded and encouraged? That Mao is the only one who throws it down should add to the 3A's value and be in her benefit. If she is better than any other lady when she skates clean, she should be rewarded. She shouldn't be held down by rules to make way for Queen Yuna. It's unfair that Yuna's 3-3 was worth more than Mao's 3A-2T, imo.)
 

CarneAsada

Medalist
Joined
Sep 17, 2011
Granted, IJS certainly didn't help things, because it's become incomprehensible to the casual viewer--some made an effort to learn it, but many people I spoke to just gave up. There's also the difficulty of balancing innovation with clean programs. The past quad with two Worlds and one Olympics won by only triple jumps and this quad with two Worlds and one Olympics won by a guy with falls... neither of these things make the sport look very good. I wouldn't say 6.0 is the "fairer" system, but it is simpler, easier to understand, and encourages victories through performance rather than victories through math.
It was sort of incomprehensible to the casual viewer already. How many people knew how the ordinal rankings worked, really? Though CoP definitely made it easier to screw over worthy skaters through manipulation of GOE and PCS (Adelina's victory was basically a victory obtained through the judges' GOE). The other problem with CoP was that it encourages skaters to simply pack in as much difficulty as possible = harder to skate clean.

(BTW, I don't see the rule changes as a way to screw over Yuna. Why shouldn't the triple axel be well rewarded and encouraged? That Mao is the only one who throws it down should add to the 3A's value and be in her benefit. If she is better than any other lady when she skates clean, she should be rewarded. She shouldn't be held down by rules to make way for Queen Yuna. It's unfair that Yuna's 3-3 was worth more than Mao's 3A-2T, imo.)
The funny part is that a 3Lz-3T (6.0+4.1=10.1) is still worth more than a 3A-2T (8.5+1.3=9.8). All the rule changes that are supposedly for the sole benefit of Mao Asada, and the ISU couldn't even fix that.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
Oh, it is still worth more? Geez, just when I think there couldn't be even more wrong with the rules for combinations...
 
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