Order and Scores -- Later is better?

Okay. I think that title is vague enough to thoroughly confuse everyone. But I just read a recent article that supports the idea that early competitors get lower scores and later competitors have the advantage and get higher scores.

Check it out: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050207/full/050207-18.html

We've all said it and thought it. Now some scientific types take to statistics to show what we all hoped was not true when our favorite competitor skates early in the competition. Apparently "the luck of the draw" really is a lucky or unlucky predictor of scores

I completely agree. I have been both a contestant and a judge in speech contests many times. Although it is often denied, luck of the draw matters. In a close contest the first speaker is at a disadvantage. The last speaker has a certain amount of built in advantage.

It is good to see research being done in this area to prove the point.

Vash

I'm confused though. Are they only looking at the SP where there is a random draw? If they are using the LP, did they look at each group within the LP because the skate order is based on the SP rankings and the better skaters would be skating last.

On the other hand, if you are the last to skate you have almost an hour between your warm-up and your performance. Plus you have all that time backstage to get nervous. Michelle mentioned these points after Nationals this year.

Throughout her career Michelle has been famous for "unlucky draws." It seems like she almost always skates before her main competitors. But maybe this works to her advantage, especially if she lays down a super performance and psychs everybody out.

About the point that Mpal raised, the television networks have for a long time been pressuring the ISU and USFS to have the ladies skate the LP in the reverse order from their placement in the SP. Supposedly, this builds up the drama and suspense as the audience waits for the stars to come out and finish the show on a high note. At U.S. Nationals they worked out a compromise where in the last group there would be a separate draw for the 1-2-3 skaters and the 4-5-6 skaters (garanteeing that Michelle and Sasha would be two of the last three).

But it is also fun when someone skates great in the first spot, then has to wait as one skater after another tries to knock him/her off. This happened at the December Marshall's event. Evan Lysacek went first and skated the performance of his life. Then the audience held its breath as one after another, the more famous skaters (Joubert, Weir, etc.) tried to overtake him. Only Plushenko, skating last, did, so Evan got second. That was a great competition.

Mathman