This post is going to be long because I came to this thread late and will respond to several points in the same post.
I'll skip some where other posters have already made the same points I would have made.
Having said that - whomever wrote this article is correct: modern skating allows for flaws in the chasing of points and it hurts the sport when champs are awarded outlandish scores for skating that is lacking. At this point, the judging system and the skaters should've merged together and yet the scores get higher while the skating gets weaker... regardless of who the champ is and who is writing about it...
Really?
1) define "weaker" skating
2) choose a a recent IJS competition and a comparable competition (same event, e.g., Worlds, Grand Prix) under 6.0 or the first year or two of IJS, at the same point in the Olympic cycle. 2011 and 2003 would work, for example
3) choose a representative sampling of performances from those two events; e.g., all the medalists, all the top 5, all the odd-numbered places in the top 10, the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th and 21st places, etc. Do this for several disciplines.
4) describe to me in what ways the recent performances are weaker than the earlier ones -- and also, if possible, the reverse
Of course, if you choose the examples randomly and then look at the performances, you might happen to get one very strongly skated again and one especially weak one, which would skew the results in favor of one era or the other depending on the luck of the draw. So better to do this several times for several different events.
Whenever I see claims like this, I always wonder if poster is remembering only the best/most memorable of the old events and all of the recent ones, warts and all.
Please. Flawed skating is flawed skating. I don't care WHO points it out... there is a reason skating is struggling and part of this is watching these flawed performances equated with brilliance.
Define "flawed." Do only flaws that anyone can see, or also flaws that only knowledgeable viewers can see? Under all judging systems, judges have always paid attention to details that casual viewers didn't notice and commentators rarely bothered to point out. If that led to results under 6.0 that didn't match the casual viewer's impression, there would usually be cries that the judges were blind, cheating, holding up favorites, playing politics, etc. It's not as though casual impressions always matched trained impressions under 6.0 either.
ETA: How much of a penalty do you think falls should incur? Should visible errors have more weight than invisible ones?
Invisible to trained eyes or invisible to untrained?
Zero point for a fall on any jump. A fall is a fall, period.
So imagine the following scenario. Short program. Skaters A and B both perform 3Lz+3T and solo 3F, comparably well, and earn the exact same scores for those two jump elements. Skater A rotates and falls on a 3A. Skater B rotates and falls on a 2A. Should they both get the exact same score (0) for their solo axel attempts?
(Edited to add: Under 6.0, Skater A would have started with a higher base mark because of the higher difficulty attempted, and that would likely also have affected presentation score. E.g., Skater A might have earned 5.4/5.8 for that program with fall on 3A, and skater B might have earned 5.0/5.4.)
Alter the question for either of the other jump elements in the SP, or for an LP where most of the jump passes are comparable and each skater has one fall on jumps that are very different in difficulty.
Reward more for difficult jumps that are well executed, penalize more for jumps that are poorly executed. Male skaters are always starting to try quads than ever due to the increased value assigned to quads. However, if you want to shoot for high values, you always need to be aware of the huge risks.
Any visible errors should be penalized more than invisible ones.
Why? And where?
I think that errors resulting from a flaw or failure of technique should be penalized more in the GOE than errors resulting from, e.g., a flaw or obstacle in the ice surface. But in the program components, especially Performance/Execution, perhaps a flaw that disrupts the program even for 1-2 seconds out of 240+ should be penalized more than a technical flaw that doesn't break the surface enjoyment of the program.
And the latter is what I don't get. If you do a jump from a wrong take off, you haven't done the jump. Period. If you flutz, that means you can't do a lutz. Why should you get credit for doing a lutz?
I would disagree. If you do a jump from a wrong takeoff, you have done
a jump. A flawed jump. Depending on the severity of the flaw, it may or may not meet the definition of the intended listed jump. If the takeoff error is very severe, it might turn the jump into a different listed jump (e.g., lutz into flip) or into a nonlisted jump. If the error is small to moderate, then the intended jump is still recognizable
Some skaters who have a tendency to flutz still try very hard to takeoff the correct edge and sometimes come closer to succeeding than others. And some skaters who usually do the jump correctly will on rare occasions make errors on the takeoffs.
I think each attempt needs to be evaluated on its own merits and not on a skater's reputation for whether s/he "can" do that jump or not. Of course, a reputation for making the same mistake repeatedly will cause judges and tech panels to be on the lookout for that mistake every time the skater executes that jump. A skater with a reputation for doing it right might escape the same scrutiny and be able to get away with the same mistake on the rare occasions it does happen. But that's not the ideal situation.
What frustrates me about this endless debate is that one side utterly dismisses the other, as if their opinions and observations deserve nothing but to be thrown into the garbage can.
Which side would that be, the posters and bloggers who mourn the loss of the old system and write long posts blaming everything they don't like about the current state of skating on the change in judging system, wanting throw the whole new system into the garbage can?
I've seen more threads and blog posts started by people taking the position that everything about the IJS is evil than by anyone posting that everything about the IJS is perfect or everything about 6.0 was evil.
People say, I don't like this scoring system very much. Many people say this. People both knowledgable and otherwise. The anointed say, "what fools," and go on with business as usual.
If we refuse to admit that there is a problem, then there is no possibility of arriving at a solution.
There are going to be disagreements about what would be the best approach to scoring, in general or on specific issues, among knowledgeable people within the skating community, among knowledgeable fans, and among casual fans. I'd much rather see attempts to identify and imagine solutions to the problems that don't reduce to taking sides for or against the existing reality. There's always room for improvement.
If we want to analyze specific problems with the existing system, then let's focus on defining the problem and proposing solutions within the current reality. Or let's ignore the current system and envision how to avoid or solve the problem with a radical paradigm change.
Either way, if complaints and efforts to find solutions are to be more than idle griping or idle fantasy, they have to take into account the facts of the sport as it is practiced in the rinks, not just what makes for good TV.
If less-knowledgeable fans offer complaints or suggestions based on limited knowledge and personal preference, I'm not going to dismiss them as fools, but I am going to challenge them to consider how any proposed changes would affect situations other than the ones they first considered.
For that matter, I'd do the same to a skating insider with more experience and knowledge than me, if the proposals leave out issues I think need to be considered.
Here's the thing.
Michelle fell twice, had other serious and visible errors, and she lost because of it. If she had not fallen she would have won.
(1997 Nationals?)
She fell twice, had other serious and visible errors, and beat
skaters who
did not fall or have disruptive errors.
(BTW, here's
one of my favorite performances from that competition with only one fall)
If Michelle had won in spite of her falls, the audience would have gone away with a certain amount of puzzlement and disgruntlement, muttering WTH was that?
Really, even if Lipinski had withdrawn or also fallen at least twice? Yeah, Bobek would probably have won the LP but was too far behind in the short program (with falls) to win the title.
Sometimes the best skater falls.
The same is true today. When someone falls and has multiple serious and visible errors, and wins anyway, the audience feels like WTH?
I do not know the answer. What I wish is that enthusiastic supporters of the CoP would step back a moment and say, oh, yeah, that is sort of a problem.
It's not a new problem, though.
I think it's happening more often in the men's event right now because of the high residual value for rotated quads and triple axels even with falls. And because there happens to be one particular male skater who stands out significantly (to experts in the arena) from the rest of the world in skating skills and is also quite good in the other component areas, but often rotates those difficult jumps even when he falls.
So I think the -GOEs for quads and 3A need to be larger. And I think there can be tweaks to the way disruptive errors are evaluated in PCS, especially Performance/Execution. And I think judges should be encouraged to separate the component scores more, for example to reward other skaters who are outstanding in Interpretation even if their skating skills are merely good to very good.
But no matter how we tweak the current system, or no matter if we went back to 6.0 exactly as it was practiced 10-15 years ago, there would still be times when the best overall skater would deservedly win with falls. So I think the most important thing is to educate viewers to understand more about what's being judged beyond number of falls and the aesthetic areas that attract artistically inclined fans.
(They'd still get 2.0 mandatory fall deduction though)
