- Joined
- Oct 19, 2009
When I signed up to Golden Skate last week, this is actually what I wanted to discuss: in a performance sport where judges determine scores, how does one evaluate whether the judgments were fair, high, or low?
This is an age-old question that is not exclusive to figure skating, but as tensions run higher in an Olympic season, this could be a useful discussion. If you wish to discuss this, try to be as unbiased as possible. If you think this is a pointless discussion, then leave this thread uncluttered by "get over it" types of comments for those who think this is important or at least interesting, please.
In one of the Rostelecom threads (the Men's Free Program?), this subject and its relationship to statistics was raised by Mathman and discussed by Buttercup and myself, especially as applied to Program Components (PCS).
The PCS have specific guidelines and criteria as to what constitutes certain scores (thanks to Common on the Yu-Na Kim Forum.)
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-168551-185769-65184-0-file,00.pdf
The rest of that discussion is here: http://yunaforum.com/index.php?showtopic=927
My take on this is that there may be guidelines that are supposed to be more or less objective, but it requires experience and time for judges to determine examples of what is "good" vs. "very good", "poor" and "exceptional". Once these sorts of examples and standards are established, one would hope they can apply them consistently towards an individual skater; between skaters, and between years. I do not believe this is happening, although I am unsure about what the consequences may mean in the long run.
This is an age-old question that is not exclusive to figure skating, but as tensions run higher in an Olympic season, this could be a useful discussion. If you wish to discuss this, try to be as unbiased as possible. If you think this is a pointless discussion, then leave this thread uncluttered by "get over it" types of comments for those who think this is important or at least interesting, please.
In one of the Rostelecom threads (the Men's Free Program?), this subject and its relationship to statistics was raised by Mathman and discussed by Buttercup and myself, especially as applied to Program Components (PCS).
The PCS have specific guidelines and criteria as to what constitutes certain scores (thanks to Common on the Yu-Na Kim Forum.)
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-168551-185769-65184-0-file,00.pdf
Common said:PCS is very subjective and we can't deny that it's changing as time goes by. When NJS was first introduced 5 years ago PCS was really high marking 68.88(8.6+ per each component), Sasha Cohen's PCS in SA 2003 which is even higher than current Yuna's PCS 66.46(8.3+ per each component).
Until last season's Worlds, highest PCS was considered as 63+(7.88+ per each component, which means the skater got 8+ in 1 or 2 out of 5 components). And that of the average well performed program was around 60+(7.5 per each component). Judges tended to give 60+ when the skater executed all the planned elements nicely, though not very extraordinary.
That said, we can easily make an educated guess on the judging trend. There existed certain barrier between 7 (good) and 8 (very good) points. And she broke that barrier in LA.
The rest of that discussion is here: http://yunaforum.com/index.php?showtopic=927
My take on this is that there may be guidelines that are supposed to be more or less objective, but it requires experience and time for judges to determine examples of what is "good" vs. "very good", "poor" and "exceptional". Once these sorts of examples and standards are established, one would hope they can apply them consistently towards an individual skater; between skaters, and between years. I do not believe this is happening, although I am unsure about what the consequences may mean in the long run.