- Joined
- Sep 14, 2008
Of course everyone would RATHER see clean jumps, but that doesn't mean something wasn't accomplished.
More specifically, would you rather see her 3Axel get 10 degrees more rotation but have her always fall on it?
I wouldn't.
Figure Skating's Three Jumping Errors and Penalties
- Thread starter Joesitz (RIP)
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Of course everyone would RATHER see clean jumps, but that doesn't mean something wasn't accomplished.
More specifically, would you rather see her 3Axel get 10 degrees more rotation but have her always fall on it?
I wouldn't.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Are you ok with Falls? They are obvious to all, and they can get partial credits. The UR can not get partial credit even if the take-off is text book.
An UR should never be more costly than a fall-- That's my main issue. Deduct for flutzes and obvious UR, but a fall should always be most costly. I don't really care if you fell but "fully rotated" the jump. I think that's nonsense. If you fell, some part of your body obviously didn't fully rotate! 
Also, if you have to look at a replay 2 or 3 times from 4 different camera angles to absolutely determine if a jump was rotated or on the correct edge, then don't take a deduction! There is nothing worse than BS calls that make no sense and frustrate both the skaters and the audience.
Also, if you have to look at a replay 2 or 3 times from 4 different camera angles to absolutely determine if a jump was rotated or on the correct edge, then don't take a deduction! There is nothing worse than BS calls that make no sense and frustrate both the skaters and the audience.
Underrotated single jumps get no credit.
Anything else will get some credit; without a fall the net score for an underrotated jump will be positive. I.e., they do get partial credit.
Does a downgraded jump with a good entry, good takeoff, good air position, nondisruptive one-foot landing get score more or less than a non-downgraded jump with a fall?
Depends on the relative base value of the attempted jump and the jump of the same takeoff with one less revolution, and the values of the negative GOEs for that element.
See the scale of values:
http://www.usfigureskating.org/content/200809-SP-SOV.pdf
Basically, for jumps up to double lutz, a fall (with -3 GOE) will result in an element score less than 1.0, so after the 1.0 fall deduction the net effect on the final score of attempting the jump will be a negative value. The same would be true of attempted doubles with both downgrades and falls.
A single downgraded to nothing will earn no points (net -1.0 if there's also a fall; e.g., a bad "waxel")
A double downgraded to a single will earn no more than 0.6 (for an otherwise strong 2A attempt), possibly as low as 0.1, but without a fall deduction the net effect will still be positive
So no matter how badly cheated a double jump might be, as long as the skater remains upright it earns some partial credit whereas a rotated double with a fall ends up with net negative value
For jumps between double axel and triple loop, a fall and -3 GOE will net between 0.0 and 1.0 points of partial credit; for each of these jumps, a downgrade and only -1 GOE (if there are several other strong aspects of the jump and no other negatives) ends up earning more net credit than the rotated jump with the fall
So for any jump up to triple loop, it's worth more to cheat the landing, if you can do it "well," than to fall. For some of these jumps, even downgrades with -2 or -3 GOEs without falls end up netting more points than the rotated jump with fall, but for others once the GOE gets to -2 it's worth less than rotating and falling.
Beginning with triple flip, the base values are high enough that even after -3 GOE and fall deduction there still enough points left that the partial credit for rotating the jump and falling ends up being worth more than the partial credit for standing up smoothly on one foot but getting downgraded.
It's always worth more to underrotate and not fall than to underrotate and fall.
When do under-rotated triples or 2A get GOE as high as -1? I remember most of these jumps getting GOE's that are a mix of -1's and -2's. See the senior ladies GPF freeskate, for instance:
http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpf0809/gpf0809_SeniorLadies_FS_Scores.pdf
Look at how much the UR's hurt Miki and Yukari!
And a similar story for the junior ladies:
http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpf0809/gpf0809_JuniorLadies_FS_Scores.pdf
My feelings are that for all jumps that are 2A or above, (not-fall) UR's hurt more than falls in scores, and these are the jumps that we see skaters attempt in major competitions. I agree with whoever said it: it's just criminal!
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
Everyone makes good points.
It is very tough on these group of skaters that have suddenly been hit with these deductions for doing things that they have been doing for years, but I guess somebody has to make that sacrifice and they are all, more or less in the same boat.
I very much agree though that ISU has taken up an idea and ran wild with it. If I jump look clean with the naked eye, it should be called so. Some jumps obviously under-rotated, like a few of Sarah's at 2002 and most of Kimmie's toeloops in her former 3/3 combos. I agree that they should have a few points knocked off.
It is very tough on these group of skaters that have suddenly been hit with these deductions for doing things that they have been doing for years, but I guess somebody has to make that sacrifice and they are all, more or less in the same boat.
I very much agree though that ISU has taken up an idea and ran wild with it. If I jump look clean with the naked eye, it should be called so. Some jumps obviously under-rotated, like a few of Sarah's at 2002 and most of Kimmie's toeloops in her former 3/3 combos. I agree that they should have a few points knocked off.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2007
I am actually happy to see underrotations heavily punished. And I don't mean that from an athletic standpoint.
I have no articles or research about this, but just knowing about human anatomy and physics makes me believe that underrotations are endangering the health of the skaters. Of course, basically all jumps in skating, gymnastics, ballet etc. are not natural and always can endanger the health (How many knee operations did Baryshnikov have? And that man had impeccable technique on like everything he did...).
But if you look at Nakano's Triple Axel, one of the favourite examples of a jump that is well executed but underrotated, you see that her body looks fully rotated. That's why so many people thought her 3A at Worlds was clean. But I think that she contorts her body so that it looks as if the jump is fully rotated. I mean, we all can do that. Stand up and keep your feet fixed and turn to your side. You can rotate your body without moving your feet, you use your hips and to a lesser extend your knee joints and ankles. I think that is what often happens when the skaters underrotate, there are basically two rotations going on: the body as a whole and the contortion of the upper body.
Now think of the position you have when you stand with your feet fixed but your upper body turned sidewards. Imagine landing in that position. Everytime we jump and land there is strain on our joints. But if you underrotate you basically land on twisted joints, you exert the joints in impossible ways. Look at models of the joints and imagine the mechanics if you land while at the same time having a rotation of 20% in the knee joint.
What the audience - and the judges - can often only see in the slow motion is the fraction of a second where the feet, the moment they touch the ice, are forced to follow the centre of gravity, in this case the contorted upper body. If I look at a Nakano Triple Axel I hear a loud "screeeech" in my head, because if we were built like cars, out of metal and everything - that would be the noise such an underrotated landing would cause.
Technique is not just about definitions, there is often some sense behind it (e.g. in ballet you are always taught to achieve the perfect turnout through rotation of the hips only and not of the knees or ankles - so that when you start training the jumps you won't ruin your knees in a matter of one year).
I would love some numbers, test objects and some nice formulaes to prove all this now - but till then this is pure speculation, based on my (rather extensive) knowledge of the human anatomy and (also quite extensive) knowledge of biomechanics and (not really extensive) knowledge of physics. But if it's true I think the punishment is a good way of ensuring that jumps will be executed with proper technique - not just because some definition says so, but also to make sure that there are less debilitating injuries. Because just sometimes, not very often, rules can make sense.
I have no articles or research about this, but just knowing about human anatomy and physics makes me believe that underrotations are endangering the health of the skaters. Of course, basically all jumps in skating, gymnastics, ballet etc. are not natural and always can endanger the health (How many knee operations did Baryshnikov have? And that man had impeccable technique on like everything he did...).
But if you look at Nakano's Triple Axel, one of the favourite examples of a jump that is well executed but underrotated, you see that her body looks fully rotated. That's why so many people thought her 3A at Worlds was clean. But I think that she contorts her body so that it looks as if the jump is fully rotated. I mean, we all can do that. Stand up and keep your feet fixed and turn to your side. You can rotate your body without moving your feet, you use your hips and to a lesser extend your knee joints and ankles. I think that is what often happens when the skaters underrotate, there are basically two rotations going on: the body as a whole and the contortion of the upper body.
Now think of the position you have when you stand with your feet fixed but your upper body turned sidewards. Imagine landing in that position. Everytime we jump and land there is strain on our joints. But if you underrotate you basically land on twisted joints, you exert the joints in impossible ways. Look at models of the joints and imagine the mechanics if you land while at the same time having a rotation of 20% in the knee joint.
What the audience - and the judges - can often only see in the slow motion is the fraction of a second where the feet, the moment they touch the ice, are forced to follow the centre of gravity, in this case the contorted upper body. If I look at a Nakano Triple Axel I hear a loud "screeeech" in my head, because if we were built like cars, out of metal and everything - that would be the noise such an underrotated landing would cause.
Technique is not just about definitions, there is often some sense behind it (e.g. in ballet you are always taught to achieve the perfect turnout through rotation of the hips only and not of the knees or ankles - so that when you start training the jumps you won't ruin your knees in a matter of one year).
I would love some numbers, test objects and some nice formulaes to prove all this now - but till then this is pure speculation, based on my (rather extensive) knowledge of the human anatomy and (also quite extensive) knowledge of biomechanics and (not really extensive) knowledge of physics. But if it's true I think the punishment is a good way of ensuring that jumps will be executed with proper technique - not just because some definition says so, but also to make sure that there are less debilitating injuries. Because just sometimes, not very often, rules can make sense.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
Just to clarify when i talked about experimenting with a jump receiving 0 for a fall - i meant Base Value not the fall deduction that is taken.
Ant
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Yes, but there are posters who can not dispute the present rules and refuse to discuss the issues. I see their view as unable to question authority.
Given partial credit to a jump that didn't happen is criminal. Can you justify an UR where the landing is faulty and then ok a jump with a Fall where the jump was not even landed? Which is worse? A faulty landing or an inability to land? Partial credit is ridiculous. For the three major faults, I reiterate should be given equal automatic set deductions.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
I don't know but it sounds to me like you are comparing apples and oranges then. Comparing a skater with several errors (a number of underrotations) with another skater with just one error (a fall on a jump) seems like a pretty cut an dry comparison - who had less errors? There's your winner.
Comparing the severity of one error and another seems to be the point of this no? Is under-rotating an otherwise well exectued jump worse than falling on an otherwise well executed jump? ISU says yes - much much worse. I think most people are wondering why?
Ant
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2004
Not only that, a lot of these underrotated calls are .... questionable. Let me be more specific, if anything not enough jumps are being called as underrotated if you want to take ISU guidelines completely seriously.
The current allowable degree of underrotation is just about at the limit of what most elite female ecompetitors can do (given upper body strength limitations).
This means that in ladies competitions there are a _lot_ of jumps that are orderline (and this will not change until upper body strength conditioning becomes a regular part of the ladies' training regimens).
I just don't trust even the best intentioned technical specialist to be able to accurately judge (even with replays where the camera angles can mislead) whether close jumps are underrotated. The only way to be really sure is to examine the tracings which is ... not realistic. This means there's a certain .... randomness to a lot of UR calls which adds randomness to the results (unless PCSs are manipulated in ways not intended).
As for the reason I think it goes back to 2002 (symbolically a way to indicate that IS really should have won by retroactively making SH's technique a lot worse than it was at the time).
The whole point of a scoring system should be to promote the ideal characteristics of your sport. ( do you like that? I came up with it myself).
I always felt that figure skating ideals were a combination of grace and power, so I suppose it depends on how much weight you give to grace, and how much to power(whatever 'power' means). Assuming that those are even your ideals.
Those of us that want to see the speed and power have a heavy bias against cheated jumps, because they flout one of the principles that we consider to be paramount. I think that is the historical mindset that created the severe reduction for underrotation. Also, the slang (cheating), and all that that word implies, has probably reinforced the perception that UR is worse than a fall.
Oh, and put me down in the category of hating specific point structures for underrotated triples. Although, in theory, it seems like it should be a good idea to give partial points, in practice, what you are doing is just encouraging poor techique.
I always felt that figure skating ideals were a combination of grace and power, so I suppose it depends on how much weight you give to grace, and how much to power(whatever 'power' means). Assuming that those are even your ideals.
Those of us that want to see the speed and power have a heavy bias against cheated jumps, because they flout one of the principles that we consider to be paramount. I think that is the historical mindset that created the severe reduction for underrotation. Also, the slang (cheating), and all that that word implies, has probably reinforced the perception that UR is worse than a fall.
Oh, and put me down in the category of hating specific point structures for underrotated triples. Although, in theory, it seems like it should be a good idea to give partial points, in practice, what you are doing is just encouraging poor techique.
Good points.
I think it's also important to note that power is not technique, although both are necessary in some proportion to accomplish successful triple jumps.
Technique of controlling the blades on the ice is also very important to skating as a sport but not so important to fans who don't skate themselves. Serious fans who want to appreciate the fine points can learn to do so, but casual viewers generally don't bother and therefore may be confused by results that don't match the less technical aspects of the performance that they can see for themselves. That doesn't mean that the sport should compromise its technical fundamentals to make it easier for casual fans to understand the results.
I think it's also important to note that power is not technique, although both are necessary in some proportion to accomplish successful triple jumps.
Technique of controlling the blades on the ice is also very important to skating as a sport but not so important to fans who don't skate themselves. Serious fans who want to appreciate the fine points can learn to do so, but casual viewers generally don't bother and therefore may be confused by results that don't match the less technical aspects of the performance that they can see for themselves. That doesn't mean that the sport should compromise its technical fundamentals to make it easier for casual fans to understand the results.
I would much rather see a skater acheive the full rotation and fall then UR and land "cleanly". To me, the complete rotation with a fall shows more skill.
IMO, there are probably a lot of women's skaters out there who could do an UR triple axel. Currently, they don't try them because of the penalties towards UR. If the ISU came up with a table of values as Blades of Passion mentioned, then I think more women would attempt them to at least get partial marks. I don't think that's the skating I would want to watch.
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2004
You're kidding right? Spinning in the air is not a skating skill. Falling is not a skating skill (beyond not hurting yourself, which is a skill). Controlling the landing of an slightly UR jump _is_ a skating skill.
But this is all pointless. The ISU has made its priorities clear, and pretty much lost me as a fan along the way. I've skipped watching the whole GP on Eurosport and only dipped in a few places during last year's Europeans and Worlds (actually more dance than anything else which has suffered less than singles or pairs under CoP but now that they'll be junking the CD's I'll probably drop that too). Let's see how many fans share there ISU's very strong preference for fully rotated falls over otherwise clean slightly underrotated jumps.
Nope. I'm dead serious. No, spinning in the air is not a skill. But what about a near-perfect take-off, a full three rotations but just not quite enough to land clean? Controlling a UR landing may be a skill, but skaters shouldn't have to do it at all.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
That is your preference and I respect that, but splatfests do not appeal to me. I do not believe full rotation has been achieved when a skater falls anyway. If he had made full rotation, what caused the Fall? Certainly, not good technique.
I don't see how a fall shows much skill at all. I'm sure plenty of skaters could chuck themselves into the air, rotate 3 full times, and then crash to the ice. I think a fall shows much more of a technical imperfection than an average UR (which is often suspect anyway). A fall is also far more distracting and a bigger disruption to a program than an UR (which you often have to go to replay to even notice). I tend to compare an average UR to a wobble in gymnastics... Wobbling is a way to save a skill, whereas a fall means that a skill is so off that it is impossible to save.
Someone mentioned Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya... Despite the UR, I much prefer the clean and confident 7 triple long program of Hughes over the pitched forward landings and overall shakiness that marred some of Slutskaya's jumps.
It's gotten to the point where it's hardly worth it for ANY of the ladies' skaters to try 3-3's anymore, aside from Yu-Na. Even she has had her confidence shaken by random UR and edge deductions. Not only are the ladies omitting 3-3s, but they are also beginning to omit jumps that they fear will get called for UR or a wrong edge. Countless skaters are omitting flips, lutzes, salchows, anything! Instead, they just throw in another double axel, or something safe. To me, this is all making the ladies event more lackluster.
I agree with the poster who said that the rules of figure skating should not have to be simplified so that the casual viewer can understand. However, I think the rules should be simplified because the skaters are not machines, and the judges cannot apply these rules accurately and consistently to every skater. How many URs go ignored, and how many UR calls make you say 'Huh?' I'm sure the inconsistent application of these calls are adding to the frustration of fans, skaters, and coaches.
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- Joined
- Jan 6, 2007
And why is that a problem? If you can't do it, then just don't do it! It's not bad in my opinion - and gives skaters like Laura Lepistö, who has only three but very beautiful Triples, a chance. Ladies' skating survived a long time without everyone being able to do all 5 Triples.
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