Men's Free Skate, Sat. 11/19 at 7:30 am EST

[evangeline]

Thank you for taking the time to break that down, wallylutz, I really, really appreciate it. Just a wondering about something though. You mentioned that the panel averaged to about 0.50 of difference to your scores (which, to be honest, I personally agreed with more than the actual averaged marks given to Javier), and that was OK. So I was guess if Javier averaged 6.50 in the SP and 7.00 in the LP for SS by the judging panel, that would be ok too. This seems a bit strange to me as this a rather broad range of acceptable marks, especially since it refers to numbers that are averaged.

Also, I was wondering about people like judges #3 and #7, who gave Javier a 8.75, or judge #1, who gave a 8.50, all considerably above the 0.50 difference. Do they get written up after the competition?

 

[wallylutz]

Thank you for taking the time to break that down, wallylutz, I really, really appreciate it. Just a wondering about something though. You mentioned that the panel averaged to about 0.50 of difference to your scores (which, to be honest, I personally agreed with more than the actual averaged marks given to Javier), and that was OK. So I was guess if Javier averaged 6.50 in the SP and 7.00 in the LP for SS by the judging panel, that would be ok too. This seems a bit strange to me as this a rather broad range of acceptable marks, especially since it refers to numbers that are averaged.

Also, I was wondering about people like judges #3 and #7, who gave Javier a 8.75, or judge #1, who gave a 8.50, all considerably above the 0.50 difference. Do they get written up after the competition?

The question you asked was why was the SS score from the SP lower than his FS? After reviewing both performances, I concluded that it was justifiable based on the breakdown of SS criteria. Marks are relative numbers and each person has his/her own zone for the scores. Some are more lenient and others, more strict. The important thing is consistency, not the absolute number. This philosophy was carried over from the 6.0 era when ordinal ranking was king and a judge's 5.5 may be the same as another's 5.8 Javier Fernandez may have scored an average of 7.6 for his SS but relatively, Patrick Chan got an average that was almost 9.0 Although the ISU tries to keep a certain range by training the judges to be as consistent with each other as possible, in reality, when you have 9 people out there, you are going to have different standards just as 9 MLB umpires will have unique strike zones for each of them. Don't be surprised by the ranges of the spread in marks as it is usually difficult to determine whether there is an outlier by simply looking at the scores. Someone who gave Fernandez 8.75 for SS may not necessarily be wrong, for all we know, he could have given Chan 9.5 and Takahashi. 9.25, and therefore, really placing Fernandez as 3rd best in the SS category. It's all relative. Then, there are judges who gave out noticeably low scores such as Plushenko's 5s for TR during the Olympic Games to make a point and those are obviously prepared to defend their decision, which is fine as well if they can justify it.

 

[Blades of Passion]

I reviewed Javier Fernandez's SP and LP from Skate Canada 2011. First of all, I need to correct your perception that Fernandez skated with more speed in the SP vs. his LP, that turned out to be untrue. Here are the clips I used:

Javier Fernandez SC 2011 SP

Javier Fernandez SC 2011 FS

Right from the top, Fernandez flew across the ice in his FS, demonstrating far better flow and effortless glide than he did in the SP. More specifically, let's breakdown the various criteria of SS and see what are the differences between his SP and FS.

A very bad and incorrect analysis. You really are grasping to defend poor judging and the precious ISU, aren't ya?

Just because he starts his Long Program with quicker movements, that doesn't mean he is showing superior ability to create flow and effortless glide. If you pay attention, he creates very good flow and effortless glide after the opening stationary steps in his Short Program.

Cleaness/Sureness/Edge Quality: Edge to his FS. It can be hard to dissociate technical errors on elements when evaluating PCS but it must. Despite the name cleaness/sureness, this has actually nothing to do with falling or stepping out of an element (e.g. jump).

NO. No, no, no, no, no. Every edge and every movement a skater makes is part of their Choreography and their display of Skating Skills. The program and the skater's ability does not suddenly stop when a jump or another technical element happens. Everything is part of a whole. If a skater shows poor edging as a result of a bad jump exit, then it must be accounted for within the assessment.

 

[skatinginbc]

The fact that a FS is much longer than a SP often gives skaters more opportunity to demonstrate skills that they otherwise didn't have time to show in a packed SP, hence, quite often, the PCS will go up in the FS vs. SP.

Interesting theory. To test the hypothesis, I used all the data from this year's ISU GP competitions so far and the results are as follows:
Men's short program skating skills: Mean = 6.98514, Standard Deviation = 0.82103
Men's long program skating skills: Mean = 7.02405, Standard Deviation = 0.84173
p = 0.35025

Women's short program skating skills: Mean = 6.41128, Standard Deviation = 0.70831
Women's long program skating skills: Mean = 6.57821, Standard Deviation = 0.75841
p = 0.01736

Conclusions: The difference in SS scores between men's short and long is statistically insignificant, although it is significant for women (about 0.16 difference).

 

[wallylutz]

Interesting theory. To test the hypothesis, I used all the data from this year's ISU GP competitions so far and the results are as follows:
Men's short program skating skills: Mean = 6.98514, Standard Deviation = 0.82103
Men's long program skating skills: Mean = 7.02405, Standard Deviation = 0.84173
p = 0.35025

Women's short program skating skills: Mean = 6.41128, Standard Deviation = 0.70831
Women's long program skating skills: Mean = 6.57821, Standard Deviation = 0.75841
p = 0.01736

Conclusions: The difference in SS scores between men's short and long is statistically insignificant, although it is significant for women (about 0.16 difference).

Perhaps you should expand your pool of data to include the GP results from the last 3 years and see what gives. Do a separate one for ISU Championships (GPF Final, Europeans, 4CC and Worlds but exclude Olympics) and compare. Please let us know what you find.

 

[skatinginbc]

Perhaps you should expand your pool of data to include the GP results from the last 3 years and see what gives. Do a separate one for ISU Championships (GPF Final, Europeans, 4CC and Worlds but exclude Olympics) and compare. Please let us know what you find.

The beauty of hypothesis testing with a t-statistic is that I don't have to know the population parameters. If the preliminary result looks promising, then there might be an incentive for me to expand the sample size. But the result did not appear to have either a practical significance or a statistical significance. So, well, I'll leave it for others who are willing to spend a great deal of their precious time on this.

 

[Violet Bliss]

A trivia: All three Men on TEB podium were born in the same year.

Brezina - March 30,1990
Song - August 9, 1990
Chan - December 31, 1990

Also, all TEB 2011 champions are exactly the same as at SC.

 

[Art&Sport]

A trivia: All three Men on TEB podium were born in the same year.

Brezina - March 30,1990
Song - August 9, 1990
Chan - December 31, 1990

Also, all TEB 2011 champions are exactly the same as at SC.

Thanks for those interesting dates/ numbers SkateFiguring -- a lot more interesting than the eye-glazing stuff the posters before you have been spewing out. Wow, Brezina is older than Song by 4 months and about 8 or 9 days (pls help me out math whizzes) and older than Chan by 9 months and 1 day (correct?). I wonder if that gives Brezina any kind of edge with the judges? But, oh I forgot, Chan is the one with the holier than thou edges.

 

[jettasian]

Thanks for those interesting dates/ numbers SkateFiguring -- a lot more interesting than the eye-glazing stuff the posters before you have been spewing out. Wow, Brezina is older than Song by 4 months and about 8 or 9 days (pls help me out math whizzes) and older than Chan by 9 months and 1 day (correct?). I wonder if that gives Brezina any kind of edge with the judges? But, oh I forgot, Chan is the one with the holier than thou edges.

We all know you don't like Chan. No need every opportunity to make your point cross.

 

[skatinginbc]

I agree with Jettasian. Bringing up Chan's "holier than thou edges" sounds sarcastic--simply a bad joke.

 

[Art&Sport]

I agree with Jettasian. Bringing up Chan's "holier than thou edges" sounds sarcastic--simply a bad joke.

And nobody's laughing, understandably. You know what, the judges make me do it guys, and that's a fact.

 

[Bluebonnet]

Victory Ceremony - Men:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK6dpslhy5o