Men's Short Program, Fri. 11/18 at 9 am EST

[Art&Sport]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. What I was saying was the fact that you tend to put artistic skaters over tech-strong skaters was different from what the judges actually do. Bring some detailed numbers, so we could discuss them. Otherwise, it sounds baseless, especially with those reputation and politics accusations throwing around.

I wouldn't put Chan into artistic skaters category. And I agree that he doesn't have the best artistry in the world. But I very much agree with what Ilovefigures said. What is artistry? How do you judge artistry in PCS? According to the breakdowns in the 5 categories in PCS, Chan did well in general. He is a well rounded skater, better than artistic skaters who are often weak technically, such as Rippon; and better than pure technical skaters who are very much lack of artistic abilities, such as Song. It is baseless to put Chan and Song in the same group on artistry and seperated only by "posing" skills. (Yes, you did say superior blade work. But as you yourself said before, that doesn't belong to artistry.) The way you assess his skills was as if he has little or no artistry. That was why I say that Chan has good artistry, not the best, but very considerable. It was just the artistry you don't like.

Enjoy the skaters you love, Bluebonnet. If you want to know what artistry is in figure skating, see my below response. Yes, since art is subjective, it is difficult to judge, and that is why PCS scores are so manipulable. No argument that Chan is not as poor in presentation skills as some skaters. He just does not excel in that area, despite his great ss making many feel that he does. These are my opinions. No, I do not feel Patrick Chan has "good artistry," nor do I think that he has "considerable artistry." Patrick will be 21 next month and he still has time to mature and further develop that aspect of his skating, hopefully, since it seems pretty soon the judges will declare he's already master of the universe! It's figure skating, so enjoy who you prefer. Debate is a huge part of figure skating.

...

You keep talking about artistry but you never back up with facts. Besides, the word artistry is not mentioned anywhere in the rules, and therefore no one is judged on artistry. The thing is, what is artistic to you might not be artistic to some, and vice verca. This has all got to do with cultural differences, age differences, educational differences, etc etc.. The judges are marking the PCS by a set of criteria, and it is up to the skater to demonstrate as many of these criteria's as they can during the time frame they have. If you look at all these criterias, I can guarantee you it will make you better understand why the PC are given the way they are. I am not saying you have to agree with the result, but at least it might give you an idea of why it is the way it is.

And btw, the judges are NOT ranking the skaters. The techinal panel decides the difficulty of each element seperatly, and so do the judges with their GOE. They mark the quality of each individual element. If you look at the protocol from this event, you can see that Chan was punished for the mistake he did by the maximum amount of deduction. That does not mean he is supposed to get punished on the rest, which he did well.

ILoveFigures, do you really? I wish they would bring them back as a separate competition.

In regard to artistry in figure skating or in any endeavor, "facts" have nothing to do with emotion, imagination, beauty. Just as I mentioned to someone in another thread -- check out video clips of the great artist/ athletes who have graced the sport of figure skating, if you want to gain some sense of artistry on ice. The word can be looked up in the dictionary, but the feelings evoked by Janet Lynn, Toller Cranston, Matt Savoie, and Dai and Jeremy this season are indefinable, indescribable, unable to be contained or captured exclusively but the sheer artistry of their performances can be viewed inexhaustibly, and felt and experienced and perceived in different ways by different people. I don't care who "wins" GP final or Worlds, I only know that Dai and Jeremy have won my heart this season, and they win it practically every time they take the ice.

Yes the word "artistry" is not in the rules, thank god. I guess the ISU is at least smart enough to know that art can not be codified. They refer to "presentation" instead. One of the reasons why figure skating will always be a difficult sport to judge is because of the "artistic" nature of it which is part of the sport's very essence, and art is a subjective experience. That is why there will always be debate and controversy. I feel that the IJS system has complicated the judging process even further. Unfortunately, IJS was created by the ISU in a rushed manner mainly to protect judges and to pacify the IOC. The ISU has been trying to make IJS work ever since, and the process of trying to fix it (pun intended) and make it work will continue far into the future. Meanwhile, IJS is here to stay and its probably a lot of fun and a blast for those who love numbers and protocols and enjoy lecturing other fans and talking about GOEs, PCS, TES, technical panels, etc. in order to "back up" their perceptions and opinions, or to just have lively CoP-fest conversations.

Of course 6.0 was imperfect as well, but there may have been a way to improve that system without throwing it out completely, but that would have taken too much time and thought, and the ISU was in a hurry to implement and enforce. The irony is that the ISU should have tried to work on improving the judging a long time before 2002. Because the ISU is slow to change, it has been brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century, still holding on to antiquated attitudes and corrupt politics. The IJS system does not eliminate politics, nor prevent corruption. It simply prevents detection of politics and corruption, and thereby avoids scandal. All systems are corrupt, and demand strict adherence, and are ultimately ineffective, despite their mandated power. I don't think every judge is dishonest, or that the system doesn't work in some ways, or that the scoring is always wrong. The scoring is just very complicated and doesn't always make sense, plus it is not as exciting in the kiss n' cry anymore.

Who said Chan needs to be "punished"?


Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Albert Einstein

 

[Buttercup]

Florent Amodio: Oh, did Morosov misread this season or what? Right off the bat, we have an atrocious costume. Then comes that ridiculous take on “Summertime” (“Summertime” without Louis Armstrong’s sonorous trumpet is like Canadian winter with no snow. Doesn’t logically compute). The French federation and Stannick Jeannette need to stage an intervention stat – the choreography is bland, the interpretation mediocre and the ego overwhelming.

Chafik Besseghier: Okay, so that landing on the quad was just cool. Yeah it was an error, but I actually thought it was very neat and made a cool on ice picture. Bonus points for that. Boring choice of music, though, even with his obvious attack. It’s interesting to suppose – if Brian Joubert retires at the end of the season (or before then) Chafik is probably next in line (after Amodio).

Amodio - I vote for that intervention, ASAP. But Florent likes working with Morozov and actually fought with the FFSG to be allowed to continue doing so.

Chafik was so good in the SP at last year's TEB... I'm hoping for better skates from him in the future. Did you know he only started skating at age 12? And I think you were the one who mentioned a while ago how diverse team France is - Chafik definitely qualifies in that regard, and I hope seeing skaters of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds will be inspiring to younger kids and get them interested in skating.

I heard an EuroSport commentator saying that he felt Chan's high score was given somewhat based on who he was, not on how he skated. The professional opinion made me suspect that there might indeed be such thing as "cushion", or at least I know there is a voice out there from a skating expert thinking Chan did not deserve what he got.

Out of curiosity, do you consider it a professional opinion when the EuroSport commentators proclaimed Patrick an artist at his last World's performance?

Chris Howath is the only ES commentator who really knows what he's talking about outside of ice dance, and even he has some moments.

During the 2010/2011 season, the level four footwork season had a base value of 3.90, and that has remained unchanged. However, the GOEs one can get lower now. Last season, +3 across the board would net the skater three extra points, for a total of 6.90 (I believe the points were straight +1, +2, and +3, directly corresponding to the GOEs given) . Now, +3 across the board would get only 2.1 points (total = 6.00), +2 scores 1.4 and +1 scores 0.7 (so essentially a 30% reduction in possible GOE earned).

That sounds fair to me - high level step sequences have a BV like triples, so it's only fair that their GOEs are like triples, too.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

The problem with the competition was the choices of music. It was dreadful with the arms flying about.
Patrick's hair didn't bother me but his skating was far from its best.
Nan Song did everthing methodical, and quite slow.
Michal's choice of music was dreadful. He should never use it again.
Adam should realize he is not a Russian skater.
Poor Nobi losing his elegant jumps

 

[ILoveFigures]

I am still wondering why Adam's 3 lutz didn't get higher GOE's; perhaps someone who understands scoring better than I can help here,

Break between steps and the actual jump.

 

[Jaana]

In my opinion the judges got it right:

1. Chan
2. Song

Chan is a brilliant skater (his edges, etc.) and he has won the WC. That title gives a skater reputation points (this is figure skating, LOL!!!). That should not happen, but it always has = as long as I have watched figure skating (since 1964). Chan´s way of floating on the ice really effortlessly has been noticed by the judges already when he did not have the titles, yet.

I would say that Song did not quite get the PCS he would have deserved. He needs to medal a bit more and skate really well in 2012 Worlds. After that his PCS score will go up, I believe.

Many sp programs were not shown on our tv, but one of them was that of Rippon. It is a beautiful program, but Rippon looks very slow and also hesitant before the 3 axel. I like curly hair, but his looks a total mess.

 

[dorispulaski]

I found it interesting that one poster thought that having untidy hair meant a person was disrespectful to the audiences/people in general.

When people's hair is untidy, it has nothing whatever to do with you, and has a lot to do with them.
1. Were they depressed or ill this morning?
2. Do they have fine hair that no matter how much gel and spray they put on it, a gust of wind turns it into a haystack?
3. Do they run their hands through their hair when they feel confused or upset?
4. How many cowlicks do they have? (My dad had 6 and it was very difficult to get his hair tidy. The only solution was to part it dead down the center, so he always looked like the 1930's as to hair).

and so on.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

That sounds fair to me - high level step sequences have a BV like triples, so it's only fair that their GOEs are like triples, too.

I'm not sure it's unfair, though given how difficult a level four step sequence is to do and how few of the men actually do it, it's odd that it's base value is lower than a triple toe, something all senior men are capable of doing.

 

[skatinginbc]

I found it interesting that one poster thought that having untidy hair meant a person was disrespectful to the audiences/people in general.

When people's hair is untidy, it has nothing whatever to do with you, and has a lot to do with them.
1. Were they depressed or ill this morning?
2. Do they have fine hair that no matter how much gel and spray they put on it, a gust of wind turns it into a haystack?
3. Do they run their hands through their hair when they feel confused or upset?
4. How many cowlicks do they have? (My dad had 6 and it was very difficult to get his hair tidy. The only solution was to part it dead down the center, so he always looked like the 1930's as to hair).

and so on.

I was making an example of "bashing" to contrast with my original remark about his untidy hair, which was not bashing at all in my mind. There is a big difference between the two: One is simply stating a fact (Untidy hair distracts my attention); the other is harsh and gratuitous. And the point I tried to make was: The mere complaining about his hair should not be automatically interpreted as "bashing". It depends on how it is said and what logic it is based on.

 

[Tonichelle]

I don't think that's true. I don't think some (such as me) are trying to convince others to love Patrick. It's more like defending some ridiculous accusation that's far from the truth. As they always say, hater's gonna hate.

If there IS "hating" and "bashing" going on, report it.
Feeding the fire drags down an otherwise decent discussion.
Antagonizing people just turns more off to what you're saying. Coming into a thread with a chip on your shoulder makes every critique sound like a bash. ALL general skating boards are just as "harsh" in their critiques of the skaters. We are not immune to this.

 

[Mathman]

It's the 2011 edition of the Kim-Asada Internet wars. Patrick Chan's hairdo, yea or nay?

 

[Tonichelle]

It's the 2011 edition of the Kim-Asada Internet wars. Patrick Chan's hairdo, yea or nay?

or the Evan and Johnny Wars

or the MK and all the women in the world Wars...

or the Scott Hamilton and Scott Cramer wars?

 

[seniorita]

or Kramer vs Kramer war?