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Mens SP

I think there are a lot of people who still don't understand that we have a new judging system.

Under the old judging system the question was, who skated best. Under the new judging system the question is, who scored the most points.

In this contest, Kozuka and Chan skated best (quality), Joubert and Lysacek got the most points (quantity.) Therefore Joubert and Lysacek are leading.

Oh, we know that they got most points. I still doubt that they should, though.
 
Under the old judging system the question was, who skated best. Under the new judging system the question is, who scored the most points.

But sadly it seems that the judges are still trying to use their marks to put people where they thing they should be. There is no way that Joubert should recieved more points for that faulty jump combo than a clean 3Lz-3T. Just no way - the judges haven't applied the GOE properly - that is wrong.

His costume?

Mroz gave an excellent performance for a skater at his level. :clap:

And you'd see that in the rest of the paragraph that you chose not to include in the quote:p, i explained my reasoning about his program being poor IMO (the costume was just the ...what's the opposite of icing on the cake? ;))

Ant
 
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Therefore I do not understand this constant ranting through the whole season that Patrick was hugely overscored all the time.

He was overscored in the long program at France. He should not have beaten Kozuka in the long. He was overscored in the long program at Skate Canada, he should not have won there. And he was overscored big time at Four Continents he deserved to win but his point totals were ridiculous.
 
I watched the short last night. Honestly, I don't see how Joubert was in first. He didn't have clean jumps and quite frankly I thought that his artistry was lacking. Evan was clean and had great artistry and his program was by far much better then Joubert. Was it the hip shaking crap that Joubert did in the beginning of the running man type junk he did during the program? I just don't get it?
Okay, Kozuka I get, Chan I get - Verner I get. But in what world / forum did we end up where Evan Lysacek suddenly has the greatest artistry? I think that both Lysacek and Joubert rely on their "special effects" - frantic flailing and uncoordinated movements for Lysacek, hip movements and flirting for Joubert. They draw the audience in (yes, Joubert does that - perhaps not here, probably not a big surprise as a Frenchman in the USA, directly skating after the homecrowd guy).

Neither of them has the elegance or "artistry" and especially not the musicality of Kozuka, Chan etc. They have both a high performance level, decent skating skills (though I prefer Joubert here), crowd-pleasing choreography. And Bolero is just as rhythmic as Safri Duo, it's like the Safri Duo of a different generation.
 
But sadly it seems that the judges are still trying to use their marks to put people where they thing they should be. There is no way that Joubert should recieved more points for that faulty jump combo than a clean 3Lz-3T. Just no way - the judges haven't applied the GOE properly - that is wrong.
Is this in reference to Lysacek? Because AFAIK, with GOEs taken into account, his combination scored higher than Joubert's I believe it was in the LA Times but can't check right now.

ITA with Medusa's point about the different styles - we're comparing not just apples and oranges but also peaches, strawberries and the occasional kiwi fruit.
 
Perhaps the judges are in favor of sport side of the figure skating over so called artistry now. Or perhaps they were promoting the perspective of the sport side all along.:cool:
 
I don't know how many of you watched the main CBC network's men's SP broadcast very late last night, but Kurt and Tracy made a few more interesting points about the judging which I don't think have been discussed here yet:

1. Brian won the SP on his artistic mark, not his jumps. Brian actually lost points because of his mistake on the quad.

2. The judging panel was very inexperienced and might have, in Tracy's words, "bought Joubert's charismatic approach."

3. There were no American, Canadian, Russian, French or Japanese judges on the panel, so whatever the panel's reasons were for judging the event as they did, at least national bias doesn't seem to be one of them. :p I was especially shocked to hear this since I can't remember a skating competition where none of the countries with top skaters in the event had judges on the panel...at least not when we actually got to see the judges' nationalities under 6.0.

At least I'm glad to hear there will be a new judging panel for the LP...and hopefully they'll be a little more experienced and their decisions will be slightly less controversial!

CBC also interviewed Patrick after the SP, and he said while he was surprised at how low he was scored compared to his marks during the rest of the season, he also said maybe he was marked a little higher than he should have been earlier in the season. Now that's the kind of classy response I'm used to hearing from Patrick! :agree:

I'm also happy Vaughn Chipeur skated so well at his first Worlds, but I wonder if he, too, deserves to be a little higher up than he is right now. It's hard to tell without seeing any of the skaters directly ahead or behind him.

How did Jeremy Abbott skate? The main CBC network chacked him and didn't show his placement...but even if they did, I'd still wonder whether his placement reflected his performance based on all the controversy surrounding the top 5.
 
The thing is I agree Joubert could use more choregraphy/Transitions. He's capable of more...

But I'd also rather see a little more simple choregraphy and harder jumps than harder choregraphy and less jumps. If you are going to make a "it's a competition argument." I don't want transitions at the expense of quads and triple axels. You don't see a lot of people falling on transitions or their choregraphy.

My issue is when people complain about the concept of Joubert's program. While I think his program is a bit empty, I think the concept works well. I think skating would be very, very boring if everyone skated like Chan and Buttle who are more introverted skaters.

I think that the showman skaters bring something to the table too. I like that in this program Joubert doesn't take himself soo seriously and has fun with the audience and makes them laugh.
 
Perhaps the judges are in favor of sport side of the figure skating over so called artistry now. Or perhaps they were promoting the perspective of the sport side all along.:cool:

My impression -- reserving the right to be wrong, of course -- is that by and large the judges are not trying to favor anything in particular. I think they are trying to judge the contest in accordance with the existing rules and conventions, let the chips fall as they may.

The problem is, the rules and the conventions (that is, what is written in the ISU documents versus the way judging panels actually score) are not always the same, especially with respect to program component scores.
 
CBC also interviewed Patrick after the SP, and he said while he was surprised at how low he was scored compared to his marks during the rest of the season, he also said maybe he was marked a little higher than he should have been earlier in the season.
I just wrote about this a couple of hours ago: It seems the main point of contention is the component marks. But Chan's PCS were actually well within his range in the GP events, which went from 36.05 to 37.15 - so I'm not sure why he was so surprised. The only place where he got PCS over 38 was at 4CC. Brian was over 38 at CoR and at Euros, though I feel he skated his SP better at both of those events. And as others have noted, his score was also similar to what he got for similar performances (excluding 4CC).

I'd rather not get into the rest of it, though, because technically I'm supposed to be working, not discussing skaters ;).The one thing I do want to add is that I'm not crazy about Tracy's suggestions that the judges somehow lacked the experience to appreciate Chan, and were swayed by Brian's crowd appeal - which is an amazingly condescending thing to say.

Also, what bekalc said :agree:. We want diverse styles, don't we? Then let's make sure the system rewards different approaches to skating and program construction.

Seniorita, I once read a collection of short stories in graphic novel format, and one was about an evil watermelon. Seriously! He was! And none of the skaters are evil, AFAIK :biggrin:.
 
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I think there are a lot of people who still don't understand that we have a new judging system.

Under the old judging system the question was, who skated best. Under the new judging system the question is, who scored the most points.

In this contest, Kozuka and Chan skated best (quality), Joubert and Lysacek got the most points (quantity.) Therefore Joubert and Lysacek are leading.

Under CoP judging, yes. Joubert got 10.6 points for his bad quad combo. (Don't blame me. ;) )

I don't think it's so much a question of fans not understanding the system. I think it's that there are quite a few who don't agree with it. There's a difference.
 
Okay, Kozuka I get, Chan I get - Verner I get. But in what world / forum did we end up where Evan Lysacek suddenly has the greatest artistry? I think that both Lysacek and Joubert rely on their "special effects" - frantic flailing and uncoordinated movements for Lysacek, hip movements and flirting for Joubert. They draw the audience in (yes, Joubert does that - perhaps not here, probably not a big surprise as a Frenchman in the USA, directly skating after the homecrowd guy).

Neither of them has the elegance or "artistry" and especially not the musicality of Kozuka, Chan etc. They have both a high performance level, decent skating skills (though I prefer Joubert here), crowd-pleasing choreography. And Bolero is just as rhythmic as Safri Duo, it's like the Safri Duo of a different generation.


I said that evean has great artistry last night....but I didn't say that he has the greatest...he was just much better last night then he usually is!!
 
But sadly it seems that the judges are still trying to use their marks to put people where they thing they should be. There is no way that Joubert should recieved more points for that faulty jump combo than a clean 3Lz-3T. Just no way - the judges haven't applied the GOE properly - that is wrong.
Ant

Thank you, and agreed! :agree:
 
My issue is when people complain about the concept of Joubert's program. While I think his program is a bit empty, I think the concept works well. I think skating would be very, very boring if everyone skated like Chan and Buttle who are more introverted skaters.

I think that the showman skaters bring something to the table too. I like that in this program Joubert doesn't take himself soo seriously and has fun with the audience and makes them laugh.

Oh, I am totally pro different styles! Showman?? No problem. But an interesting one.. :cool: You can be a showman and present a complete program (even to a very light music) and have great choreography. Therefore I have a problem with PCS scoring. And it is not even a big problem, because all top guys should get very tight scores, but Joubert not being in the 1st, and definitely no 4 points above Verner.
 
So much thread to read, so little time...i am still doing time penance for yesterday's offline sloth....i am addicted to men's figure skating...i think i need to join a support group for that....maybe start one, MFSA, Men's Figure Skating Anonymous. We'll stand up and confess, "I am a Men's Figure Skating junkie.". That'd be a start.

I so often agree with certain posters in this thread, that I am tempted to relax, sit back, and just let them speak for me. (I am talkin' about *you*, Mathman, and a few others lol).

I watched breathlessly, (and foodlessly) not posting at all, during the latter part of the competition, not wanting to miss a second of it. I tried to make notes, but that would cause me to miss stuff, so I mostly gave it up. I was viewing on a very tiny screen image, and the music went bye-bye after a while, giving me only a buzz, but not in a good way lol.

I have done some thinking about the ISU agenda since the event. Judging from various clues, I surmise that they *do* want Figure Skating to remain a sport, not just a theatrical performance on ice. I remember things from years back, ancient history, you know, pre-CoP. We might label the eras as they do B.C.E., etc., in discussing ancient history. How about PC (Pre-CoP) or even PCP? The new era would be the CoP era, which we could dub CPO for CoP-Out, or even CPO3, in loving memory of the Star Wars film series. Just a thought, a momentary madness for your delectation.

My thought is: I think the ISU does not want the quad to die out completely in competition. There, I have said it. Patrick Chan made a pre-competition declaration about what he considered the future of the sport, and Brian Joubert had already made his opinion known. Brian is a World Champion, so his opinion carries some weight, but ultimately, the ISU decides all our fates. Right now it has us bean-counting. Tomorrow, who knows what it will thrust upon us? We have it easy; the skaters have it hard. Whatever the ISU decides, the skaters have to go along with it or give up competing. Quod erat demonstrandum. Yup, yup, yup.

Meanwhile, I recall in the PCP, the head of the ISU ("same as he ever was"), the widely loved (I jest) Ottavio Cinquanta, instructing the judges not to be influenced by whether or not they liked the music the skater used for his program, that the music giving them pleasure or not, should be irrelevant to the marks given, and that only the successful interpretation of whatever music the skater used, should count. That has apparently gone the way of the Dodo. Now, the ISU says that the skater's relationship with the audience should count. That is self-contradictory with the aforesaid former ISU instruction, since it rewards the rapidly-becoming-infamous home advantage, and also panders to how enjoyable the majority of people present, find the music itself. Not only are they giving points for choreography itself now, even though the choreography is not the skater's creation; they are also, in effect, giving points for the musician! Who is competing here? I thought it was the skater....

I have more to say, but I fear I test your patience.

ETA: Another good reason for ignoring the audience's reaction: the judges have special equipment that enables them to see exactly what the blade does; the live audience only gets a brief impression, mostly from far away.
 
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Oh, I am totally pro different styles! Showman?? No problem. But an interesting one.. :cool: You can be a showman and present a complete program (even to a very light music) and have great choreography. Therefore I have a problem with PCS scoring. And it is not even a big problem, because all top guys should get very tight scores, but Joubert not being in the 1st, and definitely no 4 points above Verner.
But "interesting" is subjective. How do you measure a concept that can't be quantified? Even great choreo is somewhat subjective. The ISU is trying to find a way, but it's still a work in progress.

But hey, at least we are united in our love for Tomas. :cool:
 
In terms of it being an athletic contest, I have no problem with Joubert being in the lead.

As for which performance I liked the best, that would be Kozuka's, no contest.

Figure skating is not just athletic contests, fortunately. It is equally weighted among technical challenges and artistic appeals. I hope this is still the case.

It is apparent that after his performance, even Joubert himself was visibly disappointed.
 
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