PC Scores - Are they evenly judged for each skater?
- Thread starter Joesitz (RIP)
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Interesting.... The main Skate Canada page does not list these requirements and implies that anyone can become a judge... I know for a fact that this wasn't always the case as I looked into a number of years ago. This is generally a good thing though as Joe pointed out a skater will definitely have a better understanding of what is involved and the difficulty. Skate Canada seems to have brought the entry requirements in line with those for being a coach.
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- Jan 21, 2010
The first stage is the Primary clinic for which the minimum entrance standards are as listed above and which qualifies you, on successful completion of the exam and the supervised evaluation, to judge at the pre-preliminary and preliminary levels; then there is a Juvenile Clinic, Novice Clinic ... and each discipline has their own judging qualification stream. However, the additional "qualifier" is that you cannot be a coach and judge. You can be a TS and coach ... but that's another discussion. There are further restrictions, for those who are curious, regarding ethical disqualifications for who you may judge which judges are expected to follow, and all must sign a Code of Ethics in terms of their judging practice.
It is similar, unfortunately, and it's nothing new. Multiple choice, spelling,true and false tests are like speed skating. If it's wrong, it's wrong, if it's right, it's right. I love those tests, they are easy to grade and nobody can charge favoritism. But they are not well-liked with the education trendies! They want everything to be some kind of a project now.
Any time you have to grade a paper or a project, subjectivity comes in. They are never perfect, and you have to decide what's a big mistake costing a lot of points, or a little mistake that's ignored or has a smaller penalty. Which one should you send to the science fair, the boring project with the beautiful posterboard? Or the interesting project with the messy lettering? How much should you take off for spelling errors in an otherwise good paper, a lot or a little? You have a set of criteria, but you still have to exercise judgment.
Figure skating is very similar. If someone a--did the hardest jump (axel or quad) b--didn't underrotate or take off on the wrong edge c--had beautiful musicality and d--didn't fall, well, there would be no problem. That person would win. But you rarely see that. In the last Olympics, the gold medalists were clean but the silver medalists did the harder jumps, for example. Patrick Chan has such superior skating skills, but can't stay on his feet
Rachael rarely falls but she's not graceful. Someone has to decide what's more important, falling, gracefulness, edge take off, etc.And I think a top figure skating judge could hurt someone a lot more than a teacher if he/she doesn't do a good job. I have 2 or 4 marking periods and probably over 100 grades per student before the final grade is due. You have a lot of time to save yourself from summer school! But a judge choosing to give a medal to one skater over another in the Olympics can affect who gets endorsements and contracts, based on one performance on one day.
I know I wouldn't want to be a judge. Well, OK, I would, but it I realize what responsibility it must be.
That's true, in terms of how the results of one or two days can affect the skaters' earning potential for the rest of their lives. Which has more to do with how many opportunities the world does or doesn't offer for skating champions than it does about how the champions are chosen.
But at least, judges are no longer making one decision in terms of whom to give which medal.
They're giving 13 (last year) or 12 different scores to each skater in the short program and 18 (men) or 17 (women) different scores in the long program, and other people are making other decisions about the scoring, only some of which the judges are aware of at the time. So they don't necessarily know who their scores are giving each medal to while they're awarding those scores.
Sometimes it's obvious who's going to win, if the best skater also completes the hardest content with the best performance and was already ahead after the short program.
But if the skaters are approximately equal overall, one a little better in this area, another better in that, the judges probably don't even know when they send their marks who's going to end up on top.
E.g., in Vancouver, I bet some of the judges thought Plushenko's quad, plus his lead from the short, plus the long program PCS they gave him that were close to Lysacek's, were going to be enough for the win and were surprised (pleasantly or unpleasantly, depending on their preferences) when the results turned out in Lysacek's favor.
I think that judging is a separate skill from performing. Coaching/teaching is yet a third discipline. John Archibald Wheeler was the greatest teacher of physicists of the twentieth century, but not himself a great physicist. (He was the Frank Carroll of physicists.)
This is off-topic but I have to say that John Archibald Wheeler was actually a great physicist. It is true that he was a great teacher but he himself was truly one of the greatest physicists. He was the main figure who developed the entire field of general relativity as one of major research areas in physics during 1950s. (By the way, he is the guy who named the famous words "black hole" and "wormhole".) He was also a pioneer in quantum gravity with the celebrated Wheeler-DeWitt equation describing the wave function of the Universe. He introduced the S-matrix which is one of the most fundamental objects in physics and was also a pioneer in nuclear fission along with Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi. Geometrodynamics, the anthropic principle, delayed choice in double slit experiment,... well, I really cannot summarize all of his important contributions in this short reply. What I like most from his many famous quotes is his first moral principle: "Never make a calculation until you know the answer!"
Just regarding GOE, I read it on a website, in case of jump, there are 6 elements being evaluated for GOE; foot steps or choreo before entering, speed on entering, posture in air, height of jump, landing and flow through, if I recall them correctly.
A skater has to execute two elements in quality for +1, four for +2 and all six for +3.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
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- Jun 3, 2008
What is the difference between ISU judges and International judges? I didnt get that.
what does this mean?
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- Jun 21, 2003
There are two levels of judges' certification by the ISU. If you reach the level called "International Judge" then you are eligible to be assigned to events like the Nebelhorn trophy or Skate Canada.
After that you get some more training, etc., and you rise to the category "ISU judge." Then you can judge "ISU championships" like Worlds and the Olympics.
what does this mean?
Here is the full quote.
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- Jun 3, 2008
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- Jul 11, 2003
Most of those attributes should be judged by the PC scores. A jump is a jump and it contains the elements of Number of Air Rotations; and Landings with Flow out. Anything else to consider like URs, steps into a jump, speed, posture are how the jump was performed and should appear in the PC scoring system. I don't think skaters should be judged whether they jump higher than buildings. Landings and Flow throughs should be judged as Technique
All this would be accountable if the scoring of individual elements were on a scale of 0-10 which would include skaters meeting the standards of the definitions for each element. The rest belongs in PC and show quality. JMO.
Well, the last abbr "JMO" kinda comforts me a little bit while the rest of your arguments, a bit assertive IMO, made me somewhat uncomfortable.
I believe you know what GOE stands for. Grade Of Execution.
Every performance, especially in sports and art, has quality differences. What seems same are not always same. There are almost always many details in each performance to be scrutinized.
I don't know what is wrong with evaluating a component with its quality evaluation immediately attached to it.
I think PCS has its own place for general skating skill, music interpretation, transition and etc.
There are over 13, correct me if I am wrong, different components in case of LP. A skater might, pretty certainly, perform some component well, some bad and some so so.
IMO, FS scores would be even less credible if judges give out just a single number as score for various qualities of such many components.
PS: GOE is part of TES, technical elements score, thus landing and flow through are indeed judged as technique.
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- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
^^^
All that could be included in a 0-10 score. It is in all other Single Sports but not Figure Skating. Why nitpick the Tech with 3 levels? There could be and are more.
And we all are on the same wave length of Artistry (which is not mentioned in the Rules). Quality is a preference in life. The PC stands for Program Component, as you know not a performance component.
One look at a performance can bring critics to many disagreements.
All that could be included in a 0-10 score. It is in all other Single Sports but not Figure Skating. Why nitpick the Tech with 3 levels? There could be and are more.
And we all are on the same wave length of Artistry (which is not mentioned in the Rules). Quality is a preference in life. The PC stands for Program Component, as you know not a performance component.
One look at a performance can bring critics to many disagreements.
I don't think what really matter is the scale, 1 to 10 or -3 to +3.
It is more about whether to score various components in a single score or in each separate evaluation.
I personally think the latter is more advanced. IMO, why follow other sports while FS has a better system?
I have a BIG BIG doubt that everyone has the same wave length of artistry.
And quality is definitely not a preference in life!
It takes many completion in details to produce quality.
I don't know how old you are. Please don't be offended but you sound pretty young, not over 30, I think.
It takes efforts to produce quality in any aspect of life. It definitely is not about preference.
And I am not so sure if PCS is named properly to represent what it acutally meant. Anyway, what PCS is about is clearly declared. Why bother to argue with the name?
Disagreements among experts should not be regarded same as widely open disagreements.
Their gaps are normally narrowed and refined by their expertises and experiences, although sometime contaminated by politics and money, I have to say.
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