This is a pretty good topic for a new separate thread--what programs to show someone to get them interested in skating. :yay: Just a suggestion!
Plushenko: Chan Does Not Deserve World Title
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This is a pretty good topic for a new separate thread--what programs to show someone to get them interested in skating. :yay: Just a suggestion!
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- Jun 27, 2012
OK. He did one little mistake.
The whole point should be if Chan's PCS for his LP is OK. I get it from many posters above who think the PCS of Chan is justified since if he is clean apparently he should got all 10s over the board. Which of course others would not agree completely.
IMO, if Chan won with 7s or low 8s in some of his PCS for his LP (some treatment to all other contenders' PCS according to their performances), probably we would not argue so much here. The problem for the COP (especially for PCS part) is just as what Frank pointed out, there is no clear standard for giving out PCS. But I guess since it is so subjective, maybe there will never be a clear standard which can make everybody happen.
IMO, if Chan won with 7s or low 8s in some of his PCS for his LP (some treatment to all other contenders' PCS according to their performances), probably we would not argue so much here. The problem for the COP (especially for PCS part) is just as what Frank pointed out, there is no clear standard for giving out PCS. But I guess since it is so subjective, maybe there will never be a clear standard which can make everybody happen.
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- Jun 16, 2010
The mere suggestion one can even rationally argue that Chan should get all 10s in PCS if he were clean is proposterous. His performance, interpretation, and often choreography are far from perfection and the best ever seen in skating, even on his best day. The only thing he could arguably merit 10s on with a clean skate are skating skills. That suggestion though just hints at the whole problem with Chan's scores though and why he has the unwarranted 5 or 6 fall cushion on the field he does. Should Chan be the one who wins in the hypothetical everyone skates cleanly? Perhaps. Should Chan be 30-40 points ahead of everyone else (SP and LP combined) if everyone skates cleanly? Hell no. Is the Chan the best in every single aspect of skating, hence giving him that hypothetical 30-40 margin over all others had they all skated cleanly, hence where the 5-6 fall margin of error comes from? Again hell no. However the judges score him as if he is the absolute best in history in everything, jump quality, spins, footwork, skating skills, interpretation, line and style, musical sense, performance, combinations, whatever. So if you are scored as if you are the best in history at everything, of course you can fall many times and still be certain to win each time. The problem is that is not reality of his skating to begin with.
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- Sep 10, 2009
All these rants about Chan's skating skills as worthy 10s have no merit. He is like an elephant on blades- so heavy in gliding as if looking for the balance on each curve and scared to fall. When he falls, it seems logical and expected. The sounds of his falls is like a 100kg flopped. It's an unbearable torture to watch him life in the arena. There is simply no flying and no lightness. The only ones who do deserve 10s in SS among currently competing is Dai and Kozuka, and no one else.
Nr. 304 was my posting where I mentioned "educating a little bit":
http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...ve-World-Title&p=734121&viewfull=1#post734121
In my opinion a person enjoys of a sport more, if she/he has at least a little bit knowledge of it. Just some basics, a big picture, not way too many small details at one time.
Thanks so much to your postings Gkelly and CanadianSkaterGuy!!! That is the way I would go with a friend, too.
Any suggestions on how to make the written standards clearer?
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And careful, reserved skating almost all throughout. That certainly affects PCS too.
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- Nov 13, 2012
And careful, reserved skating almost all throughout. That certainly affects PCS too.
Isn't it funny how Chan's wins really always are the other guy's fault? Denis Ten doubled a jump and had "careful, reserved skating almost all throughout". Meanwhile Chan... ? Why do you not enumerate his flaws alongside and let's compare, shall we? I think the adage about the speck and log comes to mind here....
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- Jun 21, 2003
IMHO, here are the major problems with the IJS.
1. A skater can win the competition in the short program, robbing the long program of any interest or purpose.
2 The risk-reward ratio is out of balance. Risk-reward ought to go like this. If you take a big risk and it is successful, you win. If you take a big risk and you fail, you lose. You should not be able to take big risks, fail repeatedly, and win anyway.
3. The three performance components should not be tied so firmly to skating skills. If a skater exhibits fine blade work, deep edges, excellent speed, and busy feet, then that skater deserves strong SS and TR scores. If that same performance is marred by many flaws, then that skater's artistic components should tank appropriately.
Just my opinion. :yes:
1. A skater can win the competition in the short program, robbing the long program of any interest or purpose.
2 The risk-reward ratio is out of balance. Risk-reward ought to go like this. If you take a big risk and it is successful, you win. If you take a big risk and you fail, you lose. You should not be able to take big risks, fail repeatedly, and win anyway.
3. The three performance components should not be tied so firmly to skating skills. If a skater exhibits fine blade work, deep edges, excellent speed, and busy feet, then that skater deserves strong SS and TR scores. If that same performance is marred by many flaws, then that skater's artistic components should tank appropriately.
Just my opinion. :yes:
Under 2013 rules, and especially as it affects the elite men's competition.
It would be possible to preserve the concept of a code of points but assign the points in different ways that would avoid these problems, and no doubt encourage different ones.
That is true.
It is also true that a skater can win from 4th or 6th or 7th place without worrying about what order the other skaters she beats finish the long program in -- if she beats the short program leader in the long program by more than the leader beat her in the short, then she wins.
The fact that former tends to happen more often than the latter indicates that the balance between points available in the short and points available in the long is not currently calibrated to make the long program worth more. I think the main reason because although there are more opportunities to make mistakes in the long program, there are also more opportunities to make up for them with other skills.
If TPTB agreed that long programs should be more do-or-die, then it would be possible within the existing general framework to change the balance of elements between short and long programs and to change the severity of the penalties for failed elements in the long.
This is primarily true for the elite senior men, under the current scale of values, because triple axels and quads still earn significant points even when failed. When successful, they earn even more points, easily mitigating any points lost to mistakes on elements that started out with lower values to begin with.
This was less true ca. 2010 and before, and it remains less true in other disciplines and at lower levels.
Again, it would be possible -- although difficult in practice the way judges are currently assigned and trained -- to rewrite the criteria for Performance/Execution, Choreography, and Interpretation to disregard the quality of the skating and/or to penalize visible flaws more explicitly.
Personally, I think there is plenty of room within the existing general framework for improvement in the way the criteria for these components are written and the ways judges are trained to score them.
But I would be surprised if the ISU decided to rewrite the criteria for these components so thoroughly that actual skating skill would be completely irrelevant to these components, since they are after all part of a skating contest, not an interpretation-through-movement contest that just happens to take place on an ice surface with blades on the feet.
I also think that even if the rules were rewritten to explicitly encourage judges to penalize visible errors that interfere with appreciation of the performance, that would end up including some kinds of technical weaknesses that judges find disruptive but most viewers don't pay attention to in addition to those that fans tend to dwell on long after the skater and the judges' minds have moved on.
E.g., if a skater is breaking forward at the waist with each stroke and scratching on the toepicks while skating backward, the effect may be so much like nails on a chalkboard to the judges that they would penalize heavily under PE even without falls and stumbles. Whereas nonskaters might be more bothered by a fall or two in an otherwise well-skated program and, if watching on video, might not hear the scratching at all.
I.e., I do think it would be an improvement to explicitly encourage judges to reflect errors in these components. But I don't think that people whose prime interest is to evaluate skating and people whose prime interest is to enjoy error-free programs will always have a meeting of the minds on how much it is appropriate for a skater's artistic components to tank.
As a fan of FS after a loooong career in skating of 17 years, I agree with Plushenko that Chan doesn't "deserve" a world championship with that kind of performance. However, SOMEONE has to be crowned the champion if a competition takes place, so......
I would like to agree with Plushenko with different words .... In 2013, Patrick Chan's World title was won with an UNINSPIRING performance. Dare I say, a FORGETTABLE performance?
His title in 2013 will mean as much as Vladimir Kovolev's world title in 1977 ... who you say? When you say?
EXACTLY. Chan's performance and win has inspired NO ONE, including the fans.....
So I agree with Plushenko, but his statement is rhetorical only.
I would like to agree with Plushenko with different words .... In 2013, Patrick Chan's World title was won with an UNINSPIRING performance. Dare I say, a FORGETTABLE performance?
His title in 2013 will mean as much as Vladimir Kovolev's world title in 1977 ... who you say? When you say?
EXACTLY. Chan's performance and win has inspired NO ONE, including the fans.....
So I agree with Plushenko, but his statement is rhetorical only.
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- Aug 18, 2010
Haha! Great example! So PE does reflect it's value under the umbrella of SS, therefore, CH and IN must be considered in similar fashion. They are probably not interpreted by the judges exactly like how they are interpreted on a stage performance.
Do you think, gkelly, with your expertized views, that the judges should give away this way of judging, and go with the more generic interpretation on PE, CH, and IN?
If the answer is no, then there is only one way to overcome this conflict - to educate the public. In the meantime, it's equally important that the public should be willing to be educated.
Nor were they intended to be, given the way the criteria are written.
This question is very interesting to me.
In general I am very much in favor of educating the public in a variety of ways, starting with TV commentators who discuss skating skills with as much rigor as they analyze jumps, in an objective, balanced manner.
I think that there are ways of looking at performance that judges, and the people who write the official criteria, could learn from nonskaters who have a lot of experience with performing arts, as practitioners, trained critics/theorists, and spectators.
So I do think skating and skating judging would benefit from more public dialogue rather than keeping the decisions within a closed judging community. I'd like to brainstorm about possible ways to do this, in both directions.
But I don't think that a rubric that ignores skating technique in favor of only things everyone can see, e.g., "no falls is always better than any falls," would be appropriate.
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- Jun 21, 2003
I think I would rather see two program components instead of five. I think that Performance and Execution, Choreography and Composition, and Interpretation are so intertwined that it seems foolish to do the same thing three times.
Similarly with Skating Skills and Transitions.If you have good skating skills but don't display those skills in in-between moves, then what are the judges scoring? (It is interesting to me that Transitions are almost always the lowest of the five component scores, for every skater across the board. I think it is because this mark is the most objective of the five.)
But now, on the issue of whether good Skating Skills should automatically guarantee good performance components, I think that is more true of "skating skills" with a small S than with Skating Skills as defined by the IJS bullets. Obviously you have to be able to skate well in order to carry out your choreography and to interpret the music. but you also have to able to skate well to execute a triple flip.
If "Skating Skills" meant "skating skills," then that would be the only score that would be required -- whoever skates the best wins.
Similarly with Skating Skills and Transitions.If you have good skating skills but don't display those skills in in-between moves, then what are the judges scoring? (It is interesting to me that Transitions are almost always the lowest of the five component scores, for every skater across the board. I think it is because this mark is the most objective of the five.)
But now, on the issue of whether good Skating Skills should automatically guarantee good performance components, I think that is more true of "skating skills" with a small S than with Skating Skills as defined by the IJS bullets. Obviously you have to be able to skate well in order to carry out your choreography and to interpret the music. but you also have to able to skate well to execute a triple flip.
If "Skating Skills" meant "skating skills," then that would be the only score that would be required -- whoever skates the best wins.
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- Jun 21, 2003
Actually, the difference between factored placements and add-up-the-points may not be as extreme as it seems intuitively (to me). Here are the results using factored placements for the mens and ladies at 2013 worlds.
The names are listed in the order in which they finished under CoP scoring. Lowest factored placement wins under 6.0.
Chan 2.5
Ten 2.0
Fernandez 5.5
Hanyu 7.5
Reynolds 8.5
Takahashi 10
Aaron 10
Mura 10.5
Jpubert 12.5
Brezina 14
Kim 1.5
Kostner 4
Asada 5
Murakami 8.5
Wagner 8.5
Gold 9.5
Li 10
Osmond 12
Sotmikova 13
Tuktamysheva 14
So besides two ties, there is perfect agreement between the two scoring systems except for Chan versus Ten.
In addition to the number of points available, I think there is a greater spread in points from best to worst in the short program than in the long. A mistake on a jump in the short program is very costly, relative to the skaters who go clean.. And I think, although I have not examined this statistically, that the judges are more likely to mark skaters down in program components in the SP for technically flawed performances.
As for total amount of points available, her is how it worked out for the top ten men in aggregate.
Short program. Total TES = 438.72. Total PCS = 400.96
SP times 2.......Total TES = 877.44. Total PCS = 801.92
Long program, Total TES = 806.54. Total PCS = 805.54
So the PCS are following the 2 to 1 ratio between LP and SP pretty well, but there are definitely extra points available on the technical side in the short program.
In itself, I don't know whether that's good or bad. Psychologically, if I were in second place after the short because the other guy nailed his quad toe/triole toe, his triple Axel, and his triple Lutz out of steps, I would have no beef. But if we were even in tech and the judges gave the other guy an insurmountable 7 point advantage because he was oh so pretty and musical, that would make me mad (even if he really was oh so pretty and musical. (Give him a two-point advantage and let me fight for it in the LP.)
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- Jun 21, 2003
That would be very cool, to try to educate the public as to what constitutes good skating. It would certainly add to the viewers enjoyment and perhaps get them to see that it's not all about the jumps.
Dick Button did this as a commentator. He was constantly pointing out whether a skater had a good free leg position on her layback, whether she was low enough and had a straight back on her sit-spin, whether her speed was up to par, and even whether she was projecting to the audience. To that, it would be great to add detail about what steps and turns skaters were doing, both in their footwork sequences and throughout the program.
Educating people about skating is great. That is not the same as trying to educate them about the scoring system. That's not nearly so interesting or important, IMHO.
Exactly. If all commentators ever talk about is jumps and artistry, then it's understandable if fans think that's all that counts or should count and become confused when someone wins who had neither the best jumps or the best artistry -- which happens often under either judging system.
He occasionally talked about skating skills in a general manner -- referring to speed (as you note) or praise deep and steady edges (without really explaining what that meant) or back in the 80s when commenting on compulsory dances at the Olympics he would explain about how to compare the size of the patterns as a reflection of speed and depth of edge.
Everything else that you mention is about form or presentation, not blade-to-ice skills. I think presentation/artistry was very important to Mr. Button, even more important than to judges. Ditto Peggy Fleming. With preference for a classical style. So their commentary often tended to dwell on fine points while sometimes ignoring other qualities that were just as important or moreso.
I think Button also appreciated good skating skills, but that either he or his network producers thought that viewers wouldn't care or wouldn't "get" it from watching on video (skating quality is much easier to appreciate live). So there was comparatively little discussion about what the blades were doing outside of jump takeoffs and landing.
Still, there was a lot more from Button than from, e.g., Scott Hamilton.
Agreed. An occasional mention of an isolated turn during a program, especially anything other than a three or mohawk after viewers have learned to recognize those basics. Whether as a jump entry or as a means of transitioning from forward to backward skating or vice versa. Then viewers could rewind and see what was different about the less common turn.
And short (1-minute or less) TV spots about different turns, to be played during warmups, etc., during live broadcasts, or as time filler in a tape-delayed broadcast package when there's a minute or two of extra time available but not enough to include another whole performance.
I'll get back to your earlier post about Skating Skills vs. "skating skills" a little later when I have time to answer in detail.
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- Jan 25, 2013
Really? I'd say that the latter happens much more often, as evidenced by movement in the standings that don't necessarily reflect the placement. And both happened at this year's Worlds with Chan building an insurmountable lead after the SP. I think it's wonderful that skaters like Fernandez/Hanyu were able to pull up to 3rd and 4th. There have been other examples as well where skaters have pulled up or even won - e.g. Reynolds at 4CC, Sandhu many times after a poor SP. I think the opposite in that the long program is calibrated such that it mitigates the results of the SP.
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