Should quads per program be limited to balance artistry?

[rabidline]

You have my pierogi - though I wouldn't punish popped so harshly, I'd give the jump some points if it's 1 rotation short. Though it would require change or rules about planned program content.

Landed but underrotated jumps can get positive GOE but half the base value of the fully rotated jumps.

Falls, step outs and/or turnouts from UR jumps? Zerooooo.

 

[Ares]

That's why he won three world championships. Because he was at his peak and the best. Who would disagree with that? It's right there in the public record.

But... nothing is forever. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. The next generation comes gunning for the top gun, and off we go for another round.

Added in proof: Even Michelle Kwan won only five World championships and then had to move over. and soon to move on. I'm not angry at anyone -- well maybe a little.

I remember though one of his World titles being controversial at a time. He splat in the FS and had a lower TES than some skaters below him, winning overall by very high PCS (I agree with his component score) but I can see how it would rub people the wrong way. A lot of folk thought that Denis Ten was the rightful winner of Worlds in 2013.

 

[rabidline]

There are many sports where a failed landing = 0.

Yes, exactly. Giving zeros to all imperfect elements don't just target quadsters but all skaters. Maybe then they'll start considering working on perfecting their skills and their presentation more.

 

[lariko]

The narrative that 'quadsters' are somehow a different group of skaters all together is weird. TES and PCSs apply to all skaters. No skater automatically gets a high GoE for higher base value jump particularly in the final protocol.

Initial marks that light up, both high and low, usually come from judges who are very sure what they will give, and this often comes from what they had seen in practices -- these marks are often reduced or increased in reviews. Malinin gets both high and low GoE for all elements including jumps, depending on how well he had jumped. So does Kagiyama. So does any other skater. And, honestly, if you haven't seen Ilia jump live, in the arena, I think you should. He is one of skaters that generally do not do long entries, he has effortless launch and the height that is impressive. I saw him jump 4A twice. I saw him throw in those two 3As at the end of the combo like they are double T's. He gets his GoEs for effortless grace and integration of jumps into the program. He actually does what others only strive for -- he makes jumps his choreo, including his backflips and raspberry twist. This is particularly obvious when other competitors ride a few meters-long curve with arms in a ready position while looking over their shoulder before 3A or 4T.

And giving zeroes instead of partial marks will in some cases lead to negative scores.

Imo, life is too short and full of imperfections to spend it on finding ways to punish someone for being exceptional instead of enjoying it. All the rules that target a single outstanding individual have unintended consequences when they are applied to everyone else.

 

[Mathman]

Yes, exactly. Giving zeros to all imperfect elements don't just target quadsters but all skaters. Maybe then they'll start considering working on perfecting their skills and their presentation more.

This, however, rightly or wrongly, is contrary to the spirit of the IJS. Which is: you get a few tenths of a point for every little thing that you do well, and suffer a penalty of of few tenths of a point for everything that you do poorly. If your jump has a good take-off but a bad landing, both are taken into account. plus and minus. If you have good air position, that's a plus. If you lack full rotations, that's a minus.

I remember one ice dance event where a competitor was injured in warm-up and the team had to withdraw. When their name was called, they skated onto the ice, bowed in gratitude to the audience, and announced their withdrawal to the referee. So their performance was zeroed out.

But one judge gave them a 0.25 instead of of a 0.00 in Presentation for their lovely bow. That's the IJS.

 

[rabidline]

This, however, rightly or wrongly, is contrary to the spirit of the IJS. Which is: you get a few tenths of a point for every little thing that you do well, and suffer a penalty of of few tenths of a point for everything that you do poorly.

Food for thought: maybe the sport got to this point because of IJS and... a little change can lead to some interesting things. You know, like IJS once did.

Let me just make clear that I don't think my proposal will deter Ilia. Kid's a miracle of nature, he'll figure out how many times he needs to rotate to eliminate rough and imperfect landings.

 

[AlexBreeze]

I specifically bring Russian example because Russians love high tech more than the internationals and tend to slightly over-reward it.

Rukhin had 7s and 8s in PCS last season.

The scoring this season has changed a lot and values PCS & non-jumping elements. For example, Artur Danielian won silver at his stage with just one quad attempt in each program.

 

[withwings]

-- I specifically bring Russian example because Russians love high tech more than the internationals and tend to slightly over-reward it

stop to pretend once and forever

 

[TallyT]

No skater automatically gets a high GoE for higher base value jump particularly in the final protocol.

Pardon my mirth....

 

[TontoK]

Pardon my mirth....

I'm not so sure you're right.

Let's talk Ilia Malinin, because if we're honest, he's underlying reason for the thread, or at least on everyone's mind. I think even his critics will concede that he's certainly one of the best jumpers in the world.

At Skate Canada, his opening 4F earned GOE mainly in the 4. Next quads 4Z and 4Lp - mainly 3 and 4. And honestly, those were excellent jumps and the GOE is not out of line.

Second half quad combos - the 4Z-eu-3F earned 3 and 4. Fair enough - it was an excellent combo. The 4T-3T was good, not great - mainly 2. The 4S-3A sequence - mainly 1 and 2.

So, arguably the greatest jumper in the world is earning +1 and +2 on quads that are good, but not great. I think @lariko contention that high base value jumps don't automatically earn high GOE marks is accurate. Really good ones DO earn strong GOE marks, which is not an abuse of the system.... it's exactly what the system is designed to do, which is to reward quality elements.

 

[Isk]

I agree that when the jump races begin the drop in program quality is noticeable, so one needs to do something about it.

But I have to say, I am not in favour of choreo elements either. The whole program is choreography. People do good or poor choreo elements, many people do them just because, and they get more or less the same value of 3 + GOE for it, whereas good choreo should be worth perhaps twice as much or even more in Co PC as poor choreo, and it's not just 1-2 elements. We saw what happens when a TP confuses choreo with a choreo element.

Also I don't see much value in removing jumping passes or limiting the number of quads. If removing one jumping pass is accompanied by the PCS scaling, people might still want to do 4 quads + 3A in a 3+3 layout and spend most of their training learning quads. Then I'm afraid they'll still get GOE and PCS score based on how many quads they can land. Also one jump with a preparation takes 5-10 seconds, one can't pack a whole lot of choreography in this short time. But the only way to know is to try.

In a way I would like some way to be found for the judges to be given some freedom to express in scores that Adam SHF's atrocious landings and flow-less jumps of some skaters are altogether worth less or not much more than one clean 4S of Yuma, and that the free program of Shaidorov from last season is crap, which shouldn't be given any score in PCS, because scoring it at all would mean acknowledging that trash has a right to be valued on the same scale as non-trash, which is nonsense. But judges can't have this freedom.

 

[TontoK]

I think the choreo sequence, at least in singles, is a substitute for the old 6.0 long program requirement for "moves in the field."

I think, and a historian will correct me if I'm wrong, is that Moves in the Field was the one and only requirement in the 6.0 Free Program. Otherwise, skaters could do whatever elements they wanted... in theory.

 

[lariko]

I think I want to say again -- so it doesn't get lost -- that a technical score above the maximum PCS is exceedingly rare. The rebalance will become necessary when technical scores routinely exceed maximum theoretical PCS. So, let's revisit when 12 skaters in WC have TES exceeding maximum PCS for a specific segment. This will mean that TES had finally started to even catch up to PCS, because those are leet of the leet skaters across all countries allowed to the WC.

• Men's Short Program (SP): 50.00 -- in 2025 WC, only 4 men had TES above max PCS out of 39
• Men's Free Skate (FS): 100.00 --in 2025 WC, only 3 men had TES above max PCS out of 24
• Women's Short Program (SP): 40.00 --in 2025 WC, only 1 woman had TES above max PCS out of 33
• Women's Free Skate (FS): 80.00 --in 2025 WC, 0 woman had TES above max PCS out of 24

Not to mention TES doesn't only come from quads, so it's likely the ratio needs to be raised, not quads capped. If you cap quads, Zayak rule will make most free skates look like SPs in junior women.

 

[Isk]

I think the choreo sequence, at least in singles, is a substitute for the old 6.0 long program requirement for "moves in the field."

I think, and a historian will correct me if I'm wrong, is that Moves in the Field was the one and only requirement in the 6.0 Free Program. Otherwise, skaters could do whatever elements they wanted... in theory.

Moves in the field is a kind of test in the US, which tests one's ability to do steps, turns and spirals, i.e. those things that we call connecting steps or transitions, which fill the program and teach one to glide on edges and change directions in different ways. Commentators never mentioned MIF as a required element before 2002. The only time I do remember them even mentioning MIF is in the context of a recommendation of incorporating those moves for a good free program composition, for lack of which one could in theory get a deduction, is in 2003. Women did spirals as highlights of their programs, both men and women did spread eagles, ina bauers, split jumps and other fun stuff, but for those who couldn't do them well, the highlights could be 3 jumping passes in the last minute of their FS including a 3A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDM7cXztujc, or 3 step sequences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBiECMTCwro. I might be wrong, but I think moves in the field were an integral part of both technical difficulty and artistic impression segments rather than a box in the list of elements. They also were a way to show versatility and take a break mid-program. In the short they were required: for women a full circle of spirals and a step sequence were required, for men 2 step sequences of different shape were required. Pretty much everyone incorporated some MIF in their free programs in some form. Men often did 2 step sequences, or a step sequence and some MIF. Women often did 1 step and 1 spiral sequence. Those in IJS became 2 levelled step sequences for men and 1 levelled step sequence and 1 levelled spiral sequence for women, one of which was later replaced with a choreographic step sequence.

 

[gkelly]

I think the choreo sequence, at least in singles, is a substitute for the old 6.0 long program requirement for "moves in the field."

I think, and a historian will correct me if I'm wrong, is that Moves in the Field was the one and only requirement in the 6.0 Free Program. Otherwise, skaters could do whatever elements they wanted... in theory.

As I recall (i.e., I may be mistaken on details)...

Originally the free program was completely free/had no requirements, although there were expectations that it would include a variety of jumps, spins, steps, and other skating movements.

First came the Zayak rule, which limited the number of times one could repeat the same jump and how many could be repeated at all, originally just applied to triple jumps, later applied to quads as well, and later still related but less strict limitations on repeating double axels and then all doubles.

Aside from the Zayak requirements of repeated jumps being done in combination, by the early 1990s there was a requirement of at least one jump combination or sequence, later with a limit of maximum three combos/sequences.

By the late 1990s there were "well-balanced program" expectations -- it was explicitly recommended that free programs include a minimum number of spins, a full step sequence, and either a second step sequence (men) or spiral sequence (women and pairs)
Then around the turn of the century these expectations were codified into well-balanced program requirements, and it was also at/around this time that the second sequence was described as "moves in the field" or "field moves," to include spread eagles, Ina Bauers, etc., in addition to spirals (since spirals were required for women, the idea seems to have been to give different options to men to maintain a gender difference)

As of the end of the 6.0 era, these requirements were minimums, such that a program that was missing a fourth spin or any step sequence or spiral/field moves sequence could be penalized as lacking. Not that it was clear whether judges were penalizing, since there were only two numbers from each judge for the whole program that didn't break anything down.
There weren't any maximums for these elements, or for jump passes.

Then came IJS. To prevent skaters from building up points just based on quantity of elements (as opposed to difficulty or quality) and also to prevent do-overs if a skater missed a jump or other element and wanted to try again for full credit, IJS redefined the well-balanced program requirements in terms of maximum number of each type of element one could get credit for. There were maximum numbers of slots for jumps, spins, step sequence (two of different shapes for men), and spiral sequence for women (and various pair and dance elements in those disciplines), and requirements for certain kinds of elements within the broader category (at least one/no more than two jump combos/sequences at first but soon a third was allowed again; only two jumps per combo/sequence until one three-jump combo/sequence was soon allowed; at least one axel takeoff; a combination spin, a flying spin, a spin in one position). Of course there was incentive to fill all the slots because leaving out an element/leaving a slot empty meant a lost opportunity to gain points, but there was no other penalty for doing fewer jumps or spins or not doing a step sequence.

But it was often not worth trying to make up for a missed jump or missed spin because of the limited number of slots and requirements for certain kinds of jump and spin elements to fill them. Trying to do a high-value element in the next slot might end up not being valid, and worse yet it could also invalidate another later element (e.g., saving the only axel for the last jump element and then because of adding a makeup doing a non-axel jump as the seventh jump pass when only seven are allowed so that one doesn't count because it needed to be an axel, and the eighth jump pass won't count either with only seven jump slots available).

There were originally a total of 14 elements for men (8 jump passes, 4 spins, 2 step sequences of different shapes) and 13 for women (7 jump passes, 4 spins, 1 step sequence, 1 spiral sequence).

After a couple of years, the ISU decided that the programs were too full of elements and decided to eliminate the fourth spin originally allowed in senior free skates, and to eliminate the spiral/second step sequence in junior free skates which were 30 seconds shorter and already only had 3 spins. So now senior men's free skates had 13 elements and women's had 12 -- 12 and 11 respectively for juniors.

A few years after that, they removed the women's spiral sequence and men's second step sequence from short programs and replaced both in the free skate with a choreographic sequence (which originally was required to include at least one brief spiral position for women). Also, step sequences no longer had specified shapes. This didn't change the total number of free skate elements but it did replace one leveled element with a choreo element.

Then the men's free skate was reduced by 30 seconds to match the women's free skate length (4:00 for seniors, 3:30 for juniors), and one of the jump elements was deleted so now men also could do only 7 jump passes.

And around that time, maybe a year or two earlier or later, the junior freeskate step sequence was changed to a choreo sequence -- juniors still do leveled steps in short programs, while senior free skates still include both leveled steps and choreo sequences.

Starting next year, both men and women will lose another jump pass so there will be a maximum of 6 jump slots and a total of 11 elements in seniors, 10 for juniors (since juniors only have one sequence).

The idea, as I understand it, is to give more time for choreography to be evaluated in the program components instead of just as scored elements.

We'll have to wait to see if there will be other changes to the free skate/well-balanced program rules for 2026-27 and beyond.

 

[Isk]

As far as I understand, Zayak rule naturally limited the maximum number of triple jumps in the free program to 12, which was more than anyone would attempt anyway, but I believe they must have also capped either the number of combos to 3 or the number of triple and quad jumps one could repeat to 2, because I don't remember anyone doing more. Or was it also a recommendation for a well-balanced program? Usually men did about 7 or 8 jumping passes, women did 6 or 7, and 2 or 3 combos. This number of jumping passes was then adopted into IJS.

 

[moonvine]

Also, if you want more artistry, I have one solution that addresses every current woe in international figure skating: deepen the shallow pool by reintroducing a strong group of skaters currently out of competition. Won't fix everything, but will go a long way to make competitions more like they used to be.

I’ve been enjoying a lovely break from that group of skaters.

 

[lariko]

I hope they will change their minds about cutting out jumping passes next season.

 

[Isk]

To add to the moves in field topic: here are some guys in 2003:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm5m6ooyp0k 2 step sequences and 1 MIF sequence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkGTE2HENNg 2 step sequences and the whole program is basically MIFs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyVRv-SKfPs 2 step sequences and a couple of short MIFs that look more like transitions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRmqL_8rb7U 1 un-patterned MIF sequence and 1 step sequence at the end

 

[lariko]

I’ve been enjoying a lovely break from that group of skaters.

It is easy to skip content that is available but it is impossible to watch something that is not being created. Understanding this involves a modicum of empathy.