But when “Second Mark skaters” do have great programs, the system doesn’t work when the Quad PCS Bonus is automatically applied.
If the Quad PCS bonus were eliminated, we wouldn’t need to talk about different programs.
Even if there is no PCS bonus for including quads, there are still 2 opportunities in the short program and 5-7 opportunities in the freeskate for a skater who can do multiple quads to rack up so many points on jumps alone that a great skater with no quads would have no way to make up the point difference on GOEs and PCS alone. Especially if the quad-jumping skater is pretty good at those other things, albeit not great at them.
So if we want skaters who are great at jumping and just good at skating and performance to win championships, and we also want skaters who are great at skating and performance and just good at jumping to win championships, then maybe they need to be winning different events with different emphases.
I thought this sport was invented to morph artistic and technical skills and blur the lines between them, create something elegant, flowy and yet powerful.
Well, the sport was
invented to showcase the precision of controlling the blades to trace circles on the ice with clean turns and changes of edge . . . and also to showcase edges and turns and jumps and spins and other moves linked together in creative ways at speed without being restricted to perfectly drawn circles.
All were supposed to look graceful, but the 19th-century expectations of gracefulness would be different from what we expect these days.
Music was added later.
The variety of single jumps, and then doubles, triples, and quads . . . and complicated spins or glides requiring great flexibility . . . and expressive moves of various kinds using extreme body positions with off-center upper body alignment . . . all came later.
Freeskating developed into something very different than what it looked like when the sport was invented. And school figures, which had once been the most important part of the competition, gradually became worth less and then went away entirely.
And now they are suggesting to rip these two siblings apart completely...
Who said there's any suggestion to rip them apart completely?
We don't know what the details of the proposal will be. As I understand it, there will still be music and all 5 program components in the Technical Program, and there will still be technical elements, probably allowing for difficult jumps, in the Artistic Program.
It's just that the balance of the two programs will be different, by changing the numbers of elements in each program and the multiplying factors of the components relative to the technical score.
So both programs will still blend technical and athletic and artistic skills. But the balance of which offer more opportunities for earning points will vary from one type of program to the other.
Exactly what the balance will be, what the numbers of elements and what the component factors will be, remains to be determined.
But my point is, having looked at the same categories, that the Performance and Interpretation categories don't specify anything. They are referencing "movement" and "energy." They are talking about, among other things, carriage and clarity, variety and contrast, and physical/intellectual/emotional involvement of the movement. On my read, that could include crossovers and simple stroking, spins, turns, etc. because they are movement and those qualities can manifest through them. If I'm told to judge after having looked at this, why wouldn't I also be thinking about what the jumps are doing?
I think you should be thinking about the jumps in judging those components. But you should be thinking about how the jumps (and other technical elements) fit into the purpose and patterning of the choreography, how they contribute to interpreting the music, how they demonstrate carriage and clarity, variety and contrast, and physical/intellectual/emotional involvement, etc. Not how many times they rotate in the air.
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