The Three Top Ladies of the Worlds

[CDMM1991]

There's still something strange about that 2 loop. She already did a solo 3 loop. So she couldn't do another one unless it was in combination. But she had her two combinations and a sequence in there, too, so she could do another combination, either. (Not to mention, if she had really planned a 3 loop at the end of her first combination, that would make three 3 loops -- shades of Irina!)

I wonder if she got confused in her program, intending a different jump altogether, then when she realized that she had already done her solo 3 loop, she had to sign off with a double to get any points at all. Pretty quick thinking, if that's really how it went!

Mathman

Wow Mathman I never thought about that. It probably was intended to be a different jump ... or it was a quad loop haha just kiddign

 

[Mathman]

Hey, CDMM, Nice Avatar!

 

[Doggygirl]

There's still something strange about that 2 loop. She already did a solo 3 loop. So she couldn't do another one unless it was in combination. But she had her two combinations and a sequence in there, too, so she could do another combination, either. (Not to mention, if she had really planned a 3 loop at the end of her first combination, that would make three 3 loops -- shades of Irina!)

I wonder if she got confused in her program, intending a different jump altogether, then when she realized that she had already done her solo 3 loop, she had to sign off with a double to get any points at all. Pretty quick thinking, if that's really how it went!

Mathman

The combo where she might have done a 3 Loop was before her solo 3 Loop. It was:

3F/3T/2Lo
3L/2T
3Lo
2Lo
2A / 3S seq
3T
2A

For her jump passes.

Her solo 2 Loop (which I can't imagine was planned that way) was after the solo 3 Loop, so that one wouldn't have counted anyway had it been a 3Lo. I wonder if that second solo Loop (2) wasn't supposed to have been either a 3F or 3Lz or 3S?? Something went wrong there for sure. LOL - it appears that Loops and Adrenaline must really go together.

More fodder for us score sheet junkies.

DG

 

[Hikaru]

There's still something strange about that 2 loop. She already did a solo 3 loop. So she couldn't do another one unless it was in combination. But she had her two combinations and a sequence in there, too, so she could do another combination, either. (Not to mention, if she had really planned a 3 loop at the end of her first combination, that would make three 3 loops -- shades of Irina!)

I wonder if she got confused in her program, intending a different jump altogether, then when she realized that she had already done her solo 3 loop, she had to sign off with a double to get any points at all. Pretty quick thinking, if that's really how it went!

Mathman

LOL I think Irina was very, very nervous on the FS. When they broadcasted the all-access show, there was a segment where Irina is watching her FS video, and she goes like "oh, I was so nervous, I forgot to do this and that", she ws laughing and all! and she seemed to have gotten a bit confused when it came to the footwork, I could almost swear that she did the footwork of her short program instead. But if she hadn't said how nervous she was on that interview, I swear I wouldn't have notice it, she kept it together, so I think she probably did the 3loop and she realized later that she had already done it 2 times (she also mention something like that in the all-access show, that it wasn't until she was in the air that she remembered!)

 

[mzheng]

thanks mm - not putting Irina down but she did some travelling and since I didn't get a look at the scores I presumed there were deductions - not just for her but for all skaters who travel on spins. I guess travelling spins are ok. am I correct?

Joe

You are definitely right based on the GOE on spins this judge panel gave. But not the rule. As MM did a statistics analysis a while ago. The key is the level. The higher level the better GOE you can travel from New York to Chicago it wouldn't matter a thing in GOE. Check out Kostner's last spin a huge 'U' shape on ice, but the GOE not so much of negative.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

As far as I can tell, yes, you are correct. The judges are not marking down traveling spins. Getting a level three by incorporating several changes of position seems to be much more important that the quality of the spin.

This is one of the things that Michelle candidly admits that she didn't understand about the CoP last year, and it cost her. She expected to be able to do easier spins, and make up the difference in positive GOE by doing them exceptionally well.

She found out that the judges don't care about that -- the whole ball game is getting a level 3. Note that two of Irina's spins were level three and two were level two -- and she got positive GOEs on top of that.

Last year Michelle said she hurt her back trying to work in more changes of position, especially in her layback. This was probably the determining factor that caused her to withdraw from Skate America last year, and subsequently from the whole Grand Prix. (Although with Michelle, you never know -- she never complains, never explains.)Mathman

OHHHH, the intents in figure skating! a flip becomes a lutz because of the intent to do a lutz; the travelling spins are ok because the intent was not to travel, cheating jumps on the ice before takeoff is ok because the intent was not to make such a big arc before take off

But watch that underrotated jump; that gets more than a slap on the wrist; and more than a fall.

There was no questioning Irina's gold medal. She deserved that (best that night, imo) but the skate was not without flaws and overlooked in the GOEs. And she's not the only one.

btw, I enjoy reading MM's and DG's dialogue on the math of figure skating. I'm just too lazy to do all that work. Keep it going guys.

Joe

 

[emma]

thanks mathman and doggygirl...i too love seeing the math of it analyzed....sure the GOE's are a fuzzy area with the PCs but I love to see, how/where accroding to base values individuals can outcompete other individuals or at least be neck and neck based on their recent competitions.

As many people have mentioned...the traveling is so noticiable its hard to figure out why there wouldn't be more deductions from the base; and it's hard for me to conceptualize how GOE and base score climb together...does that seem right or the actual intent of the scoring system right now, or more like judges not properly using (for lack of experience, too much to do at once, or whatever...i don't want to get too into conspirarcy yet) the system?

 

[Doggygirl]

Joe and Emma, I agree with both of you that I'd like to see the rules being applied across the board more effectively. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at a judging / technical specialist training session this summer to see what they use as examples to try to get this right.

It is not fair to the skaters who do well centered spins to overlook Irina's (or other's) traveling. And it's not fair to the skaters who lutz correctly to disregard Sasha's (or other's) flutzing. I hope further training and experience for the judges and callers corrects some of this over time.

DG

 

[flowjo35]

Joe, emma and DG, you are so right, hopefully the callers and judges will get togther and get more consistent because the upcoming season is too important for the skaters for them to be getting things wrong.

 

[flowjo35]

I just wanted to say also that I have learned more about COP just from this thread alone. Thanks and keep it up for those of us who still have alot to learn before next season.

 

[CDMM1991]

I just wanted to say also that I have learned more about COP just from this thread alone. Thanks and keep it up for those of us who still have alot to learn before next season.

They've been doing a lot of CoP explanations in between skaters or events on the TV broadcasts so when you're tuning in next season you will most likely get caught up

 

[Doggygirl]

LOL I think Irina was very, very nervous on the FS. When they broadcasted the all-access show, there was a segment where Irina is watching her FS video, and she goes like "oh, I was so nervous, I forgot to do this and that", she ws laughing and all! and she seemed to have gotten a bit confused when it came to the footwork, I could almost swear that she did the footwork of her short program instead. But if she hadn't said how nervous she was on that interview, I swear I wouldn't have notice it, she kept it together, so I think she probably did the 3loop and she realized later that she had already done it 2 times (she also mention something like that in the all-access show, that it wasn't until she was in the air that she remembered!)

Hi Hikaru. What's funny (and I should have kept being specific in my own posts) is that we were actually doing a review of Carolina's jumps. Carolina did not do 3 3 Loops where one didn't count, but something went wrong because if she HAD done a 3 Loop where she did a solo 2 Loop, she would have had the same result as Irina did with a 3rd triple not counting at all.

It's funny that both Carolina and Irina appear to had suffered some Loop Madness at Worlds!!

DG

 

[Doggygirl]

They've been doing a lot of CoP explanations in between skaters or events on the TV broadcasts so when you're tuning in next season you will most likely get caught up

I found it very helpful to print out the "Scale of Values" from the ISU site as my cheet sheet. It lists the full name of each element next to the abbreviated version (i.e. CCoSp2 = Spin Combo with change of position and change of foot level 2). It lists the base values and GOE impact for each of the technical elements. Without my cheet sheet, I have trouble going through the score sheets.

I realize that many (most?) fans aren't interested in digging into that level of detail - it's just become my own hobby and I've learned a lot about figure skating as a result that I didn't know before. Since I never skated, I really didn't know how to identify elements and have a grasp of their relative difficulty. (i.e. change of positions and edges and feet, etc. in spins) I only went by the "wow" factor. Trying to learn this has given me a deeper appreciation for what these athletes are really doing out there.

And since we've gotten onto COP in this thread, I want to acknowledge that I'm a first grader compared to other WAY more knowledgeable posters here regarding COP and what it all means.

DG

 

[Hikaru]

I realize that many (most?) fans aren't interested in digging into that level of detail - it's just become my own hobby and I've learned a lot about figure skating as a result that I didn't know before. Since I never skated, I really didn't know how to identify elements and have a grasp of their relative difficulty. (i.e. change of positions and edges and feet, etc. in spins) I only went by the "wow" factor. Trying to learn this has given me a deeper appreciation for what these athletes are really doing out there.

And since we've gotten onto COP in this thread, I want to acknowledge that I'm a first grader compared to other WAY more knowledgeable posters here regarding COP and what it all means.

DG

I feel the same way DG. Now I am more interested in getting to know all the details about CoP. I even printed out some of the documents in the ISU site (mostly related to single and pairs) so that I get to understand it better. Until 2002 I couldn't identify some jumps, but then I decided I wanted to know each of them. I found many explanations talking about inside edges and outside esges, which left me more confused. Then I came across to a website that helped me to recognize the jumps by watching the movement of the legs, the entrances. Once I got used to do that, I could actually pay attention to the use of the edges in the jumps (I could see when the skater was using the outside edge to get into the lutz, while in the past I felt it happened so fast I couldn't even notice it).

Now I'm paying more attention to that. And I just came across that PC game that Michelle Kwan had, a demo verison I found, and it was so funny to make the program, (I could see what a back crossover to the right looked like and so on), so I'm picking up some things there too.

I want to know more about the pairs elements though. I have a question for the CoP savvy (I think I'm just a beginner in that department). In pairs, when they divided the lifts in groups (i.e. Group 1 Level 1, Group 2 Level 2, Group 2 Level 1, etc.) what type of movements are included in Group 1 and 2? and what changes are needed to make a Group 1 lift increase the level of difficulty?

 

[Doggygirl]

Hi Hikaru! Do you have links to the sites you mentioned? Identifying jumps and constructing programs ala La Kwan? Sounds like fun!

DG

 

[Mathman]

Here's the link to the scale of values page that Doggygirl mentioned, if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152085-169301-64123-0-file,00.pdf

Well, like Emma, I am supposed to be working, but...

I just ran some of the spin statistics through a least-squares linear regression analysis to test the hypothesis that the judges are using the GOEs to give a double reward to the technically most challenging spins. This is, are you more likely to get positive GOEs for a hard spin or for a particularly well-done easy spin?

I used the data from the top ten ladies in the free skate at worlds (sample size 40, since each skater did 4 spins). First I ran "level" versus "average GOE." Is there a statistical tendancy for higher level spins to get higher GOEs?

The coeficient of correlation was r = .36. Informally, this means that only about 13% (r squared) of the variation in GOEs was correlated with variation in level of difficulty. (I also tried logarithmic and exponential correlation, but the relation was even smaller for those tests.)

The rest, 87% of variance in GOEs, was due to "other factors" -- i.e., presumably to proper judgments about the quality of the element independent of the level. Indeed, the .36 correlation probably reflects nothing more sinister that the fact that the best spinners do the hardest spins and do them well.

If instead you compare base value to GOE, the correlation is even lower: r = .14, so only two percent of the variance in COE is related to the base value (and presumably 98% to the judges' determination of quality).

So that shoots that particular conspiracy theory in the head.

BTW, in all but one of the spins (40 in all) done by the top ladies, they got a positive GOE. (The one exception was Ando's flying combination spin, which got a negative GOE of 4 one-hundredths of a point.) So this shows that the judges are not being very critical of weaknesses such as traveling. But at least they are ignoring these problems consistently across the board (IIRC Miki's combo spin was really attrocious).

Mathman

 

[Hikaru]

The links for DG!

Hey DG!
Here are the links I have:
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/StojkoMosaic/jumpguide.html
This is the Jump Recognition guide-- It really helpd me a LOT, ideal for (what they call) the "skating challenged"! (that's me HA!)

http://www.sk8stuff.com/m_recognize.htm
This one is great too, because it include other elements, such as spins, edge turns, connecting move. Some of them also include a little video clip so you can see which element they are talking about.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sports/michellekwanfigureskating/index.html?q=Michelle+Kwan
Here you can download the demo of the Michelle Kwan game. The website may require a registration so that you can download it. The demo comes in a .ZIP file, so you'll need to use WinZip to unzip it. When you do this, a window will appear asking for a location in your computer to save the files. Just place it in a folder that you can find easily (like My Documents or something). Once downloaded, open the folder and just double-click on the pink icon that says Michelle Kwan.

If you don't have WinZip, you can get an evaluation download here:
http://www.winzip.com/downwzeval.htm

 

[Doggygirl]

Here's the link to the scale of values page that Doggygirl mentioned, if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152085-169301-64123-0-file,00.pdf

Well, like Emma, I am supposed to be working, but...

I just ran some of the spin statistics through a least-squares linear regression analysis to test the hypothesis that the judges are using the GOEs to give a double reward to the technically most challenging spins. This is, are you more likely to get positive GOEs for a hard spin or for a particularly well-done easy spin?

I used the data from the top ten ladies in the free skate at worlds (sample size 40, since each skater did 4 spins). First I ran "level" versus "average GOE." Is there a statistical tendancy for higher level spins to get higher GOEs?

The coeficient of correlation was r = .36. Informally, this means that only about 13% (r squared) of the variation in GOEs was correlated with variation in level of difficulty. (I also tried logarithmic and exponential correlation, but the relation was even smaller for those tests.)

The rest, 87% of variance in GOEs, was due to "other factors" -- i.e., presumably to proper judgments about the quality of the element independent of the level. Indeed, the .36 correlation probably reflects nothing more sinister that the fact that the best spinners do the hardest spins and do them well.

If instead you compare base value to GOE, the correlation is even lower: r = .14, so only two percent of the variance in COE is related to the base value (and presumably 98% to the judges' determination of quality).

So that shoots that particular conspiracy theory in the head.

BTW, in all but one of the spins (40 in all) done by the top ladies, they got a positive GOE. (The one exception was Ando's flying combination spin, which got a negative GOE of 4 one-hundredths of a point.) So this shows that the judges are not being very critical of weaknesses such as traveling. But at least they are ignoring these problems consistently across the board (IIRC Miki's combo spin was really attrocious).

Mathman

WOW MM! This data is not only interesting, but VERY encouraging as well.

OK - what will we have to bribe you with to do the same sort of anlysis on Steps (spirals and "others") and Jumps?????

I'm happy to see some statistical data that increases my hopes and confidence levels for the COP / NJS!!

Thanks!

DG

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

They've been doing a lot of CoP explanations in between skaters or events on the TV broadcasts so when you're tuning in next season you will most likely get caught up

Ok if you understand their chatter. I just happen to like MM and DG tackling that subject in print on Golden Skate and I am sure many member do also. Let's not discourage them.

Joe

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Not to change the subject of scoring, but I have a suggestion. Wouldn't it be nice while watching a competition, the Technical Specialist's call is posted in that big box over the center of the ice for Terry, Peggy and Dick to see and say it to the public.

Probably, that would infringe on the 'secrecy rule' that the public should not know so much.

Joe