What's with the Russian Fed and the CoP?

[BravesSkateFan]

The ISU started working on CoP in 2000, two years before SLC.

That may be so, but the fact is that by the time the Olympics rolls around it will only have been used in competiton for 2 year, and in major competion for 1 year. I think it needs more time than that.

 

[thvudragon]

According to Speedy, CoP was developed in response to the SLC scandal. But if CoP was under development in 2000, that couldn't possibly be true.

In any case, wouldn't it have been the ISU technical committee working on CoP since 2000? It seems to me that Lakernik is the head of the technical committee, so wouldn't he have discussed with Piseev long ago how CoP was going to operate?

CoP was not developed in light of the SLC scandal, but it was pushed forward because of it. Laternik was not head of the Technical Committee when the CoP was first being developed. IIRC, he wasn't elected until the 2002 Kyoto Congress over former head Sally Stapleford. Either way, most knew how it was going to work. What Piseev is criticizing is how well it will work and to make sure that all the problems are worked out. He said that the CoP needs more testing, but I don't think he is against it.

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[Joesitz (RIP)]

As in the UN, Australia would be part of the Asia and Pacific Group. It would be easy enough to include The America and Africa as an entity.

My argument stands that it is not a Political bloc, it is a Cultural bloc.

As for Piseyev, I believe he is hosting the Worlds and if he believes it is not ready to use the CoP, then so be it. I have no iedea if it is ready yet either.

Joe

 

[euterpe]

What SHOULD have been done would have been to use CoP in parallel with the 6.0 interim system during this past season's year's GP series, Euros, 4CC and Worlds. CoP would be the system of record at the GP, but the interim 6.0, at the ISU Championship events.

It might have made for a very interesting season.

 

[Kateri]

Joe - I'm a bit confused as to how this cultural bias is supposed to work, and who/what is favoured by it.
I'm not confirming or denying anything, just wondering how you (or others) see it.
And where is the line drawn in terms of nations - who is on what side?


Kat.

 

[Mathman]

What SHOULD have been done would have been to use CoP in parallel with the 6.0 interim system during this past season's year's GP series, Euros, 4CC and Worlds. CoP would be the system of record at the GP, but the interim 6.0, at the ISU Championship events.

It might have made for a very interesting season.

Interesting indeed! I think the ISU deliberately did not do a parallel judging test, for the simple reason that it was a lose-lose situation for the ISU. If the placements turned out to be the same for both systems, why change? If they turned out different, then there would be a big fight and people would take sides depending on which system worked out the best for their favorite skater.

Mathman

 

[thvudragon]

As in the UN, Australia would be part of the Asia and Pacific Group. It would be easy enough to include The America and Africa as an entity.

My argument stands that it is not a Political bloc, it is a Cultural bloc.

As for Piseyev, I believe he is hosting the Worlds and if he believes it is not ready to use the CoP, then so be it. I have no iedea if it is ready yet either.

You still don't account for the blatant unfairness of your process.

Also, your culture blocks hardly apply today. Other than the fact that it's unfair, I doubt that in terms of culture, the British habe much in common with Georgians, or the Turkish have anything in common with Russia. The argument imply doesn't make sense to me.

What SHOULD have been done would have been to use CoP in parallel with the 6.0 interim system during this past season's year's GP series, Euros, 4CC and Worlds. CoP would be the system of record at the GP, but the interim 6.0, at the ISU Championship events.

It might have made for a very interesting season.

What exactly would be the point of this? The CoP was not made to make the same results as the 6.0, and it shouldn't. It's a new system that changes the way skating is judges, and even changes the criteria of the programs. Parallel judging would accomplish nothing.

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[Joesitz (RIP)]

Quote 0- "You still don't account for the blatant unfairness of your process."

Not quite sure what is meant by blatant unfairness. It's not blatant at all. It's a cultural thing. The countries of the former Soviet Union have the same tastes in what they they have been exposed to and judge it accordingly.. Nothing wrong with that but it does show up in the scoring (before the secrecy).

I'm speaking of about the chances of at least three from 14 federations being chosen to be the Caller and assistants as compared to 4 frp, Asia including Australia; 4 from the Americas and Africa) and at least 11 European federations.

I'm really looking toward avoiding a pile up of one Group. It doesn't have to be if it is laid out before hand. However, if you think there would be no complaints if Uzbekistan, Poland, and Belorus would be selected as Caller and Assistants would not be influenced by their culture, then so be it. But it will not avoid a outrage by other groups. Also it would be another setback in figure skating which has already had enought in its decline.

What would be wrong with choosing Sweden, Ukraine and Japan. as having been selected from the 4 groups?

Just a thought.

Joe

 

[Ptichka]

One correction to this debate - countries such as Uzbekistan belong to Asia, not to Europe. (There are four countries that are geographically Asia but belong to Europe for ISU purposes, all in Middle East: Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Israel; well, also Turkey but that's partially in Europe)

 

[hockeyfan228]

I think it's important to distinguish between the aegis of the callers -- level of difficulty and number of rotations (jumps and spins) -- and what the judges themselves are responsible for in the elements space --calling the difference between lutz and flutz, lip and flip, deciding how to judge the gap between steps and jump in the SP -- not to mention the program elements, where taste seems to rule supreme.

Is there a noticeable difference in the way regions evaluate the technical elements controlled by the callers that can be explained by taste? For example, when trying to evaluate whether a jump was under- or over-rotated, are there regional differences -- i.e., one school giving .5 rev slack to loops done in combination, but others requiring full revolutions? Does regional taste affect the way in which relative difficulty (ex: level of lifts, spins, spirals) is established?

Factoid: Everything that the callers say to each other during the competition is taped.

 

[thvudragon]

I think it's important to distinguish between the aegis of the callers -- level of difficulty and number of rotations (jumps and spins) -- and what the judges themselves are responsible for in the elements space --calling the difference between lutz and flutz, lip and flip, deciding how to judge the gap between steps and jump in the SP -- not to mention the program elements, where taste seems to rule supreme.

Is there a noticeable difference in the way regions evaluate the technical elements controlled by the callers that can be explained by taste? For example, when trying to evaluate whether a jump was under- or over-rotated, are there regional differences -- i.e., one school giving .5 rev slack to loops done in combination, but others requiring full revolutions? Does regional taste affect the way in which relative difficulty (ex: level of lifts, spins, spirals) is established?

Factoid: Everything that the callers say to each other during the competition is taped.

Exactly. Culture is irrelevent when calling elements. I don't think just because the Technical Specialist is Eastern European, he's going to call a step sequence L3 and a NA judge is going to call it L2. There are guidelines to what they are supposed to look for.

As I said, your idea Joe of having judges chosen from regions is Affirmative Action for Figure Skating. Reserving spots for certain regions actively discrimates against those countries which happen to belong to continents with a greater number of federations.

Lets count the # of Technical Controllers by region that were used during the GP season.

Europe: 8
NA: 3
Asia: 1

Now, if this is by region, how fair is it to the European controllers? North America and especially Asian controllers will have the advantage of being choosen. This is not good for many reason. It is unfair because the European Controllers will be chosen far less frequently. This will limit the experience that they will be able to recieve. It simply isn't logical in any manner.

There's nothing wrong with "Sweden, Ukraine and Japan", but by doing so, you are actively discriminating and creating an unfair process favorable to North Americans and Asians.

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[hockeyfan228]

As I said, your idea Joe of having judges chosen from regions is Affirmative Action for Figure Skating. Reserving spots for certain regions actively discrimates against those countries which happen to belong to continents with a greater number of federations.

The ISU is about to vote on affirmative action, then. From the ISU site article entitled "2004 ISU Congress Agenda Published"

In a further step to ensure the independence of the Officials, while respecting the Member Federations’ insistence on their right to nominate Judges, the ISU is proposing a more balanced process for selecting Judges at the major ISU Events. If the proposal is accepted, there would be quotas for Judges at ISU Events from each geographical region.

(Second paragraph under Enhanced Assessment.)

However, they don't define "geographical region," so it's possible that Europe may be broken into multiple "regions." And there's no mention of geographical distribution for controllers, who are ISU, not Federation, hires, at least for the duration of the event.

 

[thvudragon]

Yes, I saw this yesterday. I think the idea is rediculous, bleh. More from me later, I need sleep.

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