Why is the quad Axel so undervalued?

[4everchan]

Is this true? I had taken it as a rumour but then, I know nothing about sports!

Of course it is true. It's not something a sprinter or a swimmer can plan ahead. But for high jump and pole vault, they do set the height of the bar, and once they are usually setting it for a world record, they have already won the event, unlike a race. So, they are in perfect control.

Also, sponsors. Don't forget sponsors

Here is one of the many sources

World Athletics | Who will cash in on record bonus in Paris?| News

The official announcement today that athletes who break world records at IAAF World Series events will receive awards of up to $100,000 in addition to the Competition Awards recently introduced, raises a number of intriguing possibilities with regard to the IAAF World Indoor Championships in...

worldathletics.org

 

[icewhite]

Records mean absolutely nothing to me.
Not in sports in general for several reasons (quite often there is doping behind, so what's to be celebrated?)
and certainly not in figure skating, where the scoring system has been changed a thousand times, different judging panels judge differently and overscoring happens all the time (in part exactly for that reason, to have records). Absolute scores are nothing but a kind of indicator.

Sports records are something for technical people, engineers, developers. Because no doubt with certain material certain effects can be achieved and from that perspective it's interesting how far you can go and what to do.
I'm not a technical person at all and hence I'm also not interested in that aspect of records.

I thought going for records in figure skating was a joke, because to me those record scores are nothing but a joke. The real achievement is what's behind that score, what happened on the ice.

 

[gkelly]

Well, one thing that can be done to better value PCS compared to elements (and also break the total score records) would be to change the PCS factors.

Which does nothing for 4A vs. other jumps, but that's not where I personally feel there's a problem.

 

[Mathman]

Ok, sorry I have to ask, but who is this Ari Zacharian who's name keeps popping up on this thread? Is he some sort of figure skating super-villain?

As for world records in figure skating, when the Cofe of Points first came into service the first official event was
2003 Nebelhorn. The skaters were more or less seeded by ability. Every successive skater set the world record and held it for 6 minutes until the next skater took her turn. The last to skate was Jennifer Don, representing Chinese Taipei, with a world record of 143.07.

This stood until the next event, 2003 Skate America when Susanna Poykio of Finland shattered it with 143.36.

 

[skatingguy]

Ok, sorry I have to ask, but who is this Ari Zacharian who's name keeps popping up on this thread? Is he some sort of figure skating super-villain?

Ari Zakarian is an agent - he's Malinin's agent. I don't know if he's a super-villain, but career goals are important.

 

[Skating91]

Clearly, general public didn't react at all to made-up World Records.

Not made up. Over time the technical complexity improves and if they are able to execute a highly complex program as perfectly as we have seen from any skater than they are deserving of the record score.

That is so insulting to Chen and the other world record holders.

 

[Mathman]

PS. I forgot to mention that the world recordholder under the previous scoring system was Michelle Kwan with a career 57 6.0s.

This record, however, comes with controversy, sparking many a fistfight to break out in sports bars among rival groups of fans. The affectionately nicknamed "Ya-goons" point out that Kwan's record is bogus because it includes results from U.S. Nationals and that Alexei Yagudin has the most 6.0s in international competition.

Not to mention Yagudin being the acknowledged GOAT of the Footwork Sequence for his Winter rrogram at the 2002 Olympics, which caused skaters the world over, including Kwan, to rush to the choreogrpher Nikolai Morozov in 2003 and beg him to give them one of those "dancing on the toepick" step sequences fo their own programs.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Not made up. Over time the technical complexity improves and if they are able to execute a highly complex program as perfectly as we have seen from any skater than they are deserving of the record score.

That is so insulting to Chen and the other world record holders.

Can you please show me a < call on his score sheets in Beijing? Then, can you please show me a Solo Quad or a Quad Combination that wouldn't be underrotated? (For your information, he's fully rotated most of his Quads in the two seasons between 2018 and 2020 but he used to underrotate before, and progressively lost the full rotation of his quads later, but was never called in spite of this fault being chronic.) Not speaking of the fact that he's always had stiff landings yet the GOE cap at 3 was never applied to him. Did he sit any of his sit spins? (I know that the Olympic video is the only one allowed, and that we don't see the lower part of his body, but he's doing it exactly as his usual sit spin which he never sits, being never called of course. You know, really sitting a sit spin is painful and drains energy, if he wants to jump five quads he "must" compensate.) Then why was his Short Program one been given any value, and why wasn't his Free Skating one been marked V? Did he make body moves challenging his balance on 1/3 of his Step Sequence? He just can't it seems. But he always get a Level 4.
On the so-called World Record of his Short Program, and just on the Technical score, we're already at about 8-point candy (overscoring) on the 4F<, 3 points on the 3A<, 8 points on the 4Lz (some say q) + 3T<, 4 points on the FSSp, 1 point on the StSq, probably some with the other spins' GOEs, we're above 24 points overscoring on the Technical Score alone, were down to 90, and there's the Components too...
What is insulting, is to call it a real World Record when one can see that it's not (I don't know if you can). It's insulting to Figure Skating and to all the Figure Skaters who deserved a better score, not to speak of the holder of the last (in fact, underscored) real World Record in a Short Program.
Sorry this is out of topic.
What's in topic is that at the moment, the 4A in competition is in reality underrotated too (just this jump, this skater is not a chronic underrotator on other jumps, for the little I saw of his skates), but apart from the fraudulent ratification that ensued (the first 4Lz was probably so too, and the first 4F was so), the fact of not calling this underrotation on an undervalued (in my opinion) jump, gives the skater a good reward for jumping it, although I don't know what GOEs should be given for it, apart for the Base Value. In fact, if we consider that an underrotated jump doesn't only get lower Base Value, but also low Grades of Execution, the present situation is more akin to a new jump in the Scale of Values, which has nearly four real rotations in the air (if you watch most of the current competitive skaters, this is not a small feat) and is to be landed about 100° under the usual rear landing of jumps... Amidst all the scoring unfairness in Figure Skating, this one isn't a big concern, it just has to be described.

Edit: I fixed a mistake in bold.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

PS. I forgot to mention that the world recordholder under the previous scoring system was Michelle Kwan with a career 57 6.0s.

This record, however, comes with controversy, sparking many a fistfight to break out in sports bars among rival groups of fans. The affectionately nicknamed "Ya-goons" point out that Kwan's record is bogus because it includes results from U.S. Nationals and that Alexei Yagudin has the most 6.0s in international competition.

Not to mention Yagudin being the acknowledged GOAT of the Footwork Sequence for his Winter rrogram at the 2002 Olympics, which caused skaters the world over, including Kwan, to rush to the choreogrpher Nikolai Morozov in 2003 and beg him to give them one of those "dancing on the toepick" step sequences fo their own programs.

If any World Record is completely meaningless for me, it's the World Record in the old 6.0 system... I'm not saying this against Michelle Kwan of course, or any World Record holder in that system.
I'm not a fan of Alexey Yagudin's comments, nor of the little I know of Nikolay Morozov's person, but I have to admit that this Winter program of them was gorgeous, and that "dancing on the toepicks" can seriously enhance some programs.

 

[kolyadafan2002]

Can you please show me a < call on his score sheets in Beijing? Then, can you please show me a Solo Quad or a Quad Combination that wouldn't be underrotated? (For your information, he's fully rotated most of his Quads in the two seasons between 2018 and 2020 but he used to underrotate before, and progressively lost the full rotation of his quads later, but was never called in spite of this fault being chronic.) Not speaking of the fact that he's always had stiff landings yet the GOE cap at 3 was never applied to him. Did he sit any of his sit spins? (I know that the Olympic video is the only one allowed, and that we don't see the lower part of his body, but he's doing it exactly as his usual sit spin which he never sits, being never called of course. You know, really sitting a sit spin is painful and drains energy, if he wants to jump five quads he "must" compensate.) Then why was his Short Program one been given any value, and why wasn't his Free Skating one been marked V? Did he make body moves challenging his balance on 1/3 of his Step Sequence? He just can't it seems. But he always get a Level 4.
On the so-called World Record of his Short Program, and just on the Technical score, we're already at about 8-point candy (overscoring) on the 4F<, 3 points on the 3A<, 8 points on the 4Lz (some say q) + 3Lz<, 4 points on the FSSp, 1 point on the StSq, probably some with the other spins' GOEs, we're above 24 points overscoring on the Technical Score alone, were down to 90, and there's the Components too...
What is insulting, is to call it a real World Record when one can see that it's not (I don't know if you can). It's insulting to Figure Skating and to all the Figure Skaters who deserved a better score, not to speak of the holder of the last (in fact, underscored) real World Record in a Short Program.
Sorry this is out of topic.
What's in topic is that at the moment, the 4A in competition is in reality underrotated too (just this jump, this skater is not a chronic underrotator on other jumps, for the little I saw of his skates), but apart from the fraudulent ratification that ensued (the first 4Lz was probably so too, and the first 4F was so), the fact of not calling this underrotation on an undervalued (in my opinion) jump, gives the skater a good reward for jumping it, although I don't know what GOEs should be given for it, apart for the Base Value. In fact, if we consider that an underrotated jump doesn't only get lower Base Value, but also low Grades of Execution, the present situation is more akin to a new jump in the Scale of Values, which has nearly four real rotations in the air (if you watch most of the current competitive skaters, this is not a small feat) and is to be landed about 100° under the usual rear landing of jumps... Amidst all the scoring unfairness in Figure Skating, this one isn't a big concern, it just has to be described.

To me his SP jumps all looked okay, albeit with stiff landings (haven't reviewed in super-slow, but at 0.25 speed in the programs they looked clean to me) Agree his sit spin sometimes has issues with the position, and the fly is often quite poorly executed, but I will have to watch the programs again later to check the calls at the olympics.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

To me his SP jumps all looked okay, albeit with stiff landings (haven't reviewed in super-slow, but at 0.25 speed in the programs they looked clean to me) Agree his sit spin sometimes has issues with the position, and the fly is often quite poorly executed, but I will have to watch the programs again later to check the calls at the olympics.

Well, his 4F and his 3A were underrotated, by about 100°, just like Yuzuru Hanyu's 4A which had been initially given full base value but was later reviewed by the same panel to be underrotated (and it's true that per the written rules, 100° missing is still an underrotation): viewing image per image doesn't show the instant of the landing, but the first image after touching down is on the quarter, and shows that he necessarily has already touched the ice earlier in the rotation; the 4Lz wasn't fully rotated but not underrotated either, but the 3T in the combination was really underrotated.
I can see if a fly is beautiful, or not a real fly, but I couldn't opine in-between, sorry.

 

[kolyadafan2002]

Well, his 4F and his 3A were underrotated, by about 100°, just like Yuzuru Hanyu's 4A which had been initially given full base value but was later reviewed by the same panel to be underrotated (and it's true that per the written rules, 100° missing is still an underrotation): viewing image per image doesn't show the instant of the landing, but the first image after touching down is on the quarter, and shows that he necessarily has already touched the ice earlier in the rotation; the 4Lz wasn't fully rotated but not underrotated either, but the 3T in the combination was really underrotated.
I can see if a fly is beautiful, or not a real fly, but I couldn't opine in-between, sorry.

I just watched the slow motion replay at the end, and I made interesting conclusion. In the replays the camera angle is adjusting throughout the jump, so it looks like the takeoff angle is different to what it is. Therefore for me it's not really clear cut. In the live video, and second replay it looks like he touches down way after the quater, but in the first slow mo replay it looks UR. It would be nice to find fancam footage to double check, but unfortunately there was an empty audience at this rink. For me though, it's reasonable they called it clean, although watching it like a hawk I do have doubts. I wish I had the tech panel cam footage to check.

His 3A did have excessive prerotation by many standards, landing itself is okay. Panel doesn't yet ding pretotation so that's a different argument.

 

[Mathman]

In 1968 long jumper Bob Beamon jumped 8.9 meters (23 feet 2 1/4 inches) at the Olympics. This broke the old record by two feet and stood for 23 years. There was a long delay in announcing the distance because it was farther than the official measuring tape, so they had to send out for a longer one.

No one could believe it. Detractors pored over the film and by calculating arcs and angles declared that the path of Beamon's body through the air did not follow a perfect mathematical parabola and instead had a little wobble that could only have been caused by a freak gust of wind that blew him preternatuarally into the air in mid-jump. Or maybe the thin atmosphere of Mexico City (altitude 7350 feet) reduced the drag of friction and gave him an unfair and illegal advantage.

Does this give any comfort to skaters like Yuzuru Hanyu and Nathan Chen who set and broke one record after another, but could never win over the dedicated faultfinders?

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I just watched the slow motion replay at the end, and I made interesting conclusion. In the replays the camera angle is adjusting throughout the jump, so it looks like the takeoff angle is different to what it is. Therefore for me it's not really clear cut. In the live video, and second replay it looks like he touches down way after the quater, but in the first slow mo replay it looks UR. It would be nice to find fancam footage to double check, but unfortunately there was an empty audience at this rink. For me though, it's reasonable they called it clean, although watching it like a hawk I do have doubts. I wish I had the tech panel cam footage to check.

His 3A did have excessive prerotation by many standards, landing itself is okay. Panel doesn't yet ding pretotation so that's a different argument.

I had seen him chronically underrotate his jumps in the past two seasons, which "helps" getting an idea.
When an official assessment over score rigging at these Olympics takes place, maybe we'll have the video used by the Tech Panel. I agree that it's unlikely that there are fancams available. It had been much spoken of an Omega measurement system with 6 cameras, which all came to nothing. I still view the jumps as visibly underrotated, sorry.
The 3A has an excessive prerotation, but far from a downgrade, contrary to his 2020-2021 Short Program's which he would jump from a Spread Eagle and was always a clear "backxel", and never called (about 7.5 point additional candy). In present rules it's only a -1 call. Of course the Canadian and French judge who gave him 4, ignoring the cap due to his landings, didn't take it into account; other judges, I don't know.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

In 1968 long jumper Bob Beamon jumped 8.9 meters (23 feet 2 1/4 inches) at the Olympics. This broke the old record by two feet and stood for 23 years. There was a long delay in announcing the distance because it was farther than the official measuring tape, so they had to send out for a longer one.

No one could believe it. Detractors pored over the film and by calculating arcs and angles declared that the path of Beamon's body through the air did not follow a perfect mathematical parabola and instead had a little wobble that could only have been caused by a freak gust of wind that blew him preternatuarally into the air in mid-jump. Or maybe the thin atmosphere of Mexico City (altitude 7350 feet) reduced the drag of friction and gave him an unfair and illegal advantage.

Does this give any comfort to skaters like Yuzuru Hanyu and Nathan Chen who set and broke one record after another, but could never win over the dedicated faultfinders?

Well, high settings are not always beneficial to records, unless the athlete is used to it. Even when they are, remember the latest Four Continents Championship, held in Colorado Spring above 1800m, the US team had a two-week session to practice there before the championship, yet I wouldn't say that they seemed as advantaged as they were supposed to be, given the results.

But anyway, what's the relation between trying to explain an extraordinary World Record by natural elements, and calling a claimed World Record in a different sport for what it is, that is massively rigged? >55% overscoring is massive rigging, isn't it? Unless you think that there was a strange phenomenon of a collective blink when technical panel and judges ought to have seen errors on some skaters, judges who collectively awoke thanks to Yuzuru Hanyu's magical power when his turn happened?

 

[Mathman]

What disappoints me is when fans of one athlete seem to take such intense pleasure in belittling the accomplishments of others.

It's all good. Let the skaters skate.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

What disappoints me is when fans of one athlete seem to take such intense pleasure in belittling the accomplishments of others.

It's all good. Let the skaters skate.

No, no, you won't go with this one. This is not belittling the accomplishments of others. It's denouncing a big fraud, and if you don't see the difference, then I'm really sorry for you. Logics is part of Maths as it is of Philosophy, isn't it?

 

[FlossieH]

If the choice is between lowering the values of jumps or raising the values of everything else, then raising the values of everything else is better. That way there will be a lot of World Record performances and world record scores.. That's what sports fans really want to see -- World Records.

Do they? I couldn't care less about world records. They are an artificial construction which is dependent on what is and isn't allowed at any particular point. I couldn't even tell you who holds the various world records for figure skating. I assume Valieva has the ladies one? Men is probably either Nathan Chen or Yuzuru Hanyu? I imagine that ice dance is held by either Virtue and Moir or Papadakas and Cizeron? Pairs is probably someone who did a quad twist and throw when they were worth more compared to other elements. What I like to see is skaters enjoying their sport and making improvements in their own work. I love seeing skaters achieve the junior worlds, euros or worlds minimums they have been trying for. I love seeing them set new seasons and personal bests. I don't care if they never hold a world record.

 

[Mathman]

I think I will go start a thread on a less controversial topic. Like "what is art?"

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I think I will go start a thread on a less controversial topic. Like "what is art?"

What a good idea! I'm sure that there are plenty of skates by Yuzuru Hanyu, which are real art, and which you haven't seen yet! Not to speak of some photo shoots! I'm sure that you will delight in!

More seriously, when you write that IJS rules aren't well balanced from a public's viewpoint because they made Yuzuru Hanyu win at Sochi and Beijing, in addition misremembering his real skates for the worse; then, saying that the general public wants World Records and contradicting the demonstrable (and necessary) fact in my answer that the latest ones were fake records; then when you call the denunciation of Tech Panels and judges huge wrongdoings, "belittling the accomplishments of others" (I don't think I belittle any real accomplishments of this skater? A sheet of paper with wrong facts on it isn't an accomplishment of a skater!) this of course generates controversy.