Should the Zayak rule be modified?

An interesting discussion began to sidetrack another thread so I am attempting to move any discussion on it over here.

Does the Zayek rule overly restrict the Free Skate and if so what are your suggestions to fix it. Are there any solutions that could ease up the mental calculations that skaters are currently making on the fly and prevent abuse of repeating jumps?

One suggestion was to score all valid jumps and only use the highest value of any attempted jumps. I can see a problem here in that if someone falls they can reattempt a jump over and over again but I'm sure PCS like Execution would take a hit making things equal.

Thoughts?

Noburnari Oda missed out on so many world medals (and an Olympic berth) because of that damn rule. So yes, I'd say it's overly restrictive especially that super dumb rule on double jumps.

I agree that a BV hit on too many jumps would be preferable than giving ZERO points.

I think something more like the +REP deduction would be more reasonable. I hate seeing the entire pass zeroed out due to an extra 2T. There are other options.

What about Javier Fernandez in Sochi...

Hmm...I thought they've already amended the rules this season...that you'll get a reduced set of points instead of a complete zero. I'll have to check on that again.

oriquey said:

Hmm...I thought they've already amended the rules this season...that you'll get a reduced set of points instead of a complete zero. I'll have to check on that again.

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But they also amended the rules allowing for double jumps to be repeated max 2x per program, which I think is wrong.
Now you get skaters doing 3-2T-2T in the second half of their programs being invalidated because they only did a 2T on the end of another jump, which is just stupid. I don't know if the ISU is trying to promote 2Lo combos or 3-3's or what their end game is, but this new rule really leaves no margin for error when it comes to completing your combinations as planned.

StitchMonkey said:

I hate seeing the entire pass zeroed out due to an extra 2T.

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This is what I find so unfair about the current Zayak rules.

It's been a problem ever since the VERY beginning of CoP. Plushenko lost a GPF title because of the arbitrary jump combo rule. Unfathomable that after 11 years they still haven't fixed it.

Really, it would NOT be hard at all to code the computer program and change the rules so that the tech panel can manually give the skaters appropriate credit for what they've performed, instead of entire elements being worth 0 points for no good reason.

I think the solution is simple: Anything Zayaked gets the value of one revolution less. Repeat an extra 3S? You get the value of a 2S. Nobody will stupidly repeat a 3S when they can do a much easier 2S, but if you make a mistake, it's not like you get no BV and no GOE.

Downgrading 2T/2Lo in combinations to 1T/1Lo is pretty much equal to a zero, but the rest of the combo should count. Why on earth should the perfectly good 3Lz/3F/3Lo in the beginning of the combo get nothing?

I don't know why it never got fixed, or why they've actually made things worse this season...

I find it so interesting that so many of us react differently when we say that IJS is unfair.

When it's about Zayak, it seems that we think that CoP is too harsh
and when the topic is about falls, we all think that a skater should get a lot less points than the system allows.

And on the topic of under rotations and downgrades - we are still quite split.

Sandpiper said:

I think the solution is simple: Anything Zayaked gets the value of one revolution less. Repeat an extra 3S? You get the value of a 2S. Nobody will stupidly repeat a 3S when they can do a much easier 2S, but if you make a mistake, it's not like you get no BV and no GOE.

Downgrading 2T/2Lo in combinations to 1T/1Lo is pretty much equal to a zero, but the rest of the combo should count. Why on earth should the perfectly good 3Lz/3F/3Lo in the beginning of the combo get nothing?

I don't know why it never got fixed, or why they've actually made things worse this season...

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This is my favorite suggestion yet

GF2445 said:

I find it so interesting that so many of us react differently when we say that IJS is unfair.

When it's about Zayak, it seems that we think that CoP is too harsh
and when the topic is about falls, we all think that a skater should get a lot less points than the system allows.

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It doesn't seem to me that people react differently, quite the opposite. Overall most feel ISU is being unfair because it punishes harshly what is thought to be a smaller mistake and is lenient on what is thought to be a bigger mistake, no inconsistency here.

I would really like to hear an ISU official defend the rules in an interview, though.

Moria Polonius said:

It doesn't seem to me that people react differently, quite the opposite. Overall most feel ISU is being unfair because it punishes harshly what is thought to be a smaller mistake and is lenient on what is thought to be a bigger mistake, no inconsistency here.

I would really like to hear an ISU official defend the rules in an interview, though.

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I'd pay a good amount of money to see this happen

Figure skating is a competitive sport. Why beg for points for doing something wrong in a program?

Melon said:

Figure skating is a competitive sport. Why beg for points for doing something wrong in a program?

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I agree. The Zayak rule seems no more arbitrary than a time deduction, or a costume deduction, etc. Oda had problems because of the rule, but to a certain extent, isn't it his own fault for continuously violating the rule? Keeping track of what jumps you have done is one of the many things skaters must manage during their programs.

Do we have a statistic in how many times a year or season a combination or a jump gets deducted because of the rule?

Maybe is just my impression but it seem to be like a recurrent problem for some skaters in particular (Oda and Javier, people even joke that Oda never learned to count ).

Skaters are getting the hang of it though. It seems to me that there is less zayaking this year...?

Blades of Passion said:

It's been a problem ever since the VERY beginning of CoP. Plushenko lost a GPF title because of the arbitrary jump combo rule. Unfathomable that after 11 years they still haven't fixed it.

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Alternatively, after 11 years, some skaters still haven't learned the rule.

It's obviously not rocket science, since so many fans seem to understand it perfectly, and we don't even do this for a living.

I'm particularly not sympathetic to skaters who have been burnt more than once.

TontoK said:

Alternatively, after 11 years, some skaters still haven't learned the rule.

It's obviously not rocket science, since so many fans seem to understand it perfectly, and we don't even do this for a living.

I'm particularly not sympathetic to skaters who have been burnt more than once.

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Skaters know the rules, but they have to make a decision in a split second.

Suppose your first two elements are your blockbusters, 4T+3T and 3A+3T. A whopping 37.0 points.

But you mess up your quad and only do 4T<<<+3T. You can't be sure whether the tech panel will call the first jump as a downgrade or simply as a 3T instead of a 4T. If they call it as a downgrade, it only gets the base value of a triple, but doesn't count against the Zayak rules (I think). In this case the skater should do 3A+3T as planned and end up with 30.8 points.

But if the tech panel called it 3T+3T (instead of 4T<<+3T), then if you do the 3A+3T combination you will get zero points for it and end up with only 8.2 points for the two passes. So you should do 3A+2T and get 17.9 points. (And then try to remember that you can't do your planned 3F+2T+2T combination at the end of the program).

But the problem is, you don't know how the tech panel called it.

It should go like this: If do 3T+3T (intending 4T+3T) and then 3A+3T you should get full credit for the first three jumps and lose the points for the third 3T. This just seems like common sense to me. Even so, the mistake on the quad ended up costing you 20.3 points. Isn't that enough? Why should the rules specify that you lose credit for your triple Axel because you made a mistake earlier on your quad?

The rules should not require skaters to do this kind of calculation in their heads in the middle of the program. Plan your skate, skate your plan. The rules should not prevent skaters from following this excellent advice.

(Somebody please check my calculations -- this is too much like rocket science for me. )

The Zayak rule has been around since 1983 in terms of limiting repeats of triple jumps. There have been revisions over the years to make it more restrictive sometimes and then sometimes to relax some of the restrictions.

Ilia Kulik comes to mind of someone in the 6.0 era who violated the rule more than once and may have paid a price at least once -- 1996 Worlds when he did two triple flips with neither in combination, which means that theoretically under the rules of the time the second one should have counted for nothing and received a deduction.
I remember a journalist asking him about that and mentioning that if he had just done a double toe after one of those flips he might have won the world title.
However under 6.0 the decisions never came down to one jump that clearly. There's no way to know for sure whether any of the 5 or 6 judges who had him second in the freeskate at that Worlds would have put him first if only he'd done that combination, or whether they still would have had him second because they thought Eldredge was better overall.

When Plushenko lost the GPF, it was because the first year or two of IJS allowed only two combinations total. That was immediately changed the following year to allow three combos as had been the case in the past and now has been ever since.

More recently, the change to count repeated triples and quads as +Rep with lower base value but without counting as an extra combination does solve some of the problems of skaters doing too many combinations in the 2006-14 era.

I do think that asking skaters to keep track of how to make up for mistakes, including repeats of double jumps now, with specific plan B, plan C, etc. is burdensome while they're trying to focus on technique and performance, not counting.
If they just plan their programs within the rules and stick to the planned content for the rest of the program after a mistake they should avoid running afoul of this rule and losing credit for good elements later, but they might still lose a lot of points for the element that had the mistake. Should the rules encourage backup plans and thinking on one's feet to make up some of those points?