'Radical change' could be on the way

Plushenko on quads BV: nonsense
https://m.sports.ru/figure-skating/1055578755.html

I'm ok with the decrease of BV for quads, since so many can do them, they can be classed as 'less difficult' elements than they were before, like they do every few years in gymnastics. It hasn't hurt the rush towards new and harder elements in gymnastics so I think it will also work in figure skating.
However, the division of the technical and artistic programs might result in two programs that are lackluster, depending on how they decide to divide them.
I personally think there is a great deal of technique involved in a centered, fast spin in a difficult position, or a step sequence that is perfectly timed and executed with beautiful edges. The art is in the execution of the elements. Also, a big jump with transitions that match the music is both technical and artistic. Why try to extract one from the other?

Interspectator said:

I'm ok with the decrease of BV for quads, since so many can do them, they can be classed as 'less difficult' elements than they were before, like they do every few years in gymnastics. It hasn't hurt the rush towards new and harder elements in gymnastics so I think it will also work in figure skating.

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Then shouldn't the triples drop by a similar amount? The bulk of the proposed BV decreases are with the quads. BV for 3F isn't decreased at all. A better solution would be to have a separate BV for men and women, and have the BV for men's jumps decrease by 10% across the board.

moriel said:

Sure.
About all the casual fans I've met do not care for FS as art, they care for FS as a sport.
So to increase popularity, make it actually a sport. ISU should remove the PCs scores at all.

Why? First, they are not objective and will never be. This is always where people complain about underscoring/overscoring.
Also, removing PCs overall, would leave scoring faster.

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i dont think its fair to over-generalize everyone who watches figure skating as people who do not care about the artistry of it. i would be absolutely GUTTED if they took away PCS . . . if they did that then why not just add hurdles to speed skating? it would be so so sooooo boring without the added challenge of incorporating high levels of creativity and performance, etc.

bestolen said:

Ok, now we all know your are a old school person that can't accept figure skating is no longer like it was when you were young.

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Nice! :sarcasm:

I've said it before and I'll say it again they only need two separate judging panels each, one for PCS and one for tech and they would score independently and then combine the scores. I don't like this idea one bit because one stays sport and the other not so much. Yes skating skills is tech but the other stuff is not in and of itself. I think the great challenge for skaters is to be good at both and to continue to try to improve at both.

I don't get why some people say jumps in figure skating are the thing that attracts audience.

I could not agree more. Not long ago I showed some of my favorite recent programs to a friend who doesn't watch figure skating regularly and her comment was, "Oh, so it's all about the jumps now." She had always considered it a well-rounded sport that required both athleticism and artistry.

noskates said:

Nice! :sarcasm:

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you know, it is ironic because ¨young¨ fans can´t accept this new proposal, but you are still here, so you accepted many changes in 40 years.

chapis said:

you know, it is ironic because ¨young¨ fans can´t accept this new proposal, but you are still here, so you accepted many changes in 40 years.

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not all changes are good or smart you know

chillgil said:

not all changes are good or smart you know

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I know, but that was not my point. Someone said that this person is an old person who can´t accept that the sport is not the same like when she/he was young, but this person is still fan after 40 years, so obviously he/she adapt herself to the situation / evolution of the sport, not every change in the last 40 years was a good or smart idea.

Grin said:

Plushenko on quads BV: nonsense
https://m.sports.ru/figure-skating/1055578755.html

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Not only Plushenko but Tarasova and Moskvina, too

angelicaamatina said:

Horrible idea. The point of skating is to combine athletism and artristry not to have two seperate categories. I can already see everyone calling artistic gold the fake gold. It makes everything so confusing imo as well. Would this be only for seniors or intermediate and above? You can't only think about elite skaters when implecating rules like this. I just dont like it....and im all for artistry but quads are HARD. Quads should be rewarded. Does the ISU not realize this, i'm confused.

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I agree totally!!! And ISU should find a rightful way to reward skaters who have both the artistry and the big jumps. Maybe there are too many various categories in PCS which allow a skater without the big jumps to place way too high in a competition? Figure skating is sport, although combined with artistry, which makes it so difficult to perform.

I'm not sure what the fuss is. The sport evolves technically. It's always been that way.

Things are advancing. The dust will settle where it always does.

The skaters with the most difficult content will be the medal contenders.

The one of those who delivers that most difficult content with the best artistry will win.

The skaters without difficult content but good artistry will be the middle-of-the-pack, fighting for Top 10 placements.

Let's also not forget that, a few years back, many people were complaining that a certain skater was winning events mostly on PCS, despite multiple falls. Increasing the weight on artistry would probably exacerbate this problem.

You know, I don't think there would be a need for change if judges actually awarded PCS correctly.

Johnny weighs in:

https://twitter.com/JohnnyGWeir/status/907643320540827648

Johnny Weir‏Verified account @JohnnyGWeir 42m42 minutes ago

Sport is evolution. Evolved skaters, technically or artistically, should not be discriminated against. A quad lutz alone does not equal gold

What I'd be more curious about is not the percentage of the total score that TES or PCS makes up, but how much was the variation in TES and PCS given out across different competitors. TES may need to be split into BV and GOE to think through this properly.

Using made-up numbers, say TES varied between 60 and 120, while PCS varied between 70 and 90. Then even if you doubled the PCS, so that it varied between 140 and 180 (higher than TES), the TES would still be a bigger factor in determining who wins, and the scoring system would still be encouraging people to emphasize technical content. A hypothetical competitor going all-out on technical content would get 120 from TES and 140 from PCS for a total of 260, while a hypothetical competitor focusing on PCS would get 60 from TES and 180 from PCS for a total of 240, and still place lower. This despite PCS making up a higher percentage of the total score.

So I think the more fundamental issue is that, at a very abstract level, skaters have a limited amount of time to train, so they will train to gain the most additional points they can with that amount of time. If the current scoring system is such that they can gain more additional points from what they currently have by learning a new quad instead of doing their current triple (which also opens up the door of not Zayaking, which means the quad's points perhaps should actually be compared to that of a double which may have been done in its place, rather than a triple), then that's what it encourages them to do. If the scoring system is such that they can gain more additional points by focusing on artistry, then that's what they'll do.

So decreasing the base values for quads and increasing the GOE for technical elements will indeed put the focus more on quality of performed elements. However, as mentioned already, additional problems are that quads tend to get +GOE's just by being quads, and PCS scores tend to be pretty much the same for the top competitors. Thus top competitors end up having to focus on difficult jumps to distinguish themselves from other top competitors.

So a different way to go about the problem would be for the judging to adhere more closely to GOE criteria (so that quads receive a wider range of values) and for there to be greater variation in PCS scores. That comes down to the training of judges I think since those are primarily subjective.

Separating artistry and technical sound like a joke. Simply can't imagine how it could work, so there will be 2 set of protocols? I think they have to find a new name for that sport, because that's not figure skating.

I agree that the gap of TES and PCS will need to be close, lower the BV could be one of it, change the factor for PCS seems fine, but some of the suggested changes mentioned in the article, I am really not sure if that's going to work out that way to achieve that purpose...

The % of GOE linked to BV... I also think that's a good idea in the first place, but think deeply, if Rippon and Nathan is the in same competition, Rippon did a prefect triple toe, and Nathan did a prefect quad toe, they have a 5.2 BV diff. (According to the proposed new BV) Let's said if they both received the highest GOE under the current system, their different is still 5.2, but if the GOE were linked to the BV, the gap will be bigger than 5.2. Does it actually promot quad? Because of the higher BV along with a prossible higher GOE? It is even a bigger setbacks for skaters who can't do quad?

Reduce number of jumps allowed is fine, so that they could fit more artistic elements in the program, but not cutting time.

The bigger range of GOE... if the judging panel is having so much complaints from using the +-6 scoring intervals, I am worry if they could handle a +-10 scoring intervals in such short period of time (without leaking their political agenda and preferences )

noskates said:

You know - it was a sport when they were only doing doubles. It was a sport when they were doing triples. Why all of a sudden is it only a "sport" if they're doing quads? There WILL be injuries. There have already been injuries. I'm sorry but Nathen Chen and Boyang are not artistic. I also don't think Hanyu has been deserving of the high PCS he's received. I've been watching figure skating for over 40 years and I do not, unpopularly I'm sure, like the trend that seems to be happening. There needs to be a balance. There currently isn't a balance. Any sport that is judged by humans is going to have its faults. We have many faults now. There is NO consistency and I don't see the IFS or the USFSA or any of the country's federations coming up with anything to change that. Sad.

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But sports and standards have to evolve. If in diving they weren't doing more than 2 rotations just so they could get clean entries or if in gymnastics they were doing simple vaults so all the landings would be stuck, it would still be a sport but not difficult. I think the way sports evolve is that there is always a subsect of athletes who push the athletic boundaries, forcing others to catch up. It could lead to more injuries all around but that's the point of being competitive, to strive for something more difficult and risky. If everyone was always doing the same routine with the easiest elements the sport wouldn't be as appealing or as respected.

GF2445 said:

Well, the ISU brought it on itself when they brought in the points system. This was going to happen.
A point that i want to raise is the value of the Short Program. I think one of the motivations for having 2 equal length events of techncial and artistic is because in recent years, interest in the short program has decreased. These days, unless its a sports channel, or a tv network in the nation of the event, they would only, for most of the time, only show the long program.
Thoughts?

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This is exactly right... the SP is probably money loser overall and the previous ISU president wanted to get rid of it.

Figure skating has a glamour problem... and it's the biggest issue that needs tackled. it's a repetitive sport with the aesthetic of a dentist office and as analytic as a math exam. And it's often easy to see the analytic nature of modern skating when some skaters do their exhibitions.

The SP as-is is not good enough to be giving out individual medals for except for those small medals. I also think it's wrong to divide programs up into "technical" and "artistic" programs. I'd call one an "artistic oriented" program and the other one a "complete"/"full"/"main" program.

I don't think there should be rash decisions about new formats, but I'd like to see an experiment events ran like this(slightly different than what I posted earlier):

4 minutes long
Show lighting
5 jump passes with no combinations and no repeated jumps. This means demonstrating almost every jump while allowing a substitution for a less reliable jump.
A step sequence
2-3 spins that are judged more on their musicality
Step sequence
1-2 choreographic/spiral sequence

On judging... all that was needed to fix 6.0 was to be more strict about cheating and add more judges. I think it would be interesting to just let the judges live rank the skaters with the judges having to write explanations and then let them deliberate afterwards and make adjustments. I also would consider allowing ties.