Making a World Record: Hanyu's Long Program

[Li'Kitsu]

Thanks to everyone who started to focus on the video and got this thread back on track. Very much appreciated!

An impressive amount of work went into this video, so hats off to the people who worked on it.

The way it presented the GOE scores was a bit confusing. It first presents the GOE that the creators of the video believe that Yuzuru should have gotten on the element (though they don't label their opinions as an opinion--that's what makes it confusing), followed by the GOE that he actually got, followed by what the maximum GOE is (these two are labeled as such). Since the GOE that the creators propose is typically higher than what he actually got, the video makes the case that he was underscored, even though it presents itself as a "celebration" video. It seems like it's trying to have its cake and eat it too. It's a celebration video? An objective, educational video? A video arguing that Hanyu is underscored?

It has a lot of valuable, educational skating information about Yuzuru's program, but the video loses the stance of complete objectivity by inserting its argument on what Hanyu's GOE should've been. It would have been equally enjoyable, and perhaps less open to criticism, had it kept the opinion part on the GOE out of the video, or labeled those scores as the opinions of the creators of the video.

Thank you for your opinion on this. Regarding the GOE and the assessment of bullet points, I would like to mention first that the person who did that was Yulia (who did all of that analysis completely by herself!). The group who then put it into a video is a different one, although of course we asked for her permission and she checked the video. I see where you are coming from when you say the GOE grading isn't objective, but at least for me, it's starts out with the fact that I didn't want to leave out some of Yulias work in the video. If we got the permission to work with her analysis, I personally wanted to use the complete one (and I'm talking strictly about my train of thinking here, I'm not talking for anybody else, not on the video team either).
To me personally though, I don't think it is much of a problem to have both the part that is objective (the naming of the different steps) and one that is Yulias opinion. One doesn't lose value because of the other to me. And while the bullet point awarding is of course her opinion, I think it is presented with a lot of reasoning and at least somewhat backed up by clearly pointing out the transitions into the jumps and such. In the end, people are of course still welcome to disagree and if you think a bullet point is awarded wrong, you are welcome to point that out and state your opinion.

Yeah, I don't think one can make the "underscored" argument by looking at the program in isolation. He does have a lot of content that most of us who watch might miss. However, if the person did the same for Patrick's program, would we see that Patrick has more or less content? Also, Hanyu's jumps are not only assessed by the GOE bullets, but also the overall quality of the element. For example, in his 3A-2T, he Rippons the 2T so there is a air position variation there. Should judges assess that the same as if he Rippon'ed the 3A instead? That would be more difficult, and somehow would need to factor in to the scoring.

But we don't want to make the 'underscored' argument
And I agree re the Rippon point and how you assess that in the bullet points. There are IMO still quite a few things were the GOE guidelines should be clearer. And then of course there are still instances were things are subjective - when exactly is a jump big enough to count as big? Was that jump 'effortless'? Regarding these questions, we are reaching the 'comparing to others' point, because a lot of personal standards are fine, as long as they are consistent between skaters. But as for why the video is the way it is, I'll refer to the first part of my post

 

[Fayruza]

Some people still can't learn to read and realise that the creators of the video used Yulia's text. So if you have any criticism, then word it succinctly and I'll translate your criricism into Russian, inform Yulia about it and bring back her answer. Well, when both she and I have time for you, of course.
And of course, the same people are totally unbiased when it comes to GOE. Why does it only have to be the same set of unbiased people over and over again, I wonder?

 

[gladiolusc]

Thank you for putting this together! I have shared with some of my other friends who watch skating as well and they think this is great and they actually learned some things! And one of my friends who will be joining me in PyeongChang wants to know more about skating so I've sent this her way so she can study what the different moves are. It's wonderful teaching tool. Thank you, thank you again!

Thanks for saying this Overall, that's the sentiment I'm getting from youtube and niconico comments, and I think that's the best outcome we can aim for And I can't say for others on the team, but certainly I learned a lot from Yulia through making this video too.

 

[narcissa]

Patrick, Shoma, Nathan and Boyang or any other fans are welcome to do that. I can assure you that Yuzu fans will appreciate those efforts and will be glad to see the result.

I would love to see it. Especially Boyang, because I think he's underscored in transitions/footwork sometimes I would but I don't have the knowledge to do it

 

[Neenah16]

The makers of this video is clearly a fan - I'm sure if we asked what their PCS scorecard looked like it would have been 10.00's across the board. However, the judges in Helsinki are way less biased individuals, with greater training, who judge far more critically, and yes, they won't award perfect scores to a skater who had 4 other competitors ahead of him, yet to skate. I agree if he had skated last his scores would have been higher, but I also agree that it doesn't matter too much. Like, he got the World record, people - don't whine that his World Record should have been higher. Although there's no point -- these folks will never be simply satisfied by a stellar performance, and will keep making videos for Hanyu's every element in every competition that doesn't score +3's across the board.

I checked the protocols for the free in Helsinki since I was curious. The 4S3T combo that was mentioned as an example in an earlier post was given 3 GOE by four judges, 2 by four judges, and 1 by a single judge.

So 4 less biased individuals agree with the analysis, and 5 don't. I guess we can just take this as the opinion of one judge or something.

 

[Sydney Rose]

There have been many posts in this thread bickering about the original title of the thread. I have unapproved the bickering posts and retitled the thread.

4everchan is correct. The ISU changes the rules and points available every year, so world record is not a meaningful concept in figure skating.

There was a time when Cinquanta touted the point based system as allowing world records, but the ISU does not even pretend to this any more.

Season's best is still valid, however.

Please do not insult other posters, and please report posts that do not meet the guidelines rather than bickering.

If "world record" is not meaningful, then why is GoldenSkate publishing articles on this site like "Medvedeva sets new World record"?

 

[dorispulaski]

Just to make it clear: you changed the title because world record is not a meaningful concept in figure skating.

Following the logic I assume since now it is prohibited to call record scores "world records" at GS, the posts with mention of WR should be modified like the title of the thread.

And what about the records established before the changes in ISU regulations? Is it allowed to call those scores WR or not?

There was a time when Cinquanta touted the point based system as allowing world records, but the ISU does not even pretend to this any more.

Cinquanta is no longer the head of the ISU too.

Season's best is still valid, however.


V&Ms 2017 SD season best score is a fine example of something that is a season's best, but not even their own best skated SD. Their Olympic SD was closer to a perfect skate (a perfect skate would have all 10s in PCS, all level 4s, and all max GOEs).

 

[Sydney Rose]

I'm sorry but this seems like an example of "whoever complains the most vociferously on this forum will get their way". Putting aside whether the poster who raised the point was right or not, i just wonder if the thread was about "Patrick Chan sets another record" whether the point would have been raised at all.

Or it may be that whoever owns this site wants to discourage participation by Hanyu fans. It certainly appears that way to me.

And maybe it's time to oblige them and move over to a different site.

 

[dorispulaski]

If "world record" is not meaningful, then why is GoldenSkate publishing articles on this site like "Medvedeva sets new World record"?

Because we are not always right. Not everyone has caught up to the change in policy, including some of our contributors.

 

[Camillo]

There was a time when Cinquanta touted the point based system as allowing world records, but the ISU does not even pretend to this any more.

Cinquanta is no longer the head of the ISU too.

Season's best is still valid, however.

V&Ms 2017 SD season best score is a fine example of something that is a season's best, but not even their own best skated SD. Their Olympic SD was closer to a perfect skate (a perfect skate would have all 10s in PCS, all level 4s, and all max GOEs).

I see, so you're going to change all of the titles at the forum and the site with "record" in it (for the 2016-2017 season), to present the information according to current ISU regulations, right?

http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-sd/
Virtue and Moir set record Short Dance score in Helsinki

http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/01/chen-takes-u-s-title-record-score/
Chen takes U.S. title with record score

http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-ladies-fs/
Medvedeva sets new World record

http://www.goldenskate.com/2016/04/2016-worlds-ladies-fs/
Russia’s Medvedeva breaks record; captures World title

 

[Marin]

Because we are not always right. Not everyone has caught up to the change in policy, including some of our contributors.

http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/01/chen-takes-u-s-title-record-score/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-ladies-fs/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-sd/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2016/12/2016-17-grand-prix-final-dance/

I see double standards here... sorry I am feeling really disappointed and sad. It seems someone who owns and operated this forum tries best do descourage Hanyu and his fans.... very sad fact

 

[dorispulaski]

Or it may be that whoever owns this site wants to discourage participation by Hanyu fans. It certainly appears that way to me.

And maybe it's time to oblige them and move over to a different site.

We love our Hanyu fans, but we don't want any of our posters making personal attacks at other posters.

And especially in the Edge and Competition threads, we try not to misstate what the rules are and we also try to allow fans of all skaters to have and state their differing opinions without being personally attacked.

This thread got way out of hand too quickly and it got ahead of us. For that, I apologize.

 

[Yatagarasu]

Because we are not always right. Not everyone has caught up to the change in policy, including some of our contributors.

We are to expect that this will apply to more than Yuzuru Hanyu, right? From now on, I mean. Just for the record, so that I can get my report post button ready. Also it would be nice to edit all this stuff that you accidentally missed too. Just to be fair, of course otherwise it really does give the impression, along with everything else of course, that there is one set of rules for Yuzuru Hanyu, discussions about him and of course, his fans here, and another set of rules for others. And of course, a yet totally different set of rules for contributors.

It's all a bit muddled now for me considering you allow insulting of Yuzuru Hanyu fans (posts still here), you allow insulting of Yuzuru Hanyu (posts still here) and now this.

 

[Meoima]

We are to expect that this will apply to more than Yuzuru Hanyu, right? From now on, I mean. Just for the record, so that I can get my report post button ready. Also it would be nice to edit all this stuff that you accidentally missed too. Just to be fair, of course otherwise it really does give the impression, along with everything else of course, that there is one set of rules for Yuzuru Hanyu, discussions about him and of course, his fans here, and another set of rules for others. And of course, a yet totally different set of rules for contributors.

It's all a bit muddled now for me considering you allow insulting of Yuzuru Hanyu fans (posts still here), you allow insulting of Yuzuru Hanyu (posts still here) and now this.

Just move one to another platform. In FSuniverse they don't like Yuzuru. It's sad only I am there updating Yuzuru's fan thread. Feel free to join me.

 

[Li'Kitsu]

We love our Hanyu fans, but we don't want any of our posters making personal attacks at other posters.

And especially in the Edge and Competition threads, we try not to misstate what the rules are and we also try to allow fans of all skaters to have and state their differing opinions without being personally attacked.

This thread got way out of hand too quickly and it got ahead of us. For that, I apologize.

So can I get an honest explanation then why CSG mocking me and the rest of the people who worked on this video (by saying things like "and yes, I'm sure you did think it would be something a lot of people would like to see! Great effort. On a totally unrelated note, does anyone have the ISU judges' email addresses/social handles so we can forward this to them? I'm sure they would like to see it, too!") and implying we're lying about our actual intentions making it and discrediting the work we did is still on? Yet the post of me answering it is not anymore? Doesn't seem to be a case of "it got ahead of us and we didn't manage to keep up"?

 

[Marin]

Honestly, I have seen this celebration video shared on Russian, Japanese, French platforms , it was accepted warmly and people who worked hard to celebrate their favorite skaters spectacular LP were highly praised for hard work , love and dedication for Yuzuru, In Russia and east asian countries even some skating schools shared it ... I didn't expect such treatment from GS. I feel so down now...

 

[Camillo]

http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/01/chen-takes-u-s-title-record-score/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-ladies-fs/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2017/03/2017-worlds-sd/
http://www.goldenskate.com/2016/12/2016-17-grand-prix-final-dance/

I see double standards here... sorry I am feeling really disappointed and sad. It seems someone who owns and operated this forum tries best do descourage Hanyu and his fans.... very sad fact

I see two ways out.

GS staff has to change all other titles with "record" in it or (if they think it's too much work to change the titles for all the season) they has to rename this thread as it was initially (with WR). (Of course with the note that since now on the word "record" and "WR" are not allowed at GS as it's against the ISU rules)

If nothing changes, you are right, double standards rule :disagree:

 

[bibi1899]

Thanks for the video! For me, it clearly shows me more detail how great this performace is! I was in helsinki at that moment, I still remember clearly the chills when Hanyu performed this epic program and now I get to know how many work he has done for this! Great work!

I am glad I can purely enjoy the video while some ppl here would rather spending time on insulting ppl who made the great video or even the good skater who could bring such good performace to figure skating world.

 

[Meoima]

By the way, Phil Hersh and PJ Kwong retweeted the video... so they appreciate the hardwork. Congrats you guys.

 

[shiroKJ]

Thank you so much for such a glorious video made by such amazing fans for a stunning program skated by a magnificent skater which resulted in a mind-blowing comeback! :luv17: