2018-19: New Season, New Rules, & Judging: Singles and Pairs | Page 8 | Golden Skate

2018-19: New Season, New Rules, & Judging: Singles and Pairs

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Ah OK I see where you're coming from. Makes sense! :agree:

Well, im not sure what you meant with that :) But my point was that is very very important to compete and win as many ISU events prior to the bigest competition of the year... Because of that you will have the privilege to skate in a group which is per se known as the one with higher scoring potential... The starting position is very important in all the ISU competitions (and not just your position prior to the free skate, but also your position prior to the short program), thats just the way it is...
 

Weathergal

Medalist
Joined
May 25, 2014
Well, im not sure what you meant with that :) But my point was that is very very important to compete and win as many ISU events prior to the bigest competitions of the year... Because you will have the privilege to skate in groups which are per se known as the one with higher scoring potential... The starting position is very important in the ISU competitions, thats just the way it is...

Initially you said "when Uno, Chen, and Hanyu get points from 4CCs..." I was confused why you said that since Hanyu will not be at 4CCs (neither will Nathan for that matter). But when you clarified that you meant that more theoretically and were talking about ranking points they could get IF they were competing, I understood what you meant. And I was agreeing with you that skaters can definitely be affected by having to skate in an earlier group even though it shouldn't matter. (Sorry didn't mean to be confusing. It has been a long day.)
 

BillNeal

You Know I'm a FS Fan...
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Jan 10, 2014
Well, im not sure what you meant with that :) But my point was that is very very important to compete and win as many ISU events prior to the bigest competition of the year... Because of that you will have the privilege to skate in group which is per se known as the one with higher scoring potential... The starting position is very important in all the ISU competitions, thats just the way it is...

Do you think Virtue/Moir would have scored higher if they had skated in the final or penultimate group at 2017 Worlds SD?: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/wc2017/SEG007.HTM

What about Shen/Zhao who skated first at 2010 Olympics SP?
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/SEG005.HTM
 

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Do you think Virtue/Moir would have scored higher if they had skated in the final or penultimate group at 2017 Worlds SD?: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/wc2017/SEG007.HTM

Maybe they would, maybe not... I wasn't saying that starting position is crucial, just that is very important (when skaters are skating on the same level some of the other factors as this can be the deciding ones. When someone skates clearly the best in the field then the starting position is not that important factor of course)...
 

bobbob

Medalist
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Do you think Virtue/Moir would have scored higher if they had skated in the final or penultimate group at 2017 Worlds SD?: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/wc2017/SEG007.HTM

What about Shen/Zhao who skated first at 2010 Olympics SP?
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/SEG005.HTM

I think it is VERY important. In the Shen/Zhao case, yes the gap would probably have been larger in the GOEs and PCS. V/M maybe, maybe not.

I think it is possible that Sui/Han lost the Olympics because the didn't partake in 4CC last year. They got a boost in the free for skating after S/M, but they were oddly close to T/M in the short due to skating early. If they were in the final group, 0.5 points could have been theirs.
 

anonymoose_au

Insert weird opinion here
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Feb 22, 2014
Country
Australia
Wait I was under the impression that the IJS eliminated the whole early group = low score and late = higher score. Wasn't that part of the point of it?

I hate to think anyone lost or won the Olympics because of their starting positions!
 

Harriet

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Oct 23, 2017
Country
Australia
Wait I was under the impression that the IJS eliminated the whole early group = low score and late = higher score. Wasn't that part of the point of it?

I hate to think anyone lost or won the Olympics because of their starting positions!

Theoretically, it does, but it's very hard to change the way the human brain works in terms of looking for patterns, structure and order. Even when people are fighting that kind of ordering bias it can subconsciously influence the marks they give. You have to be quite well-trained in just applying the rubric and nothing else, and you have to have the opportunity to practice a lot, too.
 

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Wait I was under the impression that the IJS eliminated the whole early group = low score and late = higher score. Wasn't that part of the point of it?

I hate to think anyone lost or won the Olympics because of their starting positions!

Well, i didn't want to say that someone lost big competitions just because of that, i was saying that starting position is one of the factors which needs to be consider, as for example skating on the home ice, or represeting big federations, or being 'consistent' etc I don't think that is necesserally a bad thing in this case, it is just a way to reward skaters who performed better during the whole season and who 'played a role' in a lot of competitions during the season..
 

BillNeal

You Know I'm a FS Fan...
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Jan 10, 2014
Wait I was under the impression that the IJS eliminated the whole early group = low score and late = higher score. Wasn't that part of the point of it?

I hate to think anyone lost or won the Olympics because of their starting positions!

Thanks for this. I have learned that people's opinions need to be taken with a grain of salt; no one is 100% objective, even if some may very well think of themselves as such. If Bruno hadn't doubled the Salchow in the short, S/M would have had close to 5 points more (with decent positive GOE on the 3S) and wouldn't have had to make up a big deficit in the free. In the free, if Cong didn't single his first 2T or if Wenjing didn't step-out on the 3S or if they didn't lose levels on their spin or lift, S/H would have won. That's a lot of ifs but at the end of the day, there are few that dispute the overall result. I'm a fan of both teams and perhaps if we're lucky enough, Aliona and Bruno will make their comeback and we'll see both teams compete under the new GOE system :).
 

xeyra

Constant state
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Just a side note to the new season and new rules: currently, Samarin (CS 3rd, GP 3rd+4th, Europeans 2nd) leads the men's ranking while Uno is 6th (CS 1st, GP 1st+1st, GPF 2nd), Chen is 10th (GP 1st+1st, GPF 1st), Hanyu is 14th (GP 1st+1st). Oh yeah, sounds about right. #smh

These are the season's rankings, though. I believe the only one that matters for SP groups is World Standings. I don't know what Season Rankings are used for, except maybe as part of criteria for National Feds to determine their teams for Worlds.
 

Rissa

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 11, 2014
So, he may be placed lower in the ISU ranks than. He won Worlds the year before, so i'm not sure... But it is not good when you are not getting those points from ISU competitions... For example, I think both Yuna and Pluschenko lost Olympics because they were not competing in all those ISU events prior to Olympics. As a concequence they skated very early their short programs and they were awarded less than skaters who were ranked higher and scheduled to skate in the final groups....

Hanyu's currently 3rd in the World Standings and he's got enough of a lead that it's not gonna change before Worlds. The only changes that are possible, even likely, are that Boyang Jin and Vincent Zhou will advance ahead of Samarin and Brown into top 6, and that Messing and Junhwan Cha will advance to top 12 (Messing could even get into top 6, theoretically.)
 

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Hanyu's currently 3rd in the World Standings and he's got enough of a lead that it's not gonna change before Worlds. The only changes that are possible, even likely, are that Boyang Jin and Vincent Zhou will advance ahead of Samarin and Brown into top 6, and that Messing and Junhwan Cha will advance to top 12 (Messing could even get into top 6, theoretically.)

Yeah, that's why Hanyu and Chen may skip 4CC, nothing gonna change. All the others will need to compete in order to get that top 12 position in rankings I guess.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Wait I was under the impression that the IJS eliminated the whole early group = low score and late = higher score. Wasn't that part of the point of it?

I hate to think anyone lost or won the Olympics because of their starting positions!

Some folks say it's because of starting positions, but there were several factors that cost Kim and Plushenko their second gold medals - partly not maxing out their base value (Kim not doing a 7th triple - yeah yeah yeah, I know the loop hurt her back or whatever, bottom line is she didn't attempt it and Sotnikova went for 7; Plushenko left out a 3-jump combo which would have won, and deliberately didn't include transitions thinking all he needed to do were the elements and call it a day), some bad judging (Sotnikova got exceedingly generous scores but arguably still could have edged out Kim, just not by over 5 points which was ridiculous). Starting position may have shortchanged Kim's/Plu's PCS to some extent, but I don't think it cost them, and would rather hold their layout decisions and the judges scoring (in the case of Kim; for Plushenko I thought the PCS was fine, although I thought Lysacek's should have been slightly higher rather than them tying) accountable for them not winning.

Yes, there is a trend that the first couple groups with lesser ranked/lesser known receive less PCS but it's not like nobody (including the judges) knew that both were the reigning Olympic champion (and in Kim's case, World champion).
 

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Some folks say it's because of starting positions, but there were several factors that cost Kim and Plushenko their second gold medals - partly not maxing out their base value (Kim not doing a 7th triple - yeah yeah yeah, I know the loop hurt her back or whatever, bottom line is she didn't attempt it and Sotnikova went for 7; Plushenko left out a 3-jump combo which would have won, and deliberately didn't include transitions thinking all he needed to do were the elements and call it a day), some bad judging (Sotnikova got exceedingly generous scores but arguably still could have edged out Kim, just not by over 5 points which was ridiculous). Starting position may have shortchanged Kim's/Plu's PCS to some extent, but I don't think it cost them, and would rather hold their layout decisions and the judges scoring (in the case of Kim; for Plushenko I thought the PCS was fine, although I thought Lysacek's should have been slightly higher rather than them tying) accountable for them not winning.

Yes, there is a trend that the first couple groups with lesser ranked/lesser known receive less PCS but it's not like nobody (including the judges) knew that both were the reigning Olympic champion (and in Kim's case, World champion).

Of course there were several factors which decided the winner, including the legitime one - that both Lysachek and Sotnikova were very good that night. I've never wanted to debate their win, because i really think they were the deserving winners... The same way those others would be too - if lets say Pluschenko competed against Lyschacek in Sochi with same performances, and Yuna against Adelina and Caro in Pyeongchang, or Caro against Adelina and Yuna in Torino, again with those same performances - i'm pretty sure the results will be different... I was just trying to say that there are other factors which can favour someone or something more and starting position is one of them.. And those factors are part of any sports competition of any sport in the world...
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Of course there were several factors which decided the winner, including the legitime one - that both Lysachek and Sotnikova were very good that night. I've never wanted to debate their win, because i really think they were the deserving winners... The same way those others would be too - if lets say Pluschenko competed against Lyschacek in Sochi with same performances, and Yuna against Adelina and Caro in Pyeongchang, or Caro against Adelina and Yuna in Torino, again with those same performances - i'm pretty sure the results will be different... I was just trying to say that there are other factors which can favour someone or something more and starting position is one of them.. And those factors are part of any sports competition of any sport in the world...

Ah okay, I hear ya. :)

And yes, the results would be very different, lol. Plu would have gotten like 93 PCS, instead of 83, and Sotnikova would have gotten like 64 PCS instead of 74. :laugh:
 

Baron Vladimir

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Ah okay, I hear ya. :)

And yes, the results would be very different, lol. Plu would have gotten like 93 PCS, instead of 83, and Sotnikova would have gotten like 64 PCS instead of 74. :laugh:

Not really. My point was that skaters tends to perform better at home ice and judges tend to reward home skaters more... but not with those amount of points you implicated - 5 points difference in singles after the free skate is not that big difference between the skaters really - it can be only one UR jump not visible from the naked eye from all the jumps performed in both programs with a little bit cautious skate for example...
(If you ask me, i think with the same layouts Yuna would score approximately 5 points more and Sotnikova 5 points less in Peyochang, or if performing in Torino Caro would score 5 points more and Adelina again 5 points less overall. That would change the final outcome. On a neutral ground the placements would be practically the same and Adelina may win again, cause she would score 5 points less but the others won't be rewarded more. Just my speculations tho :eek:topic:)
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
Artistry in a program that's performed at it's best will always have a set mark. But technical ability in a program can always go up or down depending on how much base value a skater chooses to incorporate or not incorporate, and of course how well that difficulty is executed.

The technical mark and "second mark" are supposed to be roughly equal in weight. It's what the sport has operated on and what it should continue to operate on, as without performance and artistry, it loses most appeal. The second mark didn't suddenly become less valuable as more and more Triples got added to programs in the 90's; it remained equally as important despite the level of content rising.

Over time, as tech content has evolved, people have learned to do formerly "very difficult" jumps more consistently. For example, doing a 3Toe+3Toe now is not the same amount of difficulty as it was in the early 80's. Back then it would put you on a whole other level in the technical mark, these days not really. A skater who could win via that technical advantage despite being a mark lower artistically, would not win on it now, as the PCS can easily outvalue the difference. If looked at through only a modern lens, the more artistic skater back then would deserve to win, because the relative amount of technical content isn't a big difference based on current standard. For that time though, it was a big difference.

While artistry itself may not increase in the way that tech content does, it needs to be credited with equal weight to what the technical playing field is, because it will ALWAYS remain difficult and worthwhile to give a great and creative performance, and we want the competitors to always give serious attention to that aspect of their skating. A program without tech content will not win regardless of the artistic score being increased anyway - Janet Lynn for example, as beautiful as some of her programs may have been and deserve high PCS, would still not get enough points compared to an "adequately artistic" 7-Triple program.

Although, artistry itself can increase too. People can keep reaching new levels of expression and musicality and choreographic crispness. What might have been a "10" for artistry in one era, may not be the same in a later era. This can somewhat be accounted for already by the sliding scale on which PCS are judged, but there's also merit to the PCS itself deserving more points as the sport progresses. Sadly, the sport has not been progressing artistically in recent times for singles skating, but that's a separate issue.

And it's been mentioned again and again: if PCS was brought higher in scale it would only create a greater discrepancy between skaters like Hanyu and Chen and the rest of the pack and "save" top-tier skaters who have poor performances

No that isn't what it would do, if there was good judging. With actual meaningful separation by the judges, and thoughtful assessment of what is being performed, it would push skaters to grow in this area. Lower-tier skaters who have strong artistry would get rewarded for it and be able to pull up in the standings. It would have been the difference in who gets a medal between Matteo Rizzo and Kevin Aymoz at Europeans this year, for example. Most people thought Kevin deserved it on the basis of his superior artistry, and the judges scored him a decent amount higher there, but in the end it didn't give enough points to matter in comparison to the small technical advantage Rizzo had.

Frankly, I'm thrilled that a skater like Jin or Zhou can make it onto the World podium by having much greater tech content, instead of waiting for the judges to give them PCS that allows for it.

Well first of all, Zhou already did receive very high PCS at these past Worlds. Secondly, having greater technical content has always been a way to push ahead, and would continue to be, regardless of PCS scaling getting changed. The amount of tech content you need just depends on exactly how much your PCS is lacking. It's supposed to be a balance.

Just because Brown isn't doing quads or seems close to getting one doesn't mean the PCS scale should be raised to give him more of a fighting chance.

It's not about giving him specifically more of a fighting chance. It's about rewarding the qualities in skating that should always be worth a lot. Look at how few skaters have come up in their career by focusing on the exquisite qualities Jason Brown has, in comparison to the countless people who have instead focused on jumps.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
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Sep 14, 2008
Country
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The "skating skills and transitions" were part of the second mark back then too, though not always with the same scrutiny as now. Whatever we want to call them, CoP was definitely designed to have the Tech mark and PCS in the same range as each other. We're at a point now where things need to be reconsidered, the balance has gone awry.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
The technical mark and "second mark" are supposed to be roughly equal in weight.

You're saying the PCS should be raised to be roughly equivalent to the technical elements mark but your basis for that is due to the technical level of just a handful of skaters (only three of whom have thus far surpassed 100 TES under this system).

Raising PCS to a max potential 130 as Ambesi alludes to (which you had included in your list of his thoughts which you deemed to be "very good") would be a foolhardy implementation since 7.00's would get 91 PCS which would absolutely make the TES/PCS ratios super lopsided.

The average (mean) PCs score in the 2019 Worlds FS was 80.86. The mean TES at Worlds was around 81.52 (only 2 skaters out of 24 scored more than 100 TES, which is the current PCS max). So if you take the average of all skaters, the average TES of the overall field pretty much matches the average PCS going by the FS at the most recent Worlds. If you modify the PCS scale, you need to think about how such changes will affect the *whole field*.

As I previously asked, and am curious to know your answer, what happens in competitions where the particularly high TES scorers (e.g. Hanyu/Chen/Uno/Jin) - whose higher TES is your rationale for bumping up/"equalizing" the PCS scale - aren't even competing? Does the PCS scale magically drop back down again to 100, or does it remain out of 110/120/130, or whatever it is you think it should be bumped up to?
 
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