PCS Factoring - Men vs. Women

gkelly said:

Which is why when fans occasionally suggest that there should be only one or two program components instead of five, I always ask what the factors should be. If you keep the increments available to the individual judges at 0.25 but multiply the total by a three- or five-times larger factor, then the difference between the two closest but nonidentical scores will be much larger...

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I don't understand this part. If you went to just one PCS (the second mark) and weighted it with the aim of making it half of the total score, how would that be different from having five program components which together add up to half of the total score. A 0.25 difference (8.50 instead of 8.25) increase in the one big whopper would be exactly the same as five 0.25 differences in each of five little ones.

In any case the proposal is to just raise the women's PCS by 25% across the board. If skater A beat skater B by 0.25 points in PCS, with 80% factoring skater A benefits by 0.20 points. Under the new proposal skaterA would benefit by the full 0.25. It is hard to see anything wrong with that.

The implication might be that women's skating should be scored more on subjective qualities -- in the worst interpretation, on the "looking pretty" qualities.

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I think that is the most valid point. However, I think that the current rule sends that message, too. The message that the current rule supports is, men are higher, faster, stronger than women. So it wouldn't be fair to score men and women the same on choreography, musical interpretation, etc. (???).This seems like pretty weird mind-twisting and still says "women are pretty" but adds injury to insult by adding "so we have to hold them down, score-wise."

Rissa said:

As much as I admire her, Trusova's PCS are already inflated due to her quads. Higher factoring would only make her overscored more. There's no scenario she'd be disadvantaged on the PCS, against Kostornaia or anybody else.

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IN almost every case it wouldn't make any difference to the final outcome, inflated PCS or not. In a very close contest it could conceivable work out to the slight relative disadvantage of Trusova.

Example

Current method. Trusova TES 80, PCS (whether inflated or not) 65, total 145.
Kostornaia TES 72, PCS 72, total 144.

New method: Trusova 80, 81.25, totl 161.25
Kostornaia 72, 90, total 162.

Anyway, to me the principle is clear. If a man does a triple Lutz, he gets 5.90 points. If a lady does a triple Lutz, she gets 5.90 points.

If a man displays superior edge control and flow over the ice surface demonstrated by a command of the skating vocabulary (edges, steps, turns, etc), the clarity of technique, and the use of effortless power to accelerate and vary speed – then he gets 9.0 points (SS contribution to PCS in short program).

If a lady demonstrates superior edge control and flow over the ice surface demonstrated by a command of the skating vocabulary (edges, steps, turns, etc), the clarity of technique, and the use of effortless power to accelerate and vary speed – then she gets 7.2 points.

Mathman said:

I don't understand this part. If you went to just one PCS (the second mark) and weighted it with the aim of making it half of the total score, how would that be different from having five program components which together add up to half of the total score. A 0.25 difference (8.50 instead of 8.25) increase in the one big whopper would be exactly tyhe same as five 0.25 differences in each of five little ones.

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Let's take one judge for an example, but the same principle would apply to the averages of the whole panel. And let's say that we're talking about a men's short program, so that the component factors would be 1.00 each with the current five-component system or 5.00 for a single global program component.

Suppose I'm judging two skaters, A and B. I think they're quite close in overall ability, but A is a stronger on Skating Skills and Transitions, B is stronger on Performance and Interpretation, and they're pretty much equal on the Composition of the program.

If there's only one component score, I have a choice between giving both skaters the exact same score, or I can decide that A's strong points were a little bit relatively stronger than B's strong points, or that A's strong points are more important to me, so I give 8.50 to skater A and 8.25 to skater B. That 0.25 difference is multiplied by the 5.00 factor. So the factored difference between 8.25 vs. 8.50 for the global component score would work out to a total of 1.25. I can't give a smaller difference -- my only options are a final difference of 1.25, or 2.5, or 3.75, etc., after factoring, or else the exact same score.

If we're using the current system where each of five components is worth one-fifth of half the total score, with factors of 1.0 each in the men's SP...
It doesn't matter which components I personally think are more important. The system weights them each the same.
If I think A's technical strengths were relatively stronger than B's artistic strengths, I can score them something like
A: 8.75 8.50 8.00 8.25 8.00
B: 8.00 7.75 8.50 8.25 8.50

A has advantages over B of 1.50 on SS plus TR, and deficits of 1.00 on PE plus IN, for a net advantage of 0.50.

As a judge, I therefore have the flexibility to reflect the fact that I thought A was 0.50 better than B overall on non-element skills.

With a single global component, I don't have that flexibility. My best choices are to reflect that A was 1.25 better or exactly the same.

If there were two components instead of one or five, with respective factors of 2.00 and 3.00 or 2.50 and 2.50, then as a judge I would have an intermediate level of control between one score or five scores.

I would also have more control if the one score (or two scores) allowed me increments of 0.1, a la 6.0 system, rather than the current 0.25.

gkelly said:

A: 8.75 8.50 8.00 8.25 8.00
B: 8.00 7.75 8.50 8.25 8.50

(Skater) A has advantages over B of 1.50 on SS plus TR, and deficits of 1.00 on PE plus IN, for a net advantage of 0.50.

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OK, I get it.

Actually, I think that this is the typical example showing what to me would be an ideal compromise. Have two Program Components, equally weighted. SS&TR and The Other Three. This would allow the judges to split the difference down to 0.50 in examples like this, just like five separate components do.

I think it would be much rarer for a judge to say, skater A performed his choreography better than B but had weaker interpretation of the music and presentation.

Any way you look at it the judges have to give a summary. In Skating Skills, skater A might have better flow and edges, while skater B has greater speed and acceleration. But you can only give a single SS score.

I personally never saw the scoring in mens and women's as something to be compared.
They are two separate disciplines. No the mention there is pairs, dance, and synchro as well.

I never saw the PCS differential as an issue of gender bias. It was simply trying to ensure as much of a 50 50.
But in recent years, it is increasingly obvious the PCS has had less than 50% weighting.

However, the ISU need to regularly observe the technical developments in all disciplines, and ensure that the PCS better reflects that.


In my personal opinion, I am fine with the TES score being higher than the PCS score in the SP. Because the SP is meant to be the technical program
For the FS, I think that the PCS should be slightly higher than the TES. Because the FS is meant to be the more artistic program- but these days, it's more like the long short program.

GF2445 said:

the FS is meant to be the more artistic program- but these days, it's more like the long short program.

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Phillipe Candeloro and the Brians (or at least I think it was the Brians?) were joking about the FS being a five-minute-long SP two decades ago...the more things change!

Just for fun I recalculated the scores for the LP at the recent Junior World Championships, using men's factoring. It turned out like this:

Number of changes in placements: 0.

With women's factoring, 17 skaters got higher TES than PCS. 7 got higher PCS than TES.

With men's factoring, 1 skater (Trusova) still got higher TES than PCS. 23 now got higher PCS than TES.

(I don't know what this proves. Nothing, I guess. )

Thanks for the detailed analysis, maths and discussions. ISU will probably never do it right in every person's mind. When is the next congress? Before or after 2022 Olympics?
A lot depends on how many female skaters will master quad jumps and reasonably good skating skills combined. Imagine a 17 y.o. Trusova with her current skill level intact, will she remain a once in a generation phenomenon, like Simone Biles in gymnastics, dominating every competition she enters, even winning with a fall?

In gymnastics it is very much the same, yearly revisions of scoring and routine composition requirements, often just to make things more complicated by silly micro management. Compared to FIG, ISU seems a haven of common sense and purpose.