2017 GP Cup of China Ladies FS
- Thread starter dorispulaski
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Look at this video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E1xX8YlMqFw
I don't see any improvement, considering I now see urs in the program being overlooked (there were multiple in the program if you watch the replays) and artistically this is still a juniorish program to me.
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That's not what it means, qwertyskates.
For decades everyone in skating knew "well balanced" program also refered to placement of elements. There's a reason why so many top competitors in 6.0 would place a difficult jump late in the program - because this was considered to be part of what it means to have a more balanced choreography, and it helped to create excitement for the audience in a performance.
You're never going to know about the history of skating and the communal values upheld by coaches/competitors/judges from looking at the rules on paper. These things have been taught and shared by word mouth and have always been informally recognized by the skating world, not prescribed in the rules. There are so many details to skating that it was never bothered to write it all down in the rules, everything came down to an "insider knowledge" of the sport. With the CoP era suddenly we had many more things that WERE written down in the rules and specified, but the CoP rules still do not come close to defining every aspect and intricacy of what competitive skating is. The problem is that the historical values formerly upheld by the skating community have been increasingly marginalized or forgotten by the CoP judging system, as people now look at the CoP rules on paper and think it defines the entirety of everything in skating.
That's not how it works though, the rules on paper are only the tip of the iceberg. It's still hilarious to me how people continually point at things like GOE bullets for scoring when the rules specifically state these are GUIDELINES and not the be-all-end-all for determining how things should be scored. Figure Skating is a judged sport, it comes down to the individual knowledge and ability and viewpoint of each judge to properly assess the skating. It does NOT come down to only what is written the rules, although unfortunately that's how the judges have been operating for a decade now. The truth of the matter is that CoP still confuses nearly everyone in terms of accurately determining competition results and rewarding all the aspects of skating people want to see rewarded, and the judges don't want to look stupid, so they just follow the herd and give out scores that are in line with what they have been told to give and what will create the best result for their federation, or for the federation/individuals inside the ISU who are coercing/bribing them into creating the result they want.
For decades everyone in skating knew "well balanced" program also refered to placement of elements. There's a reason why so many top competitors in 6.0 would place a difficult jump late in the program - because this was considered to be part of what it means to have a more balanced choreography, and it helped to create excitement for the audience in a performance.
You're never going to know about the history of skating and the communal values upheld by coaches/competitors/judges from looking at the rules on paper. These things have been taught and shared by word mouth and have always been informally recognized by the skating world, not prescribed in the rules. There are so many details to skating that it was never bothered to write it all down in the rules, everything came down to an "insider knowledge" of the sport. With the CoP era suddenly we had many more things that WERE written down in the rules and specified, but the CoP rules still do not come close to defining every aspect and intricacy of what competitive skating is. The problem is that the historical values formerly upheld by the skating community have been increasingly marginalized or forgotten by the CoP judging system, as people now look at the CoP rules on paper and think it defines the entirety of everything in skating.
That's not how it works though, the rules on paper are only the tip of the iceberg. It's still hilarious to me how people continually point at things like GOE bullets for scoring when the rules specifically state these are GUIDELINES and not the be-all-end-all for determining how things should be scored. Figure Skating is a judged sport, it comes down to the individual knowledge and ability and viewpoint of each judge to properly assess the skating. It does NOT come down to only what is written the rules, although unfortunately that's how the judges have been operating for a decade now. The truth of the matter is that CoP still confuses nearly everyone in terms of accurately determining competition results and rewarding all the aspects of skating people want to see rewarded, and the judges don't want to look stupid, so they just follow the herd and give out scores that are in line with what they have been told to give and what will create the best result for their federation, or for the federation/individuals inside the ISU who are coercing/bribing them into creating the result they want.
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Look, say what you will to defend Zagitova - she's taking advantage of a rule that ALLOWS her to do what she does with her jumps.
Frankly, that rule needs to change. I'm TIRED of backloaded programs that then get huge PCS because ... well, judges being judges. Zagitova is a very talented skater, but the programs need to be about more than jumps being done and being done in the back half. This code was CREATED to emphasize ALL elements -- and that isn't happening with the scores.
I want spins valued more. I'm TIRED of all the triple-triples on the women's side and the quads on the men's side. There is so much more to skating than that, and the code needs to reflect that.
Frankly, that rule needs to change. I'm TIRED of backloaded programs that then get huge PCS because ... well, judges being judges. Zagitova is a very talented skater, but the programs need to be about more than jumps being done and being done in the back half. This code was CREATED to emphasize ALL elements -- and that isn't happening with the scores.
I want spins valued more. I'm TIRED of all the triple-triples on the women's side and the quads on the men's side. There is so much more to skating than that, and the code needs to reflect that.
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CoP doesnt confuse everyone. It confuse people who interpret it with their own preconceptions. So, if you continue your phrase like it is written that well balanced program 'refered to placement of elements' ON THE ICE you will perfectly understand why backloading program still doesnt change that much good composition of the programme. Because if it really changing it Zagi wouldnt get 8,5 in CO mark. Dont share false propaganda how rules are so open for interpretation, because they arent, and you can see that by seeing the protocol where 9 different judges marked Zagi CO in a point range (from 8 to 9) and almost the same rang on 1 point were in protocol of other skaters composition. Does backloading programmes are appealing for the eyes in terms of aestetic and does 100% backloading programmes should be awarded more or less is another topic and ISU officials are in process of discussing that topic. But by current rules judges dont need to mark backloading composition of the program lower than other compositions just because its a backloading one... And when you are talking about historical values - some historical values which are marginalized are judging the programme by your own subjective aestetic (read: country you like more).
following your logic a skater could also:
- skate wearing two additional skates on her hands instead of gloves
- skate with a sock over her head
- skate with a metronome as music
and still get 10's in PCS because there is no explicit rule against it either.
Not everything you shouldn't do must be written down. And 'balanced program' = not doing all your jumps in the first or second half only, has been an established term for decades.
You don't have to write down, that doing all your spins, steps and jumps in the first half and then only doing spirals for the second half is considered an unbalanced program either.
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Does this ballet dancer looked hunched over? No, she doesn't. Zagitova hunches.
I said nearly everyone, which is certainly true. Judges don't understand the implications of their scores very well and most of them don't have a good sense of how to score each component, only a general sense of pushing a skater's entire scores up or down depending on how they are perceived.
The judges AREN'T judging on an objective scale. They aren't taking into considering these facets of the performances and choreography, unless they have been specifically told to by those who control the ISU. If overriding sentiment builds up that it is imbalanced choreography, as many very well known and successful former competitors and current coaches/choreographers are now talking about, then the judges will thus adjust their scores.
There is no false propaganda from me, you don't get it. It has nothing to do with which country I like more (although that certainly plays into your own pro-Russian bias, based upon everything you continue to write). I don't like any country more or less at all when it comes to judging any individual performance, I judge everything exactly as it exists. Zagitova is hardly the only skater I've criticized for imbalanced choreography. Miki Ando in 2011 was the first female skater to do a blatantly imbalanced program in order to take advantage of the jump bonus and I criticized her for it heavily back then as well.
Yes the rules ARE open for interpretation. Again, the rules for GOE for example, they SPECIFICALLY state it is only a guideline and each judge should make their own decision. And, as I already wrote about, there are so many things to take into account besides what is written in the rules. The judges SHOULD be marking a blatantly backloaded program lower on composition, if they were following the values that have ALWAYS been considered in figure skating performances until recent times. Just because it doesn't specifically say in the rules "a heavily backloaded program should generally be considered as a composition flaw" that doesn't mean this feeling and understanding doesn't already exist.
And this also doesn't mean a heavily backloaded program is inherently "bad" choreography or interpretation, but it does probably mean it is lesser in those regards than how it could be. In regards to Zagitova's program, you can specifically see how her 3Lutz+3Loop and 2Axel+3Toe combos have nothing to do with the choreography or interpretation, nothing to do with the music. They are in that section of the program specifically to gain the technical backloading bonus, not because it's good for the performance or choreography or interpretation as a whole.
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- Dec 18, 2014
The point is - you can do all of your jumps in first half and if they are placed in different parts of ice rink, if they are in accordance with the music and if they can wow the spectators in arena your CO mark wouldn suffer that much. You just wouldn get 10% bonus for the jumps. What you are talking about has nothing to do with judging CO mark but with personal preferencies how you would choreograph the programme (in most cases probably to look like Michelle Kwan's old one).
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- Dec 18, 2014
Which is something i can agree with in some cases. But im pretty sure section of Men's competitions is better place to complain about sacrifying performance component in order to gain more points .
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That is a fair point albeit slightly subjective but I follow your reasoning. After rewatching that section I think there is some aweness to the music in her transitions and maybe even the timing of the landings which is something the skater controls but nothing definitively outstanding. Still it's a 3z-3lo which is a very welcomed sight for me. I think this combination is over scrutinized and under rewarded. If the reward were higher I'd agree with scrutiny but for now I'm mostly meh on complaining about seeing this pass even if the choreography is less impressive than the jump itself.
Interesting conversation between Yulia and her fellow commentator regarding Alina and musical acents. Keep in mind he is a football announcer and knows little about the sport outside of what can be researched on Wikipedia.
https://youtu.be/JWFTZZ8AOqU?t=4m44s
Yes, yes, yes. There would be no second half bonus at all if this unwritten sense of clustering all the jumps together being undesirable didn't exist. Skaters were doing all of the jumps (except maybe a token double axel or triple toe in the first half of the program and they wanted to stop that — because it was imbalanced — so they created the second half bonus.
To pretend the "balanced" part of the composition score doesn't refer (I would argue even primarily) to jumps is disingenuous and even an attempt at revisionist history. The specific incentive they instituted to get more jumps into the second half of programs really proves the point.
I have no doubt that if Zagitova continues her incredible success with this strategy we will start to see multiple skaters begin to employ it too, and to my mind that would be a big shame in terms of viewer enjoyment.
But my biggest issue with Zagitova in relation to the judging of her is that I would say the judges are merely counting the transitions, not evaluating how well performed they actually are. The problem is that many of the transitions feature incomplete or bad positions, they are abrupt and perfunctory. Surely this should also figure into that transitions score somewhere too?
What was Lori Nichol smoking when she decided "Gladiator" was fit for turning into elevator piano music 
If I were team Gaby I would have taken one look at that program in practice and thrown it in the trash bin and never let it be debuted at all. In fact I would have demanded a refund 
Higuchi's program started off pretty intense and interesting but then seem to lose steam the moment the lyrics appeared. It flat-lined and when a competition is that close the last impression matters and makes a big difference :confused2:
Zagitova on the other hand was the opposite. Her program built and built in interest and intensity. If she hits it at the Olympics it could be a big standing ovation moment. Even the crowd in China got all excited about it. And the ending came so fast I didn't realize how many jumping passes she actually did. People talking about the program being "unbalanced" seem to think she was doing nothing but skating around the rink in circles for a period of time as if spins and footwork were elements. Every element fit the music perfectly a fact that those who constantly moan "they could have been skating to anything" seem to flat out ignore.
The other two Japanese ladies were pretty but that's it
I think Liza and Elena could have gotten more goe on the jumps but I guess they suffered from the fact that they aren't top three in Russia and likely aren't going to the Olympics.
I thought Xiangning Li was a highlight. The Chinese fed. really should invest in getting her a coach/choreographer who can help bring her to the next level. It would be a sad waste if they didn't
If I were team Gaby I would have taken one look at that program in practice and thrown it in the trash bin and never let it be debuted at all. In fact I would have demanded a refund Higuchi's program started off pretty intense and interesting but then seem to lose steam the moment the lyrics appeared. It flat-lined and when a competition is that close the last impression matters and makes a big difference :confused2:
Zagitova on the other hand was the opposite. Her program built and built in interest and intensity. If she hits it at the Olympics it could be a big standing ovation moment. Even the crowd in China got all excited about it. And the ending came so fast I didn't realize how many jumping passes she actually did. People talking about the program being "unbalanced" seem to think she was doing nothing but skating around the rink in circles for a period of time as if spins and footwork were elements. Every element fit the music perfectly a fact that those who constantly moan "they could have been skating to anything" seem to flat out ignore.
The other two Japanese ladies were pretty but that's it
I think Liza and Elena could have gotten more goe on the jumps but I guess they suffered from the fact that they aren't top three in Russia and likely aren't going to the Olympics.
I thought Xiangning Li was a highlight. The Chinese fed. really should invest in getting her a coach/choreographer who can help bring her to the next level. It would be a sad waste if they didn't
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Sorry I just had time to click and watch. Hello to the commentator who tried to be funny but ended up being cringeworthy :dance2:
Yes, I see a lot of improvement in her choreography, where the jumps are, how she executes them etc. I think the crowd appreciated it a lot too. There are some points she was better last year, she held some positions longer for example which I appreciate more becausw of a personal preferance.
About actual technical improvement you may be right that there is not much of a difference, her TES scores are more less the same too. But she was already good and she is still good, unless she goes for a 3A there is not much to be done except to keep performing the same.
About the URs you see, are you really sure? You say there are multiple of them which none else voiced their opinion about and I am pretty sure they would considering that her gold has been questioned a lot.
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- Nov 2, 2013
But see, it's quite a different situation from a balance perspective.
If all jumps are there from the start, the layout would be something like 1min jumps 3min other stuff
If all jumps are there from the halfway point, the layout would be something like 2min other stuff 1min jumps 1min other stuff
You notice that the divide still isn't nearly as bad?
A couple of other things you might want to think about:
Backloading all jumps is actually more difficult than not doing so, unlike having them all at the start which is one of the easiest layouts.
Very few skaters even are able to backload them all, so even if it was as imbalanced as having them all at the start(It's not), it'd be very rare. At this point, it actually becomes more variety.
If everybody was physically and mentally strong enough to do what Zag does, I think they would. I think Higuchi was robbed, but there is no denying that what Zag does is so hard. Great athlete.
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Here is an interesting question that I don’t know the answer to. None of us likely do but can we assume that skaters aren’t backloading out of some moral decision to respect the concept of a traditionally balanced layout? Is it a sense of artistic integrity or is it just too difficult to do? I’d love to hear the skaters weigh in on it. Have any tried and failed or maybe can do it well but felt a loss of musical connection? Honestly I would think that an artisticly gifted skater should be able to backload without sacrificing any connection to the music but maybe I’m just too optimistic.
I’m going to keep referencing Yulia because she was a competitor so recently. She says what Zagitova is doing is amazing because there is not a single moment to grab an extra breath. It’s interesting to think about planing out your breathing in the program and the effects it can have on a performance and the effects it can have on skating.
She also said that Wakaba had amazing and very difficult transitions and was wowed by her skating. I would probably chose Wakababy to watch but I think Alina is growing on me and I find nothing offensive to the sport in what she does.
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Listen, she's a good skater, but there seemed to be some jump digression from last season to this season. She fell on the lutz loop in the short, and this isn't the first time this season she made a mistake in the short. The jump landings also looked a lot closer on the landing than in the past(even if they all weren't ur or called out on, for example, the second lutz and flip both looked very close on the quarter, and she turned her foot slightly on their landings).
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Last year she did 3Lz-3T in the short because the loop was the required jump. And she had less transitions in the short.
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As an aside Mr. Weir said that Russian coaches are used to pacing programs to give their students time to breath between jumps and therefore make the jumps better. They had to change. Alina is simply amazing to me but as a fan that enjoys the performance more than the sport, the backloading takes a bit away from that for me. But with the high number of very competitive skaters this season, I can see exactly why those 4 extra points Alina might get(according to Mr. Weir) are very important to competitors who are obviously into the SPORT. With men its the quads....
There is a certain young lady skater coming up who is throwing out 3As, some in combo, like they are nothing at all.....the next big thing? Or quads or ?
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Accordance with the music( it is just timing) or wow from the spectator in arena HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BALANCED PROGRAM ,but
if balanced for you means elements placed in different parts of the rink , so how,where a skater has to put those elements to get the highest points?what is that mean? it is obvious that jumps wont be side by side, there will be in diferrent parts of the rink. combo/10 seconds/another jump/anotherfew seconds/ 2A
What we mean is Proportion (equal weight of all parts): Each part and section has equal weight in achieving the aesthetic pursuit of the composition. According to isu
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