Battle of the Sexes: TES analysis at NHK Trophy and beyond

[el henry]

Also, the poster clearly said that the point of comparasion is to prove how ladies competition was good. He/she was not saying anything about men - how they were skating badly or anything negative about them. It is you reading it that way.

You can talk about how the ladies comp was good by talking about them and them alone.

If what you want to talk about is the ladies, no need to talk about the men. At. All.

But I won’t convince folks who disagree with that opinion, and people saying otherwise won’t convince me and the people who agree with me, so it’s best to get back on track and talk about NHK itself.

 

[Baron Vladimir]

You can talk about how the ladies comp was good by talking about them and them alone.

If what you want to talk about is the ladies, no need to talk about the men. At. All.

But I won’t convince folks who disagree with that opinion, and people saying otherwise won’t convince me and the people who agree with me, so it’s best to get back on track and talk about NHK itself.

Yes but he/she was not talking about men, men were not the subject of the post. They were there just to prove the point

 

[Raomina]

Instead of looking at judging bias or reviewing individual skaters, I was thinking of how I could visually analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each skater as perceived by the judges and also whether or not the judges are in agreement with each other on different elements and components, so I have plotted the standard deviations of the raw GOEs and PCS (lower std means higher agreement between judges, higher std means greater disagreement between judges) and the means as well (-5 to 5 for GOE, 5-10 for PCS).

Plots for Ladies
Plots for Men

I classified each element as Jump, Seq (StSq + ChSq) or Spin, and the skaters are ordered based on their standings after each segment. The marks are scattered left and right for visual purposes only and they should all be within the individual columns for each skater.

I am not analyzing this in detail here but hopefully some other people might find it useful for further analysis. Some interesting things that you can easily see from the plots, even if they might've been obvious already. The judges really do not know how to score Elizaveta's transitions in the short program but are highly in agreement with each other for all of Satoko's PCS overall. Satoko's spins and step sequences are the highest scoring elements across competitors, while Elizaveta's elements seem to be capped at 3 in general. Judges also really liked Mariah's spins and steps.

For Men's, Yaroslav Paniot's PCS varied the greatest, largely as the CAN/USA/ITA judges really do not like him. Shoma gets the highest GOEs for spins, whereas Deniss really stands out for his step sequences.

PCS varies more wildly between judges for lower ranked skaters, as is evident from the FS especially, but the means of each component are generally clustered together for each skater. This could either be because highly ranked skaters usually skate towards the end of the event and judges are more used to scoring and getting feedback on how other judges are scoring as the event goes on, or because there are more pre-judging and established consensus between judges for higher ranked skaters.

Overall, it's clear that everyone gets positive GOEs on step sequences and spins, so jumps really are the only major area of distinction between skaters. Of course, this doesn't take into account levels and number of rotations, just the quality and whether different judges agree in their assessments of the quality.

 

[moriel]

The whole argument's a bit of a furphy anyway, unless you compare like with like. Rika's adjusted score vs Shoma, Alina's adjusted vs Yuzu, whoever came in lower positions vs their equivalent. Arguing that the woman who won is better than the men way down the scale and that actually means anything is rather silly and stale.

I'm too bad at maths to try doing it....

With men's PCs factoring...
At Nebelhorn, Zagitova would have gotten 43,53+45,5 = 89,03 for her SP and 83,54 + 93,7 = 177,24 for her FS. A total of 266,27. That would put her at #9 at top SP score list for men this season, and at #5 at the top FS score list (less than half a point behind Kolyada). Her total would make her #5 in the top total score list, ahead of skaters like Keegan, Cha, Michal and Sergei.
At Nepela trophy, Rika would have gotten 40.67+38,9 = 79,57 for her SP. Her FS at NHK would have scored 87,17 + 84,44 = 171,61. Both scores pretty respectable even among men.

People who hit over 80 TES in FS in ISU competitions this season.
I would say that the highlighted folks deserve some praise here.
101.74 Shoma GP SCI
99.05 Nathan GP SA
98.01 Hanyu GP Helsinki
94.18 Shoma GP NHK
87.62 Cha CS ACI
87.17 Rika GP NHK
87.05 Kolyada CS Nepela
86.49 Cha GP SCI
86.26 Trusova JGP Lithuania
85.27 Trusova JGP Armenia
85.20 Samarin GP SCI
83.90 Messing GP SCI
83.75 Shoma CS Lombardia
83.54 Alina CS Nebelhorn
82.86 Nam GP SCI
82.30 Stephen Gogolev JGP Slovakia
82.23 Messing CS Nebelhorn
81.63 Aymoz CS ACI
81.05 Rika CS Nepela
80.78 Aliev CS Lombardia
80.55 Voronov NHK
80.11 Brezina GP Helsinki
80.07 Cha GP Helsinki


The top 10 skaters with highest TES in FS, in the following order:
1. 101.74 Shoma GP SCI
2. 99.05 Nathan GP SA
3. 98.01 Hanyu GP Helsinki
4. 87.62 Cha CS ACI
5. 87.17 Rika GP NHK
6. 87.05 Kolyada CS Nepela
7. 86.26 Trusova JGP Lithuania
8. 85.20 Samarin GP SCI
9. 83.90 Messing GP SCI
10. 83.54 Alina CS Nebelhorn

This is how those girls compare with top men. There are 3 girls in top 10 highest TES. This is as equivalent as it can be.

 

[Tavi...]

All I take from this is how incredibly inflated PCS and GOE are for some skaters of both sexes.

 

[el henry]

All I take from this is how incredibly inflated PCS and GOE are for some skaters of both sexes.

:agree:

I personally am not impressed if a lady scores higher than a man across judging panels.

I personally am not impressed if a lady has higher TES than a man across judging panels.

But for those who do care, this is the thread where they can all impress each other. :cool2:

 

[yume]

I'm glad to see ladies up their tech and do same tech contents than some men (Kihira, Trusova, Scherbakova, Tuktamysheva). But there is no point to compare ladies and men IMO. They are not in same category, for good reasons (Body difference is the first). We can applause technical prowess in ladies without making comparisons with men. It's like that their achievments are great only if they do better than men.
For the moment, the best man will always beat the best lady on TES. A clean Hanyu will be miles ahead of a clean Kihira and Trusova. Ladies can virtually make the podium, top 5 or top 10 when most of the field bombed, not when a good number of men are clean.
That's why i didn't understand when some said that Yuna Kim can compete with men after Vancouver. To compete with men she would have needed 3A at least and not sure that she would have received the same level of GOEs and PCS.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

How good was ladies competition at NHK in comparison to men aka "fair results of joint competition".
I adjusted ladies components scores for men component's factor (*1/0,8) in short and free, summed up all and here you are:

1	Shoma UNO	277,45
2	Sergei VORONOV	254,28
3	Rika KIHIRA	250,25
4	Satoko MIYAHARA	246,29
5	Elizaveta TUKTAMYSHEVA	243,93
6	Mai MIHARA	228,90
7	Matteo RIZZO	225,71
8	Mariah BELL	223,90
9	Vincent ZHOU	223,42
10	Eunsoo LIM	221,09
11	Dmitri ALIEV	220,52
12	Alena LEONOVA	217,74
13	Sota YAMAMOTO	213,40
14	Maria SOTSKOVA	201,35
15	Alexander JOHNSON	199,75
16	Courtney HICKS	198,85
17	Deniss VASILJEVS	198,60
18	June Hyoung LEE	192,26
19	Hiroaki SATO	190,18
20	Mae Berenice MEITE	184,33
21	Kevin REYNOLDS	183,67
22	Angela WANG	181,84
23	Yaroslav PANIOT	175,64
24	Kailani CRAINE	174,44

This is awesome!! Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word !!!

People are quick to point out that the men’s events are usually better over the last few seasons. Nice to see the ladies bring it! Good for them!

Also....Go Mariah

 

[eppen]

I am a little surprised at the reactions to this rather innocent comparison - similar ones were made earlier for the junior GP series where the girls were slaying the boys with even clearer numbers (partly because the SP elements are the same for both). Can't remember seeing such comments there...

For a long time I have wondered why there has been this decades long technical stagnation in ladies figure skating. If we look at the time line in 3A and quads in the singles categories, the earlier developments would have promised something different.

First 2A men 1948, ladies 1953.
First 3A men 1978, ladies 1988. Midori Ito and Tonya Harding were doing 3As, so not really completely isolated attempts.

First 4T men 1988, ladies 2018. (Attempts at quads started around 1983 for men, for ladies 1989.)
First 4S men 1998, ladies 2002.
First 4Lz men 2011, ladies 2018.

After Midori and Tonya, there have been those few women skaters who have kept trying to up the technical content with varying rates of success. But it has never become very common. It took forever for 3+3 combos to become a staple in the ladies competition in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

At the same time, 2010 was the last year when a major competition has been won without quads in the mens event. And yes, Yuna Kim would have been third in the men's event in 2010 (4th in the SP, 3rd in the FS). I have a hard time thinking that her GOEs and PCS would have been lower if she had been scored among the men - that quality is hard to match by anyone.

Why is that? If a 13-year-old little Canadian boy can do just about all the quads, why did we have to wait until now to have close to the same skill sets for girls roughly the same age? Physically there is relatively little difference until puberty hits. Also, the best male jumpers in the world at the moment are not excatly Arnold Schwarzeneggers when it comes to muscle mass - it is a combination of strength and skill and confidence. Midori Ito was the jumping flea, tiniest thing on the ice - and Tonya Harding a giant compared to her. They were able to jump 3As as adults. Rika is not the smallest girl in skating, but both of those 3As in her FS were far better than what most men are able to produce. It remains still to be seen whether the Russian girls are able to maintain their quads, but I do hope so!

And my question ultimately is: are girls still being automatically expected to be less ambitious technically and to remain mostly pretty and graceful?!

E

 

[yume]

I'm all for ladies doing similar tech contents than men. I'm more on the athletic side than artistic side. So i would rather watch a quad done by a girl rather than a princess on ice.
BUT.
My problem is why to compare them with men as beating a man's score should be the thing that value your achievement? And they are compared with men who bombed, no less.....Those girls are great even without beating men scores. They are great because they have enough guts to go for extreme difficult contents.

That reminds me a former tennis player who put down Serena Williams (the GOAT IMO) achievements. He basically said that her record of titles was not that impressive.....because she didn't compete with men. So if she had got all those big titles by competing against men, that would have been impressive. I was......seriously?!

About Kim. I doubt judges would have take her that seriously with a 6 triples program, without 3A or quad, no matter the quality of her jumps. How many men with low difficulty in tech get
high GOEs nowadays? Though there are some who do their triples very well. You have to at least try a quad for judges to rewards your triples that you do well. Then imagine a skater without even a 3A.

 

[Interspectator]

My thoughts on battle of the sexes is usually to roll my eyes and not be interested. Because it often devolves into the playground insults of the other half of humanity.
When it comes to a sport like figure skating, however, it is much more ambiguous. Since it's scoring system depends on multiple factors, in my ideal figure skating, Ladies and Men would be able to compete together. (this would require flexibility moves to be more valuable and spirals and spins would get a scoring boost.)

One can dream.

 

[Manitou]

Since it's scoring system depends on multiple factors, in my ideal figure skating, Ladies and Men would be able to compete together.

That would be the day when I and probably 80% of existing fans would stop watching the sport. Which would mean the end of the sport.

 

[Interspectator]

That would be the day when I and probably 80% of existing fans would stop watching the sport. Which would mean the end of the sport.

It's a good thing that my crazy ideas (and a lot of others) can be posted but not have even a tiny effect on ISU. I would not want to be responsible for the DEATH of figure skating.

 

[Manitou]

It's a good thing that my crazy ideas (and a lot of others) can be posted but not have even a tiny effect on ISU. I would not want to be responsible for the DEATH of figure skating.

I have lots of ideas that when realized would probably cause lots of trouble. So I am glad they are only the ideas too...

 

[tokoyami]

I don't think it's inherently sexist to be impressed that a lady has a TES score more often seen in the men's division. Everyone's gonna have different opinions about it, for me I don't think I get 'impressed' per say I just think it's cool when that happens. When discussion about that gets toxic is when people say things along the lines of, 'Oh Rika beat Deniss,' which sort of implies that they're really saying, 'OMG how embarrassing for Deniss'

 

[Mrs. P]

I think it’s a matter of whether you’re staring this to say that the ladies are setting a high standard for skating or whether you are stating this to point out how bad a skater is.

You are saying the same thing, but the framing is different.

For me the thing missing in all this is whether the PCS scaling needs to be adjusted to better reflect what the ladies are doing today. Maybe it’s too soon cause we’re are only talking about a few ladies, but still something to think about for the future.

 

[Manitou]

I think it’s a matter of whether you’re staring this to say that the ladies are setting a high standard for skating or whether you are stating this to point out how bad a skater is.

You are saying the same thing, but the framing is different.

If there are two opposite interpretations of a fact then which one do we automatically assume - the positive or the negative?

A person who gets perpetually offended by literally everything will choose the negative option obviously. But then whatever we say they will be offended anyway, therefore their effect on the conversation is basically a constant, thus from the mathematical viewpoint they can be discarded from the formula...

 

[moriel]

I'm all for ladies doing similar tech contents than men. I'm more on the athletic side than artistic side. So i would rather watch a quad done by a girl rather than a princess on ice.
BUT.
My problem is why to compare them with men as beating a man's score should be the thing that value your achievement? And they are compared with men who bombed, no less.....Those girls are great even without beating men scores. They are great because they have enough guts to go for extreme difficult contents.

That reminds me a former tennis player who put down Serena Williams (the GOAT IMO) achievements. He basically said that her record of titles was not that impressive.....because she didn't compete with men. So if she had got all those big titles by competing against men, that would have been impressive. I was......seriously?!

About Kim. I doubt judges would have take her that seriously with a 6 triples program, without 3A or quad, no matter the quality of her jumps. How many men with low difficulty in tech get
high GOEs nowadays? Though there are some who do their triples very well. You have to at least try a quad for judges to rewards your triples that you do well. Then imagine a skater without even a 3A.

We don't compare them with the week.
If we rank skaters by FS TES, Rika is the #5 this season.

- - - Updated - - -

I think it’s a matter of whether you’re staring this to say that the ladies are setting a high standard for skating or whether you are stating this to point out how bad a skater is.

You are saying the same thing, but the framing is different.

For me the thing missing in all this is whether the PCS scaling needs to be adjusted to better reflect what the ladies are doing today. Maybe it’s too soon cause we’re are only talking about a few ladies, but still something to think about for the future.

Well, they changed the backloading rules because of literally 2-3 skaters.

 

[Mrs. P]

Well, they changed the backloading rules because of literally 2-3 skaters.

So maybe then it will come sooner than later! But someone pointed out grading on a curve. PCS factoring is that. I think that's the takeaway from me. The curve is shifting and perhaps the scoring system needs to catch up to that.

 

[yume]

Way too dangerous to up the PCS factoring in ladies. Skaters like Kostner would be able to stay much longer in worlds top 10 with three triples.
There are litteraly 2 girls now who can score 80+ (3 maybe with Tuktamysheva in an excellent day and with 3F). Next season there will be maybe 5. For the rest of the world, a 3lz-3T will be the hardest element done. Then why up the factoring because of those five only? This has more weight than backloading rule.
When Hanyu, Chen and CO were scoring 120+ and near 130 TES, people were saying "tech have too much weight, there is no balance between tech and artistic in programs", "there is too big gap between them and the others", etc. However, ISU didn't choose to up PCS at the last congress.