ISU proposals: Jumps, spin for 2024-25

[Skating91]

I think the goal of this proposal much like that other proposal they agreed to in mid-2022 is bring the field closer together by neutralising the the skaters with higher abilities. I think the big feds and the ISU are trying to get all the ducks in a row before skaters from a particular country are allowed to compete again. This proposal and the one implemented mid-2022 along with low balling PCS will achieve the desired goal.

Unfortunately more power will be in the hands of judges. Basically every discipline will become somewhat predetermined like ice dance, and will hasten the inevitable demise of the sport.

Still, it won't help the feds pushing for this. Instead of dominance from that country it will dominance from Japanese, Korean and that country.

 

[4everchan]

Meh. That country has not been dominant in men skating in ages.... So no. That is certainly not the aim of the ISU.

 

[Skating91]

Meh. That country has not been dominant in men skating in ages.... So no. That is certainly not the aim of the ISU.

The new rules would not alter who is winning in men's events even if those people are readmitted. Malinin will be winning for years and be the greatest ever, many Japanese.

Definitely though, it makes it harder for one group of people to dominate in women's events.

 

[el henry]

The new rules would not alter who is winning in men's events even if those people are readmitted. Malinin will be winning for years and be the greatest ever, many Japanese.

Definitely though, it makes it harder for one group of people to dominate in women's events.

I am American and as impressive a skater as Ilia is, and as much as I expect to hear the Star Spangled Banner in future events, it is far too early to call him one of the greatest ever. He is not even a lock to win Worlds this year.

If a rule keeps one country, be it the US, Japan, Russia, Canada or the United Federation of Planets, from dominating in any discipline, that is not a bad thing. And certainly not the goal of any rule change.

 

[TallyT]

The new rules would not alter who is winning in men's events even if those people are readmitted. Malinin will be winning for years and be the greatest ever, many Japanese.

Definitely though, it makes it harder for one group of people to dominate in women's events.

Malinin is probably - well, at the minute - the greatest jumper and one of the bigger tiktok memes. That does not make him the greatest skater, especially when he only has one major international gold to his name yet (and let's not jinx by talking of years, hmmm? The number of too early proclaimed champions is way longer than those who fulfilled their promise). I'm not saying he won't be a legend, though as a US male skater he'll be pushing it uphill all the way to even be noticed.

Even just with the jumping, that Russian boy (and the Russians do notice their phenoms) is now levelling up and won't be the last. Remember, Trusova, the quad queen, thought fancy jumps and lots of them were all that was needed to sweep the field and become the greatest (and I was one of the people who thought she'd become the next superstar if she did). She was wrong.

 

[icewhite]

Reduce the number of jumps, but dear god, do not allow to repeat the same jump 3 times. Absolutely nobody wants to see that, not the fans of PCS skaters, not the fans of the jumper skaters.

Instead, include something like a second step sequence or the possibility to choose between another step sequence and a choreo sequence, but then give levels to the choreo sequence (maybe 2) and increase the value of a level 4 step sequence.

Reduce the number of spins, I'm fine with that. Spins have become very boring and it is not necessary to see the same spins in both short and free - on the other hand there desperately needs to be more separation between good spinners and bad ones, so do please finally punish travelling and bad lines, and in order to make a difference I think it is also necessary to increase the bv and possible GOE for the spins.

It seems to me that the major aspect here is how can we make programs more individual and original, without making the results prone to even more bad judging, like in ice dance - so for me it's clear there are two things which need to happen at the same time: open programs for less rigorous outlets and more creativity, and improve the judging, so that even in non-jumps it is absolutely clear how things are to be judged and that judges who do not respect the rules are removed.

 

[saine]

Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Maxime Deschamps talked about the possible changes today in a video conference, quotes were posted by A Divine Sport on Twitter (individual post links for those not on Twitter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

Among the possible changes they've heard are 1) short program: alternating between pairs spin/SBS spin, 2) free skate: addition of stationary spin lift, replacing 1 leveled lift w/choreo lift, eliminating choreo seq, removal of 3-jump SBS combos

Also the timing of the rule change being voted on in June for the upcoming season:

Stellato-Dudek noted that most skaters will already have next season's programs by June. "I'm thinking of a lot of ideas, because if this happens, I want to be on the ball and have a list of ideas ready to go and not be panicking," she said.

 

[4everchan]

i like these pairs changes for the most part.

 

[Weathergal]

i like these pairs changes for the most part.

I do, too. And I love that Deanna is already preparing.

 

[Kittosuni]

not exactly sure if it was Latvia or Slovakia that proposed placing a cap ceiling in the PCS for a program that has a fall. One fall means the PCS is capped to 9 and 2 falls to 8 etc but was quickly killed by the big feds.

I am in favor of this proposal because it is objective and prevent extremist judges from over scoring their preferred skater/team in PCS to compensate for their fckd up/fall element but obviously this makes too much sense so the big feds killed it.

I believe that this proposal would deterred a lot of skaters from churking up quads or jumps that they are not prepared

 

[gkelly]

not exactly sure if it was Latvia or Slovakia that proposed placing a cap ceiling in the PCS for a program that has a fall. One fall means the PCS is capped to 9 and 2 falls to 8 etc but was quickly killed by the big feds.

This has existed for several years already.

https://www.isu.org/synchronized-skating/rules/sys-handbooks-faq/31479-program-components-chart-2/file

For all Components:
*When there is only one error and this error minimally impacts the program, the maximum score of 9.50 is possible as noted above.
Note: For the above to apply, the program as a whole is still deemed to be “Excellent”.
**When there are 2 or more errors and these errors only minimally impact the program, the maximum score of 8.75 is possible.

Is there a new proposal to make the caps harsher than what currently exists?

 

[Jumping_Bean]

not exactly sure if it was Latvia or Slovakia that proposed placing a cap ceiling in the PCS for a program that has a fall. One fall means the PCS is capped to 9 and 2 falls to 8 etc but was quickly killed by the big feds.

I am in favor of this proposal because it is objective and prevent extremist judges from over scoring their preferred skater/team in PCS to compensate for their fckd up/fall element but obviously this makes too much sense so the big feds killed it.

I believe that this proposal would deterred a lot of skaters from churking up quads or jumps that they are not prepared

PCS are already capped for programs with serious errors (including falls).
9.50 is the highest possible mark for a program with one serious error, 8.75 for a program with two serious errors.

One could argue about the specific numbers, but the principle is already in place.

Of course, the whole principle doesn't help when a skater already scores under the thresholds and judges can just "ignore" the fall when judging PCS (Ilia's FS PCS at the GPF for example were just 0.5 points lower overall than at GP Skate America despite the fall on the 4A).

From my understanding, these caps are actually supposed to "trickle" down (exact wording: "Similar limitations must be applied to all levels of Skaters from extremely poor to outstanding"), but they don't really seem to be in the cases of some skaters.

 

[4everchan]

My proposal : I'd be harsher with the PCS cap OR I would give 0 for a fall on a jump. The only thing I miss about 6.0 is that skaters included elements they fell would work out. Nowadays, there are so many YOLO attempts it's ridiculous.

 

[Kittosuni]

This has existed for several years already.

https://www.isu.org/synchronized-skating/rules/sys-handbooks-faq/31479-program-components-chart-2/file

Is there a new proposal to make the caps harsher than what currently exists?

I am not sure if the proposal is a revision since I'm pretty sure they want 9 as the cap for 1 fall and 8 for 2 or more which is lower from the 9.50 and 8.75.

This is an attempt from the smalls feds to level the field in PCS because jumpers tend to be rewarded extremely high even in PCS if they land a jump but not deducted in PCS when they fall.

 

[Jumping_Bean]

My proposal : I'd be harsher with the PCS cap OR I would give 0 for a fall on a jump. The only thing I miss about 6.0 is that skaters included elements they fell would work out. Nowadays, there are so many YOLO attempts it's ridiculous.

Honestly, I'd personally be in favour of more automatic deductions. Instead of leaving it to the judges to input -5 GOE on falls for example, just have the system automatically input -5 when an element is marked with F (apart from maybe StSq?).

For PCS, for example, they could automatically deduct 0.5 or 0.75 or so from the judges input for one fall, and additionally automatically check the end score against the PCS cap for the category the judges placed it in and flag the scores before they are released.
Judges would probably adjust quickly to that and just give higher PCS pre-deduction though

And honestly, there we are back at the root of the issue - The judges application of the judging system, and their ability (and seemingly often will) to circumvent it.

 

[DancingCactus]

Ass on ice should be 0 points. No need for the additional -1 point in my opinion. You can give negative GOE to someone who manages to land on their hands and somehow continue, but if you need to sit down on the ice the jump should be worth 0.

 

[gkelly]

Ass on ice should be 0 points. No need for the additional -1 point in my opinion. You can give negative GOE to someone who manages to land on their hands and somehow continue, but if you need to sit down on the ice the jump should be worth 0.

So completing the rotations on a difficult jump should be worth the same as popping to a half revolution or skipping the jump and not leaving the ice at all?

Or less, if the fall deduction from the total score still applies?

 

[DancingCactus]

Nope. Of course there should be deductions for popping or underrotating. But I think if you land on your ass, the jump should automatically be zero points even if you manage to get in the intended number of rotations. You can earn so many points for jumps compared to spins or good footwork, you should also be able to lose many points.

 

[Mathman]

Still, it won't help the feds pushing for this. Instead of dominance from that country it will dominance from Japanese, Korean and that country.

If a rule keeps one country, be it the US, Japan, Russia, Canada or the United Federation of Planets, from dominating in any discipline, that is not a bad thing. And certainly not the goal of any rule change.

My view is that figure skating is an individual and an international sport. I am not so much exercised abput the fortunes of this country or of that. From 1925 to 1936 Austrian men won the world championship 11 out of 12 times. Well... good for Willy Bockl and Karl Schafer.

In women's, Russia won won exactly 1 world championship in the entire 20th century -- Maria Butyrskaya in 1999. Now they have zoomed to the top of the heap. Good for them.

At the 2018 Olympics Canada put together the most dominant group ever in the (short) history of the team event, with world champions in all 4 disciplines (prospective in the case of Osmond). I did not feel that this was an existential threat to figure skating as we knew it.

What is a threat to the sport is when one skill rises to a position of competitiove dominence over all the others. The ISU has always given loud lip service to the concept of a the "balanced program." I hope that they take their own preaching seriously.

 

[Mathman]

Ass on ice should be 0 points.

I could go either way on this. Dick Button, as a long-time commentator, strongly held the position that if you fell on your triple Salchow, then you didn't do a triple Salchow. Period.

But that is is comtrary to the spirit of the current judging system, which basically says that you should get a few hundredths of a point for every little thing that you do. If you present an innovative approach, have good air position and complete rotations, landing edge OK for a hot minute before you lose it -- well, that's not nothing. That deserves to beat the guy who overslept and didn't show up for the competition at all.

The same discussion goes back and forth on, for instance, Lutz edges. It can be argued that outside edge is required BY DEFINITION of the jump. Otherwise, you didn't do a Lutz. But I think that this is a DESCRIPTION of a properly done Lutz, rather than a definition. There is a more to the jump (counter-rotaion, standard approaches) that also contribute to a "textbook Lutz." Even if the attempt is not selected to illustrate the next edition of the textbook, still, the skater has delivered on a bundle of skills.