Proposals to ISU Congress 2018-2019 Season

[Danny T]

I'm in favour of pushing the athletic side of FS forward, but I don't think banning quad repetition will do it. Without this rule, skaters already are trying out new types of quads - it's not like they have no incentive for it. By trying new quads under the current rules, skaters can have BV advantage, flexibility in jump layouts, and the implicit PCS boost. But under current rules, to get to the top skaters have a choice - to be like Chan/Fernandez or Jin/Chen/Uno or Hanyu the unicorn. I think having a choice is important - everyone should get to highlight their strength.

Here's to hoping this rule won't pass - it seems even Lakernik thinks it's not likely to pass from his interviews. I think a lot of smaller feds might vote against it, and along the big feds I don't see how Russia and Canada (maybe Japan?) will like this either. Unless they bet on the junior men (which I admittedly only follow sporadically)

 

[chopinskate]

However, I'm not quite for the no repetition quads rule, simply because it would start gating people at the 4T and 4S zone. It would further push a lot of male skaters to go after harder quads, even when they are not ready, simply because there are no other ways to maximize BV potential (this probably disadvantages smaller fed skaters more).

Yeah, the injuries.

 

[anirien]

I'm in favour of pushing the athletic side of FS forward, but I don't think banning quad repetition will do it. Without this rule, skaters already are trying out new types of quads - it's not like they have no incentive for it. By trying new quads under the current rules, skaters can have BV advantage, flexibility in jump layouts, and the implicit PCS boost. But under current rules, to get to the top skaters have a choice - to be like Chan/Fernandez or Jin/Chen/Uno or Hanyu the unicorn. I think having a choice is important - everyone should get to highlight their strength.

Here's to hoping this rule won't pass - it seems even Lakernik thinks it's not likely to pass from his interviews. I think a lot of smaller feds might vote against it, and along the big feds I don't see how Russia and Canada (maybe Japan?) will like this either. Unless they bet on the junior men (which I admittedly only follow sporadically)

Yes, this. It also might have the consequence of severely limiting a skater from making up points in the FS if they make an error, which is always one of the advantages of the FS over the SP, more flexibility for skaters to think on their feet if their skate doesn't go exactly according to plan.

One proposal I would like to see is for judging to be made professional, not volunteer. Though I imagine it would take a lot more planning that a few months.

 

[chopinskate]

One proposal I would like to see is for judging to be made professional, not volunteer.

Yes, and that they were well-known experts, maybe. Anything for more accountability.

And, yes, the no repetition rule isn't all that likely to pass, and meh anyway.

 

[temadd]

I like the idea of separate panels for Tech and PCS. Maybe, just maybe if you have judges scoring only PCS they will not base PCS on tech scores - which happens way too often.

 

[Izabela]

Now I kind of get why they are trying to shift a fall from automatic deduction to be reflected on PCS. If skaters are given more points for varieties and learning new jumps, they would be at risk of making more mistakes and splatting. But if a fall doesn't automatically give them a deduction (which is more of a mental battle thinking about that automatic deduction when skating), they would be more willing to take the risk.

That doesn't mean I like it. I hope they won't approve this. A splat fest competition is not a good one. Rather than adding more varieties, they should also balance it by providing much more incentive for going clean.

And LOL @ the CD part. I didn’t know skaters still bring CDs.

 

[xeyra]

Netherlands actually coming up with some valid, logical proposals.

 

[gkelly]

Why not decrease the review time by increasing the number of tech panel members?

They discuss during the reviews. So more tech panel members would add more review time.

One proposal I would like to see is for judging to be made professional, not volunteer. Though I imagine it would take a lot more planning that a few months.

Yes, there would be many practical considerations to take into account in trying to get from here to there, even assuming cost were no object. Care to start a separate thread to brainstorm?

 

[chuckm]

Now I kind of get why they are trying to shift a fall from automatic deduction to be reflected on PCS. If skaters are given more points for varieties and learning new jumps, they would be at risk of making more mistakes and splatting. But if a fall doesn't automatically give them a deduction (which is more of a mental battle thinking about that automatic deduction when skating), they would be more willing to take the risk.

That doesn't mean I like it. I hope they won't approve this. A splat fest competition is not a good one. Rather than adding more varieties, they should also balance it by providing much more incentive for going clean.

at falls being included in PCS. Look at Kolyada's sky-high PCS after one of his multifall disaster freeskates. Take away the fall deductions, and he'll undeservedly win competition after competition even with multiple falls. Shades of PChiddy without the skating skills!

 

[cohen-esque]

Some proposed changes to Olympic spots qualifications. If i’m not reading these wrong, then a case example of these rules would have come into play for the USA Pairs last season- we would get one spot for the Knierims, as we had no other team that reached the Worlds FS, but would have gotten the chance to enter a second team in the qualifying event to earn a spot at Nebelhorn (Cain/LeDuc) for a total of two spots.

In general these rules would better reflect the actual strength of the field for the Olympics, but would occasionally also give a second chance for countries in the case of an unexpectedly disastrous Worlds showing.

211. Single & Pair Skating Technical and Ice Dance Technical Committees
Rule 400, para 3 and 4 - Entries to the Olympic Winter Games
A. Entries of Competitors
1. The maximum number of entries for the Olympic Winter Games is thirty (30) for Ladies and Men, twenty (20) for Pairs and twenty-four (24) for Ice Dance. In Single Skating the best placed twenty-four (24) Competitors in the Short Program will qualify for the final Free Skating. In Pair Skating the best placed sixteen (16) Pairs in the Short Program will qualify for the final Free Skating. In Ice Dance, the best placed twenty (20) Couples in the Short Dance will qualify for the final Free Dance.
2. ISU Members who have participated in the immediately preceding World Senior Championships accumulate points according to Rule 378, paragraph 2.b) and c).
3. Twenty-four (24) entries for Ladies and Men, sixteen (16) entries for Pairs and nineteen (19) entries for Ice Dance will be determined according to the classification outlined in paragraph 2 above. ISU Members who have earned the necessary points according to Rule 378, paragraph 2b) and c) will have the right for two (2) or three (3) entries if, in addition, they had two (2), respectively three (3) Competitors qualified for the Free Skating/Free Dance in the World Senior Championships immediately preceding the OWG. The remaining entries under this paragraph 3 will be attributed to the ISU Members with the best placed and qualified for the Free Skating/Free Dance Skaters at the World Senior Championships immediately preceding the OWG.
4. The remaining open entries available will be filled by ISU Members in order of their placements at a Senior International Competition designated by the ISU as qualifying event and conducted in the autumn of the calendar year immediately preceding the Olympic Winter Games. The open entries are available only to:

a) ISU Members which have not previously earned an entry, for only one entry per such ISU Member.
b) ISU Members which have earned the necessary points for two (2) or three (3) entries but did not have two (2) respectively three (3) skaters qualified for the Free Skating/Free Dance at the World Senior Championships immediately preceding the OWG. Such ISU Members are entitled to enter one skater in the qualifying event who, however, cannot be a skater that had qualified for the Free Skating/Free Dance at the World Senior Championships immediately preceding the OWG.

Reason: To have the possibility to include more Members and to have the best skaters entered into the OWG.

 

[Izabela]

at falls being included in PCS. Look at Kolyada's sky-high PCS after one of his multifall disaster freeskates. Take away the fall deductions, and he'll undeservedly win competition after competition even with multiple falls. Shades of PChiddy without the skating skills!

Welp, I've read the actual document and it makes sense now. I still don't want ISU to take out the automatic deduction for the fall, but Netherlands' arguments are reasonable. The intention was that a fall should have an impact on the score across the board, and specifically should impact the score on the PCS because as they rightly put it, it's still an execution of element. A mandatory reduction on PCS is appropriate, which I thought judges should be doing all along in principle. And I think it doesn't matter which part of PCS, but an overall mandatory reduction in PCS after calculation, since a fall is a disruption in PE, CO and IN, and can also be construed as a flaw in SS. How much deduction is the question. All in all, a mandatory reduction on TES and PCS is more appropriate. (Because I'm on the side that a fall should be harshly penalized in the context where we have skaters placing on the podium with falls against skaters who had clean and well realized programs).

Then again, this could work out if PCS are also scored appropriately.

ETA: Again, LOL @ limiting protests possibilities to only allow review in case of mathematical errors "to minimise the possibility of changes after the announcement of a result, which can undermine the credibility
of the ISU sports."

 

[GF2445]

A couple of rambling thoughts

I do not like the proposal by the Netherlands to remove falls as a deduction. The GOE fails to fully reflect the damage falls do to a program. However, an aspect in their proposal I do agree on is that falls should be clearly reflected in the PCS with mandatory deductions. However, it will unlikely pass anyway.
If anything, the current deductions for falls is insufficient. I propose the a deduction for falls where the number of falls are squared. Because if a skater fall 5 times in a program, they deserve a 25 mark program deduction from the overall program total for basically destroying the integrity of their program.

In regards to the rules of the United States of is something that would probably be better for the sport. I agree with the first part of their proposal to essential, because if the nation fulfilled the requirements to be awarded multiple quota spots, they should awarded those quotas.
I also propose that there should be an option to have a nation earn four quota spots at a world championship/olympics (the placement of three skaters equals 13 or less). This would lead to an ammendment in the the maximum number of quotas rewarded at worlds). However, i do believe that at the final qualification event, 6 men, 6 women, 4 pairs, and 5 damce quotas should still be offered.
I also propose at four continents, there should create a qualification system similar to euros. Every nation have three entries per discipline, but strong nations can be awarded a fourth entry (the placements of two entries eauals 13 or less).

 

[BillNeal]

In relation to judging GOEs and PCS separately:

They did something similar at Nebelhorn Trophy 2014, in which they had 12 judges. Five judges evaluated the GOE plus one program component. The other seven judges evaluated three program components each. This resulted in skaters having 5 judges evaluating each of their program components also. This was tested for the dance and mens' events:

Men's Short
Men's Free
Short Dance
Free Dance

 

[GF2445]

I also got to read Australia’s proposal to create a figure skating 2020 group, which will over the next two years develop a proposal at the 2020 congress to radically change all aspects of ISU figure skating events.
It was a very fascinating read.
I personally dont fully agree with every single idea proposed here but I credit that it is very forward thinking. It also takes into account the reality that tv broadcast times need to be shortened. More often these days, tv broadcasters are choosing to only air the later halves of competitions. Maybe the creation of an A division for live tv, and a B division done via live stream can help with this.

 

[SnowWhite]

I'm in favour of pushing the athletic side of FS forward, but I don't think banning quad repetition will do it. Without this rule, skaters already are trying out new types of quads - it's not like they have no incentive for it. By trying new quads under the current rules, skaters can have BV advantage, flexibility in jump layouts, and the implicit PCS boost. But under current rules, to get to the top skaters have a choice - to be like Chan/Fernandez or Jin/Chen/Uno or Hanyu the unicorn. I think having a choice is important - everyone should get to highlight their strength.

Here's to hoping this rule won't pass - it seems even Lakernik thinks it's not likely to pass from his interviews. I think a lot of smaller feds might vote against it, and along the big feds I don't see how Russia and Canada (maybe Japan?) will like this either. Unless they bet on the junior men (which I admittedly only follow sporadically)

In Canada, the current top guys are Keegan Messing (4T only in comp, trained the 4Lz), Nam Nguyen (4S & 4T), Roman Sadovsky (4S & 4T), and Nicolas Nadeau (4T, has sometimes done 4Lo). In juniors there's Joseph Phan (4T). The only guys with more than two quads are Conrad Orzel who's 17 and Stephen Gogolev who's 13. Conrad has been doing 4T and 4S in comp lately, but IIRC he was trying others, like 4Lz at the beginning of the season. I don't know if he's actually landed that outside of practice. Stephen has so far been doing 4S and 4T in comp, but he's done all but 4A in training and he attempted a 4Lz at Nationals this season. He popped it, but he landed a nice one in warmups.

I don't see Canada going for the proposal, since the only one it would be close to helping it Stephen at this point.

In Russia, I think there are more guys who can do multiple quads, but not like Nathan, Vincent, Boyang, etc. Mikhail Kolyada only has the 4T consistent. He almost always falls on his 4Lz and 4S. Dmitri Aliev can do 4T and 4Lz. Alexander Samarin has 4Lz and 4T. Alexey Erokhov has 4T and 4S. I don't know all of there juniors as well.

So I think you're right, Canada and Russia are likely to be against it.

 

[lovaticcanada]

I think Canada is likely to be against it as well. However, I wouldn't mind if this change was discussed today, (rejected for 2018), but resurfaces again and likely passed in 2020 or 2022.

The problem is for a lot of the skaters, (ex. Patrick/Javier) it is hard to ask them to learn a brand new quad at the ages of 25+. Now, for a skater who is a lot younger at 16, they have time to learn a brand new quad and to be successful with it. Furthermore, the old skaters won't be pushed out immediately, but everyone has enough notice that it won't kill a skater's competitive career overnight.

 

[Miller]

Welp, I've read the actual document and it makes sense now. I still don't want ISU to take out the automatic deduction for the fall, but Netherlands' arguments are reasonable. The intention was that a fall should have an impact on the score across the board, and specifically should impact the score on the PCS because as they rightly put it, it's still an execution of element. A mandatory reduction on PCS is appropriate, which I thought judges should be doing all along in principle. And I think it doesn't matter which part of PCS, but an overall mandatory reduction in PCS after calculation, since a fall is a disruption in PE, CO and IN, and can also be construed as a flaw in SS. How much deduction is the question. All in all, a mandatory reduction on TES and PCS is more appropriate. (Because I'm on the side that a fall should be harshly penalized in the context where we have skaters placing on the podium with falls against skaters who had clean and well realized programs).

Then again, this could work out if PCS are also scored appropriately.

ETA: Again, LOL @ limiting protests possibilities to only allow review in case of mathematical errors "to minimise the possibility of changes after the announcement of a result, which can undermine the credibility
of the ISU sports."

0.25 marks in a component equates to 0.20 marks in the SP for Ladies and 0.25 for Men. In the LP it is 0.40 marks and 0.50 marks respectively.

Question is how many components will be affected by the fall to make up to roughly 1 mark say, plus should falls in the SP only be penalised half as much as in the LP? Sounds like a bit of a flaw in the proposal to me, though I do agree with the principle behind it.

 

[Izabela]

0.25 marks in a component equates to 0.20 marks in the SP for Ladies and 0.25 for Men. In the LP it is 0.40 marks and 0.50 marks respectively.

Question is how many components will be affected by the fall to make up to roughly 1 mark say, plus should falls in the SP only be penalised half as much as in the LP? Sounds like a bit of a flaw in the proposal to me, though I do agree with the principle behind it.

That's why at first I got the impression that this proposal was made to give more reason for skaters to try their 3As and quads on ice without so much impact on their overall scores.

I agree though that the moment they proposed to take out the automatic deduction to replace it with PCS, this proposal would not achieve its desired intention. It makes sense though up until the "reduce review time" which I thought is silly because the technical panel should actually take their time more to review what they're looking at because we're seeing technical mistakes from skaters that are really obviously made but somehow the tech panel overlooked. A negative impact on both TES and PCS for a fall should be mandatory (and should be harsher too), than just simply shifting the impact to PCS. And it's not like a fall is difficult to see. :noshake:

 

[CreepyBug]

This one is nice:
- Bonus for skaters attempting all 6 types of triple/quad jump (Japan)

This one big no no for me:
- No repetition of any type of quad jump (tech comm) - reason given: "variety" & "giving credit to skaters that can perform all types of quad jumps"

It's good to ENCOURAGE variety, but to almost FORCE it is too much and will only result in lots of bad attempts, falls, maybe even career damaging injury. And isn't that what they are trying to avoid?

I would love this, haha, why can't they really:
- Allow men to wear tights

 

[Tyranid]

1) Raise the age requirement for turning senior to 16 as of July 1'st of the year the skater wants to turn senior.

2) Increase the competition prize money, as a compensation, for juniors by 50% (e.g.: JWC gold - 10k $ --> 15k $, JGPF - 6k $ --> 9k $)

Kinda separates the "kids" from the "adults. Most prominent in women's singles since a 16 yo can look way different from a 15 yo. I hope this is obvious and i don't need to bring up examples.

Which countries (besides RF, lol) do you think will support this?