Xen

Oh, you mean like a groupon for all of us? Sounds nice, how much of a group discount do you think we could get? Well I guess we could purchase a bunch and just pass them out at competitions to satellites. But then, how do we reach the satellites who don't attend?

This sounds like...several seasons planning? Time to invest in a second wig if wig 1 is utterly destroyed this season.

Okay everyone, hold on to your wigs, next season (s) will be wild. o_O

Well, this image. I must say, the arms are so well proportioned, and held outwards at such a well controlled angle. And the free leg forms a wonderful angle both to the ice and the support leg. Not to mention the angle of the head to the rest of the torso, with the hands well formed in, I guess this is balachine, form. Must say, this position is so well done, one must question the posture of the ladies' spirals-Karen Chen, Satton whomst?

I want a proper objective definition of sexy balletic arms, if it becomes a trend next season.

Well now that tights are allowed, I'm waiting for a pairs team to skate to a ballet for the long, and the guy to wear the tights. =D

Actually, this amendment is the one that balances Nathan and Vincent Zhou out versus the other guys, more so than the 1 quad rule as originally stated. It is actually also, far more "fair" to guys who don't have more than a 4T and 4S yet, since they could theoretically work the bonus half and gain some degree of lost points. Or go for the combo in the first half and do both solo quads in the bonus. What is interesting though, is this definitely raises the importance of the 3A...which is actually quite interesting, because when the quad race started, I think the quality of 3As started decreasing. Boyang: 4Lz3T 4S 4T 3A3T// 4T1Lo3S 3A 3Lz- with 2GOE avg, we're looking at 99.66, if he swaps for a solo 4Lz instead of 4T, 102.33 Shoma: 4F 4Lo 4T3T 3A1Lo3F//3A 4S2T 3Lz- with 2 GOE avg, looking at 98.1 but I think he's better off switching the 3A combo and the solo 3A around in order, or would that be too tiring? So in terms of pure TES, it is a good thing to have more quads, and able to combo the heck out in the second half. Notice how Boyang could essentially surpass Nate in TES (which realistically probably won't be allowed to happen by judges via GOE), so I think Nate would still need to use the 4S once. But if you look at the layouts and scores above, Boyang, Shoma and even Yuzu are a LOT closer together in TES terms. Which means, GOEs and PCS play a greater role. I imagine the guys would go for the more conservative layouts in the end, since falls are punished more heavily now. So realistically, maybe less repeat 4Lz and 4F.

This issue distracted from the other issue that would have been rejected- eliminating the steps into solo jump in the SP. Having that rule actually helps Japan, especially if they move to tech panel. Essentially the TP can vote whether there were steps, and only then could that steps GOE be applied on the jumps. However, without the steps being a barrier, it's quite easy for many guys (cough US cough) to do a solo 4Lz or 4F and not worry. Even if it hasn't been applied well these days, it's also a ticking time bomb because maybe some judges will apply it, hence you'd need to be more cautious if you can't do a 4Lz or 4F out of steps. For Nathan, he could do this: 4Lz3T 4Lz 4F 3A//3Lz-Lo-3F 4T2T 3Lz , which even without bonus has 74.6 base BV, and if we go +2 GOE avg and bonus, would be 100.23, so he won't need the 4S technically. Now if Zu goes this: 4Lo 4T 4S 3F//4T3T 3A1Lo3S 3A2T: base BV without bonus is 70.8 (which is tiny considering he doesn't do 2x 4Lz), and +3 GOE avg and bonus he's around 104.5 (if +2 GOE he's around 95ish). *If I add a FCCoSP4, CCSp4, FCoSp4, a StSq4 and ChSq all with +2 GOEs...the TES has hit 131.81. o_O Boy can go break his own record now, since I think somewhere there will be a +4/+5 GOE for his jumps. The thing is...this layout from Zu is quite doable for him, and 4T3T is more stable than 4S3T.

I'm starting to wonder what's in that coffee they're drinking.

Well in some crazy way, Zu actually benefits, because 3A is the highest value triple. He could go //4S3T 3A-Lo-3S 3Lz 3A and get bonus for the last 3, which usually get him good GOEs (4Lo 4S 4T 3F//4S3T 3A1Lo3S 3A2T as full layout). Or he could swap out the 4Lo for 4Lz and go 4Lz 4Lo 4T3T 3F//4S 3A1Lo3S 3A2T. A lot of other guys will have trouble if they don't have a stable 3A, since a 3Lz in the second half would do better with a combo, but that would use up the 3T combo, and would force a 2T combo, and a -Lo-3S/3F combo elsewhere. As for why you bring it up as a package: it's really sneaky. -If you like some of the rules, and is negative against, or neutral on the others, if the benefit outweighs you would vote yes, to avoid the possibility of nothing getting passed. -Very few would be smart enough to realize that forcing a no vote and then forcing an item-by-item vote would be beneficial, because it is not clear in the guidelines what happens if it's a No Hence, most feds, even if smart, would end up voting yes, sadly. Edit: forgot that Yuzu would be doing 3A2T likely as last jumping pass.

It seems to be this: Honestly, this is really confusing for layout rules. So now: 4Lz 4F 4T3T//3A1Lo3S 4Lz2T 3Lz 3A -guess this is one way to go Maybe for Zu: 4Lo 4S 4T//4S3T 3A-Lo-3S 3Lz 3A2T

...oh I don't think that's going to happen. Check for warhorses that at the 2-2:40 mark have a good build up for jumps. Carmen is well, Carmen. She's going to habenera and l'amour her way for eternity.

I don't know if Max can save this...I mean, there is also the large feds who could run roughshed over everything.

*has flashbacks of the japanese students at model UN meets where they actually had a country that had clout* Yeah...not really that surprising. I mean, Romania bossing around Norway on a human rights commitee...and Romania was not played by Japan... I think Japan is trying to do something as a middle power fed, but not...doing it correctly. And China isn't really bothering with anything, but will probably start doing stuff privately due to Beijing 2022 clout which can't really be overtly used at ISU congress. =/

Dropping this over here too, regarding the backloading limitation.

Well... China, even hosting Beijing 2022, can't get away with stuff. USFSA can get away with a lot of things.

The more I look at the backloading bonus limit, the more I get annoyed. So far whenever people talk about "balance" it's about the mathematical balance of elements, specifically jumps. But what about artistic balance, or whether or not the skating actually expresses the music? Now with the caps, SP is less an issue because, well 3 jumps, not as huge a deal. But FS is...interesting. Technically most of the advanced skaters already can do 4/3 or possibly 3/4 split in the FS. And now, there is no incentive points wise, mathematically to do more or do less than that type of distribution. It doesn't even have to be combo, if most skaters do //jump-jump-jump-spin-chsq-spin in the second half, music will have to be edited to work with the layout. To make the layout "artistic" enough, music editing will be more important than before to give an artistic impression. Would music choice and edits/cuts be more uniform/stale than before? Previously skaters backloaded to their limit, now everyone has the same backload option (that most are able to do anyways).

I'm not too worried about Yuzu, honestly. He'll be fine, especially as he's the crazy guy who can do 2 3A+combo jumping passes in the second half, as pretty much last jumping pass. The part I find stifling a bit, is I expect to see all the second half jumps just get done in the first 20 secs of second half mark, since there's no incentive to do otherwise. Yuzu might be the only one who would have the guts to do something like //jump-jump-jump- Spin-chSq-jump-spin. I expect more uniform //jump-jump-jump-chsq-spin-spin coming out. On the other hand...wonder how he feels about 4F now.

Nah, the age difference is too big for me to consider their balletic arms sexy. >_>

well yeah, they benefit from the corridor....*rolleyes* Why does it seem like the national bias issue only gets brought up by certain feds, while major large feds are so...silent? @LadyLou: well you did start the e-medals trend...>_> Gods, when a sport has rules created for the maximum flexibility of the judges and minimum flexibility of the atheletes. And we wonder why it's a dying sport. Who the heck would want to be the athelete here?

Wow, do they actually do that?

I think it's because sadly, we're already a bit accepting corruption and bias as par for the course. Which is...sad. =/

I think the idea was to increase skaters diversity based on the bottom line. I would consider it the "anti-coasting" rule, for example: Small Fed has 2 skaters who go to WC 2021, Skater A places 6, skater B does not make it to Free skate So Small Fed technically has 2 entries for OWG 2022, but no, hold on now with this rule Skater A is qualified, but that 2nd spot now has to be fought over because skater B did not make it to Free Skate portion of WC 2021 So now, Small Fed if they want that second spot, must send and qualify someone via Nebelhorn or other event to get that second spot secured for OWG 2022 That's how I'd read it-essentially feds need to make sure they have more than 1 skater who can truly qualify for the FS at the previous WC. Which sounds great, in theory, and could improve diversity. However, we then get into trickier issues if a fed is truly small, and does not have a good list of alternates. Let's just say that if small fed has skaters A, B, C, and B, C are able to make WC 2021, but skater A who normally places top 6, has to WD due to injury. Now, what if skaters B and C don't make it to Free skate? Or only 1 make it but place so low they only get one spot for small Fed? Then they are out of luck. If no one made it, skater A will need to go to Nebelhorn to get even 1 spot, while skaters B and C might not make it? While if B and C managed to secure 1 spot, this could mean Skater A still goes to OWG 2022, but skaters B and C are out of luck. It's a bit odd, since this could also disincentivize feds unless they can get a good stable of skaters to backup each other. =/ This could, get really nasty for say, Korean Men's, Kazakhstan men's, quite a few western european feds, possibly even Chinese fed if they don't get anyone up besides Boyang. =/

Well the biggest suspect is US, even though the rule is proposed by technical committee. And the suspicion is mainly, well US is the one fed that has 2 skaters who have both 4F and 4Lz.