ClarissaH

4 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

I also wonder about how many -5s will really be given. Even now, a lot of things that demand a -3, like the solo jumps without steps (again, iirc) aren't really followed. Things that clearly should get -3 get subjective -1 and -2. If they're so reluctant to give -3 sometimes, if the required penalty is -5, would these same judges do it?

 

I think judges need bootcamp. 

I feel like if this new system were to be implemented, seeing -5 and +5s would hardly happen, however with the gate being expanded more -3, +3, and maybe even +4 or -4 would be given, which would definitely affect the way skaters arrange their programs. If you're doing a quad you regularly fall on and get 9BV points on it but lose 3 or 4 points on it, you're now getting 5 or 6, which is less than doing a triple of the same jump well. 

5 minutes ago, Xen said:

The issue is that it's not ISU that selects the judges, they say which countries get to judge, and I believe the country's federations nominate the judges? In which case, its in each country's interest to have judges vote certain ways. Which is why a truly neutral judging panel might need a complete re-working of the entire way judges are selected, and whom the judges owe their allegiance to.  I think we rely more on people's conscience than anything really. 

This is the textbook definition of conflicts of interest and it absolutely needs to be changed. Last time there was a big scandal about unfair judging, the whole system was overhauled. A second coming of that is definitely necessary. Countries shouldn't be able to assign their own judges and judge appointed should certainly be carried out by an independent body. There's already a fairly large pool of judges that have proven that they're not biased, albeit they are judges from countries that don't usually have medal contenders in some disciplines such as France and Australia. If, and hopefully when, such a change is made, judges that have proved to be unbiased should be appointed and ones that have proven national favoratism shouldn't be allowed. What country the judges are from shouldn't matter either, no "every country gets to send a judge". If 3 French judges prove to be unbiased but no Chinese judges are judging fairly, send more French judges than Chinese ones. 

And I also agree that that's a problem. The temporary solution would be to throw out the highest and lowest given scores then calculate the mean so the only way a skater could get outrageously high, or low, GoE scores is if the judges were kahoots with each other, which is something that would continue to be absolutely obvious. However, serious action does need to be taken and judges who are clearly biased with their judging should no longer be allowed to be sent. 

6 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

 

If executed well, maybe...

 

I do think the only real way to make it all work would be to remove all federation influence from judging, and have judges be reviewed by an independent panel whose findings are made public to check for bias or kickbacks. It'll never happen, of course, and if it did, it would be just another kind of politics. 

The way the judges grade execution, at least to my knowledge, is public. Over on the General Hanyu chat I linked to a spreadsheet a reddit user made, taking the grades for the elements of the skater, including the nationality of the skater and the judge and cross referencing to look for national bias, which there no surprise was. It's public knowledge who the biased judges are so the obvious solution is to remove them from judging panels and replace them. Another way to help eliminate bias would be to not include the highest and lowest GoE judge scores in the mean calculation, so if one judge is favoring a skater while another is biased against them, they don't get included so they pretty much cancel out. In cases where judge scores are close to each other and there isn't any bias, not including the top and bottom values would have minimal effect on the mean score. 

I don't know what the actual answer would be so I'm just going to say it's Canadian magic. 

I've seen this particular comment brought up a lot, in regards to better rewarding well-executed components. I'm going to say that the solution that would likely work the best would be to expand the GoE window from -3 through +3 to -5 through +5, better reward well executed elements and a larger penalty for sloppily done ones. Considering the little point differences between medaling positions, it sometimes coming down to fractions of a point, this change will definitely shake things up. 

The thing about Yuzu and the "crazy quad fest" is that he actively became a part of it. He didn't need to have five quads in his Olympic skate, but he chose to because he likes to challenge himself. In an interview when he was asked about the changes being made, he said that he was still going to challenge himself, even continue trying to do a quad axel and even try a quint! So throwing more points to wards artistry, in the end, isn't going to stop skaters who enjoy challenging themselves, like Hanyu, from attempting more difficult technical components. In regards to injuries, skaters are going to get injured one time or another, considering how much skaters practice. The only foreseeable way to near completely remove injury as being a possible risk is to eliminate jumps completely, which would never be done. 

1 minute ago, OonsieHui said:

 

there kind of is transparency in judging now... in the sense that they aren't anonymous anymore. the problem is that nothing is being done about the blatant bias and unfairness.

This. The transparency is there but NOTHING has been done about blatant bias. If biased judges were to be removed, and hopefully they are, I don't really see how there would be negative backlash coming from countries that are affected by it, and at least according to the data compiled by said Reddit user, China, the US, and Russian judges are the worst offenders, because the competitors want less biased judging and I'm sure the niche regular season figure skating audience wants the same. 

2 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Hi! We have a thread here to talk about skating, including other skaters. In fact, there's a bit of a parallel discussion there about the very topic of judging and jumps vs. artistry. Since this is the Yuzu chat, try to keep the posts on topic about Yuzu  Thanks!

 

 

Sorry about that! I'm new here, saw this convo start up here and kinda got invested in it. 

I find it weird how you say that Zagitova isn't so much of a jumping bean when, at least the only thing I've EVER heard said in discussion about her, is her jumping and how she backloads them, something that you expressed you were against. 

As I've said, the biggest problem I have with raising the PCS max score is that paired with the obvious subjectivity and bias in the system will, in the end, favor skaters with an established reputation and actively hurt new contenders, who before they've been around for a few seasons and develop a reputation, only have the technical points on their side to edge out the seniors. It's been shown that this is a problem so it's likely that that's how a change like that would play out. 

Honestly, I believe that the solution is the score window expansion for GoE, lucratively reward well executed components and penalize ones that aren't. And another implementation that could help to further rule out bias is to adapt something other sports have done, throw out the highest and lowest scores out of the mean calculation. So if, out of 5 judges, one gives a -1, one gives a +3, and the other judges give +1s and +2s, the high and the low are ruled out to eliminate bias. 

The thing about biased judging though is that it's already become evident since judges lost their anonymity. On Reddit someone analyzed all of the scores given across all disciplines to look for bias, and it was obviously there. For example, a judge from the US gave Vincent Zhou, someone who fell on one of his jumps, a higher overall score than Hanyu, someone who has a tiny mistake on one of his quads but didn't fall. It's evident that there's bias, the ISU just isn't taking any action. 

Here's the link to the spreadsheet if anyone's interested.

To kind of continue with this, I don't think raising the possible PCS score from 100 to 150, or any kind of increase, will really help in any way. PCS scores have already proven how subjective they are with the jumps of scores skaters like Alina Zagitova have gotten with the same programs after having won a major competition. In the end, such increase would benefit skaters with an established reputation, such as Hanyu, Brown, and Rippon, and bite new competitors in the ass. 

3 minutes ago, SparkleSalad said:

Watch him get +5 on his very first 3A outing.  (I know they wouldn’t dare but...)

 

I see this as sort of a quick fix to counter PCS inflation for quadsters but I don’t think it’s the right solution. Judging fairly is the only solution. 

I would LOVE to see Hanyu get a +5 on his first 3A, and it's not impossible either. His axels are exquisite and he enters them in the most difficult way one can. 

9 minutes ago, cinemacoconut said:

I wnt to see yuzu a bit longer so i dnt like the reduction in time lol. I think they shld prevent backloading, add more PCS point getters and give extra points for skaters who skate clean programs, give extra points for perfect and deduct points for jumps and spins and jst limit the number of quads attempted. But i like long programs!! It means u can see the skaters program longer.. 

I'm also disappointed about the free skates being reduced in time, because I too like seeing all of the skaters. The solution you proposed with extra points for well executed components and penalties for ones that aren't is kind of already being implemented through the expansion of the GoE scores, instead of -3 through +3, it's going to be -5 through +5, or at least I've heard this will be implemented. 

I feel like limiting the number of quads someone can attempt isn't a good route to take because, in a way, it devolves the sport. This is probably a bit of an unpopular opinion but I feel like technical components and the quality of them is more important than the artistic components, however I am not saying artistry shouldn't be reward I'm just saying that walking back technical achievements to cater to artistry is a destructive move for a SPORT. Figure Skating is a sport and skill and athletic ability should be rewarded and not limited. The biggest reason I've seen from people who don't like figure skating is that the rewards for the artistic components are very subjective. While there will always be subjective elements to figure skating, the closer the sport gets to objectivity, the better. 

This doesn't mean we'll totally lose artistry though, the increase of GoE scores will help to combat that plus we still see artistry in very technical skaters, such as Hanyu and Shoma. 

Edit: I can't see preventing backloading being a fix either, because by doing that you're kind of doing the reverse of the problem that's trying to be fixed, penalizing athletic ability to theoretically cater to artistry. To state this again, figure skating is a SPORT and athletic ability should be rewarded, and that's exactly why jumps in the second half of programs get that 10 per cent bonus. If a skater is able to execute quality jumps in the second half, that's a great display of their athletic ability. However, to a skater who tries to backload their program for the bonus but doesn't execute jumps with quality, the GoE will come to hurt them in the end. 

Wow, that suit is definitely something else. Especially around the shoulders. It's almost like it was thrown at him the day of the parade and was told to put it on and didn't even have any kind of fitting. 

3 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

we are talking about the guy who skated his SP with 4Lo and 3A and 4Trippon3T on a ice-show ice rink (they are much smaller) and with gala lightings, so no, take it easy isn't something Yuzuru can do, not even in shows. And actually he has skated a clean Chopin ballade once, and Max Ambesi fanboyed tweeted that Yuzuru would have broken the SP world recor with that skate (which he did, a few months later)

 

btw you can check the big-ass parade that Sendai organized after his Sochi medal, featuring the iconic ill-fitting grey suit   gosh that was an awful suit...

I watched that program yesterday, the one in the ice-show rink! The first comment my mom and I made on the show was the size of the rink. He still did amazing with it, despite the size. 

I have never heard of this ill-fitting grey suit before. Time to search YouTube and Google for it. 

1 minute ago, SparkleSalad said:

 

There’s also a reduction in time and one less jumping pass in the FS, though. 

Oh, that's something I definitely didn't know about. Yeah, that definitely will make it harder. Considering a quad happens in a second, 30 seconds gone is quite the change. 

1 minute ago, SparkleSalad said:

 

Won’t just about every score under the new system technically be a new WR?

I wouldn't think so. To my understanding, the modification is changing the GoE from a scale of -3 to +3 to -5 to +5, which further rewards execution of elements, this being done to help balance out artistry vs technical ability. I mean, a botch quad is worth just as much as a successful triple of the same jump. It's not really a new system, like the switch from a 6 point system to the one currently in place. 

The base value for every component is still the same, there's just a greater reward for pulling off an element extremely well and a higher penalty for botching a jump. 

Under those new rules he probably will break records again. I'd venture to even say all of them since when he does his components well, he does them really well. Do I need to bring up his triple axel?

During the correspondents conference in Japan that happened a couple days ago, he was asked about it but didn't say much about it, just said that he'd continue to challenge himself with more technically difficult components. 

2 minutes ago, Yolo3a said:

BLASPHEMY!!! 

Maybe so, but during the Autumn Classic this season when he said he'd "take it easy" he went and broke the record for short program score so "taking it easy" doesn't really mean much. 

1 minute ago, SparkleSalad said:

 

Hyphens are so important.

I honestly don't even remember typing in that hyphen. 

I just heard about what FaOI was like a couple days ago and I've taken to bingeing his past performances there, which are all great, and I really hope he does make an appearance there. Considering it isn't a competition and more of an exhibition, he could take it easy and not do a technically demanding program. Consider it a practice in front of a live audience. 

Sendai's holding a big-ass parade? This is the first I'm hearing of this! I can't even imagine the lot of pictures of Hanyu we'll be blessed with. 

I would assume it is, at least until Worlds if his ankle allows him to make a showing there. This is barring another incident happening, which makes the news. Other than something new happening, the only foreseeable time I can see him in the news again is when it gets closer to Worlds, if he makes an announcement about participating or one about foregoing it. 

Fancams are honestly the best. I don't mind commentary the first time I see the routine, since I still am a bit eh with recognizing jumps and I don't mind having them pointed out, but when I just want to watch the routine and don't care about the technical aspects the commentary can get annoying. 

Could you imagine a war between corporations through releasing cute videos and pictures of of Yuzuru? 

At least it would be a creative type of war. 

1 minute ago, Anony said:

THEY WANT ME DEAD AND I'M 100% OKAY WITH THAT 

They intend to assassinate you with cuteness. 

I have saved so many pictures from that photoshoot.