Old Cat Lady

I was being an obsessive compulsive weirdo and counting crossovers from worlds and I actually see the argument for giving Uno lower skating skills scores. He had by far the most crossovers of the top men. It's difficult because he might have the best knees and glide of all the skaters, but how can you give credit for skating skills when you're doing so little to actually display them? In this sense, I can see the argument for transitions and skating skills to be closely tied - but what do you do about skaters that have a huge gap between ability and content? Nate got 9.5, Kolyada 9, and Jin got 8.5. They all had crossovers in the low to mid 20's. Uno had around 35 and scored around 9.04. Judging by video, I'd probably put them 1. Kolyada... big gap... 2. Uno 3. Nate 4. Jin. Of course scores were also affected by Uno making the most major mistakes. For those who've seen them all live, do you think Nate and Jin are a full point apart? To me, they look pretty close - Nate currently has more polish but I would think that goes more toward the performance score. Upon closer inspection, Nate's transitions aren't quite as bad as I thought they were - I can see the argument for ranking him second of the top men, though I'd score him at LEAST a full point below Hanyu. It's just that the preps for the jumps are so long and so stark that it completely disrupts the program and it becomes what's the most noticeable thing about the program. However, this should be reflected in GOE's, choreography, performance, and interpretation, and as far as I can tell, he isn't getting penalized on ANY of those scores. And this is another question of quantity vs. quality. I'd still rank Kolyada higher because his are higher quality in spite of having slightly less. Nate doesn't finish any of his moves - it's very obvious that he's just doing the moves because that's what he's supposed to do rather than connecting them to a cohesive whole. I'd rank Uno the worst of the top men - I actually think his are the most beautiful, but once again, how do you give credit when there's so little there? I do appreciate Jin's program more that I took another look at it. It still has the second most crossovers and the movements are choppy and unfinished, but everything is improved and it does try to create a whole picture and set a mood.

On the bright side, Kazuki looks great. The movements are so sharp. I just wish his 4 Continents Riverdance was cleaner - the performance aspect was incredible. I hope he's able to keep up his tech enough to stay on the world stage - he's looking like he has so much potential as a show skater.

Seems like such a waste of time. Some of the comments are saying that it's rival companies trying to cut down Yuzu's promotional power.

I actually love Carmina Burana. This is the one Orser suggestion that I wished he took. However, for next year I'm hoping he does something edgier with a lot of tension but still has the big crescendos that he can use to highlight his natural glide. I loved the regal, confident dark Yuzu that you see in Origin. I don't listen to a ton of different music but I'm thinking something like Disturbed version of "Sound of Silence". Very raw and powerful but I can picture Ina Bauers and spirals skated to a lot of the long held notes. It's also a slow enough tempo that he could conserve energy while still building intensity. I imagine it being structured like Otonal - starting slowly with jumps in the beginning and exploding at the end.

It's the sum of the BV. Here's a link to the worksheets I use for a short cut - most of the credit goes to Shanshani. I just modified them for my needs. "Reverse GOE" is used to find the raw GOE marks of the judges. I also use it to figure out scores if a skater didn't make mistakes. Enter the factored GOE into the light pink GOEP box and it will calculate the raw GOE into the light blue GOE box. "Layout" is the original protocol that Shanshani made. I pretty much use it to see bv and the effects of the different GOE scores. "Scorecard" is what I use when I want to rescore events. The green boxes represent each bullet. The red is the total number of reductions. Sometimes you have to hand change the final GOE because the math doesn't end right. This is view only so you'll need to save it to your Drive before you can use it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AgOJKPfj4YBcymwA8yx-wjo-9-RXFYFDkMMID_IuVFI/edit?usp=sharing

Judging by the protocols, everything was a mess that day. Lost levels everywhere and GOE's well below his normal. Of course, I don't trust protocols anymore and I hate that program too much to check. I tried it with him getting -3 on 4s< (let's be honest, that thing is just a bluff at this point so that's probably the best we can hope for), hitting all his levels, same PCS as SP 92.3, and he ended up with 284.05 combined, putting him 2.89 ahead of Vincent. I was okay with the men's results at first but then I actually did a re-score and now I'm pissed. I was going to go through and break down exactly what was all in the programs (crossovers, seconds of prep, transition elements, possibly air time though I don't know how to use any sophisticated software so probably not) as that's the only objective measure. Anyone happen to do anything like this already before I put myself through this misery?

I know he'll do his self effacing diplomatic thing but I hope he doesn't outright say that the score was fair. Let the fire burn as long as possible

I think one of the problems with the Fanyu reaction is that they're coming off as emotional with very little explaining why they think the scoring was bad. It's easy to write such reactions off as just crazy fans being sore losers. I'm thinking of replying with a series of tweets explaining all the ways the judging GOE's were wrong to show that there is legitimate logic behind the statements but doesn't seem worth it if they don't read the comments. Even if they do, likely that it still isn't worth it but at least I can feel like I did something. I wish I could post that video someone here made showing the difference in transitions between the two but the ISU will probably just get it taken down. I was just thinking that his blogs are so bland that they're bizarre. He can't possibly think he's saying anything worth writing, especially when he's so eloquent in interviews. I love how we all know he's trolling us and we're just thirsty for more.

If you mentally block the orange ruffles, the costume is quite flattering. Hugs his body almost as well as the ppos. Just looked at the ISU Twitter. What do you think are the chances that ISU actually reads the comments?

Just had a random thought. If you have original articles on the site, couldn't you guys get a press pass for the site? I was just thinking about this because TSL and Goldenskate have press passes, why couldn't the Planet? I'm sure members would volunteer to help with the article writing.

I wonder if Yuzu is better off getting creative with combos rather than trying to learn new jumps. We've seen that clip of him doing 2s/e/4s. Maybe he'd be able to do 4t on the back end. SP: 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3lz, 3f/4t*, 3a/e/3s, 3a/3t BV: 143.45 GOE 3: 179.93 SP: 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3lz, 3f/4t*, 3a/2t*, 3a/3t/3lo* BV: 144.99 GOE 3: 181.47 If he's able to do the 3 triple combo, he'd be better off with LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3a, 3f/4t*, 3a/2t*, 3lz/3t/3lo* He's much more likely to get a 4+ GOE on a 3a than a 3lz, more than making up for the slight loss in BV.

I wouldn't seriously suggest it. Unfortunately one of the big competitive disadvantages for Yuzu is that he actually has an artistic vision whereas Nathan prioritizes the tech and is fine just doing what he's told choreographically - these are things that Nate and Raf have said themselves. From a competitive standpoint, Yuzu's programs are terribly structured because he loses so much more than he gains. But one of the things people often like to claim is that Nathan's isn't less artistic, just has a different style or hold Yuzu's music against him. You can't do that if they're skating to the same thing. One of the things I liked about the older style original dance is that it truly separated the artists from the rest. Yes, you could get lucky and have a type of dance that happened to suit your style, but only those who have a true talent for interpreting music will do well year after year. What I'd really like for Yuzu to do is declare his immediate retirement, spend a year or two healing, then do Ciontu while worlds is going on. There's probably some rule against that, but I am really curious about how ticket sales will be without him - previous to this, we never knew because most tickets would have already been sold by the time people knew he wasn't going to be there. If he's fit and able after healing, then he can commit to Beijing. I know Yuzu is worried because after Patrick took a year off he wasn't very competitive anymore but Patrick didn't fall behind because he took time off; he fell behind because he half assed his come back. Unlike Patrick, Yuzu has always kept close tabs on his competitors and worked to stay ahead of the game. btw, if Yuzu decides on a 5 quad layout next year, these are the base values as well as the scores if everything got a GOE of 3 SP - 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* (using same layout for all calculations) LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/2t*, 3a/e/3s*, 3a/3t * BV: 144.65 GOE 3: 182.81 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/3t, 3a/e/3s, 3f/3a seq BV: 146.12 GOE 3: 184.28 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/3a seq, 3f/3t/2lo, 3a/3t BV: 146.41 GOE 3: 183.76 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/2t, 3f/3a seq, 3a/3t/3lo (I only include this because I saw that clip of him doing 4t/3t/3lo) BV: 147.66 GOE 3: 185.82 Previously I stated that it wasn't worth it to do 4lo in the short because of the lower GOE but I believe I was wrong. He still gets more points for a 3 GOE 4lo than a 4 GOE 4s. And in the old system, he got equal or higher GOE for the loop than the salchow. I kept the 4t/3t because it's so consistent and the difference in value from 4s and 4t is only .02. I didn't include any layouts with 3 lo as the second jump in the combo as I imagine the motion is different with the greater impact so being able to do it on a 3 jump combo doesn't necessarily mean he can do it on a 2 jump combo. In comparison, Chen's layout SP: 3a, 4lz, 4t/3t* LP: 4lz, 4f, 4t, 3a, 4t/3t*, 3f/e/3s*, 3lz/3t* BV: 142.56 GOE 3: 179.28 SP: 3a, 4lz, 4t/3t* LP: 4lz, 4f, 4s, 3a, 4t/3t*, 4t/3t*, 3f/e/3s* BV: 146.72 GOE 3: 184.58

The main reason I think the 4 & 5 buttons should be disabled upon not reaching the designated height is because the rules say that any jump without height & distance shouldn't get higher than 3. Overcoming the first 3 bullets makes a huge difference in the score so judges ignoring that part of the guidelines is the biggest influencer of the outcome. Unfortunately too many of the bullets are subjective to ever completely replace human judges but the ISU can do a lot to reduce corruption/human error by removing a lot of the control from the judges hands. I don't think it would be that hard for skaters to attach sensors to their skates. It could be made part of the warm up. Some of the most impactful aspects on scoring can be objectively measured. The 4 most ignored aspects of the GOE judging seems to be "height and distance" for greater than 3 GOE and reductions for "lacking rotation, no sign", "small jump", and "long prep". The ISU could determine how many seconds of prep deserves how much deduction and the technology could automatically take a 2 or 3 GOE deduction depending on seconds of glide. Same with certain reduction for falling below a predetermined height and deductions for "lacking rotation". Also, I don't see why an 89 degree ur jump should be worth so much less than a 90 degree ur jump. It's especially detrimental when a < jump gets the double whammy of GOE and BV reduction while judges don't take any deduction at all for a slightly ur jump. It would also help a lot for the ISU to have their own judging staff. I realize that they're trying to keep costs down but why couldn't they pull from the same pool of people they're already paying as the technical panel for judging? and they're paying judges anyway. There's plenty of places to cut costs where it doesn't hurt the fairness of the competition. a lot of people like to try to invalidate people's observations with "judges know more than you" but the reality is that judges are pulled from the tiny pool of people who can afford to make judging figure skating their hobby, not necessarily people who are most passionate about the sport or even spend the most time studying the rules. the reality is that it's in the judges best interests to be corrupt - if they don't prop their own skaters up the federation probably will quit sending them to events.

But they're not portraying his sleep shirt! I'm imagining something like this

Thank you for being so receptive. I totally understand your frustration. I feel it too. I really liked the system in theory and I felt positive about the fact that I generally agreed with the GOE judging in the old system but after worlds, I'm losing hope. Lol, part of the reason I put so much work into it is because I get really annoyed at people (not you, other forums) who try to claim that Nathan is unbeatable and use the point gap to try to claim that he's surpassed Yuzu. That's why I focus so much on letting people know that the difference in score would have been made up by the Salchow mistakes. However, even disregarding the bad joke that the judges made of the PCS score, Yuzu should have won if GOE bullets were properly applied. Geez, if Nathan doesn't deserve the "long prep" or "small jump" deductions, then who does? The judges have shown that you might as well just eliminate that bullet since they won't apply it anyways. I don't think clean Nathan will ever get higher PCS than clean Yuzu because there's just too much to overlook, but judges will make it irrelevant the way they did at worlds. Essentially just making it a tie breaker. I certainly see the day when clean Nathan will get higher PCS than a slightly flawed Yuzu. The thing that drives me crazy is that the Nathan stans like to tout his consistency but it's so much easier to be consistent when you're gliding into tiny jumps for 2 seconds and not expending energy on transitions. That's why I was thinking that Yuzu should water down his jump layout at the beginning of the season - to make sure he can be consistent and build up that PCS baseline but his mind just doesn't work that way and that strategy might actually backfire (remember the 2017 Autumn Classic). I forgot to mention one thing in my original post about way to maximize posts. Part of me wants Yuzu to just spend the summer working on his jumps during the summer and wait until Nathan announces his music choices. Then use the same music to make it undeniable who's actually interpreting the music. I know that's douchey and Yuzu would never do that, but a small part of me wishes Yuzu would be more cutthroat since the judges/media/fans will look for any excuse to deny giving him proper credit. I wish the SP was more like the original dance from the 90's, so you could compare skaters on a level a playing field as possible. Unfortunately it's moot whether a clean Yuzu would have beaten Nate this year because by next year or the year after, that won't be true anyways. If Yuzu does plan to compete for a few more years, he is making the right decision by upgrading the tech. Even with that in mind, I don't think it's necessarily the right decision to work on the 4f, though I understand that he wants to avoid being hurt as much by ice conditions. It seems that it's best to work on only the jumps absolutely necessary for competition so that he can work on consistency.

The 4f was on the border for the quarter mark. Yuzu's was clearly at or past the quarter. And I've already acknowledged TWICE that the judging was ridiculous. Whether Nate's flip deserved the call or not, Yuzu should have won. The point I was making, and stated explicitly, was that without those mistakes, Yuzu would have won in spite of the terrible judging. I didn't say anything on your previous post because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now it's two posts in a row. There's no need to be so rude. It's certainly possible for clean Nate to win against clean Yuzu and probably will happen in the future. But in this particular competition, scoring patterns indicate a clean Yuzu would have won.

lol, Yuzu's blog entries really are terrible but I'm still desperate for every word. Can't wait for the next one

Just a reminder, Kolyada is being replaced with Lazukin. Make sure you adjust your predictions as necessary

This is a confusing statement since neither of these scenarios are true. Yuzu's Base value = 91.43 (with stseq4) Nate's Base value = 94.39 Yuzu made 2 mistakes. What mistake are you saying Nate made? And if you're including quality issues, then Yuzu had some of those as well. Nathan skated the best he ever has while Yuzu did not. That was the reason Nathan won. (eta: and terrible judging) Had Yuzu been clean, even with the ridiculous GOE's and egregiously inflated PCS Nathan got, Yuzu would have won even with the effects of the injury showing in his skating, provided that Nathan stuck to the same layout. I never implied that Yuzu was "delusional". But I imagine Yuzu, like almost everyone, was overly influenced by the point gap. If you don't work with the numbers a lot, it's really hard to understand exactly how impactful every little error, or even quality issue, can be. Let me run the numbers from worlds: Nathan's total score from worlds = 107.4+216.02=323.42 Yuzu's total score from worlds = 94.87 + 206.10=300.97 SP salchow = BV of 9.7 + GOE (ave in GP was 4.06) of 3.94 + PCS loss of around 2 points = 15.64 points lost LP salchow: < incurred a BV reduction to 7.28 - 1.25 in GOE = 6.03 a 4s with a 4.06 GOE = 13.64 Normal 4s of 13.64 - actual 4s< of 6.03 = 7.61 points lost Stseq level 4 with a GOE of 4 (actual GOE received for his step sequence, though the likelihood is that he would have received a higher one without the minor slip) = 5.46 StSeq level 3 with a GOE of 4 = 4.62 5.46-4.62 = .84 points lost actual score of 300.97 + 15.64 (SP 4s) + 7.61 (LP 4s) + .84 (st seq) = 325.06 Also keep in mind that this panel was scoring high in general. The likelihood is that if Yuzu landed that 4s with his usual quality, he would have gotten closer to 4.5 GOE, which is 14.07 points, adding another .86 points. He likely lost PCS in the FS as well, adding another point or 2. He also had several other scratchy landings. His performance was phenomenal but the injury affected several things, not just these 3 elements that had clear mistakes. Finally, he essentially gave away points because of the layout. Even if, for some reason, he physically isn't able to do the 3f/3a, there were better potential point options with minor changes. With the exact same GOE's on comparable elements, he would have scored 1.49 higher if his layout was 4lo, 4s<, 4t, 3a (SP GOE of 4.29), 4t/2t (seq GOE of 3.28), 3f/e/3s (3 jump combo GOE of 2.71), 3a/3t (2 jump combo GOE of 3.28), StSeq3 GOE of 4 This layout is actually easier than the one he did yet it would have scored higher. However, if you don't play with the numbers a lot, you wouldn't realize it because the base value is lower than his performed layout. Now add up the numbers with the points he lost from the outright mistakes. 325.06 + 1.49 in loss of GOE due to layout = 326.55 + loss in PCS in fs, loss in GOE in st seq If he did the 3f/3a seq layout, it would have been 326.81 a perfect Yuzu with all elements landed at his best quality would have comfortably beaten Nathan. This fs performance by Yuzu would probably have won against Nathan (and every other skater except himself in history) in every skate ever done except at this year's worlds and Nationals. It was just bad luck that he happened to come off injury when Nate was on a hot streak. No, I don't think so either. But the reality is that Yuzu has already compromised somewhat on his vision in order to win. Semei, Chopin, Otonal, and Origin have all been altered to gain more points. He'll never go down to Raf's level and I hope he never does, but tweaking the jump layout doesn't diminish the artistic excellence of the program and it's a simple fix.

I don't actually believe that Yuzuru would water down his choreography for strategy and wouldn't dare suggest most of the things I listed. It was originally just meant to be an analysis of judging patterns but I prematurely posted without a full explanation since the topic came back up. However, judging by things they've said, I do genuinely wonder if they've fully analyzed how the system works. Yuzu seemed (positively) surprised by his score and previous SP scores. He was also surprised by Shoma's SP score (though he might not have seen the whole program). Brian got the number wrong when he was talking about the points lost in the SP. The jump layout isn't designed to maximize scores. Yuzu said he couldn't have won even with a clean program - and that's just plain not true. Even in the old system, he was often very surprised by scores. Now, the 4t/3a might have just been a pride thing. But even disregarding the 3f/3a option since he's probably never practiced it, his layout is still not maximized for score. It's pretty clear that he threw out the whole "I don't care about points" thing after Autumn classic but he still kept a layout that had higher BV but lower potential points. I don't doubt that the team has spent hours looking at the protocols, but the numbers on the sheets by themselves don't tell you much.

good to know. sorry I didn't read the rest of the forum before asking. Please let us know a month or 2 in advance when you guys are ready to renew so us foreigners have time to get the money to you. I think it makes the most sense for us to do a big lump donation so I'd rather just set aside some money and wait until it's time.

Wow. I'm surprised that the US has the most. I thought this was mostly a European based forum eta: now I feel silly. I could have just looked at everyone's flags

IIIINTERESTING! I didn't know that loop on 2nd half of combo was an option. Completely changes the layout discussion. Will have to analyze on the layout thread ETA: weird. My phone is showing a different vid now. The clip is supposed to be yuzu doing 4t/3t/3lo

But IJS is a system of incremental advantages. I audibly gasped when I saw his mistake on the step sequence because I knew that for him to have any chance, he needed that point he lost. He needs to scrape every point, especially when competing against someone with higher base value. Yes, a clean Yuzu can still win, but that's a big ask in this age of multiple quads. I don't dispute that there are valuation and judging issues, but unfortunately this is the system and people he has to work with right now so all you can do is figure out how to work within it. When's he's fighting an uphill battle, he can't just throw away 2 points for flair

I keep watching it over and over and I don't see the skip. But I do question Aliev's ability to do it. He's not the greatest jumper in the world. Why do I get this ominous feeling that when he says "investing in the future" he means pounding a bunch of quads to stay ahead of the pack rather than taking care of his health? I wonder what the likelihood of Yuzu seeing your comments on this blog are. He can't possibly go through every message when they mostly say the same things can he? Ever since I've seen how many points he's giving up with this year's jump layout I've been wanting to reach someone on his team even though I'm sure they get plenty of armchair advice from other crazy fanyus