Crowd sourced Technical Camera project

[yuzuangel]

5 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I'm just counting where the pick leaves the ice, which was over 180 from the point where he started the takeoff/the starting point implied by the trajectory of the jump. I guess you could argue that loop jumps are allowed 180 PR, and Matteo wasn't that far over 180, so maybe it's not as bad of a case as we see routinely on lutzes these days.

If it's over 180 it seems only barely so, but going by my screenshots it seems like exactly forwards to me compared to the landing.

 

Going by the starting position implied doesn't seem like a good way to calculate because loops tend to jump "into" the circle rather than on it...which would make it seem more PR'd?

[shanshani]

1 minute ago, yuzuangel said:

If it's over 180 it seems only barely so, but going by my screenshots it seems like exactly forwards to me compared to the landing.

 

Going by the starting position implied doesn't seem like a good way to calculate because loops tend to jump "into" the circle rather than on it...which would make it seem more PR'd?

I did frame by frame and it looks about 210. I allowed the starting point to be parallel to the boards even though it looks like he starts the jump earlier than that, which would make it more PR. Idk I feel like I'm giving him a decent amount of benefit of the doubt here. Again, it's not as excessively PR as the 4Lz's we see these days relative to acceptable pre-rotation for each jump, but I don't think a call would be unfair here, if tech panels did things like call PR. Maybe this would be one of the situations where a relatively lenient panel could argue to let it go, but a stricter panel would call it. Overall, I think he's still short of the 3.25 revolutions in the air I would say is the absolute minimum for something to count as a 4Lo, and revolutions-in-air is what I would really base calls on if I were the one in charge of tech panel rules.

[yuzuangel]

29 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I did frame by frame and it looks about 210.

 I also did it frame by frame and still don't see it so I'm confused about the math used to calculate this lol. But I don't wanna argue about this jump too much so I guess I'll just  be confused lol

 

[shanshani]

3 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

 I also did it frame by frame and still don't see it so I'm confused about the math used to calculate this lol. But I don't wanna argue about this jump too much so I guess I'll just  lol

looking at your frames more closely, I would agree on the takeoff point (or at least it's obvious he's off the ice in the very next frame--and also that frame looks over 180 to me), but the landing looks way off too me. If he had landed there it wouldn't have been called UR. He happens to land on a black letter so it's a little hard to judge exactly which frame he lands, but the toepick definitely hits the ice way before the frame you've screencapped. we know that because the blade is already fully on the ice by then.

[yuzuangel]

12 minutes ago, shanshani said:

looking at your frames more closely, I would agree on the takeoff point (or at least it's obvious he's off the ice in the very next frame--and also that frame looks over 180 to me), but the landing looks way off too me. If he had landed there it wouldn't have been called UR. He happens to land on a black letter so it's a little hard to judge exactly which frame he lands, but the toepick definitely hits the ice way before the frame you've screencapped. we know that because the blade is already fully on the ice by then.

Oh, I definitely agree he didn't land like that, since the jump was highly underrotated. But if you took the screenshot of when he touches the ice it wouldn't tell you about pre-rotation because he completes some of that rotation on the ice. The screenshot I took was the angle I felt like he would have landed his jump had it been completed rotated. At that "completely rotated" position he seems to be parallel to his takeoff position, which indicates about a 180 degree PR.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but prerotation is calculated with respect to the direction of the skater's momentum and not when he starts setting up the jump (which may be on a tight curve) or the position of his blade when it hits the ice (in the case of UR)? The UR is another issue, but it has nothing to do with how much prerotation occurred. 

 

Anyway, maybe it's the angle. But it just looks like a normal loop jump to me.

[yuzuangel]

30 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I allowed the starting point to be parallel to the boards even though it looks like he starts the jump earlier than that, which would make it more PR.

 

does this takeoff look parallel to the boards?  It does to me but I could be wrong bc angles

[shanshani]

12 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Oh, I definitely agree he didn't land like that, since the jump was highly underrotated. But if you took the screenshot of when he touches the ice it wouldn't tell you about pre-rotation because he completes some of that rotation on the ice. The screenshot I took was the angle I felt like he would have landed his jump had it been completed rotated. At that "completely rotated" position he seems to be parallel to his takeoff position, which indicates about a 180 degree PR.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but prerotation is calculated with respect to the direction of the skater's momentum and not his setup position or the position of his blade when it hits the ice in the case of UR? The UR is another issue, but it has nothing to do with how much prerotation occurred. 

Oh, ok, I misinterpreted since I didn't re-read the comment. I actually agree with you on the completely rotated position, so it sounds like we actually agree on what basis to compare his PR and UR to. But the takeoff doesn't look parallel to that to me. He looks angled slightly, not parallel to the boards, which is why I estimated 210 prerotation. It's not a great camera angle for assessing the exact amount of PR though

 

Compare to Yuzu's quad loop in practice. The camera angle is better here (though focus is not the terrible autofocus ruined more than a few shots), but even with the blurriness, you can tell Yuzu is off the ice by 180 degrees. His landing is a bit UR (maybe 70-80 degrees), but not enough to be called if it were a competition. I actually don't think it's that hard to determine which angle to compare PR/UR, even for loops. From this angle, it seems pretty clear?

[yuzuangel]

1 minute ago, shanshani said:

He looks angled slightly, not parallel to the boards, which is why I estimated 210 prerotation. It's not a great camera angle for assessing the exact amount of PR though

Yeah, you could be right. It looks parallel to the boards at first glance to me but could also possibly be not parallel to the boards, LOL. It's hard to tell. If so then yes it could be slightly more than 180 degrees PR. I wouldn't call it for PR if I were the tech panel though. But seeing Yuzu's jump as a comparison it does look a little more PR'd than Yuzu's. Yuzu in general just takes less time on that setup/entry. But sometimes I think the fandom goes a little crazy over PR when sometimes it just comes down to people jumping a little differently and it's not worth grabbing the protractor for (IMO). I think it's egregious if it's 90 degrees or more than allowed though, just like URs.

[shanshani]

1 minute ago, yuzuangel said:

Yeah, you could be right. It looks parallel to the boards at first glance to me but could also possibly be not parallel to the boards, LOL. It's hard to tell. If so then yes it could be slightly more than 180 degrees PR. I wouldn't call it for PR if I were the tech panel though. But seeing Yuzu's jump as a comparison it does look a little more PR'd than Yuzu's. Yuzu in general just takes less time on that setup/entry. But sometimes I think the fandom goes a little crazy over PR when sometimes it just comes down to people jumping a little differently and it's not worth grabbing the protractor for (IMO). I think it's egregious if it's 90 degrees or more than allowed though, just like URs.

Yeah, like I said, relative to the amount of PR allowed for a loop, it's not especially egregious. The quad lutzes are definitely way more egregious. A textbook lutz isn't PR at all, and while that may be a bit of a high standard, really there shouldn't be more than like 90 degrees. It's saying something when I was like "well Samarin's 4Lz is 120-150 PR but that's relatively good these days"

[yuzuangel]

10 minutes ago, shanshani said:

Yeah, like I said, relative to the amount of PR allowed for a loop, it's not especially egregious. The quad lutzes are definitely way more egregious. A textbook lutz isn't PR at all, and while that may be a bit of a high standard, really there shouldn't be more than like 90 degrees. It's saying something when I was like "well Samarin's 4Lz is 120-150 PR but that's relatively good these days" 

Yeah, so a lutz that is 90 degrees PR is within the leeway, but if it is 180 degrees or so PR then there should probably be some sort of deduction along with URs. So skaters that underrotate 90 degrees but prerotate 90 degrees on the lutz shouldn't be penalized while a skater that prerotates 180 degrees but doesn't underrotate gets away with it. My proposal is a combined 90 degrees allowed "excessive on-ice rotation" or something but that's probably wayyy too complicated for ISU  

 

[YesWay]

6 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

Yeah, so a lutz that is 90 degrees PR is within the leeway, but if it is 180 degrees or so PR then there should probably be some sort of deduction along with URs.

 

 

180 degrees or more pre-rotation is called a "cheated take-off" in the ISU rules, and should be punished by a downgrade.

 

From the ISU Technical Panel handbook 2019-2020:

Cheated take-off
A clear forward (backward for Axel type jump) take-off will be considered as a
downgraded jump. The toe loop is the most commonly cheated on take-off jump.
The TP may only watch the replay in regular speed to determine the cheat and
downgrade on the take off (more often in combinations or sequences).

 

This rule has been in place for as long as I can remember.

 

IMO, the rules are rarely the problem.

It's the judges and techncal panels selectively ignoring/applying them...

[yuzuangel]

On 9/23/2019 at 5:44 AM, YesWay said:

180 degrees or more pre-rotation is called a "cheated take-off" in the ISU rules, and should be punished by a downgrade.

 

From the ISU Technical Panel handbook 2019-2020:

Cheated take-off
A clear forward (backward for Axel type jump) take-off will be considered as a
downgraded jump. The toe loop is the most commonly cheated on take-off jump.
The TP may only watch the replay in regular speed to determine the cheat and
downgrade on the take off (more often in combinations or sequences).

 

This rule has been in place for as long as I can remember.

 

IMO, the rules are rarely the problem.

It's the judges and techncal panels selectively ignoring/applying them...

 

Loops and salchow require around a 180 degree prerotation.

 

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear the ISU considers prerotation as different than a forward takeoff. For example, many skaters' toe loops have 180 degrees of PR -- it's more common than not -- but they are distinctively not toe axels, which is what the handbook means when they say "the toe loop is the most commonly cheated on take-off jump." 

 

I don't know when prerotation becomes a forward takeoff and how they're different, but it might have to do with how a skater's weight shifts. In a 180 degree PR'd toe loop, the skaters' weight leaves the ice gradually as they prerotate, eventually lifting off at 180 degrees. In a toe axel, the skater literally steps forward with their weight completely on the ice while facing forward and jumps an axel.

 

This is not to say that I think PR is okay, but just that the ISU doesn't seem to care about prerotation very much -- yet.

[Old Cat Lady]

On 9/16/2019 at 8:41 AM, shanshani said:

Autumn Classic 2019 (no high frame rate available. please shoot in 240fps--slow motion--if you can, guys!)

 

Yuzuru Hanyu FS 4Teu3S (appears to be 30fps), 4T called UR

 

another angle (appears to be 30fps)

 

Yuzuru Hanyu FS solo 4T (appears to be 30fps), 4T called UR

 

Yuzuru Hanyu 3A3T (appears to be 30 fps), 3T called UR

 

 

 

 

 

I can *kind of* see where the 4t in combo could be mistaken for under rotated because the toe looked so close to the ice at the quarter mark.  I don't think it hit because the ice spray came after the blade turned beyond the quarter, but faster replay or worse angle, I can understand the mistake.  But on the other 2 jumps, it looks almost completely backward on the landing!  This seems a legendarily bad call.  

 

I imagine what happened is that the most experienced person on the panel bullied the call.  Since Sasha Martinez is such a newbie, she probably just deferred to the guy who has so much more experience.  At least I *hope* that's what happened.  I'd much rather believe only 1 of the 3 was corrupt and the other was just not confident enough to assert an opinion.  Of course, the latter isn't much better and that completely defeats the purpose of having 3 people on the panel.  I wonder if we'll be seeing these in reply to the next ISU tweet.

 

 

On 9/29/2019 at 10:10 PM, yuzuangel said:

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear the ISU considers prerotation as different than a forward takeoff. For example, many skaters' toe loops have 180 degrees of PR -- it's more common than not -- but they are distinctively not toe axels, which is what the handbook means when they say "the toe loop is the most commonly cheated on take-off jump." 

 

I don't know when prerotation becomes a forward takeoff and how they're different, but it might have to do with how a skater's weight shifts. In a 180 degree PR'd toe loop, the skaters' weight leaves the ice gradually as they prerotate, eventually lifting off at 180 degrees. In a toe axel, the skater literally steps forward with their weight completely on the ice while facing forward and jumps an axel.

 

Now that you mention it this way, you're probably right about forward take off vs. prerotation but then the ISU needs to do a better job explaining things. Letting the ambiguity continue is essentially cheating the group of skaters who were trained by coaches who are interpreting the rules to mean that you need to rotate in the air.

 

If the take-off is defined by the weight transfer, then I think Zhou should still qualify as doing forward take offs on his toe jumps.  If you watch that video posted by Tom Z., you can actually see his skate blade rock down toward the ice to launch in the air while he's positioned completely forward. There's no question that all his weight is on the blade at take off - though, to be fair, the judges probably wouldn't be able to see the blade action in regular speed.  

[YesWay]

This petition may be of interest:

https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/figure-skating-to-improve-judging-system.html

 

" We, the undersigned, call on ISU and IOC to improve the figure skating judging system by implementing more video cameras, disclose the information of decisions."

 

I don't think ISU or Olympics have any obligation to respond - but if enough people signed, perhaps it could become an embarassment too big to ignore?

[yuzuangel]

9 hours ago, Old Cat Lady said:

If the take-off is defined by the weight transfer, then I think Zhou should still qualify as doing forward take offs on his toe jumps.  If you watch that video posted by Tom Z., you can actually see his skate blade rock down toward the ice to launch in the air while he's positioned completely forward. There's no question that all his weight is on the blade at take off - though, to be fair, the judges probably wouldn't be able to see the blade action in regular speed.  

Totally agree. He's one of the worse prerotators.