General Skating Chat

[Forcefield]

I'm glad Yuzu was able to thrive and take part under this COP era because I'm okay with not following this sport after he retires and there are rule changes << it is exactly what ISU should stop from happening, losing all the fans they gain from various skaters, but well, they seem to always miss the point. I don't think the current points system, BV and GOEs wise, is as broken as it seems. It only looks that way because the judging and PCS is the problem and yet they're not fixing that and going for something else so yea, the missed point. Skaters like Yuzu work hard on the whole package and incorporating jumps into choreography which brought some people like me to admire the sport and ISU is doing their hardest to unravel it. I'm baffled because I don't see how overhauling the entire system in this day and age will make people more interested. Imagine in a few years, people will watch these programs and say, yea that used to be figure skating and not any more. Here, this is the new figure skating. Do these jumps impress you? Here, watch this too. Does this dancing impress you? Well, guess what, I can't believe figure skaters used to do all of that together! What were they even thinking?

 

I wonder why slow-mo and stricter judging seems to be eluding the ISU so much? Even in soccer they're going towards using goal-line technology to detect when a ball crosses that goal line to be more accurate so there wouldn't be such an uproar whether it's a goal or not, you know to support the referee. So where're the extra cameras and angles in figure-skating, especially that it doesn't actually need new technology to work? That stuff could really support the scores and judging, obviously.

 

I mean, if the PR reason for cutting down the 30 seconds/a jumping pass in men's skating is to supposedly help the sport, can we please please gift that extra 30 seconds to the judges?

[SSS]

1 hour ago, meoima said:

They will, it has been in the talk since 2015 when Yuzuru broke 300 barrier. Actually ISU vice president mentioned the same thing in an email to my friend's coach. We thought they're just playing something in the ground but they're truly bringing it.

you mean both? lower bv and separation?

[meoima]

2 hours ago, SSS said:

you mean both? lower bv and separation?

Khoai did say this in GS sometimes before. Now both are banned on GS. Apparently his coach is old friend with the current ISU Vice president and they talked about the huge scores going up and up through emails. Since 2 years ago they already talked about how to reduce the scores. And there are a large part inside ISU hate the progressive movement so...

[yuzuangel]

1 minute ago, meoima said:

Khoai did say this in GS sometimes before. Now both are banned on GS. Apparently his coach is old friend with the current ISU Vice president and they talked about the huge scores going up and up through emails. Since 2 years ago they already talked about how to reduce the scores. And there are a large part inside ISU hate the progressive movement so...

Are they just worried about the men? Because at least the men are bringing more quads at an alarming rate, whereas the women, have been doing 3Lz-3T's for eternity and their scores are going up like crazy too. But they don't seem to care much about changing the judging for ladies.

[SSS]

3 minutes ago, meoima said:

Khoai did say this in GS sometimes before. Now both are banned on GS. Apparently his coach is old friend with the current ISU Vice president and they talked about the huge scores going up and up through emails. Since 2 years ago they already talked about how to reduce the scores. And there are a large part inside ISU hate the progressive movement so...

I get the lower bv might be real...

They even talk about separation?

Nobody is talking about judging? T___T

 

4A's bv is tooooooooooo low....the difference betweeen 4a and 4lz is soooooooo tiny.

[meoima]

2 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Are they just worried about the men? Because at least the men are bringing more quads at an alarming rate, whereas the women, have been doing 3Lz-3T's for eternity and their scores are going up like crazy too. But they don't seem to care much about changing the judging for ladies.

Yes, they said something like the current men only focus on quads so they want to emphasis on artistry... they think too many quads are killing men skating.

 

Which makes me laugh a lot. It's the bad judging that kills the skating, not quads.

[meoima]

3 minutes ago, SSS said:

I get the lower bv might be real...

They even talk about separation?

Nobody is talking about judging? T___T

 

4A's bv is tooooooooooo low....the difference betweeen 4a and 4lz is soooooooo tiny.

Yes, no one has ever land 4A in competition, and the only guy who can land 4A in competition is Yuzuru and they're making 4A much less than before. It's like ISU and Co are telling Yuzuru to retire cause "We need no male to do 4A, thank you for your service." 

[yuzuangel]

A 3 point difference between a quad axel and a quad toe loop  how. If you manage to rotate your 4A but it's barely imperfect (scratchy landing, 0 GOE) you already get less points than someone who nails a 4T (+3 GOE). 

 

facepalm.  

 

FACEPALM. 

[SSS]

Score is score. Performance is performance. if no extreme politicking, I still see Yuzu's advantage to get gold in new system.

The proposal sounds like ISU is willing to give out more gold medals. Considering Yuzu will r*** in the future and take away a lot of ticket buyers, I wish ISU would have enough money to make actual non-plastic real gold medals...

If Yuzu can, he will definitely do the 4A...which means after him, we probably won't see any more 4A in a few years...legend...

[Yuzkiki]

[SSS]

8 minutes ago, meoima said:

Yes, no one has ever land 4A in competition, and the only guy who can land 4A in competition is Yuzuru and they're making 4A much less than before. It's like ISU and Co are telling Yuzuru to retire cause "We need no male to do 4A, thank you for your service." 

stupid question/random thought, do you think Yuzu will jump 4A right after olympics? Do you think 5T will come because he is angry...

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

On 9/12/2017 at 午前4時9分, yuzuponさんが言いました:

@¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I appreciate your differing opinion. What I admire most, however, is your faith that there is a genuine motivation behind the proposed changes. Perhaps, I am just way too sceptical a person. But my short experience as a spectator of this sport trying to understand the rules and their implementations has not really been assuring. I still think the majority of what they proposed will be counterproductive at best, at worst something else entirely.

 

And I am going to repeat what I said several posts earlier. The current rules followed somewhat properly, in extremely rare occasions, has shown that it is possible for "quality program that is well skated" to win against "quantity program that is sort of skated", e.g. men's event in Riga JGP. 

 

It's not about being optimistic or having faith, though. I'm just disinclined to see things as black and white. That never seems to be what the ISU has ever been about. Figure skating has always been shrouded in shades of gray after all. And that can both be a good and bad thing. Though for Hanyu, it's more like a gradient of every color there is under the sun. He's a wonderful splash of pantone amidst a sea of gray. And that's a very good thing. ^__^ Fans of Hanyu as well as those who simply appreciate what he does want these colors to be the new normal and they think that ISU is trying to stamp them out. I'm not 100% sure that's the case. As in, they might want to paint more grays but I don't think the colors will be completely eclipsed. They just don't get buried, colors like these. They always find a way to shine through.

 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's not ISU I have faith in. It's talent and drive like Hanyu's that would go on to inspire and perhaps give rise to a new kind of talent that will continue to thrive in any system in the future.

 

I think it's established that these rules are meant to be broken and bent to suit certain needs in certain situations due to probably countless numbers of factors. There is apparently a panel that reviews judges and the way they give out scores but it doesn't seem to detract from what's actually happening, probably due to there being some transgressions ISU sees as more beneficial to them and they can't crack down on others without cracking down on those as well so they do other things instead. Rules themselves are seen as a rather...fluid...concept to the ISU so these changes don't really come as a surprise, lol.

 

Edit: And hey, this would actually mean that whatever new record Hanyu achieves this season, should he achieve one, and whatever standing records he has, if they don't get broken, would stand forever >_<

[kaeryth]

Wow... ISU bringing in the stupidity again. The current system in place is by no means perfect but in theory, it should work. The problem is not the rules (although the more they change the rules to be vague, the more it gets worst); the problem is the judging itself. Case in point JGP Riga: a quadless Mitsuki Sumoto outscores a 3-quad program by Roman Savosin both in TES and in PCS. Why? Because miraculously, the rules were applied. Mitsuki's triples were rewarded with 0 or +1s or 2s  while Roman's ugly (sorry, no other way to put it) quads received the negative GOEs that it deserved AND he didn't get a PCS rise just because he did quads.

[SSS]

19 minutes ago, Yuzkiki said:

why do flip jumps have lowest reduction...

[Xen]

3 hours ago, meoima said:

They will, it has been in the talk since 2015 when Yuzuru broke 300 barrier. Actually ISU vice president mentioned the same thing in an email to my friend's coach. We thought they're just playing something in the ground but they're truly bringing it.

I took a look at the article and the posts in that other forum, where apparently people aren't too thrilled either despite their harking back to the good ole days of compulsory figures all the time. This is probably a long post, so avoid reading it if you don't want to fall asleep. Or bring coffee. Sorry guys, I trained as a lawyer, so lengthy is easy for me. 

 

I'm extremely baffled by this change proposal. The BV not as much (somewhere I'm sure ISU always liked the 6.0 better), but the separation is just a mess waiting to happen. If there is an ulterior motive for this (aka Hanyu and Jin broke the system get it back under control), then this is pretty discrimminatory, and not the direction that the ISU should go. The current crop of men and ladies are selling the sport, and frankly, let's just face this- which sells more tickets, ladies and men or ice dance? I haven't paid much attention to ice dance since Anassina and Peizerat honestly.  If ISU does not have a decent idea of what an ideal skate or ideal skater is, aka the complete package, then they should allow the skaters to push the sport and define it-if it is ideal, they will be rewarded for it by the audience-as has always been the case. The idea of trying to control the ideal is counter-intuitive. You can't really engineer ideals, just like you can't engineer passion.

 

So let's assume that there is no ulterior motive against Hanyu and Jin etc for this (heck the biggest loser in this is probably Shoma!) separation of technical and artistic program, my concern is how they actually want to bring this about. The article gives no mention, and maybe it's not going to be as drastic a change, but the logistics of this could be a nightmare, and create more problems than solutions. In the end, all that work might result in something not too different from the format it is today, while everyone has to go through the painful progress. 

1) What is a technical program? 

•   Good question. The truth of the matter is, there is no way to really separate out the artistic and the technical. Are GOE's technical or artistic? If GOEs are technical, indicating the polish of your technical elements, then why are there artistic points such as footwork and incorporation with the music and choreography?  So, you may ask, why not just remove the GOEs? But if you remove the GOE's from the consideration, then a well polished jump technique, which even casual watchers understand that equates to better technical ability, would get the same score as a sloppy one, meaning BV alone doesn't do the job. 
• So based on the above point, it would be hard to create a technical program on just BV alone-GOE's will have to get involved. So then the question becomes, how far do we take into consideration choreography and artistic elements? If we have a program where it's nothing but jump, spin, step sequence, maybe they could go the route of compulsory figures. AKA every skater has to perform a certain set of elements and get graded for it. This does serve to create a bar for entering the long. But then we all know what happened with compulsory figures (aka it went away due to not enough audience draw). 
• Lastly, there is nothing indicating that completion of a minimum point in the technical is required to enter the artistic. It simply says that those are 2 different programs. Well, does that mean that now the technical can take longer time, aka 4 mins? If we go the way of compulsory testing of jumps, spins and moves in the fields, doesn't that just hyper-extend out the time needed to test through everyone? Never mind how boring it could be in the ladies or men's field, has anyone considered how this would look for pairs if anything similar occurs?  In the end, the technical might just become today's short program.... 

2) What is the artistic program? 

• Again, if the technical program is completely divorced from artistic, does that mean anyone and everyone can enter the artistic? What is the bar you have to pass to enter? What's the point of differentiating seniors/juniors/novice skaters if jumps are not brought into consideration? Will we get programs where no jumps are done and it's just step sequences and spins? There's nothing indicating that should be avoided-in which case, what will be the difference between men's/ladies' artistic program and solo ice dance? 
• If artistic is completely divorced from technical, where there is less a barrier to entry, it would probably take longer to go through all the programs, which leads again to broadcasting times and money. So what if ISU then introduces technical minimums components to the artistic program-well skaters can always report they can do a technical minimum, but then do less no? 
• And to go back into the issue of jumps in a program. Much as I also bemoan the issue of PCS inflation for technically harder elements, I'm not sure if a reverse to the point where a skater A with lovely spins and step sequences, but only double jumps or single jumps or easier jumps in general, can potentially over take a skater B with harder jumps, decently hard spins and step sequences (just not as good as skater A) so long as they look choreographically better, is a good end point. If anything it'll cause more revolt than the Lysacheck/Plushenko incident. When all technical is equal, then yes the PCS inflation is an issue. But we should also acknowledge that being able to pull off tehcnically difficult, harder elements off to a music is harder than pulling a technically easier element off to the music. If this is not properly rewarded, then what's stopping us from having all single jumps programs? At which point, why not have novice, juniors and seniors just compete together in the artistic portion?
•  What Brian mentions as a concern is a huge issue waiting to happen. There are plenty of skaters who can be flamboyent, with lots of arm movements. But footwork is about your feet, not your arms, and it's too easy to award a dramatic arms-flailing program too much versus a more subtle but footwork heavy program. People and judges alike too easily equate dramatic with good choreography, and there's a real possible danger that an actual dramatic but less technically competant skater will win in the artistic program against a more technically competant but more expressively subtle skater. 

3) The logisitics of it all

• If ISU wants to have these 2 separate programs all go 4 mins so they feel like individual programs and competitions, then the hit to skater's stamina is huge. Yes, skaters can choose to just win the artistic title or just the technical title, but who the heck will? Have you ever heard of a skater saying yeah, let me just win the small medals. Most skaters will gun for the combined title honestly. For the men, okay maybe a miracle man can do it, but the ladies side, that girl has to be superhuman. 
• Next longevity. If they are 2 separate programs all going the full 4 mins, the hit to skaters stamina can also mean a potential hit to skater longevity. I honestly cannot imagine a single skater being comfortable winning the artistic portion if they feel that technically they have not done as difficult a program as others. I also cannot imagine skaters holding back on quads once they have it-look at Mao and her 3A despite the UR always being hit. So potentially you have 2 4 minute programs that all have quads. If ISU worried that the current men's fields is reducing skater longevity and safety, well I hope they are ready to lose more hair. 

Next up, the BV issue and the GOEs....I'm also in the camp of "not sure if this really helps resolve the issue." I also found it ironic that the article has this little tidbit:

"In 2017, each of the top four men had significantly higher TES than PCS, with none getting more than 44 percent of his total from PCS. By percentage, in order of finish, the PCS were: Hanyu, 43.5 percent; Shoma Uno, 44; Boyang Jin, 42; and Nathan Chen, 43.8."  This is interesting that guys who had clean skates did not get as high a percentile of PCS, but guys with more problematic technicals (Chen here) had PCS take up a higher portion of their final skate. Well, it could mean that the PCS and TES tie is a bit less, but not necessarily in a positive way since an unclean skate seemed to have garnered higher pcs in one case. So  what if we actually have multipliers in the pcs components for clean vs unclea skates? Would that balance it out?  

 

The pairs BV changes also baffle me-if it's about safety in general, just take out quads anything. Really, quad twists are as dangerous as quad throw jumps, if not more dangerous since the lady can't actually save herself as easily. 

 

Lastly, does the ISU not have enough stuff to do? They could really just spend more time promoting skating in smaller federations (joint training or coaching seminars), figure out how to train judges, or maybe figure out some way to compensate judges to try to reduce bribery or corruption etc. The change in BV or this new technical/artistic c**p isn't the key.