General Skating Chat

[ClarissaH]

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. 

[WinForPooh]

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. 

[Xen]

5 minutes ago, ClarissaH said:

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. 

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. 

 

Someone more familiar with judge selection want to add? I recall hearing this from somewhere, but don't remember where. 

[WinForPooh]

4 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. 

 

Someone more familiar with judge selection want to add? I recall hearing this from somewhere, but don't remember where. 

This is how I understand it, as well. Feds choose which particular judges represent them. They usually choose the ones that suit them best, obviously. This means if they want to be sent as judges again, they have to serve the Federation's interests, too. Then there's how you can usually see the alliances between certain feds when you look at how their skaters and their rivals are marked. It's usually evident from judges' sheets.

[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. 

[Xen]

1 minute ago, ClarissaH said:

 

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. 

 

 

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. 

Well then we get into ISU finances....

And frankly, there is quite a bit of subjectivity involved in scoring. IE how do you deal with the IN and PE of a program with music you just don't like? Let's not kid ourselves, music that we don't like nor understand will influence how we judge skaters. How do we know the IN and PE is okay? And then, here we have reputation scoring. Let's just say it's a piece of music I'm really sick of...like "RoooAxanne!" Okay, now I don't like the music but it's Yuzu skating to it, I know he has a history of being a pretty good interpreter and performer, so maybe I give him the benefit of the doubt and just shrug it off to myself not liking the music. But as I don't see anything wrong per se, I give him a 9.5 for PE and IN, even though it's probably not the best I've seen from him. Now if I switch this to a skater I'm not aware of, and I don't like this music, I might not give the skater the same benefit of the doubt, and boom, 8.5 or less in IN and PE.  See, this is some inbuilt bias, because in the end we're trying to judge something that is subjective and highly influenced by other factors (like even whether or not I like the music), on an objective scale. 

 

[ClarissaH]

16 minutes ago, Xen said:

Well then we get into ISU finances....

And frankly, there is quite a bit of subjectivity involved in scoring. IE how do you deal with the IN and PE of a program with music you just don't like? Let's not kid ourselves, music that we don't like nor understand will influence how we judge skaters. How do we know the IN and PE is okay? And then, here we have reputation scoring. Let's just say it's a piece of music I'm really sick of...like "RoooAxanne!" Okay, now I don't like the music but it's Yuzu skating to it, I know he has a history of being a pretty good interpreter and performer, so maybe I give him the benefit of the doubt and just shrug it off to myself not liking the music. But as I don't see anything wrong per se, I give him a 9.5 for PE and IN, even though it's probably not the best I've seen from him. Now if I switch this to a skater I'm not aware of, and I don't like this music, I might not give the skater the same benefit of the doubt, and boom, 8.5 or less in IN and PE.  See, this is some inbuilt bias, because in the end we're trying to judge something that is subjective and highly influenced by other factors (like even whether or not I like the music), on an objective scale. 

 

 

This is honestly the exact problem that I have with raising the PCS max score, because of how subjective it can be. If a judge is just flat out sick of a song or doesn't like it, that effects how they would judge. I could also get into the cultural differences and how something that someone from Japan thinks is masterfully done, a judge from the US thinks it's absolute garbage. This is definitely something you can't control. For example, Yuzu's free skate this season is to a soundtrack from a Japanese film played entirely on Japanese instruments. How would judges from more Western countries react to this? How did they react to this? That would be kind of hard to calculate, since Yuzu already has an established reputation and could absolutely be getting PCS points for that. The best way to detect a kind of bias in this respect would be to have a new skater to the senior circuit do such a routine, but that isn't very likely to happen.  

 

Edit: Speaking of the ISU's finances, I'd be really interested in seeing where their money is coming from. If there's tangible data that countries who send judges who are the worst offenders of national favoritism give the most funds to the ISU, then that could be another scandal of itself. Imagine the headlines saying that the International Skating Union is turning a blind eye to blatant bias in judging to benefit their bottom line. 

[Fresca]

7 hours ago, cinemacoconut said:

She is not a stiff girl like Radionova is what I mean. See her jr programs. She has innate musicality. Her choreographers are to blame for a jampacked program.

 

I don't see the musicality...no matter what the music is, she moves the same...whether the music is happy or sultry or languid or mysterious or tense, her movements are the same - not just in the arms but in her whole body. Her timing is fine - she's moving to the beat of the music, but her movements don't reflect the nuances of the music at all. Her arms look better in her junior programs than her senior programs because it looks like she's completing the movements/completing the port de bras extensions instead of stunting them like she did in her 2017/2018 SP/FS but her arms are still flappy and uncontrolled. There isn't any intention behind any of her movement, i.e. she looks like she's doing them for the sake of doing them because that's the choreography, not because she believes them or she feels the music or the character.

 

7 hours ago, yuzupon said:

Yeah, that's definitely an insult to ballet and flamenco dancers. My former ballet dancer friend told me her flapping hands in her individual FS at Oly actually looks like she was trying to fend off a swan attacking her for daring to imitate it. Which had me but also can't unsee it.

 

 

6 hours ago, cinemacoconut said:

Am i the only one who thinks Alina is a well rounded skater? Her black swan sp gave me chills and i loved the choreography. That was my favorite SP out of the whole olympics. 

 

I don't think she is. I have no idea what she was trying to do with her Black Swan SP...I saw no connection from her movements and her expression to the ballet, movie or the music.

 

7 hours ago, Xen said:

The part that gets me the most though, is why is it that some of these people who took ballet just...don't really transfer it on ice? My mom also did ballet before, and she wasn't impressed by Nathan (especially his musicality felt super flat to her). I didn't dare show her Alina.

 

Nathan has lovely port de bras. Epaulement too. He doesn't however, have good skating skills or the right knees to transfer the ballet to the ice. Also, his musicality doesn't appear in his programs because 1) he's focused on landing his jumps rather than moving to the music 2) I don't think his movements in general (not just his arms) suit music outside classical. I wanted far more intensity, more strength in his body and arms, more jazzy movement in his SP this year. I think his best program by far is his Le Corsaire SP. You can show your mom that one. I think she might like it. No, don't show her Alina.

[OonsieHui]

7 hours ago, Anya said:

 

From this:

https://lynnneposts.tumblr.com/post/171413662592/huffpost-exclusive-interview-brian-orser-speaks

 

"He’s Canadian Stephen Gogolev. he turned 13 two months ago, but he can land all the quads. "

 

Wait... ALL the quads??? Like... As in... NESSIE??? 

[SydneyH]

3 minutes ago, OonsieHui said:

 

"He’s Canadian Stephen Gogolev. he turned 13 two months ago, but he can land all the quads. "

 

Wait... ALL the quads??? Like... As in... NESSIE??? 

Nope when we say that someone is mastering all the quads , the axel is always exclude , Nathan is considering as doing "all the quads" for example .

[Floria]

hace 2 minutos , OonsieHui said:

 

"He’s Canadian Stephen Gogolev. he turned 13 two months ago, but he can land all the quads. "

 

Wait... ALL the quads??? Like... As in... NESSIE??? 

I think he means all the quads the other guys do, definitely not 4A.

[ClarissaH]

4 minutes ago, OonsieHui said:

 

"He’s Canadian Stephen Gogolev. he turned 13 two months ago, but he can land all the quads. "

 

Wait... ALL the quads??? Like... As in... NESSIE??? 

 

Kind of already been said but since a 4A hasn't been done in competition yet, it isn't technically considered part of the count of "all of the quads". 

[Yuazz]

3 minutes ago, OonsieHui said:

 

"He’s Canadian Stephen Gogolev. he turned 13 two months ago, but he can land all the quads. "

 

Wait... ALL the quads??? Like... As in... NESSIE??? 

I believe what Brian means all quads is toe, sal, flip.. and lutz but not 4A. I can't imagine a 13 y.o landed a 4A. Even for yuzu himself it's quite difficult to imagine. 

[ClarissaH]

tmw a kid in Canada can land all of the quads, that have been done in competition so far, and you're proud of yourself for not missing a class from oversleeping. 

[yuzuangel]

18 hours ago, Xen said:

The part that gets me the most though, is why is it that some of these people who took ballet just...don't really transfer it on ice? My mom also did ballet before, and she wasn't impressed by Nathan (especially his musicality felt super flat to her). I didn't dare show her Alina.

Probably takes a high level of comfort and skating skills to be comfortable in your elements *and* be able to emote? You can only expend so much effort and all of it goes into setting up jumps, doing your steps, etc.... Honestly, it's why Yuzu is so amazing, and why PCS judging shouldn't be so lackadaisical by the judges...like jumping quads, performance is HARD. 

 

Anyway it's also really hard to time all your moves to the music, because it obviously means you have to be ready to jump, spin, or do the connecting step right on the note. And if your weight's not in the right place at the moment, or you are a bit behind the music and can't rush to catch up, then the entire performance suffers. To be able to hit the beat all the time like Yuzu does is so hard because it means you've buffed the hell out of your skating that you can do any and every move at every single moment. And then you factor in nerves...it's really easy to just let your muscle memory take over and completely close out your surroundings including your music. Probably also why we see some ladies like Alina who does have her moments in competitions when she hits her jumps and arm movements on the note, but she was really off her music at the Olympics due to nerves.