General Skating Chat

[Fresca]

37 minutes ago, xeyra said:

 

Judges are human and are as influenced by circumstances as anyone. And yes, some are politically inclined, as expected. Some are probably also still inwardly ranking skaters, despite there no longer existing a 6.0 system. Skating earlier tends to make judges save up some points, or at least, skating later allows for a floodgate to be opened after good performances have come previously. Yuzu's best jumps just happened to occur in the competitions where he skated earlier, and as such, and unfortunately, he probably didn't get as much of the GOE floodgates. He still, as shown in all the pretty statistics being posted here, has gotten more positive GOE than anyone else, on average. Probably not as high GOE as someone would wish, but overall he had the most average GOEs. Despite his pops. And falls. And skating earlier on occasion. 

  

What I particularly criminal is that taking the quality of the jumps themselves out of the equation, they gave equal or higher GOE to skaters who have longer jump setup and do not have as difficult transitions in and out of their jumps as Yuzu. And that happened all season long no matter the competition.

[Murieleirum]

1 hour ago, Fresca said:

  

What I particularly criminal is that taking the quality of the jumps themselves out of the equation, they gave equal or higher GOE to skaters who have longer jump setup and do not have as difficult transitions in and out of their jumps as Yuzu. And that happened all season long no matter the competition.

 

Agreed completely. If you look at the GOE scores, it seems like the only thing Yuzuru pushed forward in skating (the only thing that's been recognized) are quads, which is just not true. He's been upping overall skating content difficulty for years, and to give the same high GOE to other skaters who don't display the same content difficulty level is like NOT recognizing that. It's exactly like looking the other way. It's not honest. 

[Xen]

1 hour ago, Fresca said:

  

What I particularly criminal is that taking the quality of the jumps themselves out of the equation, they gave equal or higher GOE to skaters who have longer jump setup and do not have as difficult transitions in and out of their jumps as Yuzu. And that happened all season long no matter the competition.

Part of it is politics, and a lot of judges might not be skaters nor have a skating background. So easier elements, such as SE, appear harder than a counter, but actually a counter is harder than SE due to the change of edges. With a 3A, it's actually a backwards edge, which can be a nightmare and really screw up the 3A if not properly managed. 

 

Sometimes, I wonder if Yuzu does hard entrances too often-like this is now so normal for him that the difficulty is no longer appreciated as much when it is executed by him, but is appreciated when another male skater executes it because it's not the norm for the other skater....

[Fresca]

2 hours ago, Xen said:

 

Sometimes, I wonder if Yuzu does hard entrances too often-like this is now so normal for him that the difficulty is no longer appreciated as much when it is executed by him, but is appreciated when another male skater executes it because it's not the norm for the other skater....

 

Yes, I agree. I recall a commentator mentioned exactly that - that 3A from a back counter is the hardest entrance to 3A possible but that is what Yuzu always does so it is normal for him. His 4Lo spread eagle sandwich also doesn't get the love it deserves and nobody but him does quads in SE sandwiches.

 

[EisElle]

8 hours ago, xeyra said:

GOE tab

 

Tbh to see in that tab what has happened in this last season is quite jarring to me. Of course I’m happy that Yuzuru still got the highest average despite the issues he had, but when I look at the single elements there are some things which are just puzzling.

I guess Yuzu's "fault" is that he makes look too easy all the insane things he does. The jumps, the transitions, the spins so accurately matched to the music (how much work behind a simple hand gesture on the music beat!)... when he does them well they look effortless. Yet, quoting Ambesi from ESP ITA (and to me he sounded a bit annoyed in saying so) “a judge should know". He was talking about the backcounter vs. spread eagle before 3A, but it can be applied to every element. The judges should know, because they have to, you know,  judge. A competition, not some tv-show. They should be able to recognize difficulty even when it looks easy. They should be able to discern that "effortless" is a plus (what the heck, it's even in the GOEs bullets!), and if one doesn't know the sport cannot (should not) be allowed to judge it. Period.

 

I can resign myself that mistakes in the short put Yuzuru in a position to be "held down" in the long (which is still wrong per se, and honestly quite disconcerting when it comes to a skater who should really have nothing more to prove to anyone), and yes, judges are only humans and have a limited amount of time for giving their scores (e.g. I think it's quite realistic that their GOEs may be mere degreed of "good" and "bad" without thought for actual rules), but it's really saddening that quality hasn't been rewarded as it should have been. Even more so when I see unequal treatment.

Yuzuru took years of perfect 3As to get those bloody +3s. Now it looks they are barely good enough compared to the rest of the field. Years of perfect 4Ts, too. Quoting Ambesi again, iirc from 2013-2014 about a 3A or a 4T: “If you don’t give +3 to this, when do you give it?”

Yuzuru always kept polishing all the other elements, too. He's never slacked off at anything. He's been not only delivering quality consistently on everything but also constantly increasing difficulty.

Now, suddenly it’s enough to land a jump to get high scores, who cares for set-ups and transitions and all that should warrant a +.  Who cares about complexity and difficulty. Apparently some judges can’t recognise/don’t care for all of that!

Before, maybe,  judges were too stingy. But once someone (Yuzuru) managed to get (earn) the highest scores in GOE and PCS, suddenly they became all so eager to give those candies (to everyone else).

So yes, I claim the right to feel extremely annoyed for a while(runs to watch H&L in loop to make peace with the world)

(sorry for this long gloomy thing, I'm in dire need of FaoI extra!Yuzu)

 

[sallycinnamon]

23 hours ago, jinabee said:

 

Oh lord I was comparing your 2010-11 with mine and realised I somehow skipped 4CC for that season...

-_-

I hope I didn't miss anything on any other seasons... *will fix it later*

 

Since we did a similar kind of thing if you want to merge anything from mine into yours, you can haha or correct anything on mine if you spot a mistake~

 

Thank you, I'll have a look and maybe I'll merge something from yours!

You can use or edit my sheets anytime, too.

 

16 hours ago, xeyra said:

 

Hey @sallycinnamon. I noticed a couple very small differences between our numbers for Yuzu in Skate Canada individual SP PCS (which reflected in some averages) so I confirmed in the protocols and corrected them in your sheet. Everything else matches, I believe. Also, let me  for doing this for all of Yuzu's senior career. That's a lot of numbers. 

 

Thanks for the corrections.

I really enjoyed doing this, even though in general numbers are not my best friends

[Yatagarasu]

22 hours ago, LadyLou said:

The judges should know, because they have to, you know,  judge..

 

One of the problems is the mindset of the old 6.0 system.
This is why you'd have Yuzuru's scores being depressed in Helsinki when he went on first in his group, because they were leaving 'room' for Shoma and Javier. The thing is under CoP there's no real need for that, if they're better, they're better but there's still this mindset from how it used to be under 6.0 so it's not even always purposeful/nefarious but just habit. 
Not denying there is fudging because politicking is alive and well but it's a bit of a mix of things. 

[EisElle]

9 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

 

One of the problems is the mindset of the old 6.0 system.
This is why you'd have Yuzuru's scores being depressed in Helsinki when he went on first in his group, because they were leaving 'room' for Shoma and Javier. The thing is under CoP there's no real need for that, if they're better, they're better but there's still this mindset from how it used to be under 6.0 so it's not even always purposeful/nefarious but just habit. 
Not denying there is fudging because politicking is alive and well but it's a bit of a mix of things. 

 

I wasn't around when 6.0 was still used, and I think it was a blessing for me because I would have hated it.

Still, in my opinion is dumb to give a score on the expectation that later there could be better performances. This sport is quite unpredictable, and (again) judges should know this more than anyone else.

 

What I wonder is, CoP has already been used for more than 10 years, hasn't it? Just how long it takes people to shake it off the old habits? It can't be that hard! In any other working environment such slowness in adjusting to new rules or procedures would be laughed at! If skaters and coaches can adapt to the requirements of the CoP, why judges can't?

It is different for a casual fan, who doesn't have to do any actual judging and can just enjoy whatever he wants and rank the performances as it pleases him.

This is why I get annoyed, because I do expect judges to be good at what they have to do, just like I would expect a soccer referee to apply the current rules in a soccer match.

 

Anyway, if I really had to choose, I'd prefer old habits playing a bigger role than politicking. At least there is hope than bad habits can be fixed and that a new  generation of judges, bred into the CoPsystem, can be more efficient in applying the actual rules.

Politicking though...

 

[Yatagarasu]

And while we're at FaOI news there is this so I guess Shoma is moving the combo to the second half as today we had 4F / 4T, 3A clean. Nothing unexpected but there we go.

[xeyra]

48 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

And while we're at FaOI news there is this so I guess Shoma is moving the combo to the second half as today we had 4F / 4T, 3A clean. Nothing unexpected but there we go.

 

He'd already done two jumps in the second half in Makuhari, though he was doing triples in those shows. What surprises me here is the 4T. Is he going for the 4Lo in the SP or not after all? 

[ralucutzagy]

7 minutes ago, xeyra said:

 

He'd already done two jumps in the second half in Makuhari, though he was doing triples in those shows. What surprises me here is the 4T. Is he going for the 4Lo in the SP or not after all? 

Maybe he's trying different layouts?

[ShiroKJ]

13 minutes ago, xeyra said:

 

He'd already done two jumps in the second half in Makuhari, though he was doing triples in those shows. What surprises me here is the 4T. Is he going for the 4Lo in the SP or not after all? 

 

He's probably playing with the layout. In case his 4Lo has a (-) success rate, he'll likely go for the 4T during the OG. Its something he and Nathan seems to do often whereas Yuzu is more of a do-or-die kind of guy. 

[Yatagarasu]

21 minutes ago, xeyra said:

 

He'd already done two jumps in the second half in Makuhari, though he was doing triples in those shows. What surprises me here is the 4T. Is he going for the 4Lo in the SP or not after all? 

 

I didn't count that as he was doing triples tbh, but as it's with quads now, it seems to me he might try 4F//4T-3T, 3A and the 4T-3T is more secure, he gets the benefits of the 2nd half combo anyway. He did this cleanly so we'll see if he ups it to a full quad combo later. I'd certainly do this if I could first to get used to it, then see later on if upping the combo is possible, because there's a safe thing in my pocket already.

[Yatagarasu]

Crossposting from the Igloo - news that yes, Javier is working on and does plan on including the 4Lo in his programs if it all goes as planned. So not really news but yes. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the future. 

[kaeryth]

8 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

Crossposting from the Igloo - news that yes, Javier is working on and does plan on including the 4Lo in his programs if it all goes as planned. So not really news but yes. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the future. 

 

He really has no choice now if he wants to stay competitive. Hopefully it all works out for him.