Proposed changes for next season

[Xen]

1 hour ago, swanbeau said:

I have just discovered that japan is actually genius. Theyre the one who come up with the tactic to combat those no quad repetition rule, with giving credits/bonus to skaters who jump all six of them. Theyre the one who think about the zayak rule i ranted about before. Im regretting not reading the whole proposal sooner. I love japan. I dont have to worry about that cursed 4 type of jumps free layout ever again. I dont even care how the rest of this go lol

Hate to say this, but Japan isn't really a genius for this. This season, okay they don't have to worry. But without the age limitations, next season you get the Russian quad girls in seniors, they have 3As, quads and 3+3's (which will be backloaded). Japan currently has probably only Rika with a fairly stable 3A, and possibly no lady ready for 19/20 with quads. Furthermore, they have ladies like Kaori Sakamoto who can fully backload the SP to make up for BV difference; other ladies like Wakaba or Mai would also benefit from more backloaded jumps having more points. Backloading triples is obviously easier than backloading quads, so I don't think the russian quad girls will go backload quads anytime soon. 

 

As for 4Lz and 4F...right now JPN has no male skater who has both. Yuzu could bring back the 4Lz, but he prolly won't go for 4F, and is still unknown for 2022. Shoma has 4F and no 4Lz period. But check which fed does (and was on the technical committee that suggested the 1 jump per type of quad rule-US). I'm not sure what Japan managed to get for doing this, because they could have gone for the less extreme Canadian proposal, which does the same thing but could give them more breathing room. Unless it's something extraordinary like a 20% PCS boost for their ladies, I'm not sure if they passed negotiations 101 class. =/

[hoodie axel]

46 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

This is in fact performance art. It's not supposed to make sense. 

 

Day made. Or at least made a little brighter.

[Dori6886]

The Congress thing is so hilarious. They could make a lot of money from it, if they would turn it into reality show. My favourite is the shade on the judges re the steps before jump The next season would be a great reality show too, if not for the fact I'm too worried about my faves  

4 hours ago, Xen said:

Well considering words can be music, if they allow a string quartet or live orchestras to play at competitions, I'd love to see someone select rap and we get a new music type-orchestral rap. Now that's innovation in the arts!

OT, but we already have it in Poland  

[Lunna]

About backloading. I'm OK with 2+1 for SP, but for FS would like 3+4 more cuz second half of FS is not literally "half" but more like 2/3 of it. So now will be interesting to see how the choreo will be made. I can bet Yuzu and Shoma will have 4T/4S+3T as last jump element for SP, also they can backload one such combo for FS plus 3A combos. Alina can have all combos in second part for SP and FS. But I don't think everybody will backload their combos cuz it will be too risky - you will not have a room to make up for it if you miss one. And surely I don't see anybody backloading 4Lz or 4F - boys still are not robots.

Some math (for fun):

3Lz +3GOE (1 half) 7.67 / 4T+3T +3GOE (2 half) 19.59 = 27.26

4T +3GOE (1 half) 12.35 / 3Lz+3T +3GOE (2 half) 14.44 = 26.79

3Lz+3T +3GOE (1 half) 13.13 / 4T +3GOE (2 half) 13.59 = 26.72

4T+3T +3GOE (1 half) 17.81 / 3Lz +3GOE (2 half) 8.44 = 26.25

So can't say that backloading 4T (or any other quad) is worth a risk especially if in the first half of FS will get you better GOE (afterall backloading is only 10% of BV and new GOE can give you more).

[Old Cat Lady]

Sorry if I'm repeating something already discussed, but the more I think about it, the more I think the "no repeating quad" rule is actually good for Yuzu. His loop, toe, and salchow, were fairly stable and the lutz was beautiful when it was landed.

 

Realistically, this limits Shoma and Boyang to 4 quads and Nathan to 5 quads at most (but hasn't he only done the loop once?), while making the 3 axel even more important.  It also means Nathan can't repeat the higher value quads to try to out TES Yuzu.  Yuzu can make up a 1 quad difference with other things but a 2-3 quad difference might become too much combined with the other 3's rising PCS marks.

 

On a selfish level, I kind of hope it passes, but I think it's bad for skating since it will cause more skaters to not be able to compete and might cause increased injuries.

[Cerunias]

6 hours ago, Katt said:

*I found their voting system is so problematic* 

 

The whole thing does seem a bit piecemeal doesn't it? There's no consideration for how one proposal might affect another - once one has passed, then the next, whether it is good or bad, is considered by itself and not necessarily in conjunction with those that preceded it...

 

 

5 hours ago, WinForPooh said:

This is in fact performance art. It's not supposed to make sense. 

 

I know figure skating is performance art. I didn't realise the rules body was suppose to be as well. That's like saying that the board that runs the local opera needs to put on a show as well every time they have a meeting - perhaps that same board needs to have their meeting in song form? If that's the case, this congress is failing - I see no ice where they are...  It'd certainly make it more entertaining to watch if this congress truly put on a performance...currently, it's like a combination of watching paint dry, and watching a car drive into you in slo-mo (you see it coming, but powerless to do anything about it)...

 

 

5 hours ago, robin said:

eta: -CDs are good. USBs might be outdated in four years. 

 

Hey, maybe it was a wise decision. eg if they had relied on Zip disks a few cycles back, they may not have survived the cycle, given how fast those things died out!

 

 

8 hours ago, Sombreuil said:

You have to be very careful with technology- you never know where it will end.  The cautious limited use of slo mo replay demonstrates that the ISU is committed to careful and judicious introduction of technology at the pace of a glacier so as not to startle the dinosaurs.  We're lucky that they allow CDs - I bet some of them would prefer a gramophone - or perhaps a string quartet.

 

Two interpretations:

1. Many members of that congress appear to be dinosaurs themselves...of course they don't want to startle themselves.

2. We certainly don't want to startle the dinosaurs out of extinction...imagine if they started roaming the world again...Jurassic Park/World here we come!

 

Nothing wrong with the string quartet idea by the way. Although the way this congress is going, it reminds me of the Titanic, the rearrangement of deck chairs, and the string quartet playing as the ship went down...

[yuzuangel]

I think the ISU should have made it a sliding scale, like the last 3 backloaded combinations get 10%, next 2 get 5%, next 2 get 3%, or something. Otherwise, like someone else said, all the layouts are gonna be 2+1 and 4+3 and it'll be really boring. But I'm guessing this would be way too damn complicated for the ISU.

[EisElle]

tbh my main gripe with the no rep quad rule is that it reduces the freedom of skaters. Add the idiotic max 3 jump in FS and GOE proportional to BV and options become pretty limited.

 

Till now you could have 2-quad guys going over 300. But with only 2 quads in the FS it won't happen (it would be a layout like the one Yuzu's had back in 2014, with one jump less). Some of the highest scores were, again, achieved with only 2 types of quads. Yuzu with just Sal and Toe still got more than 6 quads with Lz and F (and with repeated 4Lz other than 4F, everything else staying the same, Nathan would have be only slightly higher).

And at Olys Yuzu could go for a challenging BV thanks to the chance of repeating quads. I shudder to think what he would have done with no quad rep allowed, he would have gone for the Lo at the very least even against a not threatening Nathan because Shoma even without 4S would have had one whole quad more. And multi-quadsters can change their layout if they are sick or injured but still keep competitive BV because they can replace their hard quad with another quad, thus minimizing the BV loss. Now it will be much much harder to let go ANY of their quads. And then there are skaters like Kolyada who replaced 4S with second 4T but now he won't have ANY choice at all, he'll need to go for both 4S and 4Lz unless he wants to stick to 1 quad only.

Or let's say a skater has a lisfranc injury in his left foot, he can try and repeat quads that put a bit less strain on his left foot but now dropping one quad will be even less of a possibility because they can't exchange a quad for a quad, but only a quad for a triple.

(Also, just checked and at worlds Kazuki did 4Sx2 but no 4T...so another guy who probably would like to repeat his reliable quad instead of going for a different one)

 

And if you want to ensure more #variety, then the bonus for all 6 types of quads+triples made much more sense, because with this rule it's still possible for skaters to skip one type of jump (for example Shoma can still avoif the 3Lz, he doesn't even need to do the 4S to do that, or Kolyada with 4S 4T and 4Lz can still forget that the flip exists...tbh I think he could even forget the loop if he wanted...)

Also, a bonus would be another push for ladies to go for all 6 types of triples, and it wouldn't be a selective rule for men only. It would also reward lower-tiers skaters with no quads but whole set of triples...

 

I'm kind of accepting the "only last jump in SP get bonus" because, after all, skaters are all able to do more than one jump after 2 minutes into the FS, so it is "reasonable" that it's not that much more phisically exahusting to do 2 jumps in 2nd half (tho then one would ask why only a few do that) but I find the max 3 in the FS ridiculous.

If you want to limit backloading, which apparently is the Worst Thing Ever and deserving to be prevented ASAP despite being still a rarity in Ladies's and completely non-existent in Men's, the Canadian proposal made much much much more sense, while still allowing skaters decent freedom with their layouts (freedom in the sense they have multiple strategies to garner around the same points, but 4-3 is what basically everyone can already do why should anyone want to challenge 3-4 or 2-5 if there is all to lose in doing that?

 

Also me vs JSF

I'm also extremely annoyed at Japan sabotaging its own skaters. E.g. both Shoma and Yuzu (but also others like Kazuki) have reliable 3A with good GOE they can backlload in SP and they  can also backload a combo, so from their fed's stupid proposal they are going to lose the advantage they had by backloading 2 jumping pass (and I'm thinking that non-bonus Axel won't be "like" doing another quad anymore).

Also, jeez JSF, you have a skater like Kaori who managed to consistently execute a fully backloaded SP, and other skaters enough technically sound to be able to backload more, at least in the SP (like Waka unless she jumps the 3A, or Satoko who has fairly stable jumps and could use a bit of BV to balance her low GOE, even if only by a fraction, but it could still matter against US skaters or skaters like Caro where the game can only be on BV because PCS is out of question with how judging works) and you do what? take away something they could get and that was not based on reputation

And it's not like the upcoming Jr Russian girls won't be consistent if they start doing 3-4 layouts...

6 hours ago, robin said:

So from the last few pages I get tl;dr:

-The organization was a joke

-Only last jump in SP/ last 3 jumps in FS get a bonus

-Splitting of the judging panel was rejected

-So did the increasing the PCS factor to 1.2/2.4 proposal (phew)

-Japan withdrew the reward for 6 kind of jumps proposal that was actually passed? why?? 

 

Did I miss anything of importance?

 

eta: -CDs are good. USBs might be outdated in four years. 

this was the funniest thing and the comments in this thread were even better LOL

But ISU is wise, you know, let's just skip USBs and use what the rest of the world is using...no physical support needed for music, so no more expenses form poor skaters to by a dedicated device, no risk of losing it, breaking it, stomping on by accident or forgeting to bring the right one (like Nathan in Milan practice), everything on cloud, so no risk there....but oh my, I guess that would make ISU freak out even more than poor risky USB sticks.

Also, the whole debate about "sakters must skate in music" was just as funny, with people worrying if skaters can't skate when there are pauses in the music, and if voices are allowed and so on (also, skaters must skate on music and stop without, does it mean they can't stay still while music is playing? LOL)

 

RE: no change in PCS factor

about that I actually agree with both the decision and the reasoning I've said this already, but ISU already has a lot on its plate for next season between goe, bullets, bv and one jump less so at this point it's better to wait for that... tho that you can't change PCS only for Men but need to change for other disciplines too is really dumb, it's not like the PCS factorization is the same

 

Re: no separated set of judges for GOE and PCS

I didn't had much faith in that on ebeing approved tbw, I feel it's been suggested time and time again but apparently they don't care judges have to deal with a chaotic interface and with too little time for review and spend most of their time looking down at their screen instead of watching the skaters and hey, apparently they have even hard time at recognizing steps, how on heart is it possible they can judge both PCS and GOE? How are they supposed to evalue SS and TR if they only lift their nose for jumps? And can they see the mistakes at least? or those are controversial, too?

1 hour ago, yuzuangel said:

I think the ISU should have made it a sliding scale, like the last 3 backloaded combinations get 10%, next 2 get 5%, next 2 get 3%, or something. Otherwise, like someone else said, all the layouts are gonna be 2+1 and 4+3 and it'll be really boring. But I'm guessing this would be way too damn complicated for the ISU.

this too, maybe even make the bonus higer for jumps done much later in the program. Right now in SP sakters would go for 2 jumps 1 spin last jump right after the half mark and it would not be as hard as going for the last jump after all the other elements, and and for FS it would be still more convenient to do all 3 backloaded jumping pass one after the other right after the half mark instead of doing like e.g. Kaori who had also other elements between the 2nd half jumps (or H&L 3 Lz at the very end of the program)... if you have to give the bonus to only a few jump, let's at least differentiate between very tìdifferent possibilities...

[WinForPooh]

(I have to credit @SparkleSalad for the performance art crack, she's the one who put it in my head after watching the stream for a while.) 

 

8 hours ago, Xen said:

Hate to say this, but Japan isn't really a genius for this. This season, okay they don't have to worry. But without the age limitations, next season you get the Russian quad girls in seniors, they have 3As, quads and 3+3's (which will be backloaded). Japan currently has probably only Rika with a fairly stable 3A, and possibly no lady ready for 19/20 with quads. Furthermore, they have ladies like Kaori Sakamoto who can fully backload the SP to make up for BV difference; other ladies like Wakaba or Mai would also benefit from more backloaded jumps having more points. Backloading triples is obviously easier than backloading quads, so I don't think the russian quad girls will go backload quads anytime soon. 

 

As for 4Lz and 4F...right now JPN has no male skater who has both. Yuzu could bring back the 4Lz, but he prolly won't go for 4F, and is still unknown for 2022. Shoma has 4F and no 4Lz period. But check which fed does (and was on the technical committee that suggested the 1 jump per type of quad rule-US). I'm not sure what Japan managed to get for doing this, because they could have gone for the less extreme Canadian proposal, which does the same thing but could give them more breathing room. Unless it's something extraordinary like a 20% PCS boost for their ladies, I'm not sure if they passed negotiations 101 class. =/

 

But he does have a 4Flz. Pre-rotated. A practice video was uploaded a while back, I think they didn't include it in competition at all because of the Olympic season. The way judging works, that'll be just fine. 

[Xen]

35 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

(I have to credit @SparkleSalad for the performance art crack, she's the one who put it in my head after watching the stream for a while.) 

 

 

But he does have a 4Flz. Pre-rotated. A practice video was uploaded a while back, I think they didn't include it in competition at all because of the Olympic season. The way judging works, that'll be just fine. 

Oh, well then, I guess that's why JPN is so confident?

*eyerolls* What did I expect, that feds will actually care for their athletes' health and knees....

[WinForPooh]

4 minutes ago, Xen said:

Oh, well then, I guess that's why JPN is so confident?

*eyerolls* What did I expect, that feds will actually care for their athletes' health and knees....

Tbh I don't understand the motivations behind Japan's proposals or voting. I don't even understand their judges' judging. If there's a plan or any logic that might benefit their skaters, it's far too advanced for me.

[Xen]

1 minute ago, WinForPooh said:

Tbh I don't understand the motivations behind Japan's proposals or voting. I don't even understand their judges' judging. If there's a plan or any logic that might benefit their skaters, it's far too advanced for me.

I don't mind their judges too much, but I don't quite get their proposals and how they're voting.

If you frame their actions into international politics/relations and negotiations theory, it doesn't make much sense. Well actually most of ISU congress doesn't make much sense- the large feds aren't trying to buy the votes of the smaller feds hard enough, smaller feds don't seem to be using their bloc voting powers enough, and no middle power fed has tried to change the status quo (unless China manages to pull through the coffee breaks).

[hoodie axel]

4 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

If there's a plan or any logic that might benefit their skaters, it's far too advanced for me.

I'm living for all this snark today, both here and that other place.

[WinForPooh]

When I read protocols after events, when I'm CERTAIN I've found the US judge and look up who's who on Skating Scores, I find that it's the Japanese judge who marked THEIR OWN skaters too low. They do nothing to counter biased judging against their skaters. Which is admirable and honourable and all that but it's also so fudging idiotic. 

 

By now, I wouldn't even be surprised if Japan introduced an emergency proposal to introduce slo-mo replay to distinguish pre-rotation, to go with everything else. _{(I wish somebody would.)}

 

ISU's fear of technology and insistence on perfect procedure (because priorities) might be all that's stopping Japan fed from shooting themselves in the foot. Feet, both of them.

[Xen]

Um, does anyone have the new BV (unevenly reduced for quads) link?

I want to run hypos with it with imaginary layouts, and see how the new min/maxing works.

@LadyLou : I've done math and posted it in the other place. I had 4 hypothetical skaters: Skater A who had 4-5 quad varieties, Skater B who had no quads, skater C who only had 4T and 4S, and skater D who had only 4Lz and 4F (not in combo, not backloaded). Skater D was the only one who could approach skater A for TES scores in the end from jumps, that scared me quite a bit. If you think about it, now with limiting quads and backloading bonuses, you really could win with just 4Lz, 4F and 4Lo/4T/4S, and 4Lz and 4F are the most crucial jumps. =/