In what ways has CoP IMPROVED skating?

[Aussie Willy]

I agree about the quality of spins improving. Even young skaters work really hard on their spins and throughout an event you will get a generally good standard of spinning.

[Ziggy]

Mafke made a good point saying that a well executed easier element shouldn't necessarily be worth less than a badly executed harder element.

But the problem is that then people are not going to take risks.

It's a hard balance to maintain. IJS obviously hasn't got it right but it's constantly being tweaked in response to the effects it produces.

Baseball still depends on the naked eye. Why can't figure skating?

Because the naked eye is not able to notice by how much a jump was cheated.

And figure skating is such a complex sport that being able to repeat certain elements to check everything helps immensely (was a variation maintained for enough rotations, was that difficult position held long enough, etc.).

[Aussie Willy]

Because the naked eye is not able to notice by how much a jump was cheated.

And figure skating is such a complex sport that being able to repeat certain elements to check everything helps immensely (was a variation maintained for enough rotations, was that difficult position held long enough, etc.).

Well you can notice how much a jump is underrotated, but it can depend on factors like distance from the skater.

Figure Skating is a very complex sport and incredibly technical. It is not like setting a stop watch and pressing the button when the person reaches the line. There is so much to evaluate and consider.

[Doubletoe]

Personally, I find myself horrified by the number of crossovers I see when I watch programs from the 6.0 era, even by the top skaters of the time. The value placed on transitions, choreography and skating skills under IJS has really upped the level of the actual skating at all levels of competition.

I agree that spins have gotten better under IJS as well. Some of the positions may not appeal to some people and it's true that the difficult variations can slow a spin down, but the fact is, a skater has no chance of completing a spin with difficult variations unless he/she is first able to execute a spin in a basic position with speed and good technique. Now that the rules are rewarding 8 revolutions in position and there is no incentive to do a difficult variation more than once, we are seeing more basic positions held for many revolutions, which just goes to prove how IJS has helped everyone's basic spins as well.

As a skater, I appreciate IJS because I can actually see what the judging panel liked and didn't like about my skating, where I am losing points and how I can add points. It sure beats skating under 6.0, where I've often wondered if the judges just didn't like my dress or something. Now if the ISU can just decide what the heck they want to reward so they can stop changing the !@$%&* rules every season!!

[RobinA]

I agree with all the comments above. However, for me the greatest improvement is in the outcome of competitions. For the most part skating fans come away with the feeling that the right people were in the right order. The wuzrobbed chorus has been reduced enormously.

I now come away from a competition with a feeling of pleasure, rather than frustration.

Funny, I have the exact opposite reaction. I come away going, "What the hell just happened?"

[RobinA]

PCS are still used this way. The more your reputation grows, the more your PCS grow.

I.e. certain Chinese pairs with females who can barely skate but do land big throws.

[Coco]

Most of what I like about COP has been covered. Re: scoring, I love the fact that a less-than-perfect sp won't bury a skater..none of that so-and so has to beat so-and-so for so and so- to win. A skater controls his/her own destiny , assuming that the judging is fair.

YES!!!

Could you imagine impact of cumulative COP scoring on the 2002 ladies SP?

My point is not how would it have changed the elements skaters selected, but with so many ladies going clean, so many skaters would have felt they had a chance for the bronze.

[theshrew]

[QUOTE=Ziggy;2976847]What small things do people miss from 6.0 exactly? QUOTE]

I miss the SP drama and thrill .
It was fun watching the guys going for difficult combinations (what I miss the most are the 3A-3T combos), knowing that a miss usually meant no gold medal .
It was fun watching the OES ladies struggling to land a 3-2 and their happiness knowing that a hit meant qualification for the LP.
Now the SP-s are boring. There’s no fun watching the guys going for the 3F-3T (even with the most complicate and wonderful transitions, this combo is boring) or the ladies splatting and not caring much because the mistakes are not as costly as they used to be.
I want the SP drama back !

[Mafke]

YES!!!

Could you imagine impact of cumulative COP scoring on the 2002 ladies SP?

My point is not how would it have changed the elements skaters selected, but with so many ladies going clean, so many skaters would have felt they had a chance for the bronze.

The factored placement system still in use in 2002 was just a by product of the figures era when it was fairer than ordinals. After (quite wrongly!) dumping figures they should have gone back to ordinals but institutional inertia got in the way...

[gkelly]

The factored placement system still in use in 2002 was just a by product of the figures era when it was fairer than ordinals. After (quite wrongly!) dumping figures they should have gone back to ordinals but institutional inertia got in the way...

Ordinals were always used.

Up until 1980, the judges scored each figure separately and then scored the free skating (and for 1973-1980, the short program too). Rankings could be calculated within each competition phase (e.g., skater Q won the short program), but those rankings didn't count for anything in the final calculations.

The actual scores for each figure and for each program were each multiplied by a factor, the totals from each judge were added up for each skater, and then those totals determined the ordinals for the competition as a whole.

After 1980, and until the end of the 6.0 system, the actual scores counted only to produce ordinals to decide rankings for each phase of the competition (figures, SP, FS). Then the scores and ordinals for that phase no longer had meaning and only the rankings counted toward the factored placements.

Confusing, I know. I haven't memorized all the details.

There was always an ordinal system. The differences are at what point in the calculations the factors got applied and what they got applied to (actual scores or rankings), and whether there was one set of ordinals for the whole event or separate sets for each competition phase.

[Mafke]

There was always an ordinal system. The differences are at what point in the calculations the factors got applied and what they got applied to (actual scores or rankings), and whether there was one set of ordinals for the whole event or separate sets for each competition phase.

I actually thought that the system until 1980 was each part of the competition (including each separate figure) was scored separetly and the point totals (after the confusing math had been applied) for each skater were tracked by judge and the final result was determined by 'places' (how the final standards are tracked at Winter Memories)

So that a 'perfect' score would be 9 (the skater had the most point totals for each of the nine judges and got 1 point each - where you want the fewest points possible)

That's why Hoffmann at Lake Placid had more points than Cousins (Which is good) but also more places 15 to 13 (which is bad because the places were what counted) I assume raw point totals were used in case of ties in places.

Because of differences in scoring protocals for figures that was an unsatisfactory system so it was moved to the 1980-1990 system which worked much better.

Be all that as it may, my point was that after figures were no more, they could and probably should have gone back to something like the pre-1980 system which would have produced on balance more interesting competitions since more people would be in the hunt for the podium after the SP.

[gkelly]

I actually thought that the system until 1980 was each part of the competition (including each separate figure) was scored separetly and the point totals (after the confusing math had been applied) for each skater were tracked by judge and the final result was determined by 'places' (how the final standards are tracked at Winter Memories)

So that a 'perfect' score would be 9 (the skater had the most point totals for each of the nine judges and got 1 point each - where you want the fewest points possible)

Those points by judge that are labeled "Places" on the Winter Memories site ARE the ordinals, for each phase of the event (had only interim meaning) and for the event as a whole. The reason they're called "places" instead of "ordinals" might be an effect of translating to Japanese and back to English.

I can't tell from the way they're listed exactly how the calculations are done.

For the ice dance, Bestemianova/Bukin got
Places 9 9 7 8 9 10 7 8 8 75
Their total points were 188.18

Smith/Summers got
Places 8 7 9 9 7 8 9 9 9 75
with total points 188.38

The numbers I put in bold are equivalent to the TO (total ordinals) statistic we're familiar with from later versions of the ordinal system, where it was the third tiebreaker.

So did the accounting first take the total ordinals and if there was a tie as there was here then look at the total points and ignore the majorities?

Or did they first look for majorities -- in this case B/B had 5/8 and S/S had 9/9 -- and determine 8th place on that basis without having to go to any tiebreakers, as would be done for each phase of competition in later versions?

The way the scores are presented here suggests the former method, but my understanding was that it was the latter.

That's why Hoffmann at Lake Placid had more points than Cousins (Which is good) but also more places 15 to 13 (which is bad because the places were what counted) I assume raw point totals were used in case of ties in places.

Here if they go to the total ordinal or total "places" number first Cousins wins because he had a lower total.

But if they looked at majorities first, Cousins also wins because he had a majority of six 1st-place ordinals (6/1) and Hoffman only had three 1s, so his majority was 9/2.

The results would almost always be the same by either method except in very weird types of close decisions where the order of tiebreakers makes a difference.

Sort of like the difference between majority and OBO scoring in the late 90s. Most results would come out the same, but some with very mixed ordinals would end up different.

Because of differences in scoring protocals for figures that was an unsatisfactory system so it was moved to the 1980-1990 system which worked much better.

Be all that as it may, my point was that after figures were no more, they could and probably should have gone back to something like the pre-1980 system which would have produced on balance more interesting competitions since more people would be in the hunt for the podium after the SP.

Fair enough.

[withrespect]

IMO....improvements:
coaches like the cop system better
skaters like the cop system better
^^^^^ gives them a 'report card' ^^^^
major improvement in footwork sequences
improvement of 'transitions'

Disadvantages:
More arm chair critics think they know more and have instant technical (how to judge)knowledge
NO CREATIVITY
ALL about points
Hundreds of skaters doing the exact same spins, same entries etc.
Boring at the lower levels (under senior).

[sk8er1964]

major improvement in footwork sequences

I think yes and no here. Definitely more difficulty than pre-COP (Yagudin anyone?) but sometimes the difficulty is so great that the skaters cannot perform them with good flow. Personally, I do not like the stops and starts and often odd meanderings of some of the footwork that we see now - nor to I appreciate the flailing arms that are oftem deemed necessary to get the higher levels.

[Skittl1321]

Baseball still depends on the naked eye. Why can't figure skating?

Wasn't there recently a big deal in baseball where a bad call cost a pitcher a perfect game? And the ref even admitted it was a bad call, and so did the other team- and the commissioner of baseball could have overturned the result, but he didn't? Something like that happening again and baseball won't still depend on the naked eye. (Football already doesn't).

Sports shouldn't be judged by the naked eye- there is a story in some book (maybe Christine Brennan's?) about a judge that awarded marks like 2 points higher than the other judges (under 6.0)- turns out, he had dropped his pencil and was looking down when the skater ran into the boards and crashed. Naked eye doesn't cut it when fractional points seperate their scores.

To me, COP is an improvement because skaters, for the most part, can understand their scores. They can still be held up/pushed down by PCS- but they can see "oh, doing that extra combination got me no points because I don't understand the rulebook", or "If I do just one more position in my spin, I can get extra points from levels". I really feel like politics are less important.

[sk8er1964]

Wasn't there recently a big deal in baseball where a bad call cost a pitcher a perfect game? And the ref even admitted it was a bad call, and so did the other team- and the commissioner of baseball could have overturned the result, but he didn't?

Yes. It was Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers. Not only was the call blown, it wasn't even close. The throw to first beat the runner by a whole step. It was the equivalent of giving a skater credit for a quad when they only did a triple and 1/2.

[/Detroit Tiger fan off]

[RockTheTassel]

What small things do people miss from 6.0 exactly?

I miss the SP drama and thrill .
It was fun watching the guys going for difficult combinations (what I miss the most are the 3A-3T combos), knowing that a miss usually meant no gold medal .
It was fun watching the OES ladies struggling to land a 3-2 and their happiness knowing that a hit meant qualification for the LP.
Now the SP-s are boring. There’s no fun watching the guys going for the 3F-3T (even with the most complicate and wonderful transitions, this combo is boring) or the ladies splatting and not caring much because the mistakes are not as costly as they used to be.
I want the SP drama back !

I have the opposite opinion. I think what's fun about COP is that a skater who makes SP mistakes can still make a "comeback" and move up significantly. Most skaters still can't mess up the SP completely and win (no Chan comments please), and sometimes having an outstanding FS still doesn't make up enough for SP errors. But the possibility of success after a less than perfect skate and not being able to predict the results so easily makes skating more exciting to me.

[withrespect]

I have the opposite opinion. I think what's fun about COP is that a skater who makes SP mistakes can still make a "comeback" and move up significantly. Most skaters still can't mess up the SP completely and win (no Chan comments please), and sometimes having an outstanding FS still doesn't make up enough for SP errors. But the possibility of success after a less than perfect skate and not being able to predict the results so easily makes skating more exciting to me.

good point RTT, I shoulda added that to my positives list.

[Aussie Willy]

I have the opposite opinion. I think what's fun about COP is that a skater who makes SP mistakes can still make a "comeback" and move up significantly. Most skaters still can't mess up the SP completely and win (no Chan comments please), and sometimes having an outstanding FS still doesn't make up enough for SP errors. But the possibility of success after a less than perfect skate and not being able to predict the results so easily makes skating more exciting to me.

From a judging point of view, you can be putting marks in there and have no idea of the outcome. Particularly if it is close contest.

Although on the other hand, you do sometimes have a good idea because you are giving +1 or +2 on every element and the skater or couple deserves high components. It also just clicks and it is a pleasure to give those kinds of evaluations.