Team competition at Sochi

[leafygreens]

^ There were times in which a gymnast wasn't used at all to win a competition under the 6-3-3 format. I think the Female Chinese team in 2008 was the first to do so. Thank goodness the Americans repeated that in 2012 because it was weird when a gymnast like Courtney McCool or Samantha Peszek won a silver medal without doing anything in the team final. However, I guess it matters that McCool's UB and VT scores contributed in the preliminaries at Athens for them to qualify for the team final and although Peszek's UB score was dropped in the preliminaries, she scored the same as Sloan whose score was used.

Peszek (and I think McCool) got injured AT the competition after competing in team preliminaries. They did compete at the Olympics and contributed to the team score, and deserved the silver medal. I don't think this fact "diminishes" gymnastics in anyway, because a lower-ranked gymnast got a medal in the team competition. This happens during every Olympics! There's usually a couple of gymnasts that compete in all 4 and a couple that do only 1 event.

Yes, there will be people saying the same about the skating event, if Rachael Flatt or someone ends up winning an Olympic gold because of the performance of Davis/White. It is what it is! Does anybody say that gymnastics is diminished because someone contributed one low score and they got a gold medal? Nope.

From now on it will always be mentioned as being and individual medal vs. team medal. It will lose some luster. 'EP has won 3 Olympic individual medals and 1 team medal.'

I don't think so. I have seen multiple media mentions of "Olympic champion Jordyn Wieber", and Dominique Moceanu referred to as "Olympic gold medalist". These girls are not referred to as "Olympic team champion" or "Olympic team medalist." There is a book written about each member of the Magnificent Seven and in this book each girl's bio talks about her being an "Olympic champion." A gold medal is a gold medal. Most commentators are not going to clarify or get into it unless there is time to read more of the athlete's bio during a warmup.

If a gymnast bombed like Phaneuf bombed, or a competitor in show jumping knocked down a ton of fences it would be highly unlikely that their team would be able to get on the podium, because they would make such a poor contribution to the cumulative score

Dominique Moceanu fell on her butt twice in a row on the vault, Kerri Strug then fell once on her butt and once on one foot. I would consider that pretty much bombing the vault competition yet their other scores were high enough for them to be Olympic Champions.

[VIETgrlTerifa]

Peszek (and I think McCool) got injured AT the competition after competing in team preliminaries. They did compete at the Olympics and contributed to the team score, and deserved the silver medal.

Technically, Peszek didn't contribute to the team score as her UB score in preliminaries was dropped.

[leafygreens]

That's not her fault though, that others scored higher. She competed in the Olympics as part of Team USA. Stuff like this is going to happen. That doesn't make gymnastics any "less than" another sport. Like what people are saying about figure skating because of the team competition.

[VIETgrlTerifa]

^ That's true. Had Sloan scored .001 points lower, then it would have been her score that would have been dropped and not Peszek's...or if the UB line-up would've been different then Sloan's score would've been the one that dropped.

However, it was strange when Alicia Sacramone got to be counted as one of the World champions in 2011 when she was on an entirely different continent getting surgery while Anna Li (who stood in Sacramone's place on the podium) was there, supported the team during the competition, and could have competed in preliminaries isn't counted at all. USAG said they wanted to reward Sacramone for her achievements for USAG by keeping her name in the official team. However, my cynical side thought that Marta and the other coaches (outside Anna's) were afraid that Li might have hit in preliminaries and thus would've most likely been on the final UB lineup, which would have been a gamble considering how inconsistent she can be. Easier to just leave her out altogether.

I think it's just weird for team finals when you have one gymnast not competing on any event and still being rewarded in the medal-determining round, but then we give Superbowl rings to the entire franchise, not just the players who played on the field.

[Skittl1321]

I think it's just weird for team finals when you have one gymnast not competing on any event and still being rewarded in the medal-determining round, but then we give Superbowl rings to the entire franchise, not just the players who played on the field.

This is actually something I really dislike about the "Team" competition. There will be members of Team USA, Team Japan, whatever, who don't get medals (because they aren't entered into that event.) So there is the 'team' and then there is the lesser team, the people who weren't in the team event. That has got to suck. I mean, I'm sure whatever US ice dancers go who aren't M/C know exactly where their place is in the heirarchy, but they are still part of Team USA, but not part of Team USA if they win a team medal.

In gymnastics, in theory, everyone who is Team USA (or whatever country) wins the medal.

[Vagabond]

I'm sure it was with good intentions, but ugh, we'll hear about it all forever "POLL: If the team event had happened after the ladies final would Mao Asada have skated in the ladies final like she did in the team event and would she have beaten Yu-Na"

The part of me is looking forward to all of the and that the Team event will cause.

[maharbabackward]

This is actually something I really dislike about the "Team" competition. There will be members of Team USA, Team Japan, whatever, who don't get medals (because they aren't entered into that event.) So there is the 'team' and then there is the lesser team, the people who weren't in the team event. That has got to suck. I mean, I'm sure whatever US ice dancers go who aren't M/C know exactly where their place is in the heirarchy, but they are still part of Team USA, but not part of Team USA if they win a team medal.

In gymnastics, in theory, everyone who is Team USA (or whatever country) wins the medal.

It doesn't make sense in figure skating because you qualify per discipline the amount of athletes or partners.
So Canada may have three ice dancers, three men, two pairs, two ladies.
Japan may have three ladies, three men, one pair of ice dancers, and one pair.
Russia could potentially have three ladies, three dancers, three pairs, two men.
US could have two pairs, the dancers, 2-3 ladies, and 2 men.
Just theorizing on potential qualifiers during worlds. That doesn't make sense does it? So just having one from each disciple makes more sense.

[Skittl1321]

I personally don't like the idea of a team competition at the Olympics at all. The way it is set up makes little sense to me.- that some countries will have to send teams that didn't qualify for the Olympics, that others may have to sit out entirely, that they are using ordinals so margin of win doesn't matter. The whole thing is a fluff competition, and it was a fun one. But I don't like it for the Olympics, and the marginalization of those who are TEAM (country) but won't be part of the team medal is another reason why.

[maharbabackward]

Another thing is let's say Canada places second to Russia in pairs by 30 points, and Canada also finishes second to the US in dance by .25 points. Is it right that Canada would receive the same amount of points for both finishes?

I think rules are rules. Just as long as the rules are placed before the competition, it is not unfair. Was it fair that Meryl Davis & Charlie White placed behind Virtue and Moir in 2009 despite winning two of the three portions? And by a mere 0.04 points? Yes! Why, because the rules stated that it was cumulative points received rather than placement in portions of the program!

[julieann]

I think it's just weird for team finals when you have one gymnast not competing on any event and still being rewarded in the medal-determining round, but then we give Superbowl rings to the entire franchise, not just the players who played on the field.

They also give super bowl rings to both teams and cheerleaders as well, you don't get one for playing you get one for participating. You get a trophy for winning.

The catch is the NFL only allows a finite number of rings so they must choose who gets them and who misses out.

Also don't forget one of Michael Phelps OGM was for a relay he never swam.

It happens all the time in sports.

But we are here to talk skating, so to bring gymnastic rules or any other sport is moot.

[flowerpower]

The part of me is looking forward to all of the and that the Team event will cause.

re: board postings. But I was wondering about the impact of controversy on the general public and media. Not so good, if the differences in scoring of the two run-throughs of the programs that we'll see becomes controversial & not really understandable to the public at large. I think people who've followed the sport for a long time can often recognize differences in performance that the general public doesn't, and long-time followers often accept there's still subjectivity, and no perfect scoring system. It's not a can of worms I'd want to open up with all the Olympic media scrutinity though, if I were the ISU.

[flowerpower]

But we are here to talk skating, so to bring gymnastic rules or any other sport is moot.

I agree. Also, a lot of the fairness issues, etc. that people have raised arise from the fact that skating has always been an individual sport, not a team sport, and the qualification and measurement systems reflect that.

[kwanfan1818]

This. They really should use cumulative points.

If they do, it greatly overweighs the results of Men's and underweighs the results of Dance, especially since there are relatively few -GOE scores and most of the Top Dance teams get consistently higher levels, and max out the technical, whereas in Men's, there is still a long way to go before men are doing two quads in the SP and four or more in the FS, and they have a much higher potential upside, given the value of quads. They've got the most number of elements, and their PCS get factored by 2 across the board.

In gymnastics, in theory, everyone who is Team USA (or whatever country) wins the medal.

But in swimming or track, members of Team USA don't get medals for races in which they don't compete.

I think the Team Event is stupid, but it's here.

[Skittl1321]

But in swimming or track, members of Team USA don't get medals for races in which they don't compete.

But those are not "the swimming Team event" or the "track team event" like this is the skating Team event. There are many relay races, where various teams compete- it isn't supposed to be representative of all the disciplines in the country (maybe the swimming medley is), I don't think they are even called team events, like the gymnastics team competition is, they are called relays.

[kwanfan1818]

The athletes chosen to compete in individual figure skating events are no more or less Team USA than the entire US swimming or track contingent. They are a team for a specific event only, and I don't see why it matters whether the skating event is called "Team Event" or "Relay." There are a sub-group of athletes competing together in a specific format identified as "USA."

[Ziggy]

If they do, it greatly overweighs the results of Men's and underweighs the results of Dance, especially since there are relatively few -GOE scores and most of the Top Dance teams get consistently higher levels, and max out the technical, whereas in Men's, there is still a long way to go before men are doing two quads in the SP and four or more in the FS, and they have a much higher potential upside, given the value of quads. They've got the most number of elements, and their PCS get factored by 2 across the board.

That is a good point. Maybe they could factor it somehow then to bring all four events in line together?

[LKR]

The problem I'm having with the team event is that it seems like there is far too little differentiation between the first and last place long programs. I mean a 5th place long program out of five skaters still gets six points?!

[kwanfan1818]

That is a good point. Maybe they could factor it somehow then to bring all four events in line together?

They could, but they'd have to decide whether to do it before the event, based on the range of a lot of data they already have that isn't specific to that instance, or whether to come up with an algorithm that feeds data from that specific competition and creates a weighting on the spot.

I think the public would be even more and by having someone who scored 275 points get credit for 225, after the weighting, though. The team scoring appeals more to the general viewer, because its easy, but if they hook viewers in at the beginning, if they don't explain why the scoring is different from individual events, the viewers are going to be and maybe (or, most likely, disappear again).

The problem I'm having with the team event is that it seems like there is far too little differentiation between the first and last place long programs. I mean a 5th place long program out of five skaters still gets six points?!

And people want to go back to the OBO system

[Jammers]

Why are they having the team competition before the individual events anyways? Can you imagine if a big name skater gets hurts in the team competition. There will be hell to pay for Speedy.

[Skittl1321]

Why are they having the team competition before the individual events anyways? Can you imagine if a big name skater gets hurts in the team competition. There will be hell to pay for Speedy.

It's happened in the gymnastics team event.