An interesting idea for familiarizing audiences with PCS scores

[ltnskater]

So I was reading this article on icenetwork from Europeans about the ladies short program and I came across an interesting paragraph:

"This was Sotnikova's first clean short program of the international season, and the judges rewarded it with program components that reached an average level of 7.6. She takes 67.61 points into the free skate."

This gave me an idea, a big criticism of the Code of points system vs the 6.0 system for the average casual viewer is that the scores are just numbers where under 6.0, you got a score OUT of 6.0 and the closer to 6.0, the more exciting it gets, or at least it is easier for an audience to understand/interpret where a skater's "presentation" stands relative to others. The additional advantage was that you got an idea of how close to "perfection" that particular performance was.

Without changing any aspect of the judging system, would simply listing "average" PCS score awarded out of 10 on the scoreboard make it more exciting and make it easier for the general audience to understand why someone who has a less technically difficult skate could score so well due to higher PCS? (The actual numbers would still show up on the scoreboard and be added to the TES, but I feel like even showing a number out of 10 would help).

Are there any other pros or cons to this?

Just an interesting thought that popped up in my head when I was reading that article!

[Cherub721]

I agree with this. Getting 10s in PCS could be the new 6.0. A couple of times I heard the Brit commentators (who can see the whole scoring sheet apparently) pointing out "wow, so and so got several 10s for choreography!" It definitely makes it more audience friendly.

[maatTheViking]

I agree!

In dressage, you have subjective scoring system too, but everything is 1-10, and getting a 10 for everything is 100%. This way it is easy to compare - getting over 80% as numerous riders got at the last Olympics in their freestyle was unheard off!

In figure skating the elements are all different points, so there is no 'max score', but you could use the PCS, as there is a max PCS. They could also state - her base value was 26.5, and she received all positive GOEs of an average of 1.3 - I noticed that difference between the top skaters are not so much base value but when someone manages to get all positive GOE on their elements.

Whether a spin is level 3 or 4 is hard for the casual observer to judge, but pointing out the GOE makes sense, as you can easily 'agree' or not.

I think the most important thing is for commentators and journalists and coaches and skaters to STOP saying it is hard. The more time you tell someone something is hard, the harder it get.

[cbd1235]

I like this! Not that I think that the scoring system should change but it would be not bad to state an "average" component mark as well as the full component mark to make it easier to compare skater to skater.

Maybe they could even do something like say what percent "GOE" the skater got/lost on top of their base value.

ie. 26.00BV and 31.00 after GOE's would be +16% for Execution

[Coco]

I must be missing something because I thought they already did list the average PCS mark.

Would love to see them break down the TES and show points for jumps, spins & steps.

Honestly, it drives me a bit batty that they show the average PCS mark for each category when there is so little variance from category to category. They do that but they don't show the TES in a way that is vivid to anyone save for diehard fans.