Figure skating is dying, and judges can't prop it up

[Vash01]

But that call was considered a mistake. There was not a sheet full of algebra equations to explain why it was all correct. And in all the handwringing over the incident no one ever said "it makes perfect sense if fans weren't too lazy to read the box score".

However, your point is irrelevant because the post I was responding to compared box scores to protocol sheets. Totally different things. The protocols determine the outcome in skating. The box score in baseball merely reports it.

Well said. In other sports, if a mistake was made, it is accepted as a mistake and they move on, regardless of the results, which are not changed. In FS fans and even some skaters go to great length to 'explain' why the result was correct, and how those who disagree with them are less intelligent or less informed than themselves. The latter often include knowledgeable fans and past elite skaters.

[BlueRidge]

I've heard at least two commentators, Peter Carruthers and Susie Wynne, talk about it during 4CCs about nine years ago. IIRC, Dick and Peggy had something to say about Amber's cheated jumps as well. Her triple-triples were allegedly downgraded as well. Susie said something to the effect that this "always" hurts Amber.

People talked about it but there was no way to know under the 6.0 system whether that was what the judges were giving marks on or not.

[Mathman]

Gosh, there are so many reasons on this thread explaining why fans like the CoP better than 6.0.

The only trouble is, they don't.

I know, utterly bereft of logic or common sense. But there you are.

[BlueRidge]

I don't know what fans like, but I do see a lot of people claiming reasons for fans liking 6.0 that don't stand up to scrutiny.

Personally I think it is 6.0 that ruined skating. And COP has done what little could be done to keep it going. The corrupt view of skating generated continuously under 6.0--by its very opaqueness, which allowed people to create scandals whether they existed or not pretty much destroyed skating for the long term.

But I have no data on what fans like or don't like.

[julieann]

However, your point is irrelevant because the post I was responding to compared box scores to protocol sheets. Totally different things. The protocols determine the outcome in skating. The box score in baseball merely reports it.

The protocols report what the skater did out on the ice. The judges judge just like umps umpire and refs referee. Many calls in many sports outside of skating have had subjective calls the fans aren't happy with.

[Mathman]

And this was the system that the casual fans preferred?

Oddly enough, I think it was. I might be wrong about that, but it seems so to me.

Nobody likes crooked judges and back-room deals. But this is not a criticism of the scoring system. In the past, if you didn't like the outcome you could blame the judges. Now we tend to take it out on the scoring system.

To be sure, casual fans did not have much knowledge about or interest in OBO versus majority of ordinals, or about Condorcet's paradox and the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives, which plague all ordinal voting systems (but are a delight to political scientists and economists working in the field of social choice theory). These problems, however, did not detract from casual fans' enjoyment of skating contests.

Um, not according to your post above. It means the Slovakian judge was in on the bloc and so was the Chinese judge and it didn't matter what the skaters actually did on the ice.

I am not privy to the inner sanctums of the ISU. My impression as an outside observer is that it is not nearly so cut-and-dried as that. I think there are various clusters of allies that tend to have common interests. I also believe that there is a certain amount of toadying with an eye toward getting a plum committee assignment or something of the sort. But also, the skaters have to do their part. A group of judges with similar agendas rarely went so far as to give the contest to someone who fell twice over someone else who went clean, whatever their Machiavellian predilections might have been.

That said, I think that the great majority of judges, then and now, did the best they could to judge conscientiously.

Was it in the 1930s that two Austrian skating officials (one of them the head of the figure skating technical committee) were banned for life for flashing signals to their judges at rinkside? No tweaking of the scoring system can address problems like that.

[Mathman]

I don't know what fans like, but I do see a lot of people claiming reasons for fans liking 6.0 that don't stand up to scrutiny.

You can't make people like what they don't like, no matter how many times you tell them that their reason for not liking it is illogical.

[wonderlen]

I think figure skating is dying because the US is generating stars since Sasha, Michelle retire. Lets face it peoples only going to support and interest in sport they know their country will won or at least medal. Stars attracts fans and fans attracts money hungry sponsors and event organizer. Look at Japan and Korea, the only reason they have such a boom is because Shizuka won gold in 2006, Miki get her acts together and they have emerging skater like Mao and Yuna popped up.

If there is no Mao or Yuna emerged, or Shizuka didn't won gold, it wouldn't be popular. COP has it blames too, with TES and PCS not being weighted different. IMO, if FS wants to taken seriously as a sport, they need to put more focus in technical part. PCS should account for only 1/3 of the mark with TES being the other 66%.

[Asli]

Gosh, there are so many reasons on this thread explaining why fans like the CoP better than 6.0.

The only trouble is, they don't.

Is that a fact? I know a few fans and all of them like the CoP system better than the 6.0 system. In this thread you can see some such fans. Apparently you know other fans who think the opposite way. So maybe we can't put "fans" in one uniform group and say that they all like one system or the other.

[Prancer]

Gosh, there are so many reasons on this thread explaining why fans like the CoP better than 6.0.

The only trouble is, they don't.

I know, utterly bereft of logic or common sense. But there you are.

Fans being....? Are we a borg of some kind, where we all think and feel the same way? Have we taken a poll?

If we do take a poll, are we going to divide the people polled into camps? Who gets to represent the casual fans?

Personally I think it is 6.0 that ruined skating.

ITA. Those mythical casual fans were losing interest before SLC (and there is data in the form of declining ratings that shows this)--and SLC drove a stake into the heart of what was left.

These problems, however, did not detract from casual fans' enjoyment of skating contests.

They didn't? Well, I have no hard data, either. All I have is a lot of experience with people telling me that they couldn't understand why I would watch skating when the judging was so subjective and it was all about politics and it didn't matter what happened on the ice. And people who said that they watched during the Olympics because it was pretty, but otherwise, they had no interest because it was too subjective and corrupt and who wants to be a fan of that?

That said, I think that the great majority of judges, then and now, did the best they could to judge conscientiously.

I do, too. But laying out scenarios like the one with Hoffman is the kind of thing that makes the casual fans think the judging is fecked. And that all started, I might add, with complaints from an elite skater and a federation about the judging--something else that happened all the time under 6.0. Scott Hamilton's book is a textbook example of the syndrome--when he won, it was because he was just so damn good. When he lost, it was politics.

IMO, if FS wants to taken seriously as a sport, they need to put more focus in technical part. PCS should account for only 1/3 of the mark with TES being the other 66%.

Much of PCS IS technical. It drives me crazy when some people argue that a skater should get lower PCS because of facial expression or lack thereof.

[Rob]

I go to maybe 20 baseball games a year, and watch more on TV, and I only look at box scores occasionally.

[Matryeshka]

Well said. In other sports, if a mistake was made, it is accepted as a mistake and they move on, regardless of the results, which are not changed. In FS fans and even some skaters go to great length to 'explain' why the result was correct, and how those who disagree with them are less intelligent or less informed than themselves. The latter often include knowledgeable fans and past elite skaters.

Do you watch other sports? Have you not seen the that goes on in gymnastics? In synchronized swimming? Hell, ask a swim fan about Katijima's dolphin kick and I promise you will enter a debate worthy of any old-school late 90s, early naughts skating and that's a timed, objective sport! Look at diving--the commentator for the Olys is fairly even-handed; its fans are NOT. One of the worst is boxing. Like skating, results from twenty, thirty years ago are still debated from both the competitors and the fans. Can you explain, based on what the commentators say, all the fine points of the gymnastics code of points? Do you have a clue on how diving is scored, and whether a bad pike position is better or worse than a lot of splash? Does anyone, anywhere have any idea what the hell is going on in synchronized anything?

Every sport has its controversies. Every single one. From the way we're carrying on, you'd think we were cycling. I don't know why skating fans are so self-indulgent that we think our sport is the only one that has popularity that waxes and wanes. Every sport has its moment in the sun when it has the star du jour. At one point, I kinda watched skiing because of some Italian guy--I was in middle school and my mom thought he was "a hotcake". I think when he went on a date with Katerina Witt. Trust me when I say, skiing for my mom and me is something that should only happen during a zamboni break, but we watched because he was staaah. And then he moved on. People watched in the US when Kwan was a star, and then moved on. People in Japan watch because they have ubermega superstars right now. If Japan suddenly has a talent drought, it will drop in popularity there except for the people who are fans of the sport rather than the people.

[Prancer]

Do you watch other sports? Have you not seen the that goes on in gymnastics? In synchronized swimming? Hell, ask a swim fan about Katijima's dolphin kick and I promise you will enter a debate worthy of any old-school late 90s, early naughts skating and that's a timed, objective sport! Look at diving--the commentator for the Olys is fairly even-handed; its fans are NOT. One of the worst is boxing. Like skating, results from twenty, thirty years ago are still debated from both the competitors and the fans. Can you explain, based on what the commentators say, all the fine points of the gymnastics code of points? Do you have a clue on how diving is scored, and whether a bad pike position is better or worse than a lot of splash? Does anyone, anywhere have any idea what the hell is going on in synchronized anything?

At one point, I kinda watched skiing because of some Italian guy--I was in middle school and my mom thought he was "a hotcake". I think when he went on a date with Katerina Witt. Trust me when I say, skiing for my mom and me is something that should only happen during a zamboni break, but we watched because he was staaah. And then he moved on.

Alberto Tomba! (I think). I haven't thought about him in years. But there he is, popped right into my head like it was yesterday (probably because I wasn't in middle school, ahem).

But thinking of him made me wonder if skiing is beset with controversies, so I Googled "controversy skiing." Mercy . You'd think it was figure skating. And there are skiers complaining about stuff! Clearly the ski fed must be wrong!

[kathy sullivan]

COP changed everything for me and like many after years of watching skating, and attending many competitions, I stopped watching full competitions altogether. I will spot check what happened in a specific competition and watch a few performances online. For me though COP has made programs sooooo boring and repetitive. Skaters can no longer be the instrument thru which the music plays - they all have to execute the same things. To me there are only two female skaters that have managed to surpass this dreadful non-musical "must do so many turns" approach and manage to make some of their programs works of art - YuNa and Mao. I never watched skating to count revolutions - I wanted the revolutions to have been inspired by the music. Didn't even mind a jump doubled - rather see that done well to the music and concept than the bobbly jumps and splats that have become the rule even for many of the top skaters. Miss seeing a highlighting spiral that Michelle and Sasha could take your breath away with, and creativity - well now it has to come after counting. Also miss seeing the top three from the short battle it out for the win. Most of the time it was clear to the average viewer who won - the one who was most enchanting, didn't fall, did all the most difficult jumps and wowed the audience. When there was lots of debate it was usually because more than one final skater did all of that. It is so counter intuitive for someone to win when another skater performs better in the long. Right or wrong - I am always irritated, dissappointed and want to turn off the TV, and swear never to watch again. It sucks the life out of the climax of the event, and in COP it happens alot. 6.0 wasnt a perfect system by a long shot and many results will be debated for a long time but I agree with the posters who say COP does not make emotional and intuitive sense to the average fan - at all. It is a left brain excersise being applied to an audience watching for right brain enjoyment. Die hard sport fans want to quantify, quantify, quantify - the average viewer of ice skating wants to enjoy and be inspired and entertained - and while there are a few COP programs and a few skaters who have achieve the later while placating the former - my evidence is that most of the most talented skaters in the world cannot. COP may make skating a "sport" but cannot make it something the average ice skating viewer will "get."
I also miss Uncle Dick - he was such a character - he exuded with passion for the sport and his excitment was contageous - I rolled my eyes at a lot of what he said - but he was an entertainer and made the competitions exciting - general viewers loved him.

[gkelly]

Gosh, there are so many reasons on this thread explaining why fans like the CoP better than 6.0.

The only trouble is, they don't.

Clearly, some fans here prefer IJS, some prefer 6.0, some like different things about each of them.

The same appears to be true of our acquaintances who watch the sport much more casually and sporadically.

And undoubtedly some people don't like either system, but those people probably don't like competitive skating at all. (They may or may not like skating itself apart from any competitive context.)

[iloveemoticons]

There are a few subjective PCS criteria, but most of the criteria are objective. For instance, "effortlessness" as you say above - i.e. flow and effortless glide - is an objective criterion. Carolina Kostner gains speed with just one crossover and maintains the speed through the turns during intricate footwork, even generating speed during the turns. That is effortless flow. It is a technical achievement through the correct use of edges and not some abstract notion.
Skaters who don't have the same level of skating skills need many crossovers to obtain he same speed and lose speed during footwork, needing toe pushes and extra srossovers or getting stuck in the ice. This is not a subjective criterion, just like most of the other criteria.

IMO it is very important to reward good skating as well as good jumping, because this is, after all, a skating competition. Jumps have become an important aspect of figure skating, but should this mean that they are the one and only important aspect?

If these are objective criteria, then the judges don't seem to apply them well bc the same skaters get different PCS depending on judge and competition. Ultimately IMO it's still subjective, because most of the skaters I saw seemed to build speed well in crossovers and maintain it well throughout. Continuing the example of Kostner, she was getting PCS of 60 only two years ago. I don't know how she suddenly got a 10 point improvement in PCS, I don't understand it. I really enjoy Carolina actually and always thought she was underrated so I'm glad she's finally getting recognition for her skating. It's just the fluctuation of PCS seems pretty random. Maybe they should install a radar gun on the rink or something...

[newskatefan]

Well all I can add to this thread is what made me stop watching skating, which I haven’t watched in years

Yes, it was the scoring system; I don’t understand it at all, bring back 6.0
Yes it was the constant, I was robbed nonsense, which reached a crescendo with the S/P, B/S nonsense, may have been the last straw for me.
Yes it was the constant yapping from the commentators and how all that was wrong with skating was the Europeans
Yes it was the destruction of Ice Dancing, which I loved
Yes it was the removal of the OSP, which I also loved
I loved the drama
I loved the music, which suck now
Yes Ice Dancing has become pairs
Yes I miss the BIG NAMES
Yes I miss the rivalries
Yes I miss the Russians (sue me)
FS needs more people of colour

[michiruwater]

I started watching skating in 2006 thanks to Sasha Cohen. It took me, like, the short program to figure out how COP worked, and the long program to really understand it. I didn't find it even remotely complicated or difficult. It made sense to me. It still does.

Of course I knew about 6.0. I'd seen 6.0 during the Olympics a couple times. And now as an adult, who has watched endless hours of skating videos from years past, I still have not the slightest fecking clue what any of the 6.0 scores met. The numbers meant nothing, they were totally arbitrary. Even watching it now with my knowledge of skating I have no idea why that judge gave this skater a 5.5 and the other one gave her a 5.8 for technical content. They might as well have pulled the numbers out of their asses, and I feel that often enough they did. If 6.0 was still around, I would not still be watching skating.

Figure skating was popular on TV a couple to several decades ago when there was far less on TV. Figure skating was popular two decades to one decade ago because of the Kerrigan-Hardging scandal and because of Michelle Kwan (in the US). But it isn't a sport that a huge number of people follow religiously. It never was. People might know the names of past Olympic medalists, for the same reason that I know the names of other Olympic medalists - when they win, for a month or more, they're freaking everywhere. Especially when they're pretty, which most female figure skaters are.

I don't think figure skating is ever going to regain that popularity. There are too many other options on the TV these days. Even if we get a STAH, it will never be as popular. It simply isn't as big or popular as baseball, football, basketball, and I don't think it ever will be again. Either the ISU and USFSA can realize this and adjust accordingly, or we can keep getting these stupid, bitchy articles.

Getting rid of Cinquanta probably wouldn't hurt, though.

[AndyWarhol]

I started watching skating in 2006 thanks to Sasha Cohen. It took me, like, the short program to figure out how COP worked, and the long program to really understand it. I didn't find it even remotely complicated or difficult. It made sense to me. It still does.

Of course I knew about 6.0. I'd seen 6.0 during the Olympics a couple times. And now as an adult, who has watched endless hours of skating videos from years past, I still have not the slightest fecking clue what any of the 6.0 scores met. The numbers meant nothing, they were totally arbitrary. Even watching it now with my knowledge of skating I have no idea why that judge gave this skater a 5.5 and the other one gave her a 5.8 for technical content. They might as well have pulled the numbers out of their asses, and I feel that often enough they did. If 6.0 was still around, I would not still be watching skating.

Figure skating was popular on TV a couple to several decades ago when there was far less on TV. Figure skating was popular two decades to one decade ago because of the Kerrigan-Hardging scandal and because of Michelle Kwan (in the US). But it isn't a sport that a huge number of people follow religiously. It never was. People might know the names of past Olympic medalists, for the same reason that I know the names of other Olympic medalists - when they win, for a month or more, they're freaking everywhere. Especially when they're pretty, which most female figure skaters are.

I don't think figure skating is ever going to regain that popularity. There are too many other options on the TV these days. Even if we get a STAH, it will never be as popular. It simply isn't as big or popular as baseball, football, basketball, and I don't think it ever will be again. Either the ISU and USFSA can realize this and adjust accordingly, or we can keep getting these stupid, bitchy articles.

Getting rid of Cinquanta probably wouldn't hurt, though.

you were able to understand the levels after watching just the sp's? wow.

[Rae35]

[QUOTE=DBZ;3877946] And it's not just Brennan saying so. Fleets of coaches, commentators, media and press, not to mention past and current skaters alike, all blame the new judging system as the primary cause for skating's chronic decline.

What the media is saying is the salient point because media has a wider reach. Perception is everything. The ISU of today is essentially the ISU of 30+ years ago. Many of the same officials are still there. The average age of the Council exceeds 70 years. The free programs are the same length as they were 30 years ago, despite quads and triple/triples becoming the norm in an evolving sport. There were a number of near collapses at the end of the free programs and I'm betting that wasn't to with athletes being unprepared. There was certainly no altitude. Repeating quads and triples/triples in one performance takes its toll. The now growing popularity of newer winter sports - like ski cross and moguls- don't last anywhere near as long as 4.5 minutes and all the while are pumping out the latest music for young people ... because .... <<<<shock>>>> it's young people who are competing. Sports journalists covering multiple sports pick up on vibes and the difference between the "stuck in the dark ages" figure skating model and the more vibrant, modern snow sports.

And that's what happens to an organisation, such as the ISU, that is not athlete focussed. The age divide is showing.