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

[Asli]

The point is not that DWTS is or should be an international sport (and I know you were joking). It's that it copied figure skating's numerical ranking system to draw in fans--a system that figure skating invented and then threw away! I'm not a huge Brennan fan, but her article, linked at the first post, makes some very good observations.

The 6.0 system is adequate for DWTS, because DWTS is a bogus competition. Most people watch it just for the fun of seeing the celebrities.
There are no criteria to speak of, the "judges" are not trained and they can give the couples whatever mark they like. Half of the competitors have started skating only about a month ago at the tender age of 35. The routines are practiced for all of one week.

A judging system that is adequate for this kind of show is not necessarily the perfect system for a complex sport like figure skating. These are two completely different things.

[OliviaPug]

I personally think it's VERY helpful to discuss 6.0 and IJS. It's not a useless pursuit to try to determine why viewership is down. If there were aspects of 6.0 that helped in that regard and they can be incorporated into the current or a new, improved version of IJS, then why not discuss it?

Yes, yes, we all know that 6.0 is not coming back, but some of us are hoping for something better than 6.0 AND the current IJS.

O-

[iloveemoticons]

I sure hope the scores vary from competition to competition!
As for every judge not giving the exact same score, that is the case also for the marks that you consider "objective", such as the GoE for the jumps. We rarely see a row of straight 1's or straight 2's for any of the elements.

Not to say that the program components are always used well, but most of these are strictly technical marks, based on objective criteria.

Have you seen the warm-up of the final group at the Worlds this year? Especially when they are all on ice, the difference between the skaters is glaring. During the performance, you need to be in the arena to really judge the speed, but it is also visible on TV if you are used to looking for it.

I don't mean a one or two point deviation between competitions, I mean substantial deviations of 10 points or more during time periods where skaters are stuck in a particular PCS range, no matter how they skate. Carolina never got a 70 PCS during the Sasha, Shizuka, and Irina era, she was never allowed to place above them PCS wise. During the Yuna era, Carolina was also not allowed to place over Yuna PCS wise. Carolina only started getting high PCS after Yuna left the game. I don't believe that Carolina's PCS has suddenly improved 10 points from 2 years ago to now. There is nothing objective about PCS, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Unless there is objective evidence of a skater's speed like a radar gun or some sort of speed sensor on a skater's blade, anyone can say whatever they want, regardless of reality.

[Eislauffan]

New article on the poor attendance figures at Worlds

The attendance was not poor. The fact that this journalist went over and over to repeat this in several articles doesn't make it any more correct. I also wonder about that quote from Yuna Kim. Somehow I don't think she said that or that she was understood correctly as the lower bowls always were full.
Someone asked what the attendance really was.

Skate Canada states here: http://www.skatecanada.ca/AboutUs/Ne...tabid/2157/sni[2797]/2533/language/en-US/Default.aspx

"The saleable capacity was 6,650 and the building experienced sell-outs on both Saturday sessions, as well as near sell-outs on Thursday, Friday and the closing gala exhibition on Sunday."

This was exactly my impression from being on site.
Also from Skate Canada: "In addition to the ticketed events, over 22,500 people visited the Light Up London fan festival at the Canadian Tire Family Zone and Skate Canada House."

I regret the fact that Skate Canada chose a relatively small arena in a small city. I am convinced that you need to "think big" and you will have success. With proper marketing and not too expensive tickets I am sure they could have filled a bigger arena in a larger city for several reasons:
- more people from the city that could have come
- more fans from other countries and cities that would have come also because of an attractive host city

My prime example is always the 2008 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedes had excellent marketing, they sold the Championships as an event and they were able to fill the big arena (Scandinavium) even though they didn't have a single medal contender.

[Sylvia]

Those Skate Canada press releases don't convert into links properly unless the [/url] tag is added at the end - here you go:

Skate Canada states here: http://www.skatecanada.ca/AboutUs/Ne...S/Default.aspx

[Alixana]

I regret the fact that Skate Canada chose a relatively small arena in a small city. I am convinced that you need to "think big" and you will have success. With proper marketing and not too expensive tickets I am sure they could have filled a bigger arena in a larger city for several reasons:
- more people from the city that could have come
- more fans from other countries and cities that would have come also because of an attractive host city

My prime example is always the 2008 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedes had excellent marketing, they sold the Championships as an event and they were able to fill the big arena (Scandinavium) even though they didn't have a single medal contender.

I understand the points you're making and I wish you were right. For purely selfish reasons, I'm glad they chose London. But when I step back and look at the big picture, I'm not sure that even with proper marketing, they could've filled a 12,000-15,000 seat arena in Canada in this economy. Hockey, definitely yes; figure skating no. But I do wish you were right.

[Mathman]

I don't see why this is any more strange than adding 5.7 to X.X and coming up with a total to derive an ordinal.

Very different. In ordinal scoring the judges determined what ordinal placement they wanted, then came up with the 5.7s etc to make it come out that way.

If they thought that a skater was the best so far, with two more to go, they might give 5.8, 5.7. This leaves room for 5.8, 5.8 for the next one, if she is better, and still reserve 5.7, 5.8 in case the last skater inserted herself in between for silver.

As for ordinals, no, you can't add them. 1st place + 2nd place = 3rd place?

By the way, IMHO it is this "adding up the points" feature that is responsible for the inflation of scores for skaters like Patrick Chan, whose performances have both positive and negative features.

Under 6.0, suppose you are a judge and you think that, despite the mistakes, overall Patrick skated the best and deserves to win. So you give him your first place ordinal. Honest and straightforward. Other judges may disagree, but you can't do anything about that.

Now consider CoP. You still think Patrick skated the best and deserves to win. But with many pluses and minus, it is hard to predict how the final tally will come out. So you throw in a few +2 GOEs when he only deserved +1, and a few 9.5s where he deserved 8.5.

[gkelly]

Now consider CoP. You still think Patrick skated the best and deserves to win. But with many pluses and minus, it is hard to predict how the final tally will come out. So you throw in a few +2 GOEs when he only deserved +1, and a few 9.5s where he deserved 8.5.

Yes, that is how a dishonest judge would manipulate the scores if s/he thought that Chan indeed deserved +1 GOEs on those elements and 8.5 PCS but wanted to make sure he would win regardless of the tech calls.

However, we don't know that that's how any judges were actually thinking. It seems to me more likely that they actually did think he deserved +2 for those elements and they actually did think he deserved 9.5s for some PCS. They may have been thinking "Wow, that was great, and that was great, and that was gr--oops, too bad. Great, great, eh not so good, great, oops, great, oh no!, great, great, amazing, pretty good. Really special skater, so many good qualities, but the mistakes might have lost it for him." And then the numbers get crunched and the pluses on some elements and PCS outweighed the minuses enough to keep the skater in the lead.

But we really don't know, without being mind readers.

[demetriosj]

I'm sorry, when did I say this behavior should be emulated?

When it comes to a being TV moment, it's an important thing. In our lives, it's miniscule.

If one second of a teen showing her true feelings means our country is going to hell in a hand basket, you might want to get out before the hellfire comes.

Haha. Actually I wasn't talking about "one second of a teen showing her true feelings" being the reason why this country is going down the tubes. I was talking about emulating your theory - "but you do remember her, and that's the most important thing."

That kind of thinking is dangerous, IMHO. In other words, according to what you're saying, do anything, be it negative or positive, as long as you can wind up being noticed on You-Tube or TV. That's the end-goal. This thinking is, unfortunately, quite prevalent these days.

For example, look at the trash on TV currently- "reality" shows, where people make complete fools of themselves just to be noticed and on TV. You're embarrassing yourself and others, but hey, people will remember you...... and that's the most important thing...........

[TheIronLady]

Don't forget somebody else in the comfort of a boardroom makes big bucks off your making a fool of yourself.

[Mathman]

Yes, that is how a dishonest judge would manipulate the scores if s/he thought that Chan indeed deserved +1 GOEs on those elements and 8.5 PCS but wanted to make sure he would win regardless of the tech calls.

However, we don't know that that's how any judges were actually thinking. It seems to me more likely that they actually did think he deserved +2 for those elements and they actually did think he deserved 9.5s for some PCS. They may have been thinking "Wow, that was great, and that was great, and that was gr--oops, too bad. Great, great, eh not so good, great, oops, great, oh no!, great, great, amazing, pretty good. Really special skater, so many good qualities, but the mistakes might have lost it for him." And then the numbers get crunched and the pluses on some elements and PCS outweighed the minuses enough to keep the skater in the lead.

But we really don't know, without being mind readers.

You are probably right. Maybe I am thinking of my own armchair judging and projecting it onto the professional judges.

I know when I watch a performance and it's really good and I start thinking, "gee this performance is really good, it deserves to win a prize" -- little by little I talk myself into saying, "wow, that was a great jump. +3. Oh, that fall wasn't so bad -- he got right back up. -1."

By the way, IMHO the worst thing about ordinal judging was not what occurred at the top. The judges usually got the podium right. The problem was the impossibility of remembering whether skater number 5 out of 30 was better than skater number 18. Which skater deserves 13th place overall and which 14th. The 5.3s are intended to aid this process, but it's not very trustworthy. CoP has an advantage here.

[martian_girl]

I am fairly indifferent toward Chan, but all of these articles blaming him for the death of the sport are kind of making me want to start rooting for him.

The sport is "dying" for a number of reasons, but neither pretending that the 2012 men's long program is the first time judges ever held up a skater, or that somehow 6.0 was this magical system that kept the sport afloat is going to help.

[MacMadame]

The point is not that DWTS is or should be an international sport (and I know you were joking). It's that it copied figure skating's numerical ranking system to draw in fans--a system that figure skating invented and then threw away! I'm not a huge Brennan fan, but her article, linked at the first post, makes some very good observations.

DWTS did not copy skatings numerical ranking system. It's scoring system is based on ballroom dance. You know... the kind of competition it is. And it's not even an ordinal system as they sometimes add the scores from different dances together.

I don't mean a one or two point deviation between competitions, I mean substantial deviations of 10 points or more during time periods where skaters are stuck in a particular PCS range, no matter how they skate. Carolina never got a 70 PCS during the Sasha, Shizuka, and Irina era, she was never allowed to place above them PCS wise.

She didn't deserve them.

During the Yuna era, Carolina was also not allowed to place over Yuna PCS wise. Carolina only started getting high PCS after Yuna left the game. I don't believe that Carolina's PCS has suddenly improved 10 points from 2 years ago to now.

But Yuna is back and Carolina's PCS haven't suddenly gone down. And her skates has absolutely improved over the past two years in the PCS areas particularly as she was injured during a lot of that time.

The sport is "dying" for a number of reasons,

The sport isn't dying at all. Sure it wasn't on US network tv showing Worlds live this year but it was on tv on US and will be on network tv next week and the weirdnesses of tv contracts this year were an aberration caused by Universal Sports trying to do something risky to grow their network and failing.

But USFS's membership is growing and the sport is growing in popularity all over the world. Plus it's alive and well all over the internet.

[Marco]

For me it would be ideal if the judges were not anonymous, the columns on the protocols not scrambled. Heck, they could even put flags above each column of numbers to help remember who's who without flipping back to the cover page that lists the judges' names (in order!).


But there's too much information in the protocols to announce in the arena during the event (Kiss&Cry time).

What is most useful to see and hear during that quick announcement when we learn the current standings and anticipate the start of the next skater's program?

And they need to publish follow-ups with judges who gave scores that are out of line with the rest of the panel.

[iloveemoticons]

She didn't deserve them.

That's your opinion, but I don't agree.

[Skittl1321]

But USFS's membership is growing

Is it? Over what period of time?

Our skate school membership is up if you look at recent, down economy, years, but not even close to recovered from say 2004ish.

[jjane45]

If this kind of result is deemed inappropriate for the olympics (primetime), it is also inappropriate across the board.

[kwanfan1818]

Very different. In ordinal scoring the judges determined what ordinal placement they wanted, then came up with the 5.7s etc to make it come out that way.

That may have been the way it worked, but that's not the way it was supposed to work, at least for the technical score. The technical score in the SP was supposed to start with a base and then deduct for omissions and flaws. The technical score in the FS was supposed to reflect accumulated content and how it was performed.

Typically in the SP, a top skater who made one error would get 6.0 - mandatory deduction, when that skater at the height of his/her performance of the same program with the same content would never be awarded a 6.0. A lower ranked skater with the same content and quality not so far off or having qualities better than the top all-around skater in a number of elements -- Sebestyen or Volchkova's 3Lz/2T combo vs. Kwan's or Cohen's -- would be tenths lower in the tech score.

The problem was the impossibility of remembering whether skater number 5 out of 30 was better than skater number 18. Which skater deserves 13th place overall and which 14th. The 5.3s are intended to aid this process, but it's not very trustworthy. CoP has an advantage here.

That covers the large, if not vast, majority of skaters.

She didn't deserve them.


But Yuna is back and Carolina's PCS haven't suddenly gone down. And her skates has absolutely improved over the past two years in the PCS areas particularly as she was injured during a lot of that time.
.

I agree: until a few years ago, Kostner did not control her speed consistently and she often skated stiffly. Now she had complete control over her speed, has much better choreography (as defined by the criteria, and moves elegantly with her full body, which gives her interpretation coherence and amplitude.

[gkelly]

That may have been the way it worked, but that's not the way it was supposed to work, at least for the technical score. The technical score in the SP was supposed to start with a base and then deduct for omissions and flaws. The technical score in the FS was supposed to reflect accumulated content and how it was performed.

It was kind of a mix of both, because there were no clear guidelines for how to set a numerical base mark and the range of marks used within a given range of skill level was not consistently scaled.

The only numbers that were absolute were the required deductions -- everything else was relative to the rest of the field and dependent on skate order.

Typically in the SP, a top skater who made one error would get 6.0 - mandatory deduction, when that skater at the height of his/her performance of the same program with the same content would never be awarded a 6.0.

Again this often depended on skate order and where the judges wanted to rank that skater with the error against those who had already skated, and on how much room the judges needed to leave for those yet to skate. They were absolutely tasked with ranking the skaters, first and foremost.

But I think in general the top skaters with top content and quality tended to start with 5.9 for required elements, not 6.0, unless the performance was groundbreaking technically or it was necessary to give 6.0 in order to put that skater ahead of another top skater who had already received 5.9 but in the opinion of this judge had been not quite as good.

A lower ranked skater with the same content and quality not so far off or having qualities better than the top all-around skater in a number of elements -- Sebestyen or Volchkova's 3Lz/2T combo vs. Kwan's or Cohen's -- would be tenths lower in the tech score.

Yes -- because there was only one number for required elements/technical merit for the whole program, including skating skills, so if a judge thought that one skater had superior technique across all the elements and in-betweens, they would give that skater a higher technical mark for the whole program than another skater who might have been better at some of the elements (or have done harder elements) but weaker on other elements and also basic skating. There was no way to reflect in the scores that, e.g., Volchkova's jumps were better than Cohen's if the judge thought Cohen's spins and spirals and steps added up to enough better than Volchkova's to deserve a higher overall technical score.

I agree: until a few years ago, Kostner did not control her speed consistently and she often skated stiffly. Now she had complete control over her speed, has much better choreography (as defined by the criteria, and moves elegantly with her full body, which gives her interpretation coherence and amplitude.

I agree with this also. It seemed to me in earlier years that her skating skills were sometimes worthy of low 8s but she often seemed gangly above the blade and not really into the "very good" territory in the other component areas. Although I did like the 2005 LP choreography, for a teenage skater as she was at the time.

[kwanfan1818]

But I think in general the top skaters with top content and quality tended to start with 5.9 for required elements, not 6.0, unless the performance was groundbreaking technically or it was necessary to give 6.0 in order to put that skater ahead of another top skater who had already received 5.9 but in the opinion of this judge had been not quite as good.

It often happened before the judges needed to start with a 6.0, though. In a SP with a fall or serious flaw -- which had almost 50% of the number of elements of the FS -- the top skaters were given the benefit of the doubt routinely with a higher start value -- and the PCS would be hiked to hold the skater up.

Yes -- because there was only one number for required elements/technical merit for the whole program, including skating skills, so if a judge thought that one skater had superior technique across all the elements and in-betweens, they would give that skater a higher technical mark for the whole program than another skater who might have been better at some of the elements (or have done harder elements) but weaker on other elements and also basic skating.

I haven't been able to find the list of presentation score bullet points for quite a while, but I seem to remember at least one that was related to skating skills, one that was used in the S/P vs. B/S analysis.

There was no way to reflect in the scores that, e.g., Volchkova's jumps were better than Cohen's if the judge thought Cohen's spins and spirals and steps added up to enough better than Volchkova's to deserve a higher overall technical score.

What wasn't remotely transparent, for example, was that Volchkova's 3Lz was huge and done on a proper edge, while Cohen's was small and clearly flutzed. In a CoP-like system, the difference, if the correct deductions were applied, might be the difference of 3-4 in GOE, and in terms of skating skills, Cohen's couldn't hold a candle to Volchkova's, who could cross the ice in three cross-overs. Volchkova's height and power in the 3F and 2A were superior, and in the SP, that's a lot to make up technically, with fewer elements.

In the Dortmund SP, Kostner and Sebestyen were wildly superior in technical elements than Kwan, with the exception of Sebestyen's lip, including the spins -- Kwan traveled a continent in one of the spins -- and their speed and power were second to none in that competition, and Kwan beat them in that segment. As far as transitions were concerned, Kwan's program was relatively empty until the big footwork sequence.