I don't know anything in particular about judges' backgrounds, but I feel like part of the problem is that they're not only splitting their focus between the technical and artistic, they become judges because of their technical eye.
Good point.
I would be interested, actually -- and I know there's plenty imperfection in this idea -- to experiment with judges of performance/artistry who
don't necessarily come from a skating background but from dance or something... of course, then we'd have to separate the more technical components, like skating skills...
(In my perfect world, you don't need a whole panel averaging scores to get a reasonable result
)
I think there are 3 basic ways this could be done:
Made-for-TV approach: The ISU hires/accepts volunteers of just enough celebrity judges famous around the world in their own artistic fields, who are also skating fans, to judge Performance, Composition, and Interpretation at Olympics and Worlds only. It would probably be a good idea to get them all together in advance to share knowledge from and standards from their respective areas of expertise, to get them more or less on the same page. But the main intent would be to bring real arts-world sensibilities to judging the artistic components of skating, and incidentally to attract more viewers by bringing in big names.
Top-down approach: The intention is to develop a smallish corps of committed experts in artistic evaluation of skating to take over the judging for ISU championships and the senior Grand Prix (and JPG final) only, at least at first. They could also be called on for events like Japan Open. Interested individuals would have to apply to be trained, by submitting a resume of their expertise in the arts and a few-hour online training course with written exam in which they analyze several selected skating programs and explain how they would score them on PE, CO, and IN, and why. The best applications, maybe the top 30 or so for ice dance and up to 100 for singles/pairs, would be accepted to an intense training. For efficiency's sake, maybe a week in Oberstdorf before and during Nebelhorn Trophy. Those who do well would then be officially appointed as artistic judges and would be assigned to shadow judge at least one of the major events the first year (scores might be official averaged in with the full judging panel's for those components), and from the second year on these trained artistic judges could officially take over judging those components to free up technical judges for Skating Skills, Transitions, and GOEs only. If there's enough interest and the added costs aren't too high, eventually the division of labor could spread to senior B and JGP events, and any nationally sponsored events a federation wants to use it for.
Bottom-up approach: On the theory that no one should judge a high-stakes ISU championship without having proven their judging ability at lesser events first for several years, the ISU could first offer artistic judging appointments at the general international level first, with eligibility for promotion a championship-level appointments as the next step up.
In-person training seminars and trial judging opportunities should be offered at numerous locations around the world, followed by the use of separate artistic judging panels at the general international level before the championship level.
If they start the program in an Olympic or post-Olympic year, maybe the best artistic judges at lower levels would be ready to judge championships by the time the next Olympics comes around.
These would be volunteer positions, just like technical judges, with expenses covered for active officials.
Working their way up through the bottom-up system could be a way for artistically minded skating fans (who can afford to take time off their day jobs and travel to training/trialing locations) to get into artistic judging, especially if national federations also offer training/trialing and domestic appointment opportunities.
I'm really not that difficult to work with. I just don't agree with you and you seem to think I'm a bitter ignorant person for it. Maybe it's easier for you to make sense of other people's opinions to dumb people down. Why bother arguing with someone like that, right? I don't think making a ceiling for the technical is the answer to this problem. I think adjusting the PCS would solve it much easier. I've just been trying to show you that you might not be as right as you think you are, and that it's okay for people to disagree with you without thinking they're stupid.
. But I do appreciate you trying to make the sport better and hope you succeed with it.
