The Dance Hall 5: Ice Dance Fans 2017-2018

[levineismine]

I think these Worlds may have 3 very happy medalists.

 

[Dobre]

I think these Worlds may have 3 very happy medalists.

Well, the 2014 Worlds didn't so let's not count our chickens.

Gooooooo, Anna & Luca!

Stepanova & Bukin, I can see doing very well in the short. It's the hanging on in the long that I'm not quite seeing. Yet.

 

[thvu]

Well, the 2014 Worlds didn't so let's not count our chickens.

Short of P&C not winning gold, which team would be unhappy with any world medal?

 

[Dobre]

Short of P&C not winning gold, which team would be unhappy with any world medal?

I just want to see the teams skate well. If the medals go to the teams that skate well, I think they will be thrilled.

 

[cocotaffy]

Yes I'd like for Chock and Bates and Weaver and Poje for instance to have incident free programs, no twizzles disaster, no fall.

 

[Marta24]

So, with several top teams skipping Worlds do people in here think Stepanova/Bukin could medal? I have to admit that I`m entering slowly uberdom with these two, although I promised to myself I would never again uber a Russian Ice Dance team after Ruslena split.

 

[Anyasnake]

So, with several top teams skipping Worlds do people in here think Stepanova/Bukin could medal? I have to admit that I`m entering slowly uberdom with these two, although I promised to myself I would never again uber a Russian Ice Dance team after Ruslena split.

Yes, because minus B/S, V/M and Shibs, if you take their scores at Euros, they are right up there in the mix. Even if Euros were in Russia, for me their scores were perfectly deserved - their SD is very strong this year.
You have P/C, H/D and C/L as front runners. H/D could get the silver BUT a strong C/L can score high especially if H/D make mistakes. I really hope they won't though I want them on the podium this time.
C/L came out of a very strong Olympics though. Plus skating at home, plus they often get their levels - sometimes S/B don't.
What I'm really waiting is judges reaction to them, considering the whole (non) Olympic story...
Ugh, I get you though, they were supposed to be the non-drama Russian team.

 

[Ena Grins]

I think these Worlds may have 3 very happy medalists.

And at least one very unhappy runner-up. I think Chock/Bates, Hubbell/Donohue/ and Cappellini/Lanotte all really want a medal, and Stepanova/Bukin have a real shot at the podium too with the way their scores have been rising this year.

 

[Sylvia]

For those who understand Spanish (podcast interview): Sara Hurtado: "The medal was very far from our possibilities, we had very little together"

The Winter Games are over. What happens with the athletes now that the end of the Olympic event has been reached? Sara Hurtado tells us that she has participated in skating, representing Spanish dance. He tells us that "December has been as intense as a season", but he admits that "the medal was very far from our possibilities", "we have not skated together", so to be in the twelveth position is a good position.

 

[aftershocks]

From an IN article about winners and losers at the Olympics (according to Lynn Rutherford and Phil Hersh):
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2018/03/02/267580436/winners-and-losers-from-olympic-winter-games

Per Rutherford:
"Setting aside the skill and performance quality of the top two ice dance couples, the gold medal may have been decided 45 minutes before any team stepped on to the ice for the free dance. That's when the draw was held to seat the nine-judge panel. Both Canada and France seated judges for the short dance; not so for the free dance. Canadian judge (and, coincidentally, president of Skate Canada) Leanna Caron was drawn, while French judge Christine Hurth was not. Caron gave Virtue and Moir nearly perfect scores, and assigned Papadakis and Cizeron the lowest marks of the panel. High and low scores are tossed aside, but the overall effect was to increase the trimmed mean for Virtue and Moir. With no French judge on the panel to similarly support them, Papadakis and Cizeron were at a distinct disadvantage."

There either should have been no Canadian and no French judge, or judges from both countries should have been included. Anything else is biased and unfair. That said, the costume malfunction in the SD for Pap/Ciz was costly.

 

[RoseRed]

From an IN article about winners and losers at the Olympics (according to Lynn Rutherford and Phil Hersh):
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2018/03/02/267580436/winners-and-losers-from-olympic-winter-games

Per Rutherford:
"Setting aside the skill and performance quality of the top two ice dance couples, the gold medal may have been decided 45 minutes before any team stepped on to the ice for the free dance. That's when the draw was held to seat the nine-judge panel. Both Canada and France seated judges for the short dance; not so for the free dance. Canadian judge (and, coincidentally, president of Skate Canada) Leanna Caron was drawn, while French judge Christine Hurth was not. Caron gave Virtue and Moir nearly perfect scores, and assigned Papadakis and Cizeron the lowest marks of the panel. High and low scores are tossed aside, but the overall effect was to increase the trimmed mean for Virtue and Moir. With no French judge on the panel to similarly support them, Papadakis and Cizeron were at a distinct disadvantage."

There either should have been no Canadian and no French judge, or judges from both countries should have been included. Anything else is biased and unfair. That said, the costume malfunction in the SD for Pap/Ciz was costly.

It's a random draw. Besides, the US judge always way undermarks V/M, going back years. So they weren't really at a disadvantage at all.

 

[muffinplus]

From an IN article about winners and losers at the Olympics (according to Lynn Rutherford and Phil Hersh):
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2018/03/02/267580436/winners-and-losers-from-olympic-winter-games

Per Rutherford:
"Setting aside the skill and performance quality of the top two ice dance couples, the gold medal may have been decided 45 minutes before any team stepped on to the ice for the free dance. That's when the draw was held to seat the nine-judge panel. Both Canada and France seated judges for the short dance; not so for the free dance. Canadian judge (and, coincidentally, president of Skate Canada) Leanna Caron was drawn, while French judge Christine Hurth was not. Caron gave Virtue and Moir nearly perfect scores, and assigned Papadakis and Cizeron the lowest marks of the panel. High and low scores are tossed aside, but the overall effect was to increase the trimmed mean for Virtue and Moir. With no French judge on the panel to similarly support them, Papadakis and Cizeron were at a distinct disadvantage."

There either should have been no Canadian and no French judge, or judges from both countries should have been included. Anything else is biased and unfair. That said, the costume malfunction in the SD for Pap/Ciz was costly.

Did she somehow forget that The US , Chinese and Turkish judge all gave much higher marks to P/C in the FD... Whereas only the Canadian judge gave V/M way higher marks?

With the French judge that panel would have been even more unbalanced

http://skatingscores.com/2018/oly/dance/long/tss/

 

[Viscaro]

Did she somehow forget that The US , Chinese and Turkish judge all gave much higher marks to P/C in the FD... Whereas only the Canadian judge gave V/M way higher marks?

I think you found a reform idea that everyone will agree with : only Canadians judges at international events ! As Scott Moir said, Canada has a history of very professional judging and when a Canadian wins (and only when, may I add), we know it's deserved.

I know, I shouldn't be ironic (edit : and I don't want to sound agressive to you muffinplus, sorry), but I couldn't help it. I think the draw really benefited V/M to be honest, and yes without the CAN judge according to maths we could have had different champions. But I also think that in that case, it wouldn't be a win really, any win with that small difference of points is prone to controversy. Luck was against P/C.

Is there a way to lessen the national bias ? I don't think so. So I think I have to deal with that when there's that small difference of points, draw might decide the winner.

 

[muffinplus]

I think you found a reform idea that everyone will agree with : only Canadians judges at international events ! As Scott Moir said, Canada has a history of very professional judging and when a Canadian wins (and only when, may I add), we know it's deserved.

I know, I shouldn't be ironic, but I couldn't help it. I think the draw really benefited V/M to be honest, and yes without the CAN judge according to maths we could have had different champions. But I also think that in that case, it wouldn't be a win really, any win with that small difference of points is prone to controversy. Luck was against P/C.

Is there a way to lessen the national bias ? I don't think so. So I think I have to deal with that when there's that small difference of points, draw might decide the winner.

Who here says anything about Canadian judging being unbiased. What Moir said is BS, but it's so ridiculous to say Canadian judge had the most impact when her marks didn't even count, when there were 3 other judges mentioned giving much higher marks to P/C ( one didn't count as well)..and luck was against P/C even with the way they received extremely high scores in SD, really?

 

[Viscaro]

When I said luck, it dind't mean panel exclusively. The dress is another case of bad luck. When teams are tied luck matters that's all I mean.

I don't think at all that V/M win is underserved. I'm just sad that about the fact that in competition you only have one team that is not loser. And that stupid things make you loose.

You say the panel is pro P/C. That might be, be it isn't a crime in itself. It could be simply because they are the better skaters in their eyes. Not because of the French fed. I do think however that when a national judge places a skater from his country higher and its direct opponent lower than average (as both the French and canadian judge did), it is biased.

I did not want to be agressive too you espicially, just saw that argument before, notably on people trashing Gabriella on twitter, and it annoys me much. I think P/C talent is why the judges gives them high marks, it can't understand why when a non French judge prefers P/C it means he was bought.

 

[Vera Costa]

It's not the Canadian judge that made the difference here, nor was it the wardrobe malfunction. Look at the scores P/C got in the SD from USA, Ukraine, France, Turkey, Russia, and Italy all have them ahead in the PCS. Overall, they were 4 points ahead of the Shibs and H/D and less than two points behind V/M. The judges were perfectly willing to turn a blind eye or mark them as leniently as possible.

What cost P/C was that the tech panel docked a level off their pattern and that the Japanese judge decided she wasn't going to be rewarding that lift or that performance. She also gave V/M a perfect score in the FD with P/C 1.7 points behind.

 

[Anyasnake]

The level 3 in the Pst in the SD was because of Gaby's twizzle, she was unstable : look at her arms, she's trying her best to get the dress not to fall. So obviously it was because of the dress. They may not have stopped (and avoid the -5 deduction) but there was something that was needed not for everything to fall down.

The talk about the judging and the Canadian judge is because the double standard has to pointed out obviously. It's the federation's president. More than the blatant conflict of interest, how would have people in Canada would have reacted if a French Fed official - worse, DG himself - was a judge ? You would have heard it for years and years.

 

[thvu]

The talk about the judging and the Canadian judge is because the double standard has to pointed out obviously. It's the federation's president. More than the blatant conflict of interest, how would have people in Canada would have reacted if a French Fed official - worse, DG himself - was a judge ? You would have heard it for years and years.

This, so much this. That the president of a federation is allowed to be in the judging pool is ridiculous no matter how one looks at it.

And every fed is guilty of shenanigans. No one gets the moral high ground in this regard.

 

[Vera Costa]

The talk about the judging and the Canadian judge is because the double standard has to pointed out obviously.

I'm not sure comparing DG to Caron is fair. One of them happens to be a known cheater.

Here's the thing, I agree that having judges, especially at the top level judge their own skaters isn't very fair. But if you're going to scrutinize the Canadian judge, then you do it to all the other judges who have teams representing their country. Pointing to Canada and saying she cost P/C the gold without pointing to the judge from France and her overscoring in the SD is disingenuous, IMO.

 

[sap5]

I think the optics of having the Fed President be a judge is a different topic from whether that particular judge actually affected the score in an irregular manner. Some “journalists” are pretending to not know that difference.

My take aways:
1) Fed Presidents shouldn’t be judges;
2) Its time for new figure skating journalists. Skating fans today know much more than they did in the past, and we deserve better reporting.

 

[Viscaro]

Pointing to Canada and saying she cost P/C the gold without pointing to the judge from France and her overscoring in the SD is disingenuous, IMO.

If you want to look at it this way, you can, but I believe it was already linked somewhere :

After the competition, BuzzFeed News calculated what would have happened if the Canadian and French judges’ scores were all replaced by those of an “average” judge. In that scenario, Papadakis and Cizeron would have won the gold medal by 0.39 points. (You can read more about our analysis here.)

[...]

BuzzFeed News also calculated what would have happened if the scores of the French and Canadian judges were simply removed. In that scenario, there would have been only seven judges on the short dance panel and only eight judges on the free dance panel. In this analysis, too, Papadakis and Cizeron would have passed Virtue and Moir for the gold medal, in this case by 0.46 points.

Source : https://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplo...udges-may-have?utm_term=.hwrqlBpXr#.feZw4b71J

I do agree with you that Carron is no Galhiguet however (until proven otherwise). But he wasn't on the panel.

 

[Anyasnake]

And where it changes is the SD because there were both the Canadian and French judge. Not in the FD though. And I think that's where the article is pointing out the difference.

@sap5 I don't really know if there are good Ice Dance journalists per say, I feel like figure skating journalists always leave Ice Dance on the side or have issues explaining it. (Maybe we need a Ben Agosto, but in writting).

 

[IoanaC]

To say the panel of judges was pro-V/M is . If we look at the PCS in the FD, 4 judges put P/C first, 3 put V/M first and 2 gave them equal marks. In the SD, 6 out of 9 judges put P/C first, after a visibly shaky performance. Each judge clearly had an agenda and followed it through. GOEs can also be debated: why, for instance, did V/M receive 0.30 pts less than P/C for the final choreo lift in the FD? Or why did the score for the (in)famous rotational lift, impecably executed - which had garnered straight 3s all season - suddenly drop in the individual event?
I agree that federation presidents should not be judges. But Caron's presence in the panel was certainly not the reason for the final result. V/M won because they skated two perfect programs, while P/C didn't. And it's disingenous of Icenetwork to not paint the whole picture and throw shade at the result.

 

[MsZem]

I'm not sure comparing DG to Caron is fair. One of them happens to be a known cheater.

Here's the thing, I agree that having judges, especially at the top level judge their own skaters isn't very fair. But if you're going to scrutinize the Canadian judge, then you do it to all the other judges who have teams representing their country. Pointing to Canada and saying she cost P/C the gold without pointing to the judge from France and her overscoring in the SD is disingenuous, IMO.

I seem to recall some discussion about Alla Shekhovtsova being on the judging panel for the ladies' event in Sochi. Especially in light of the result.

Canada has a history of judging shenanigans, but of the blatant bias rather than outright cheating variety. While cheating needs to be punished severely, national isn't really conducive to fairness in figure skating, either.

Anyway, kicking Gailhaguet out would only help P/C.

 

[muffinplus]

You say the panel is pro P/C. That might be, be it isn't a crime in itself. It could be simply because they are the better skaters in their eyes. Not because of the French fed...

I think P/C talent is why the judges gives them high marks, it can't understand why when a non French judge prefers P/C it means he was bought.

Right. The better skaters with a flawed SD that got the biggest PCS and similar GOEs to their rivals. I won't even argue about skating skills in general, it's specifically for the SD.

And better skaters by 5 points in FD? US judge has a history of marking V/M ridiculously...that buzzfeed analysis is pointless and misleading because it ignores US, Turkey and China. No, they aren't French but you can look at how they've voted over the season and make your judgements...

 

[Anyasnake]

To say the panel of judges was pro-V/M is . If we look at the PCS in the FD, 4 judges put P/C first, 3 put V/M first and 2 gave them equal marks. In the SD, 6 out of 9 judges put P/C first, after a visibly shaky performance. Each judge clearly had an agenda and followed it through. GOEs can also be debated: why, for instance, did V/M receive 0.30 pts less than P/C for the final choreo lift in the FD? Or why did the score for the (in)famous rotational lift, impecably executed - which had garnered straight 3s all season - suddenly drop in the individual event?
I agree that federation presidents should not be judges. But Caron's presence in the panel was certainly not the reason for the final result. V/M won because they skated two perfect programs, while P/C didn't. And it's disingenous of Icenetwork to not paint the whole picture and throw shade at the result.

For V/M lift it got +3s only in the individual. Not in the team event where it was another version that was a bit odd and reflected on scores.
And if you look at PCS, you obvisouly won't have P/C first in the SD in PE and IN, which was the case. But Skating skills, composition and transitions were higher and it ended up having a higher overall PCS.

Like I said it doesn't matter whether the final scores are changed or not. You don't want icenetwork to paint that as the outcome, I personnally think she should have stepped out, there are a lot of judges in Canada.

 

[Vera Costa]

If you want to look at it this way, you can, but I believe it was already linked somewhere :

I saw the article earlier but I'm afraid I don't know how to access the analysis itself. If you have, could you tell me if Buzzfeed was just doing the math on the scores to get to their conclusion or did they also analyze the scores each judge assigned?

Maria Abasova was also on both the SD and FD panel of judges. There's someone else who should have been nowhere near this competition.

 

[IoanaC]

For V/M lift it got +3s only in the individual. Not in the team event where it was another version that was a bit odd and reflected on scores.

I am talking about the individual event. The lift got GOE 2 from two of the judges.

 

[Viscaro]

They published the code they used :
https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/201.../master/notebooks/alternative-scenarios.ipynb

From what I understand (I do code in python, but I have not run their code again and investigated in detail), they simply took 2 options :
- replacing French and CAN judges with the average scores (so Fr and Can are included in the average), and then calculating the scores again (using the same rules of the ISU, so by throwing away lowest and best score) (they do that with their function "calc_trimmed_mean_with_average_judge(score_list)")
- no French judge and Canadian judge, no replaced scores, so simply trimmed mean again on 7 judges (SD) and 8 (FD)

 

[Anyasnake]

I am talking about the individual event. The lift got GOE 2 from two of the judges.

I guess they thought it could better executed since they put +3 for all other lifts.
And you see the difference between one single +2 and two +2s.