The Dance Hall 6: We're All Off Our Rockers 2018-2019

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Dobre

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So here, in a nutshell, is the problem I see with the current scoring system.

Say you are Hubbell & Donohue. Currently #2 in the World & reigning GP Champions. Well, what's your goal? Your goal should be to become #1. To defeat Papadakis & Cizeron.

Say you do that under the current scoring system. And then your levels are published & turn out to be lower. No one will accept it. They will throw a fit & say you don't deserve it.

That's not what you want. You want a team to be able to go out and defeat the team above them and have the argument on paper so that people can acknowledge & celebrate a breakthrough win. The disconnect between the levels & the overall scores/placements really isn't benefiting anyone, IMO. Not even the teams that are placing well with it. Because in the long run, you always want to know that you have the power to improve and get the marks you deserve when you outskate the opposition.
 

GreenGan

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There have been team that won against others with lower level, including in the past system. It happened in ice dance, but also in pairs or even in single. GoE are part of the points and should matter too. Why couldn't GoE be a sufficient explanation ? Levels are not everything, and they are just part of the TES after all.

What about PCS ? And people didn't say there was some injustice in the ranking before the level started to fade in relevance for the skater ? Don't you guys think that if there was such an emphasis on the level in the past system it was because it was more relevant to get those level ? Now it's not the case, so skater focus a lot on getting those +5. Nothing illogical, and people would have complained anyway.
 

VGThuy

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There have been team that won against others with lower level, including in the past system. It happened in ice dance, but also in pairs or even in single. GoE are part of the points and should matter too. Why couldn't GoE be a sufficient explanation ? Levels are not everything, and they are just part of the TES after all.

What about PCS ? And people didn't say there was some injustice in the ranking before the level started to fade in relevance for the skater ? Don't you guys think that if there was such an emphasis on the level in the past system it was because it was more relevant to get those level ? Now it's not the case, so skater focus a lot on getting those +5. Nothing illogical, and people would have complained anyway.

I think people don't want ice dance to be completely subjective and want to have some semblance of objective criteria leading the judging, and this direction is giving a lot of people some trauma back in the old days where judges just did whatever they wanted with predetermined results and teams had no chance in hell in rising up the rankings unless they had some real strong influential people behind them. A lot of the headache but excitement with the callers having too much power in determining results was that at least it did lead to rankings and perceived hierarchies being disturbed at times because the judges' powers to save favorite teams were limited in some way by the calling.
 

deegee

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And when I said those programs would hurt H&D in the long run, everyone here laughed. Not anymore I guess. ;)
i've agreed with you. these are my least favorite programs of theirs since they came onto the scene as a partnership (although i hated the not-hip hop rd as much). although, i guess their placement hasn't suffered drastically, yet.
 

starrynight

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And when I said those programs would hurt H&D in the long run, everyone here laughed. Not anymore I guess. ;)
I've been against their programs since the beginning of the season. But no, the programs haven't hurt them yet. They've won every phrase of every competition they entered.

The judges are awarding these wins to Hubbell/Donohue because their TES isn't making any case to be in the lead. If the judges got out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning they could have easily justified 3rd or 4th place to H/D in the 4CC RD based on TES.

So this is all on the judges. They don't seem to be expressing any dissatisfaction with the programs at all. Or maybe it's being suggested that they would have been given an even bigger GOE/PCS lead if the programs were better? Or that maybe that it means people are seeing through the hype to look at the way programs are being judged?

There have been team that won against others with lower level, including in the past system. It happened in ice dance, but also in pairs or even in single. GoE are part of the points and should matter too. Why couldn't GoE be a sufficient explanation ? Levels are not everything, and they are just part of the TES after all.

The thing about singles and pairs is that mistakes directly affect the GOE.

In ice dance, it seems it's only a visible mistake on the twizzles that will affect GOE relative to the levels. Step sequences? Pattern Dance? Make as many mistakes as you want, hop all the turns and it has no impact on GOE (as long as you're not visibly tripping). We've seen so many level 1 and level base tangos get huge GOE. How?

All I can see happening is that we are going to move on now - there's only 1 major competition left - to next season where everyone will make up their own much much easier patterns. Much to the judges' relief, all the top teams will be able to secure level 4s on these easier patterns and the judges will be able to play around with GOE without there being visible markers on the score sheets of what is actually going on with TES.

What's frustrating for me is that this season, with such a challenging technical base, it was a real opportunity to throw the cat amongst the pigeons. But the judges be like... :lol:

I suppose we can just see what happens at Worlds and what mood the judges are in.

I will be interested to see if there is any proposal in the off season to alter the scoring though.
 
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sharsk8s

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EDIT: And judges it's about time to really separate the boys from the men. P/C should be scored closer to 90 with everyone else huddled around the 80 - 82 range, just saying. They're like night and day. Rant over.
I think the whole world would freak out if they did because with their FD they could be 15 points over any other team. Hopefully at worlds they can fix some of the levels and we will see them around 87. Does anyone think they could break 90? (I highly doubt it this season)
 

Colonel Green

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The thing about singles and pairs is that mistakes directly affect the GOE.

In ice dance, it seems it's only a visible mistake on the twizzles that will affect GOE relative to the levels. Step sequences? Pattern Dance? Make as many mistakes as you want, hop all the turns and it has no impact on GOE (as long as you're not visibly tripping). We've seen so many level 1 and level base tangos get huge GOE. How?
There's also a big difference between ice dance and the other disciplines in terms of the correspondence between the quality of an element and what the tech panel grades it as.

Like, a triple flip with a jolting landing and a hand down is still classified as a triple flip by the tech panel, assuming it's not UR, the same as one landed perfectly. There's really no equivalent to that in ice dance; you don't get a messy Level 4 step sequence.
 

Dobre

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There's really no equivalent to that in ice dance; you don't get a messy Level 4 step sequence.

Well, you can get a messy level 4 set of twizzles and a messy level 4 lift. (And you can get an argument about whether a trip was inside or outside of your footwork sequence). But you have a good point generally speaking.
 

cholla

Grand Duchess of Savoie - Marquessa of Chartreuse
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I think so too and it was sometimes worse than “myopic”.
Far worse. At Euros we reached the point where it was "terminal macular degeneration". I don't even understand how someone can so blatantly favor some skaters and not be sanctionned for it. To me the major problem with the current system is that whoever you are, judge, tech spec or caller, you can still recklessly cheat.
 

GreenGan

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GoE are also based on objective criteria. I'm not saying that it is always respected but sometimes we had level 3 or 2 and we didn't know why either.
I haven't followed this season really well, didn't have the time but I don't remember seeing a result in a major competition where I disagreed with the rankings or the score.
For example, lots of people rave about G/P or the Danadian. Yes, they have great choreo, but are they better than the skater that are above them in the rankings ? I don't think so.

My question is simple. Do we think the system is bad because we don't know the details of the judging (and because we don't catch the fault judges see) and we favor other skaters, or is the new system that bad ?
 

starrynight

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It would help in dance if the judges maybe wrote public reports about the way they judged the big competitions. But that probably wouldn’t be possible.
 

cholla

Grand Duchess of Savoie - Marquessa of Chartreuse
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GoE are also based on objective criteria. I'm not saying that it is always respected but sometimes we had level 3 or 2 and we didn't know why either.
To me, not knowing why we sometimes have levels 2 or 3 is not nearly as bad as seeing skaters getting GOEs stretching from -3 to +4 for an exact same element. It just proves that judges don't see the same thing, hence don't have the same idea of what said grade should be/mean. This is worth for every discipline, not only ice dance.

For example, lots of people rave about G/P or the Danadian. Yes, they have great choreo, but are they better than the skater that are above them in the rankings ? I don't think so.
Neither do I. I absolutely love G/P's FD and the Danucks' RD but that doesn't mean they should be ranked above skaters whose programs I like less (or dislike). People ahead ot them generally have better technical skills among other things.

My question is simple. Do we think the system is bad because we don't know the details of the judging (and because we don't catch the fault judges see) and we favor other skaters, or is the new system that bad ?
Or is it bad because not used efficiently, which leads to inconceivable inanities like us, seeing actual mistakes that judges don't see or pretend not to ? I don't think the system in itself is bad. I think it's, once more, willingly misused and even highjacked because it's still in the hands of a few dishonest people who still call the shots. No system will be cheating-proof has long as personal interests and politicking will be rampant in figure skating. You want any system to work ? First, cut heads, change the people, start with a clean slate. But nobody wants that. Politics are an integrant part of the sport since it exists, and everybody in the skating world accept that fact. Skaters and coaches' minds are conditionned to deal with it, even when it damages careers. Ask them, the answer is always the same : "unfair, but that's how things are". The worse is, I'm just stating the obvious, "breaking an already open door" as French saying goes.
 
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puglover

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Rivalry is great for the sport and, at least since I have been following ice dance, there has always been a fight at the top between two great teams. Nothing could be assumed ahead of time. Suspense is good. At the end of last season I wondered if there would be any genuine challenge to P/C and how things would look going into this new Olympic cycle. This worlds will be interesting. I wonder if a Russian or North American team can come close if they skate relatively clean. I hope that the calls and judging are defendable and not an artificial rise just to create a tighter race and set another team up for Beijing. I could see something like this happen, unfortunately. Maybe I am just a sceptic.
 

MarieM

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I've been against their programs since the beginning of the season. But no, the programs haven't hurt them yet. They've won every phrase of every competition they entered.
That's the thing. Ice dance is always about "next time". They are eating their time with those programs. They are showing they are beatable. They are showing they have many weaknesses. By worlds, they'll begin to pay if they don't hit those levels. Next season, they'd better come back with kick arse programs. Or they'll go the W&P way.
 

barbarafan

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Far worse. At Euros we reached the point where it was "terminal macular degeneration". I don't even understand how someone can so blatantly favor some skaters and not be sanctionned for it. To me the major problem with the current system is that whoever you are, judge, tech spec or caller, you can still recklessly cheat.

In some cases worse than others. Like our friend Sharon Rogers in the Bavarian Open...Her marks were a bit low in PCS for Marjorie and Zack in the RD but in line with what they were given...In the free dance on the STALI4 they were given for GOE 2 5's, a 4,3 x 3's and good ole Sharon gave them minus 4. Now if she was questioned later she could have said whoops it is a typo. It would be accepted and they won anyways but it is just not right. My faves., Fabri/Ayer who have only been together training for about 10 months have been getting good GOE's on the JGP but on the RD at Bavarian while other judges gave them higher 6's and 7's Sharon gave them 3 x 5.50,a 6.00 and a 6.25. I just don't get it.
 
C

casken

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The GOE and PCS handed out at 4CC were distressing.

Good job to the British judge for judging both the RD and FD somewhat realistically though. At least there was one.
 
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Bigbird

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That's the thing. Ice dance is always about "next time". They are eating their time with those programs. They are showing they are beatable. They are showing they have many weaknesses. By worlds, they'll begin to pay if they don't hit those levels. Next season, they'd better come back with kick arse programs. Or they'll go the W&P way.


That's because they've been unsettled all season. There have been too many changes almost every competition we saw a new program, that is no good. Maybe Maddie can deal with those things but Zach not so much. They need to come to a preparation schedule that is a good compromise for both.
 

shuilee

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But now that H&D have lost, their PCS marks are gonna go way down at Worlds to leave room for the Russians. We all know how judging works in Ice Dance. The Eastern Euro judges now have an excuse to put S&B and S&K ahead of them in PCS now.
 

Bigbird

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But now that H&D have lost, their PCS marks are gonna go way down at Worlds to leave room for the Russians. We all know how judging works in Ice Dance. The Eastern Euro judges now have an excuse to put S&B and S&K ahead of them in PCS now.


SB for sure. Well let's see who and what performances turn up at worlds. But from my vantage point, C/B have really reinvented themselves with the Gadbois group. It could be that bronze is the only open spot left on that podium.
 

VGThuy

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Well, their programs and errors did allow it to happen. We know Nikita (and Elena) are types of dancers who can get away with major and consistent eff ups but be welcomed back with huge PCS and GOEs if it looks like they're back to being a top team even if it only lasts for like two comps.
 
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