ISU World Standings Have Been Updated

World Standings come in handy now and then. With junior scores being incomparable to senior scores, World Standings are still the best path for some junior athletes to be able to make the GP. None of the junior dance teams this year could get close to the senior scores. You can choose to compete both juniors & seniors, which does happen; but it's very rare because the junior teams are at a disadvantage as they have to train both patterns while the senior field is focused on one. World Standings are a path.
 
Given the complaints about how points are calculated (which I do not know nor care to), did anyone here suggest a better way to calculate points/standings?
 
I think it needs to be a head-to-head matrix type of ranking system, with the bigger events carrying more weight. For example, a win for Skater A over Skater B at Worlds gives them 1.5 points advantage. A win at Euros or 4CC gives them 1. GP can be .75, other internationals .5. Or whatever. The points won’t have anything to do with a skater ranking. But then there would have to be a formula that determines what to do in the case of Skater A always beating Skater B, and Skater B always beating Skater C, but Skater C beat Skater A in their one or two matchups. I’m sure there’s a way to do it. I don’t think total scores can really be used because of the differences in panels, but I think the overall placement in comparison to each other is the most logical way, with some tweaking to incorporate some other measure in the case of Skater D and Skater E never being in the same competition.
 
MacMadame said:
I am thinking that tennis doesn't have this problem. What do they do?
Click to expand...

Same idea as skating, with the four Majors obviously carrying a ton of weight. Depending on how far you get into a tournament, you receive a set amount of points. However, once that same week comes up the next season, the points are dropped from the previous year. That can cause some huge shifts week after week. There are a lot of quirks with tennis rankings, as well, but usually it looks pretty reasonable.

The problem with skating is that it isn’t an advancement into the final rounds. It wouldn’t make sense to give every skater 1000 points for making the free skate as they would do in the Finals of a tennis tournament. So the ISU probably did very much did take a page from the tennis world in their building the rankings, but it just doesn’t work as well as I believe the idea I’ve presented above would do.
 
Tony Wheeler said:
but usually it looks pretty reasonable.
Click to expand...
It does to me but I don't follow tennis well enough to know if there is constant bitching about them like there is about the ISU World standings.

skatingguy said:
Too me the problem with the figure skating rankings is that the lesser events are overly weighted in the total.
Click to expand...
That's what it seems like to me.

Also, I don't think they should count two season's worth. Too much can happen between one season and the next.
 
Tennis has had problems though. When Serena Williams was playing a limited schedule and not #1 because of it, the players who were #1 instead took a lot of abuse even though it wasn't their fault. That was quite some time ago though so I'm not sure if it's a current issue.
 
Michalle said:
Tennis has had problems though. When Serena Williams was playing a limited schedule and not #1 because of it, the players who were #1 instead took a lot of abuse even though it wasn't their fault. That was quite some time ago though so I'm not sure if it's a current issue.
Click to expand...
The WTA has its own issue with weighting of results with relatively more points for early rounds than the ATP awards, which has produced some ranking head scratchers.
 
skatingguy said:
Too me the problem with the figure skating rankings is that the lesser events are overly weighted in the total.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. Many stronger athletes don't make it to the big events due to per country limits. As it is, athletes that cannot win head-to-heads against those athletes wind up ranked higher in WS due to major internationals being worth so many points. (And/or non-competitive host berths for at-home GPs). Strong athletes that are not top 3 at home should have the ability to stay competitive, IMO, and that depends on early events.
 
IMO the rankings just make a bigger problem worse - the problem of skaters being overworked. I know there are restrictions on who can enter most events, like only 2 GP events for the seniors, and age limits for the junior events. But people do what they are rewarded for. So if rankings depend on competition placements, of course skaters are going to compete as often as they can. And that, on top of all their other skating-relating commitments, can lead to injuries and burnout.
 
overedge said:
IMO the rankings just make a bigger problem worse - the problem of skaters being overworked. I know there are restrictions on who can enter most events, like only 2 GP events for the seniors, and age limits for the junior events. But people do what they are rewarded for. So if rankings depend on competition placements, of course skaters are going to compete as often as they can. And that, on top of all their other skating-relating commitments, can lead to injuries and burnout.
Click to expand...

Nope, I don't think this is an issue and actually quite silly to think they are overworked. In the mid to late 90s and into the early 2000s, there were so many pro-am events, particularly for top US skaters. Butyrskaya even skated in 10 or 11 international events the year she won Worlds. Almost ALL top skaters starting in 1996 were doing three Grand Prix events as seeded skaters (one non-scoring event) in 6 weeks. Europeans, the GPF, and Worlds were all much closer together than they are now. On top of this, remember that Euros, Worlds, and World Juniors had a qualifying round for a long while and the GPF even had three rounds from 2000-2003, two of them often occurring on the same day.

The World Standings only allow for Worlds and 4CC/Euros in the first column - maximum 2 events there per season and most skaters obviously want to be in both events. Grand Prix, the second column, is a maximum of 3 events per year if skaters make the Final. Obviously they want to be there as well. Up to 5 events now. Skaters can compete in up to 3 Challenger events, with 2 (potentially but not necessarily) counting in the world rankings. Possibly 8 events (top skaters in the GPF plus a full 3 Challengers which is highly unusual), plus Nationals. And it's pretty spread out between September and March. The skaters we see in a lot of Senior B's are ones maybe not the most likely to make the late-season Championships, and probably want to compete as much as they can anyways. I don't think anyone is overworked.
 
Tony Wheeler said:
Nope, I don't think this is an issue and actually quite silly to think they are overworked. In the mid to late 90s and into the early 2000s, there were so many pro-am events, particularly for top US skaters. Butyrskaya even skated in 10 or 11 international events the year she won Worlds. Almost ALL top skaters starting in 1996 were doing three Grand Prix events as seeded skaters (one non-scoring event) in 6 weeks. Europeans, the GPF, and Worlds were all much closer together than they are now. On top of this, remember that Euros, Worlds, and World Juniors had a qualifying round for a long while and the GPF even had three rounds from 2000-2003, two of them often occurring on the same day.

The World Standings only allow for Worlds and 4CC/Euros in the first column - maximum 2 events there per season and most skaters obviously want to be in both events. Grand Prix, the second column, is a maximum of 3 events per year if skaters make the Final. Obviously they want to be there as well. Up to 5 events now. Skaters can compete in up to 3 Challenger events, with 2 (potentially but not necessarily) counting in the world rankings. Possibly 8 events (top skaters in the GPF plus a full 3 Challengers which is highly unusual), plus Nationals. And it's pretty spread out between September and March. The skaters we see in a lot of Senior B's are ones maybe not the most likely to make the late-season Championships, and probably want to compete as much as they can anyways. I don't think anyone is overworked.
Click to expand...

Tuktamysheva must have skated over 10 comps the season she won Worlds and got burnt out for a few seasons after - before coming back to form these 2 seasons only to be sidelined by injuries and sickness again. Obviously there were considerations about her previous use of meldonium before it was banned, so I don't really know if her issue was over-work or not. She would have been the closest to being overworked to my understanding.

Another consideration is there is much more energy and strain involved in competing now compared to 10-20 years ago with the harder jumps, the complex spins and footwork.
 
Marco said:
Tuktamysheva must have skated over 10 comps the season she won Worlds and got burnt out for a few seasons after - before coming back to form these 2 seasons only to be sidelined by injuries and sickness again. Obviously there were considerations about her previous use of meldonium before it was banned, so I don't really know if her issue was over-work or not. She would have been the closest to being overworked to my understanding.

Another consideration is there is much more energy and strain involved in competing now compared to 10-20 years ago with the harder jumps, the complex spins and footwork.
Click to expand...

Tuktamysheva wanted to compete all of those times, though. I don't know that she was burnt out from competing that much, either, as opposed to just really having good programs that season that you can tell she really enjoyed. The following season, she was trying to shift the programs out (something we are still sometimes seeing from her) because they just never really clicked.

I still don't think any elite athlete is going to tell you they are being forced into competing too much. I didn't see anyone really complaining about the Team Event at the Olympics, as an example. Two events in September-mid October, two Grand Prix from the end of October-beginning of December, potentially the Final, Nationals somewhere in that spread unless it's Canada/US, and then Europeans/4CC and Worlds being the only events for most top skaters from January-end of March. They are in the rink 5x a week doing run-throughs and double run-throughs. And if they aren't top skaters, they are only doing Challenger/senior B's in the fall and then maybe an international or two after the new year.
 
I really don't think a baseline of 6 or 7 events per season is unreasonable or unmanageable for elite skaters:

1 Challenger/senior B
2 Grand Prix events (+GPF if qualified)
1 national championship
1 continental championship (Euros/4CCs)
1 world championship

Of course they can choose to compete more, like Tuktamysheva did in 2015. And of course skaters without Grand Prix invites or entry to Worlds will often skate more senior B events.

Computing world rankings for figure skating is inherently challenging because most skaters are only competing 6 times a season, compared to tennis, which has so much more data to draw upon.

Having said that, the ISU rankings are total garbage. I created a more equitable world ranking system one summer in the late 90s, in my early teens, on an old DOS spreadsheet program. :p

There will never be a perfect system. I do like golf's world rankings system, and could see a rankings system for skating modeled after that:

www.owgr.com

Official World Golf Ranking

ELIGIBLE TOURS. OFFICIAL WORLD GOLF RANKING FOUNDERS. STAY IN TOUCH. © 2022 - OFFICIAL WORLD GOLF RANKING.
www.owgr.com www.owgr.com
 
Tony Wheeler said:
I didn't see anyone really complaining about the Team Event at the Olympics, as an example.
Click to expand...
:huh: I have seen plenty of bitching about how it tires the skaters out and then their performances in their individual event suffer. Or they have to chose to go easy in the team event because they need to save themselves for their individual event.
 
MacMadame said:
:huh: I have seen plenty of bitching about how it tires the skaters out and then their performances in their individual event suffer. Or they have to chose to go easy in the team event because they need to save themselves for their individual event.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about the skaters themselves. The ones who actually matter in the situation of being overworked or not. Read the sentence directly before the one you quoted ;)
 
It depends on which skaters and which team event, Sochi, when it was still new, and Pyeongchang, iteration 2, plus what the competitive landscape was in the year they competed in the Team Event. At least going into 2014, Plushenko was all about the team event, and Chan seemed to blow it off as a distraction, when he was at least the co-favorite for the individual event, and Canada, at least on paper, was in contention for the Team gold medal. Abbott dismissed his performance in the TE as being the Team Event. Virtue and Moir's attitude was "Bring it on" both times. For P/C and skaters from any other country but Russia, USA, and Canada, TE was a warm-up, probably too close to their individual events if they were Pairs, and far away if they were Ladies and not competing for over a week later.
 
I bet if France had more of a chance if a medal and let’s say gold, P/C would have been there and taken it seriously. Same for other skaters.
 
I've been wondering why NBC wanted to do it this way. I guess they think the team challenge is like the appetizer sampler or tasting menu before the actual courses.
 
I would also really prefer it if the Team Event was after the individual event and I think it's better promo that way, like then you start having new medalists competing in it, which is more exciting - see Olympic medalist Alina Zagitova try to win gold again for Russia or whatever! Maybe they are scared the most "valuable" skaters will bail? But I do think some of them genuinely like it.
 
VGThuy said:
I've been wondering why NBC wanted to do it this way. I guess they think the team challenge is like the appetizer sampler or tasting menu before the actual courses.
Click to expand...
It gets eyeballs on Ladies two weeks early, because no one cares about Pairs, + nationalism, because it's likely the only medal earned by a US skater/team that most of the audience has ever heard of.
 
Although I think the Team Event fits better at the end, the way the points are calculated means there's a very good chance the medals are already decided halfway through. They don't want to end up with the big finale of skating at the Olympics sputtering out into a meaningless evening that almost no one bothers to watch.
 
I would prefer the team event to follow the individual/pairs’/ice dance events, but I think the desire is to whet the appetite of the viewing audience to get them pumped up for more skating.

Personally, I think the team event would be way more exciting, suspenseful and intense if it came after the other disciplines where medals have already been awarded.

This might help skaters focus and feel more relaxed which potentially helps alleviate concerns or the need to hold back for fear of injury or fatigue.

By having the team event last, it would be that much more competitive and meaningful. Not to say that it isn’t now, but I think it could become even more prestigious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 5 (members: 0, guests: 5)

Similar threads

A
ISU Communication No. 2735 - Officials for 2025/26 season
Replies
3
Views
400
Andrea82
A
victorskid
ISU-TV
Replies
4
Views
1K
Skate Talker
Skate Talker
Karen-W
  • Sticky
2026 ISU Championships - Minimum Combined Total Element Scores (CTES) and Multiple Entries
Replies
4
Views
831
Karen-W
Karen-W
Sylvia
  • Sticky
2024/25 ISU Technical Panel Handbooks, Scale of Values documents, PCS charts
Replies
0
Views
4K
Sylvia
Sylvia
Sylvia
2026 Worlds in Prague - info & planning thread
2 3
Replies
83
Views
13K
Duchess
D
Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information