Should US Nationals Institute A Minimum Score Cutoff for Seniors?

[haribobo]

Here is how I imagine the proposal to work if applied to 2018 Nationals (looking at scores from summer/fall comps, internationals, and sectionals)...

Assuming min score in Senior Pairs around 140 would cut off Smith/Reiss, Yao/Simon, Deardorff/Settlage in Senior Pairs. The 16th place team at Worlds got 177 points...Using 2018 Nationals - 140 would have only cut off Yao/Simon and Timlen/Highgate-Brutman. Perhaps 140 is too generous though if the goal is to trim the field to 3 warmup groups.

Assuming min score in senior dance around 150 would cut off Biechler/Dodge, Reynolds/Reynolds, Klopstock/Schedl, and Bain/Altukhov, maybe Aldridge/Eaton and Manta/Johnson too...150 points would get you 19th place at Worlds. Using 2018 Nats scores, the same teams, minus A/E and M/J, would be cut.

Assuming min score for senior men would be around 200 points, which would have eliminated Jalovick, Kulenkamp, Savary, Payannet, Dyer, and Shum. 200 points would earn you 23rd place at 2018 worlds. If we used 2018 Nationals score of 200 as the cutoff instead, we would lose the same skaters plus Jordan Moeller.

Assuming min score for senior ladies would be about 160, eliminated skaters would be Wessenberg, McBeath, Chan, and Chiera. 160 points would get you 17th place at 2018 Worlds. Using 2018 Nationals score of 160, the same 4 skaters, plus Vivian Le, Emmy Ma, Brynne McIsaac, Kaitlyn Nguyen, Hannah Miller, Caroline Zhang, and Tessa Hong would also miss the cut. It was not a well skated event for the bottom half.

 

[clairecloutier]

The USFSA is proposing minimum technical scores for U.S. Nationals, not minimum total scores.

TES minimums for Nationals should not be higher than TES minimums for 4CCs/Worlds.

Current TES minimums for ISU events: See page 6 of this document.

 

[haribobo]

Ahh, i like total, just easier

 

[Coco]

It's kind of funny how the ISU just straight-up admits that total scores can't be compared from competition to competition, that technical scores are the only objective measurement.

But then they go ahead and keep World Records based on total scores and determined tiebreakers based on total scores. It's just funny...

 

[insideedgeua]

Not everyone who skates gets to compete internationally. It’s a shame that top skaters in a region could end up excluded from Nationals. For some skaters, Nationals IS their goal.

 

[jiejie]

I vote yes there should be minimum TES, and I also don't think this is that big of a change, once you drill into the details. Benchmarking against the stricter ISU Worlds TES minimums, and taking into account both US qualifying competitions (Regionals, Sections) and international junior and senior competitions, you get the following, as near as I can tell:

Men: 4 out of 24 men (Payannet, Dyer, Kulenkamp, Jalovick) did not achieve the minimum 34.00 for the SP during the season prior to Nationals. The same four also did not achieve the minimum 64.00 for the FS. I think maybe Savary also did not achieve the FS minimum.

Women: 2 out of 22 women didn't have one of the minimums (SP 27.00, FS 47.00) during the season prior to Nationals. Wessenberg didn't have the SP and Le didn't have the FS.

Pairs: Out of 15 pairs, all except 1 had the Worlds minimums (SP 25.00, FS 43.00) prior to Nationals. Yao/Simon had the SP from their JGP appearance, but just barely missed the FS senior minimum and were essentially a junior pair skating up.

Dance: 3 of the 13 teams (Bain/Altukov, Klopstock/Scheidl, Reynolds/Reynolds) didn't have the Worlds minimums (SD 29.00, FD 39.00) based on a brief analysis of what I was able to find.

Bottom line: Had this year's minimums for Worlds been applied by USFSA as a prerequisite for Nationals participation, the field of competitors would not have changed significantly. Yes, the few that would have theoretically missed out would have been unhappy, but on the other hand, it might have spurred them on during the season to push harder to make the minimums, especially those that were very close to achieving it.

 

[VGThuy]

I don't. I think Nationals is the pinnacle for a lot of these skaters and I think it's great that we give opportunities to as many as possible given that we have a fair qualification procedure. To me, needlessly making it more difficult to qualify may hurt participation in this sport.

 

[haribobo]

In re:jiejie (thanks for doing the hard work)

(Men: 4 out of 24 men (Payannet, Dyer, Kulenkamp, Jalovick) did not achieve the minimum 34.00 for the SP, 64.00 for the FS.)

- At nationals itself, in addition to the above, Savary, Hiwatashi, Moeller, and Shum also missed the SP minimums, and Torgashev, Moeller, Savary, and Shum missed the FS minimums.

(Women: 2 out of 22 women didn't have one of the minimums (SP 27.00, FS 47.00) - Wessenberg SP, Le FS)

-At nationals itself, McBeath, Le, Nguyen,Ma, Chan, McIsaac, and Lin also missed SP mins....and Hannah Miller, Wessenberg, McBeath, and Chan also missed the FS mins.

(Pairs: Out of 15 pairs, all except 1 had the Worlds minimums (SP 25.00, FS 43.00) prior to Nationals. Yao/Simon

-At Nationals, Fields/Stevens and Timlen/Highgate-Brutman also didn't make SP mins. Everyone made FS mins.)

(Dance: 3 of the 13 teams (Bain/Altukov, Klopstock/Scheidl, Reynolds/Reynolds) didn't have the Worlds minimums (SD 29.00, FD 39.00))

At Nats, the same teams missed the mins except that the Reynolds got them for SP.

 

[insideedgeua]

I don’t know if she had the scores or not, but I love seeing a skater ‘suddenly’ appear at Nationals in Senior. Off the top of my head Olivia Shilling last year. She may never make another Nationals, but I’m glad she had that chance and her short program was delightful.

That may well be one of the highlights of her career.

If you make the world’s score the minimum, what is gained? A few minutes of ice time? It doesn’t affect TV broadcasts that only show the top two groups only.

On the other hand, what do you lose? Perhaps a tier of skaters who really strive towards that goal of just making it to Nationals.

For the sake of a few minutes, I’d rather see these skaters get their chance to skate.

 

[MAXSwagg]

It's kind of funny how the ISU just straight-up admits that total scores can't be compared from competition to competition, that technical scores are the only objective measurement.

But then they go ahead and keep World Records based on total scores and determined tiebreakers based on total scores. It's just funny...

They probably think because they don't call them "world records" (just "season's best", "Personal best", and "Progression of scores") that they are still fulfilling that. Lol

 

[mag]

I don't. I think Nationals is the pinnacle for a lot of these skaters and I think it's great that we give opportunities to as many as possible given that we have a fair qualification procedure. To me, needlessly making it more difficult to qualify may hurt participation in this sport.

I agree with this however, it the level of skating is vastly different from Section to Section, it can help to ensure that the best skaters are getting to Nationals. There should be at least one skater from each Section so if none have the minimum the first place skater should still advance. The remaining spots could be used as wild cards for other Sections. I think it is crazy to consider using the Worlds minimums and I think scores from the past two seasons should count. For seniors perhaps the 4CC’s score could be used? I think you can get the short score with 3sal and a 3toe not even done perfectly in the short. That seems reasonable given triples are required jumps.

 

[Jarrett]

I don't see why we are limiting entries more than they already are. It is not like they are going to reduce the price of the event tickets in half.

 

[VGThuy]

I agree with this however, it the level of skating is vastly different from Section to Section, it can help to ensure that the best skaters are getting to Nationals. There should be at least one skater from each Section so if none have the minimum the first place skater should still advance. The remaining spots could be used as wild cards for other Sections. I think it is crazy to consider using the Worlds minimums and I think scores from the past two seasons should count. For seniors perhaps the 4CC’s score could be used? I think you can get the short score with 3sal and a 3toe not even done perfectly in the short. That seems reasonable given triples are required jumps.

I agree that something needs to be done regarding unequal sectionals and I like the idea of wildcard spots or whatever. But I don't get this call for reducing the amount of entries for Nationals. I seriously see no point in it.

 

[jiejie]

IMO Worlds minimums even though they are the most restrictive, are still not all that high, which is why I used them as a benchmark for the above analysis. USFS could use the lower 4CC/European minimums as well. Or they could set their own. But unless they are going to set something high enough to be meaningful, there's no point in having minimums at all except as a means of selecting higher scoring skaters from a stacked-talent Section over lower ranking scorers from a weak Section that happened to finish in the Top 4.

My point in my previous post is that the vast majority of the senior skaters/couples at Nationals, already had gained scores during the season (at either Regionals, Sectionals, or international competition), that met even the strictest TES minimums for Worlds. And nearly all if the 4CC minimums were the standard. And I suspect if you looked at previous years, this would also be the case.

 

[her grace]

I agree that something needs to be done regarding unequal sectionals and I like the idea of wildcard spots or whatever. But I don't get this call for reducing the amount of entries for Nationals. I seriously see no point in it.

I suspect the point is to cut costs. The fewer competitors, the less time they need for practice ice and warm-ups.

I am sympathetic to the concern that U.S. nationals is the goal for some of these lower-ranked skaters. However, the singles fields at nationals have been expanding in the last few years. It used to be that byes went to the top 5 and JGP Finalists. Now competitors with 2 challengers are getting byes. Those skaters would have had to qualify through Sectionals in years past. For example, in 2008, the senior ladies field was 20 athletes and the men had 18. Compare to 2018 where the fields were 22 ladies and 21 men. I do think it's a better use of the B-athletes' time to compete in Senior Bs rather than Sectionals, but this does dilute the field and makes the event more expensive.

I am all in favor of a technical minimum that would prevent skaters like Bain/Altukhov from making nationals. But I hope the minimums are low enough that the Livvy Shillings and Jimmy Mas still get to participate.

 

[Aceon6]

If they really want to lower costs and get the best skaters, they could seed singles after regionals using all scores from the last two years and then replace sectionals with a single qualifying comp. Those scoring higher than then 24th seed would earn a spot. For dance, no seed=no spot. For pairs, any team that's landed SBS triples in the last two years should go.

 

[Skittl1321]

USFSA seems to forget that their organization is a pyramid, and without the money that the lower skaters bring in, they can't support the higher ones.

If they take the nationals carrot away from skaters who will never be Team USA- there isn't much incentive to keep testing, keep paying membership dues, etc.

 

[her grace]

If they take the nationals carrot away from skaters who will never be Team USA- there isn't much incentive to keep testing, keep paying membership dues, etc.

I agree with this as well. It's also a reason that USFS should be careful about eliminating regional representation. When a skater from one of the less-represented regions makes nationals, that is inspirational to the other kids in that region.