USFS' Athlete Selection Procedures for 2022 Olympics

[MacMadame]

It may not be the most strategic decision but I don’t think the committee was wrong by sticking with the rule book.

Except the "rule book" put Jason and Ilia in the same group. So USFS made a judgment call to pick Jason over Ilia. They didn't just use a formula and Jason came out on top.

Simply don't pretend it's part of some olympic selection criteria

The Olympic Selection criteria does include Nationals results.

In case anyone still thinks that NBC is going to drive whatever decision the USFS makes regarding which discipline to split...

They're replaying the FD next Sunday, prior to the Gala broadcast. I realize the Women were live in primetime on Friday night on NBC and NBC made a point of carrying both portions of the Men's comp on the flagship, but I'd say that choosing to show the FD (even tape-delayed) next week would indicate they do recognize the strength of the US dance program.

They also ended the Gala with Chock/Bates. Now if Nathan was there they might have ended with him but they didn't end with Mariah. (Or the pairs. Not that anyone was expecting that.)

His median SP score is 3rd highest, his worst SP score is the HIGHEST, and his best SP score is 5th highest.

How can his worst SP score be the highest if his best SP score is only 5th highest? (I did read this sentence about 5x before asking.)

Yes, I see how incredibly important this must be during the *********. Hopefully, some of them weren't too old, and didn't celebrate their successes for too long. How many red cups do you think they used, by the way?

These events are important for fundraising.

And hopefully, these contracts will be able to fund the mass funerals that might happen, one day. Extremely important to maintain them, at the cost of death.

I am to see which skater dies from participating in this event. Given that not one of them even went to the hospital that is.

And that USFS has both canceled events and held events without an audience (including Nationals) in the past when they felt that conditions warranted it.

Well, he seems pretty stunned/astounded at how his IG followers have blown up to 18k over the weekend thanks to NBC promoting it before both his SP and FS.

This is another reason that Nationals is important. It brings attention to skaters and that attention can lead to sponsorships that bring in money for training.

If Nathan does skip the whole thing there is no reason to "save" either Zhou or Brown. Might as well split the women.

Given that Zhou has beaten Nathan once this season and is a long-shot for a Bronze, he absolutely has a reason to be saved.

 

[Impromptu]

How can his worst SP score be the highest if his best SP score is only 5th highest? (I did read this sentence about 5x before asking.)

Sorry hit send before I typed.... I think it means that if every skater skates their worst, Jason's worst is better than everyone else (because he still gets points on all the things in skating that aren't jumps); if everyone skates their best, he ends up in 5th; and if everyone skates to the middle of their abilities, he ends up third.

 

[Coco]

Maybe his worst sp score compared to others' worst scores is the highest?

 

[tony]

If the US is serious about contending for gold, it’s going to likely rely both on Russia not having S/K for both programs, the Russian man imploding, AND Chen maybe doing both. Zhou has the capability of winning the long for sure. Otherwise, none of the Brown ubers can continue to try to tell me that he’s required or necessary for anything.

The US isn’t going to fall off the team event podium and wouldn’t have if Malinin or Pulkinen or Yaroslav Paniot was chosen.

 

[Karen-W]

How can his worst SP score be the highest if his best SP score is only 5th highest? (I did read this sentence about 5x before asking.)

If you rank the likely skaters participating in the TE Men's SP, Jason's lowest SP score of the season (89.xx) is higher than the lowest SP score of every single other competitor. But if you took his best SP score (94.00) and ranked it against the best SP score of every single other man, he would be 5th. And if you take each skater's median SP score and rank them, Jason would rank 3rd of the 10 likely competitors.

 

[Tavi]

That's why my preferred scenario is the one that uses the median scores rather than best or worst.

Makes sense!

Since people are gearing up for Olys and their scores are likely higher, it might be interesting to include Nats scores (factored in some way for inflation but god I’m not sure how) as a data point and then look at the trend. Maybe you’ve done that and I missed it? I confess I’m too lazy…

 

[Karen-W]

Makes sense!

Since people are gearing up for Olys and their scores are likely higher, it might be interesting to include Nats scores (factored in some way for inflation but god I’m not sure how) as a data point and then look at the trend. Maybe you’ve done that and I missed it? I confess I’m too lazy…

Nah, I haven't updated my TE handicapping in the TE thread yet because I was waiting for the last data point (Euros) this week, plus I have a couple of sewing projects I need to finish this week instead of obsessing about skating, lol.

 

[LoopCombo]

Hi experts on the U.S. Olympic team selection criteria! I am writing a short blog post to try and explain to casual skating fans why Malinin was left off the US team. Can anyone clarify for me which men after US nationals were in priority group 1 vs priority group 2? My understanding was that only Chen was in group 1, but someone told me just now that Zhou was also in group 1. Which is true? Also, was there any way that the eventual judgement call could have put Malinin on the team rather than Brown? Or would that have been totally against the criteria? Thank you so much if anyone can help! @Karen-W @MacMadame

 

[Karen-W]

Zhou was in Group 2. He had scores consistent with Worlds 2021 Top 5, plus one score that equaled Worlds Top 3.

ETA - here's the link to my last post as soon as the Men's FS at Nats was done - https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...cedures-for-2022-olympics.108590/post-6160234

 

[LoopCombo]

Zhou was in Group 2. He had scores consistent with Worlds 2021 Top 5, plus one score that equaled Worlds Top 3.

ETA - here's the link to my last post as soon as the Men's FS at Nats was done - https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...cedures-for-2022-olympics.108590/post-6160234

Thanks! Then we’re Malinin and Brown in group 3?

 

[Karen-W]

Thanks! Then we’re Malinin and Brown in group 3?

They both met the criteria for Group 3 - Malinin by virtue of his Top 3 at Nats placement and Brown by virtue of his international scores consistent with Worlds 2021 Top 10.

 

[LoopCombo]

They both met the criteria for Group 3 - Malinin by virtue of his Top 3 at Nats placement and Brown by virtue of his international scores consistent with Worlds 2021 Top 10.

Thank you. And did body of work have to be used in this situation to send Brown over Malinin, according to the criteria, or was that a judgement call that could have gone either way?

 

[Impromptu]

Thank you. And did body of work have to be used in this situation to send Brown over Malinin, according to the criteria, or was that a judgement call that could have gone either way?

It's unclear, but per this tweet from Jackie Wong, the priority was median scores:

https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/1480309298672640003

You can go to this site here, and select per criteria the world standings, and median scores for this past season (as well as select per column who has the highest score element to element and component to component): https://skatingscores.com/men/

 

[Karen-W]

Thank you. And did body of work have to be used in this situation to send Brown over Malinin, according to the criteria, or was that a judgement call that could have gone either way?

It was a judgment call that could have gone either way. There are some people (like Jackie Wong) who assert that the bullet points within the criteria are ranked in a hierarchy but if that were the case then, I believe, the bullets would have been numbered.

 

[Karen-W]

It's unclear, but per this tweet from Jackie Wong, the priority was median scores:

https://twitter.com/rockerskating/status/1480309298672640003

You can go to this site here, and select per criteria the world standings, and median scores for this past season (as well as select per column who has the highest score element to element and component to component): https://skatingscores.com/men/

Well, Jackie has his sources within the USFS, and my assessment of his assertion is that this is the view of that faction. Clearly, if this was true, we wouldn't have seen Nick McCarvel tweeting then deleting that Malinin was likely to be selected, nor would the announcement have been delayed a good 30 minutes from when it was supposed to begin. Plus, like I said, if the bullet points were listed in priority order then they should have been numbered and they weren't.

 

[LoopCombo]

Thanks so much @Karen-W and @Impromptu!

 

[MacMadame]

It could also be that the criteria were in a vague order of importance but not numbered because they weren't absolute. I've done that.

 

[Karen-W]

It could also be that the criteria were in a vague order of importance but not numbered because they weren't absolute. I've done that.

That's exactly it. I think the order of importance for the criteria was vague because they weren't meant to be absolute. It offended me 2 weeks ago and still offends me that Jackie Wong is saying the opposite - that they were listed by order of importance. I don't buy that - I did watch a fair bit of NBC's coverage and, across the disciplines, when their crew was giving their scoring insights and discussing the selection criteria, they were highlighting ALL of the bullet points - scoring trends, median scores, etc. If they didn't have it right, that those bullet points were all contributing factors, then someone at USFS would have set them straight.

 

[Impromptu]

Well, Jackie has his sources within the USFS, and my assessment of his assertion is that this is the view of that faction. Clearly, if this was true, we wouldn't have seen Nick McCarvel tweeting then deleting that Malinin was likely to be selected, nor would the announcement have been delayed a good 30 minutes from when it was supposed to begin.

The announcement was delayed, but the athletes knew by 4:15 pm

Meet the star athletes competing for the US figure skating team in Beijing

See the competitors who are making us proud at the Winter Olympics.

www.today.com

(In the video at about 1:39 into the video, they show a shot of Jason's phone, with the text he received confirming his nomination to the team - the time of the text is 4:15 pm.... I initially thought maybe it was a time zone thing, that Jason hadn't changed the time on his phone from Eastern to Central, but if that had been the case, he would have received the text at 3:15 central).

 

[Karen-W]

The announcement was delayed, but the athletes knew by 4:15 pm

Meet the star athletes competing for the US figure skating team in Beijing

See the competitors who are making us proud at the Winter Olympics.

www.today.com

(In the video at about 1:39 into the video, they show a shot of Jason's phone, with the text he received confirming his nomination to the team - the time of the text is 4:15 pm.... I initially thought maybe it was a time zone thing, that Jason hadn't changed the time on his phone from Eastern to Central, but if that had been the case, he would have received the text at 3:15 central).

Well, according to the Selection Meeting schedule doc...

https://www.usfigureskating.org/sites/default/files/media-files/2022 Team Selection Meetings.pdf

If he received the text at 4:15pm and had updated the time zone on his phone (which I assume would have been done automatically by his phone), then it was about 15 minutes later than anticipated per the schedule. Which actually lines up with the meeting taking longer and the delay in the announcement.

 

[Trillian]

It could also be that the criteria were in a vague order of importance but not numbered because they weren't absolute. I've done that.

This seems most likely to me. While the groups themselves seemed fairly inflexible, they made the criteria within the individual groups fuzzy enough that they could justify whatever decision they made - which I’m sure was by design. A lot of people had guesses as to what they would do (and some of those people probably knew more than others about internal conversations), but ultimately the selection committee could have gone either way and still adhered to the guidelines.

Well, according to the Selection Meeting schedule doc...

https://www.usfigureskating.org/sites/default/files/media-files/2022 Team Selection Meetings.pdf

If he received the text at 4:15pm and had updated the time zone on his phone (which I assume would have been done automatically by his phone), then it was about 15 minutes later than anticipated per the schedule. Which actually lines up with the meeting taking longer and the delay in the announcement.

Not sure I’d assume the delay in the announcement was directly related - it wasn’t scheduled till 5:45, so they probably could have shaved that 15 minutes somewhere. But who knows.

 

[Karen-W]

This seems most likely to me. While the groups themselves seemed fairly inflexible, they made the criteria within the individual groups fuzzy enough that they could justify whatever decision they made - which I’m sure was by design. A lot of people had guesses as to what they would do (and some of those people probably knew more than others about internal conversations), but ultimately the selection committee could have gone either way and still adhered to the guidelines.

Yes, I agree. Which, again, is why it bothers me that Jackie Wong tweeted that the bullet points were listed in an absolute order of importance.

Not sure I’d assume the delay in the announcement was directly related - it wasn’t scheduled till 5:45, so they probably could have shaved that 15 minutes somewhere. But who knows.

Or there could have been additional discussion by the selection committee regarding the 4CCs and Worlds assignments that added to the delay, which seems likely to me given the withdrawals of Hiwatashi and Sjoberg prior to Nats as well as Yaro's mid-competition withdrawal, which would have left the US men a little lean on the 2nd stringers with TES mins to send to 4CCs (Kapeikis only has Jr TES mins).

 

[Trillian]

Yes, I agree. Which, again, is why it bothers me that Jackie Wong tweeted that the bullet points were listed in an absolute order of importance.

I guess I didn’t interpret it that way. I remember seeing his tweet about the bullet points where he suggested the answer “should be clear” (or whatever wording he used) if the committee went in order. I was puzzling over whether it was supposed to be clear in favor of Jason or Ilia. But I also felt that Jackie was theorizing, not claiming any inside knowledge. Nick McCarvel was the only one I remember actually claiming to have a source, and he deleted that pretty fast.

 

[Karen-W]

I guess I didn’t interpret it that way. I remember seeing his tweet about the bullet points where he suggested the answer “should be clear” (or whatever wording he used) if the committee went in order. I was puzzling over whether it was supposed to be clear in favor of Jason or Ilia. But I also felt that Jackie was theorizing, not claiming any inside knowledge. Nick McCarvel was the only one I remember actually claiming to have a source, and he deleted that pretty fast.

Well, that tweet also came on the heels of a tweet the day before after the SPs where he said that his sources were telling him that Jason's spot was secure, even if Ilia did beat him. Seemed pretty damn clear that he thought Jason was on the team and that particular tweet was driving home the specific POV that the order was absolute. At least, in his mind.

 

[Trillian]

Well, that tweet also came on the heels of a tweet the day before after the SPs where he said that his sources were telling him that Jason's spot was secure, even if Ilia did beat him. Seemed pretty damn clear that he thought Jason was on the team and that particular tweet was driving home the specific POV that the order was absolute. At least, in his mind.

Ah, I didn’t see (or notice) the earlier tweet. He turned out to be correct, so maybe someone did tell him something. I’d be way more interested to hear the story behind Nick’s deleted tweet, because his “Let’s not speculate” follow up made me LOL.

 

[Karen-W]

Ah, I didn’t see (or notice) the earlier tweet. He turned out to be correct, so maybe someone did tell him something. I’d be way more interested to hear the story behind Nick’s deleted tweet, because his “Let’s not speculate” follow up made me LOL.

Yeah, I'd love to hear the story behind Nick's deleted tweet. They're both very well-connected within the USFS. That, combined with the delay and the obvious POV that Jackie was promoting, plus naming Ilia to the Worlds team (when he doesn't even have that TES min yet, lol), makes me very strongly believe that NOTHING was as clear as Jackie says and the decision wasn't straightforward - and that the criteria were written in a way to give the committee the leeway to do whatever they wanted in picking skaters within each priority group.

 

[Trillian]

and that the criteria were written in a way to give the committee the leeway to do whatever they wanted in picking skaters within each priority group.

I mean, this part is very clear regardless of anything else. They made sure they didn’t have to go in order of nationals finish, but they also made sure they could if they wanted. Who knows who said what to whom, but everyone who was paying attention knew Ilia was capable of medaling at nationals, and I’m sure there were people who thought in advance about what decision they’d make in different scenarios. I doubt the pre-nationals speculation was confined to the message boards.