Comments on: Simplifying skaters’ routines: Best for the sport?

By: delonjo

delonjo — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:40:38 +0000

Hi Jenny! I’m extremely happy to have discovered your blog. I’ve missed watching you compete. I still remember quite fondly your Chicago program with the incredibly sparkly dress and sassy attitude. You were a class act on the ice and you are a classy writer also.

Anyway, I must disagree with your analysis. I believe the COP has helped the sport tremendously. I even find myself accurately predicting scores before the judges post them (and then I readily congratulate myself). I feel that if you cannot complete an element, it should be left out. If you decide to compete with said element and do it poorly, you should be heavily penalized. I enjoy picking out errors that more casual skating viewers can’t see. (Oops! That was a flutz…)

With Mirai’s FS, she was very bad, IMO. She knew how poorly she skated immediately when the music stopped. She wasn’t surprised at all by all the deductions and downgrades. She got graded for what she did and did not do.

My only quibble with the COP is that the ladies’ programs are alllll the same with litter variation from one skater to the next. But the individual qualities of each skater cannot be muted.

I love figure skating!

By: jwhite

jwhite — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:38:18 +0000

as for Nagasu, her jumping techniques has been criticized since she was a junior. The fact that she under-rotates her jumps is not a surprise. She had time to fix it, and it’s a shame she didn’t bother to. She is a delightful performer, but a sub-par athlete. Since figure skating is an athletic event, she should be judged by the latter.

By: jwhite

jwhite — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:26:25 +0000

I have to disagree with you on this one.

Figure skating already gets terrible reputation for being too “artistic.” I have friends that constantly argue with me that figure skating shouldn’t even be considered a sport. And promoting athletes to put pretty choreography ahead of correct technique won’t help.

I am a HUGE Asada fan, but despite what some people say, if she can’t do the correct lutz there is NO REASON that she should be putting it in her program. If she wants to, she should accept the deduction in points that come with it. Some skaters go through the extra trouble to learn the correct lutz, and it is not fair.

It’s like making a rule in basketball that says “As long as you do a really cool shooting pose, we’ll give you the point even if the ball misses the basket” simply unimaginable in any other sport.

It’s only been few years since the rule was made and obviously skaters are adjusting. Correct way for them to go is realize that this is here to stay, suck it up, spend the extra time and effort to learn the correct technique.

About the average audiences not understanding, well I would rather have some people scratch their heads than to dumb down the sport for average audiences who can’t be bothered to learn the rules of the sport they’re watching. It still boggles my mind when people ask “how come that person came first when he/she made a mistake?”

Not only does Kim have the correct technique but she is also able to perform quality choreography. That is the only direction skating should be headed.

By: riceboi2004

riceboi2004 — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:43:16 +0000

Jenny,
It’s good to see you back as a commentator! I think you have been doing a good job so far!
About the new scoring system, I can see how they want to break everything down to quantifiable elements. The judges now have a base for every single score. It definitely makes whole TES part more transparent, and skaters can look at the score and see areas they need to improve, ie. under-rotated jumps. My problem w/ the scoring system is on the second part of the score, PCS. This is equivalent to the old “presentation” score, and is still very much subjective. What kind of “music interpretation” is a good one? How can the judges know every single piece of music out there and how it should be interpreted? ‘n even very famous pieces can have new interpretations. Moreover, we have seen same skaters, same program, one day s/he performed well, all the PCS scores are up. Next competition, s/he made mistakes and all the PCS dropped, including choreography. But the choreography clearly hasn’t changed at all. S/he may get penalized on SS or PE, but not CH. What do you think?

By: Grand Prix V: Skate America « camelspin

Grand Prix V: Skate America « camelspin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:41:27 +0000

[...] Bompard? Ihre Konkurrentinnen sind Rachael Flatt, Susana Pöykiö (kleiner Exkurs: in den USA sind manche Leute momentan nicht gut auf die Finninen zu sprechen, nachdem beim Cup of China Kiira Korpi vor Flatt [...]

By: kat007

kat007 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:43:26 +0000

I agree completely that there was something very wrong in COC. Mirai has shown that she has the spins, the jumps, the choreography, and the charisma.
I think that all the technical restrictions on skating are taking the art out of it, especially when the change of edge and change of position rules prevent beautiful spins you can see for more than a few seconds…

By: kat007

kat007 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:38:34 +0000

She won(Czisny) because her programs and her skating both had that beautiful ethereal quality with amazing spins, lyrical choreography, and charistmatic presentation. That and and both Caroline and Mirai (unfortunately) made mistakes…

By: kat007

kat007 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:31:51 +0000

^_^

By: jewel54

jewel54 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:20:45 +0000

I feel the skaters should be able to fully rotate their jumps. They should be penalized if underrotated, but right now it seems too many points are taken off for that versus a skater falling on her butt or making real obvious errors that mar the flow of a program. Underrotated jumps do not mar the flow and aesthetics of a program the way falling down or other obvious mistakes do, so yes, Jenny, you are right that the penalties are too severe. Just as the Quad should be rewarded more points, underrotated jumps should not be as severely penalized. This new scoring system still needs a lot of tweaking, but it doesn’t appear the ISU is in any hurry to fix it.

By: kerissa

kerissa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:07:54 +0000

I agree that it seems as though there are errors that are being punished more than perhaps than what they should be punished.

Unfortunately, I am unable to watch any of the events from Cup of China due to slow internet and not getting Universal Sports so I am unable to comment on the placements from Cup of China, however; I do think that there is a problem with how things a penalized.

I think of the ladies event in 2009 U.S. Nationals as having problems. I still don’t understand how Alissa won. Yes, her spins and spirals are superb, but she landed, I think, two triples and still won.

Perhaps there should be a penalty if fewer than five triples are landed… though I guess that wouldn’t work if a skater landed under-rotated triples and only received credit for landing two triples.

I do like the new scoring system better than I liked the 6.0 system. I always thought that the 6.0 system was somewhat random. I like how in the new scoring system how each jump has a base point and then can receive negative or positive grades of execution. I think that giving each jump, spin, etc. a base point value makes sense.