It took me a lot longer than I would have liked, but I finished watching the programs for the Men’s competition in Beijing. Not all of them, I focused on the four skaters who, in the official ranking, occupy the first four places: Nathan Chen, Yuma Kagiyama, Shoma Uno and Yuzuru Hanyu. To better understand how difficult was what they did and how they did it, I looked at other programs as well. Not with the same attention, for the others I have not looked at any technical element, but I have tried to understand what constitutes a skating program beyond the 7 elements of the short program and the 12 elements of the tree skate.
I used replays and, rules in hand, I assigned bullet and deduction. The judges don’t have the time I had, making mistakes is human, and precisely because making mistakes is human, but the result of the competitions has a huge influence on the lives of skaters, whenever possible should be used better technologies, capable of simplifying the work of judges. And the way judges work should be simplified. How? I have tried to make some suggestions that would surely improve the situation, but probably someone is able to find even better solutions.
Do you think you have better solutions? Let’s talk about it, and if they are really better, then these solutions must be applied, otherwise let’s start with what I suggest. For fairness towards everyone, not the skaters I cheer for, because if a jump is underrotated, the technology, if done well, calls it for what it is, regardless of the identity of those who performed the jump.
And if at the moment it was impossible to make judge the programs in the way I did calmly and after some time, surely most of the mistakes could have been avoided, even with the current rules and technologies.
The previous posts have helped me to understand the value of the PCS, now I do the sums, talking about technical elements (BV and GOE) and PCS, first of the short program and then of the free skate. As the rules says, for each technical element I have assigned the bullets that I think are present. And I tell you which bullet are, so they are questionable. Do you think I awarded a bullet not deserved by the skater? Tell me, explaining why. Do you think I didn’t give the skater a bullet that he deserved? Tell me, explaining why. I do not pretend to know everything myself, if you are able to explain my mistake I am ready to correct the post. Change it by acknowledging your correction, by explaining that you pointed out my mistake to me. If you feel like reading my old posts, you may notice that in some cases I have already thanked someone for making me see a mistake I did, and I have edited the post accordingly.
Once the bullet calculation was done, I moved on to the deductions, as required by the rules. I remind you what the rules prescribes, then in the next posts I will refer to this post. Let’s start with the jumps.
A couple of clarifications. Some errors can have a larger or smaller deduction. I would simplify things for the judges (and also more fair for the skaters) and make the deduction the same for everyone at least for wrong or unclear edge, downgraded and underrotated. I have decided to assign the smallest deduction almost always. There are few exceptions in my judgments, and when I make an exception I explain why. I would also eliminate the q, but as long as it is part of the rules it must be taken into account.
I never apply the deduction Less than quarter missing (no sign). Until there are better technologies, and until the prerotation is properly punished, this deduction makes no sense. A prerotated jump is a jump performed with a wrong technique. The skater knows he is stealing a part of the rotation by doing it on the ice, but he does it anyway because he is not punished. Slightly insufficient rotation on landing is not a perfect jump, but it can be an occasional mistake, which the skater sometimes makes and sometimes doesn’t. I refuse to punish the occasional mistake and at the same time accept cheated jumps as correct. So no, if the landing is less than 90 °, for me that jump is fully rotated, regardless of who did it. On the other hand, I punish the prerotation with the deduction for poor take off. Judges seem to forget that poor take off exists. Not me. In the worst cases the jump should be degraded. At page 20 of the TP Handbook 2021-2022 there is this passage:
Some jumps deserve to be downgraded, unfortunately until better technologies are used, the rule can’t be applied. But I apply the deduction for poor take off, and if I apply it, automatically I don’t assign bullet 2. And I don’t assign bullet 2 even when the rotation is incomplete.
Prerotated jumps have another limitation. The blade makes friction on the ice and therefore the skater loses speed. This means that, according to the laws of physics, the jump becomes smaller. I don’t assign bullet 1 to any prerotated jumps.
Sometimes I apply the deduction for Long preparation. The ISU has the unpleasant habit of leaving everything indefinite, so that everyone can assign the marks they like and say “I see it this way”. No, the rules should be precise. I assign bullet 4 if there is a step within two seconds before the entry step of the jump. And I assign the deduction if the skater does nothing for 8 seconds. What does it mean to do nothing? For me, nothing is crossover, crossunder, glide in a stable position, swizzle, toe push, mohawk and two feet turn. Small hand gestures that don’t affect body balance aren’t enough to stop me from applying deduction for long preparation. If there is at least a three, I don’t assign the deduction, and the three also count for bullet 4. A three made to make a three, not the three that almost everyone does before a toe loop, that’s part of the jump and it is the moment when I stop calculating the time to see the length of the run-up. And since I want everything to be verifiable, in my comments I tell you from which second I start counting the run-up and when I stop. I always use the official Olympics video. If you notice that I missed a step, you just have to point it out to me and I will correct the text and remove the deduction. And, with a long run-up, the IN score is inevitably lower, because for a long time the skater does not interpret the music, but is only focused on speed.
If I assign the deduction for long take off, I don’t assign bullet 3, regardless of how the jump was executed. When a skater needs a lot of time to prepare for the jump, it is evident that he is doing something difficult, that he is making an effort, so the jump is not effortless. Instead, I gave everyone bullet 6, the one for element matches the music. Maybe my musical sensitivity is not trained enough, and in order not to risk doing someone wrong by not assigning the bullet, I assigned it to everyone. It should not be forgotten that when in doubt the rules say that you must always judge in favor of the skater, and that’s what I do.
Let’s move on to spins. The introduction is the same for all elements, here I just list bullets and deductions.
In several cases the television direction has shifted to a horrible shot from above. It is a problem of us spectators, who cannot see how the spin was performed, not of the judges. In these cases, unless it is evident that the judges have not noticed something, I have kept their score. And that judges may not notice something, even all judges, is something I’ve already written about.
Therefore, in some cases I give a mark to the spins, in others I think I cannot make a serious evaluation because I do not have suitable images and I keep the score of the judges.
Usually I don’t assign the deduction for Poor / awkward, unaesthetic position (s) because I don’t want to be influenced by my personal tastes. When I make an exception, I’ll show you why.
Step sequence:
The steps are the thing I struggle the most with evaluating. As I have already explained, for the short programs I used the analysis of Roseline Winter and Elisa that you find in this thread:
Roseline and Elisa evaluated the National Championship, not the Olympic programs, but once they have done the hardest part of the job, I am able to compare it with the Beijing programs and see the differences. In some cases I will point out to you the differences.
The analysis of Roseline and Elisa helps me to understand how the programs were built, which are the most difficult, but obviously it can’t tell me anything about the quality of execution of the Beijing programs.
A level 4 step sequence includes at least 11 difficult turns and steps, none of the types can be counted more than twice, 5 types must be executed in both directions. I distinguish some steps, not all, and when a skater includes more difficult steps than required – I think, for example, of Hanyu who in his SP step sequence includes three twizzle sequences that are not needed for the level just because they perfectly express the music (and the twizzle is one of the turn I recognize) – I struggle to understand what is needed for the level and what not. So, if a skater performs a bad turn, is the level still 4 or not? Remember that turns must be done with the blade on ice. If they are hopped, with the blade rising, they do not count.
I struggle with the steps, but one thing I clearly distinguish. Each step sequence must include Two combinations of 3 difficult turns. Here, I recognize the combinations. This means that if one of the turns of a combination is hopped, I call level 3. I change the call only if the hopped turn is in one of the two combinations.
Another important clarification to remember is this:
Use of body movement means the visible use for a combined total of at least 1/3 of the pattern of any movements of arms, head, torso, hips and legs that have an effect on the balance of the main body core.
So if the skater never tests his sense of balance, I take that into account.
Choreo sequence:
Under bullet and deduction I have also added two lines inserted by the ISU among the additional remarks. I do not propose the whole text, but there is another passage that is important to remember, that on serious errors.
It is important to keep the rule in mind, because in some cases it must be applied. In which cases? In the free skate of Hanyu. He fell twice, the roof in its components is 9.25 for SS, TR and CO, 8.75 for PE and IN, even if its transitions are still more complicated than those of all the others. The rule is absurd and should be abolished, but as long as it exists it must be applied. In the free skate of Uno. He fell once, the roof is 9.75 for SS, TR and CO, 9.50 for PE and IN. With the falls no doubt. And then?
Serious errors are falls, interruptions during the program and technical mistakes that impact the integrity/continuity/fluidity of the composition and/or its relation to the music.
What has an impact the integrity/continuity/fluidity of the composition and/or its relation to the music? Imagine you are a person who knows nothing about figure skating. You don’t know the rules, you don’t know what skaters have to do. Here, in such a situation, that Uno struggles to control the landing of the combination in the short program is evident. He puts his hand on the ice, struggles to regain his balance, at that moment the connection with the music is not there. That Kagiyama struggles to control the 4Lo of free skate, that he did a step out, is evident to everyone. That Hanyu does not do the 4S in the short program no. Hanyu did not lose his balance, nor his connection with the music. As far as a non-expert knows, it could be a choreographic jump, something that cannot be said for either Uno’s combination or Kagiyama’s jump. If I were to apply a roof in the components, I would apply it to Uno and Kagiyama. In their case it would be a severe but correct assessment. In the case of Hanyu, applying the roof in the components is a mistake.
I had already written about it here:
So I do not apply the roof in Uno’SP on in Kagiyama’s FS. The only cases I’ve applied it are Hanyu’s and Uno’s free skate.
I seem to have clarified the most important aspects of how I did my evaluations, if necessary I will add other explanations later. In the next few days I will look at each program element by element, and I will ask myself about BV, GOE and even PCS.
Edit: I had thought about posting the PCS chart too, then I forgot about it. I add it now.
