Hard to say, considering that, up through 1968, the “compulsory figures” (which never aired on TV as (a) they were considered boring and (b) viewers couldn’t tell the difference between a “good” figure and one with a major mistake easily) counted for something like half of the total score.
The main problem, if you ask me, was that there was nothing in the figure skating rules that said just how to determine scores in the free skate, either for the technical or the presentation scores, and the only instructions for the short program were ranges of deductions in the first mark for things like “missed element.” It was up to each judge to decide what to deduct for a particular fall.
Remember that another major change brought about by the new system is, the judges’ scores are now compared against each other. In the 6.0 system, you didn’t “throw out the high and the low and average the rest”; the numbers were just a means toward each judge ranking the skaters, and then the ranks (or “ordinals,” as they were called) were used to determine the placings.
I feel like we’re getting into a false dichotomy dynamic in this debate. I’m not in any way insisting figure skating can only be saved by reverting to the old system, root and stem. How about they keep all of the complicated new rules, but just significantly boost the penalty for falling, the so very noticeable problem that everyone from “legend” Dick Button to me and so many other casual fans on Twitter are feeling discomfited by? Sure, there are old-timers who complain about too many runs in baseball or gloves that are too big. But do a lot of casual fans who watch on TV or go to the park complain about it? I don’t think so. Whereas here you’ve got an alliance of traditionalists from within the sport, and a great mass of casual viewers, who think “WTF—why does this guy score higher after he fell than this other skater who pulled his routine off without a hitch?”
I went to look at the final scores to see how puny one point really is (since, after all, it’s not the total score but the differences in scores among competitors that matters). And once again, it’s even more dramatic than I realized. The gold medal score was 317.85; silver was 306.9; bronze was 305.24; and fourth place 297.77. You give any of the medallists a point deduction, and it makes no difference in the final standings. And that’s not a fluke of the top four: the overall range among all 24 skaters was 113 points, fairly well distributed—although the scores were a bit closer in the middle of the pack, and there were four skaters who finished less than a point ahead of the skater right behind them. That would be the skaters in 8th, 14th, 17th, and 19th places: each could have dropped one spot with a point deduction for a fall. Not exactly relevant to the medal race.
I think a fair compromise would be to increase the penalty for a fall to ten points. Going from one to ten sounds like a lot, granted; but that just underlines how absurdly low it is now. Hanyu could have lost ten points and still scored the gold—which is a far cry from the days when a fall would eliminate you from medal contention. And Vincent Zhou of the United States finished in a respectable sixth place—but if you deducted twenty points from each of the five skaters who finished ahead of him, he’d still be in sixth place! So I would argue, based on those facts, that an increase from a one point penalty to a nice round number of ten points is not draconian in the least.
Just got done watching that a bit earlier on NBCSN. Great game!! Koe is a bit vulnerable this bonspiel; I’m going to go out on a limb and pick Niklas Edin for the gold. :eek:
But you fail to note that the fall results in more than just the one-point deduction. The GoE for a jump with a fall is usually -2 or -3 (compared to a +2 or +3 if landed properly), so that’s an added 4 to 6 points deducted by comparison. Then, you have the impact that a program with falls has on the component part of the score; it will affect the “Skating Skills” score and quite probably the “Performance/Execution” score. On top of that, if the fall is the result of under-rotation (not unusual), there are further deductions involved, depending upon how under-rotated the jump was.
So the -1 is like a cherry on top of the whole thing for you. It’s there just to remind you exactly how badly that jump went.
Let me point out that Adam Rippon’s free-skate program in the team event lost out to the program of Mikhail Kolyada not because of some sort of issue with judging missed quads versus made triples. It lost out because a) Mr. Rippon starts his program with two double-axel jumps, sandwiched around a relatively easy triple-triple combination, which puts him behind on points from the start, and b) he under-rotated his triple-Lutz, costing him at least three points. In other words, he did NOT skate flawlessly, although the under-rotation of the triple jump is something not readily apparent to most viewers (you probably didn’t even notice it watching at full speed). Had he landed the triple-Lutz, he would have finished in second, ahead of Mr. Kolyada, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The athletes were so cool! Germany came out all crazy happy for Canada and they celebrated together and did the post race NBC interview together holding their little mascot dolls.
I’d sure like a better camera angle on that last shot; Shuster didn’t miss that guard by more than a whisker.
I saw the end of the Canada-Sweden game and Edin was amazing; 100% on draws and 98% on takeouts.
Sweden doing well on the women’s side as well, along with South Korea and Japan in the top three. Canada or Great Britain (or both!) could miss out on the medal round.
What am I missing about ice dancing? I’m trying to watch the free skate now and it’s like pairs figure skating but way more boring. No jumps or throws and little weenie “lifts.” Yes, there’s some intricate footwork, but pairs figure skating has that, too. I was awed and mesmerized by Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot, and this just seems really unimpressive and simple in comparison. What is it that I’m not getting?
This broadcast of the Olympics is peeving me.
They are jumping from sport to sport. I would like to watch a whole event every now and then. Crap. I know they are trying to cover a bunch, but this is just stupid. Stupid.
Its all about footwork and control. IMO. It is more sedate so mistakes are hard to see. I don’t like it as much. I think less accomplished skaters must do it. Maybe.
Not true. I hadn’t even heard of Kolyada (“Russian Elvis”, apparently?) until reading that article. And I’m not singlemindedly out to get Rippon a medal. My main thing is that ideally I’d like to make it go back to the days when it would be virtually impossible to medal if you fell; barring that, I’d at least like to make it much more difficult for the stumblers and fallers to get on the podium.
It might be surprising based on what I’ve been saying about figure skating, but I agree. I actually hoped this would be more like what I’m seeking, but it’s definitely pretty boring.
I have trouble understanding why they show downhill skiing training runs at length when there surely must be events they could show where the action actually contributes toward the ultimate standings.
It was invented as “ballroom dancing on ice” - hence the name “ice dancing.” That went out the window when Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean showed up, although I think the main reason they didn’t win in 1994 was because they “jazzed up” their routine too much. The whole point of the event is not to have it dominated by throws and lifts.
I watched more tonight, and either because it was a different kind of routine than last night, or because I mainly saw the ones who ended up medalling (or coming in fourth), I liked it a lot more.
I think figure skating is better than it was years ago. Remember in the 1960s when Belousova & Protopopov were unstoppable? If you don’t, check out their performance from 1968. Back then, it was poetry in motion. Today, it’s like “okay, when are they going to do something?”
I enjoy the ice dancing somewhat more than the pairs figure, but they’re both enjoyable. Ice dancing has cleaned up its act since a few Olympics ago when the medals were decided long before the games even started.
Essentially every athletic contest is ridiculously better than it used to be. It wasn’t until the 1984 Games that a man broke 10 seconds in the 100 metre race amd at that it was 9.99 (Carl Lewis.) Today if you can’t blow ten seconds away you aren’t even going to be in the semifinals.
The thing is that the visual difference between a field of 100 metre sprinters who run between 10.08 and 10.39, and a field running between 9.79 and 10.02, is nothing. Either just looks like a bunch of guys running real fast. Without the timer on screen you wouldn’t really know the difference. The difference between 10.02 and 9.79 is a huge, huge athletic gulf, but it LOOKS the same.
Figure skating, however, is a sport which is inherently about looking the most amazing.
Well, okay. I think figure skating has changed more than other sports. The athletic expectations are simply higher; in 1968, it was more about perfection and smoothness than it is now, more about, well , dancing. The sport has significantly tilted towards the athletic, both in terms of just a general shift and the recent changes in scoring, and now you’d better jump like a kangaroo or you won’t win. Belousova & Protopopov are as graceful and clean in their lines as any skaters who have ever competed since, and they move in unison to a degree that would be the envy of any duo who has ever skated, but they are not remotely comparable in terms of the tricks they could do. It is a different sport now - the sort-of-controversy over Adam Rippon not finishing higher than seventh demonstrates this. Rippon is an elegant skater but his routines are simply not difficult enough, and the scoring system just won’t allow for that to win.
Both the Canadian men and women have been gigantically disappointing.
Kevin Koe and team still control their own destiny; they make the medal round if they win out.
Rachel Homan and crew don’t control their own destiny and need some help - and need to improve because they have been really, really bad. Their chances look ugly; they can’t have four teams finish ahead of them, and
South Korea has already clinched a playoff spot. (Good for them.)
Sweden and Japan can clinch spots without having to beat another medal contender.
Even if Canada beats Britain today AND Russia the day after, it’s inevitable their 5-4 record will be tied with someone and they’ll have to win a tiebreaker game.
What a time to have the worst bonspiel of your life.
After fast-forwarding thru the crap a few more nights, slowing down to watch the competition, my opinion is that short-track speedskating is the only event that is really worth watching. Longtrack also at least has 2 people competing at the same time (tho the longer distances are a snooze.)
I’m not a fan of the figureskating/ice dancing, so a very little of that goes a long way for me.
Most of the others - luge, bobsled, skeleton, all the ski/snowboard - simply have 1 competitor at a time going down the same slope. Sure, the aerialists do a bunch of insanely incomprehensibly difficult stunts. But unless they wipe out, I really can’t appreciate the difference between someone going off their right foot as opposed to their left, or doing 3 flips w/ 2 twists, as opposed to 2 flips w/ 3 twists.
But the sliding events? Sure, I can appreciate that each competitor/team is trying hard, but there isn’t much to see for a spectator. “Oooh - he went a little high in that turn, and lost a 10th of a second!”
Not sure (and don’t care) how all the downhill, superG, combined, giant slalom, etc are different. But unless someone wipes out, it is just 1 competitor after another sliding down the same slope. And why does ski-jumping have style points?
That leaves events like curling (why not shuffleboard?), x-country skiing, biathalon…
I think there is a snowboard slalom, where several slide at the same time. Now THAT conveys more competition than looking at the clock to see if you are a hundredth of a second faster or slower…