Skates (was Re: corked bats)

[Jodi]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Cindy C." <cindysphynx at c...> 
wrote:

> 
> Hey, answer me this, Jodi.  Any opinions on the new scoring rules 
in 
> the wake of the pairs scandal?
> 

Oh, I could go on about this all day, but I'm still sitting on the 
fence ;o) I am not at all happy with the way things have been this 
past season with the secret judging, but I must admit this is largely 
a selfish thing as I just loved reloading IceCalc pages for hours on 
end during the competitions I couldn't watch. Really. Analysing every 
mark, seeing which kind of things each judge seemed to go for, seeing 
exactly where each skater slotted in and affected the rankings. And 
I've missed that *so* much this season. But this new Code of Points 
system... I'm really worried. I'm not opposed to it in principle, but 
I remain unconvinced that it can ever be made to work for something 
so complex as figure skating. And certainly I think this particular 
code they've come up with is going to be one huge disaster. There are 
all sorts of weird bits in the rules which just make no sense and you 
have to wonder how they come up with them. I'm actually pretty 
worried about how things will go next season, but still hoping that 
it might somehow work out better than I think. They're making it way 
too reliant on technology though, touch-screens and all. I've seen so 
many competitions where the computer's crashed and they've had to 
bring out the boxes of cards instead; with the new system if there's 
a computer problem it will surely be impossible for the competition 
to go ahead. Quite apart from the fact that it's all secret so even 
if it seems to be working fine no-one can check that it actually is.

> And didn't Michelle Kwan get robbed of a gold medal by Tara 
> Lipinski?  I was never happy with that result.
> 

Well, I *very* rarely say anyone was robbed anyway ;o) But when I 
rewatch that tape I *still* can't decide who I think should've won, I 
change my mind every time. I don't think Kwan was robbed but I don't 
think Lipinski was so clearly the winner either. And IIRC it was a 6-
3 split, it really could've gone either way without me feeling it was 
wrong.

And that's maybe where the new judging system *could* help. Which 
aspects of skating should carry greater weight? Should you reward 
energy and attack or polish and maturity? Is it better to have more 
difficult jumps or better executed ones? Personally I think the best 
thing would be to break down the marks into these kind of categories 
to give a bit more structure for the judges to work with, but without 
trying to assign points to every single element (as they're trying to 
now) because you're never going to be able to cover everything.

Oh, and on Jenny's point about the different skates for different 
disciplines - I must admit that didn't even cross my mind as I was 
writing my post, I was thinking only about skaters who just skate one 
discipline. But I do know recreational skaters with two pairs, one 
for free and one for dance, and they complain about the difficulty of 
switching to the dance ones because they shift their weight backwards 
and suddenly find there's no blade there ;o) I did mean, though, to 
mention the fact that skaters used to have a different pair for 
figures but somehow I didn't. Hey, I was tired ;o)

Jodi