http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp...0&vkey=ice_newsBy Lynn Rutherford, special to icenetwork.comBeginner tips on understanding judging system
TES, PCS, GOE and "<," "e" and "!"
The judging and technical panels have their hands full heading into the Olympics.(02/08/2010) - Over the next three weeks, the International Skating Union (ISU) hopes skating, and not the six-year-old International Judging System (IJS), takes center stage in Vancouver.
If the ladies event at the 2010 AT&T U.S. Figure Skating Championships is any guide, that may not happen. To many, including NBC commentator Scott Hamilton, it wasn't clear why U.S. silver medalist Mirai Nagasu's effervescent, seemingly clean free skate placed just third in that segment.
"I thought Nagasu made a very strong case [for the title]," Hamilton said to reporters after the event. "I blew it. I got caught up in the performance . . . looking at the downgrades, they cost Mirai at least 11 points, and Rachael [Flatt] won [the title] by 12."
To be fair to IJS, Hamilton has had trouble predicting winners before. At the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, which was judged under the old 6.0 system, he told viewers Alexei Yagudin was playing it conservative, had conceded the free skate to Evgeni Plushenko and was also in danger of losing to Timothy Goebel. Yagudin earned the first-place votes of every judge, including four perfect 6.0's, and the Olympic title.
Still, for casual fans, a "5.8" or "5.9" is easier to comprehend than an IJS score of, say, "202.34." To help, U.S. Figure Skating has created a brief guide to IJS, available at IJS Handbook. (
http://usfsa.org/content/IJS%20Handbook.pdf)
If you visit the world of figure skating every four years or so, keep a few things in mind:
• Every program (with the exception of compulsory dances) is made up a series of elements that are assigned a base value according to their difficulty.
• Lifts, spins and steps receive levels, ranging from 1 (simplest) to 4 (most difficult). Elements are identified by a five-person technical panel, with a technical specialist, a specially trained former national or international competitor, identifying and calling the element.
• An assistant technical specialist and a technical controller are also on hand, and if there is any disagreement on an element between the technical specialist and assistant technical specialist, the controller breaks the tie. Data and video replay operators sit on the panel but take no part in the calling.
• Determining how well the element is performed is where the judges come in. They grade execution on a seven-point scale range, from terrific (+3) to terrible (-3). That score, called GOE for short, is added (or subtracted) from the base value of the element.
• To attain the highest GOE, skaters must execute their elements according to a series of defined features, i.e., difficult positions, or entries and exits; multiple changes of position; changes of edge; and so on.
• The total score of all the elements is the technical element score (TES). If there is a fall on an element, the GOE is usually -3, but that is not a requirement. In addition, a point is deducted from the final score for all falls.
Fans familiar with the old "6.0" system remember the all-important second mark, where judges seemingly assigned skaters any score they pleased, according to how well they liked the performance. (It was also an infamous breeding ground for national bias). It's grown a bit more objective under IJS, but there is still a lot of wiggle room.
• The judges grade single and pair skaters for five program components (PCS), including skating skills; transitions; performance/execution; choreography; and interpretation, on a scale from one to ten. (The PCS names differ slightly for ice dancers.) The ISU has provided specific criteria for each component, but these are guidelines only. How well a skater interprets music, for example, is still pretty subjective.
• The TES and PCS are added together, deductions (if any) are taken, and that's your final score. Famously, back at the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir ended up with the same exact score, 244.77 points. Lysacek won because he edged Weir in the free skate.
At the Olympics, chances are a medal could turn on a jump downgrade, an incorrect take-off edge or, in ice dance, an extended lift. Here are a few commonly asked questions.
How many programs do skaters perform in the Olympics?In the pairs, ladies and men's events, skaters perform a short program, consisting of eight pre-determined elements, and a free skate, which also has some restrictions on number and type of elements. The short program may be no longer than 2 minutes, 40 seconds, and the free skate no longer than four minutes for ladies and four minutes, thirty seconds for men, plus or minus 10 seconds.
In ice dance, teams perform three programs: a set-pattern compulsory dance (in Vancouver, it will be the Tango Romantica); an original dance of the folk variety, to last no more than 2 minutes, 30 seconds, plus or minus 10 seconds; and a free dance, to last no more than four minutes, plus or minus ten seconds.
The scores for these programs are added together, and the skater or team with the most points wins.
What's a jump downgrade?A downgrade happens when the technical panel, viewing a jump landing in both real time and super slow motion, determines that the skater's landing foot came down on the ice more than one-quarter short of the final rotation. A typical downgrade, denoted by a "<" in the judges' details, will reduce the base value of a quad to a triple, or a triple-triple combination to a triple-double, or a triple jump to a double.
At the U.S. Championships, Nagasu lost ground when three of her jumps, a Lutz and two triple toes, were downgraded from triples to doubles. Nearly every top skater, especially in the ladies event, has lost points for this, including world champion Yu-Na Kim and former world champions Mao Asada and Miki Ando.
Note that if air and landing positions are pleasing, judges are still free to assign positive grades of execution to under rotated jumps.
What's an edge call?An edge call ("e" in the judges' details) is a penalty assessed when the technical panel determines a skater launches into a Lutz or flip jump off of the wrong edge of the skate blade. If the skater receives an "e," he or she must get a negative grade of execution (between -1 and -3) for the jump.
The correct take-off edge for a Lutz is the outside, and the correct take-off for a flip is the inside. Some skaters with issues with one of these jumps elect to leave the element out of their programs all together. There is no bonus for performing a wider variety of jumps.
Unlike with downgrades, the technical panel does not determine edge calls with the aid of slow-motion. If a take-off edge is unclear when viewed in real time, the skater received a warning, "!", on his or her judges' details. There is no required penalty for a "!".
Some ice dancers got a one-point deduction, and they didn't fall.
It's not uncommon for ice dance couples to get deductions for extended lifts, that is, lifts that are timed beyond six seconds for "short" lifts or 12 seconds for "long" lifts. Two Olympic medal favorites, Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and U.S. champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White, have had deductions this season, although they're likely to have ironed out any problems by the time they take the ice in Vancouver.
How many judges are there?Expect an onslaught of articles and blogs trumpeting that "only five judges" decides the winner. Actually, 11 scoring judges decide who gets gold. How IJS gets to them, though, is a bit convoluted.
In an effort to avoid deal making and, perhaps more to the point, the appearance of deal making, 13 judges are drawn for each event. Nine are seated for the short program. Of those nine, two are randomly selected out; which two is kept secret. The scores of all seven remaining judges count, but the high and low score on each individual element and program component is tossed aside.
To throw another wrench into any deal-making machinery, after the short program, four judges are randomly removed from the panel, to be replaced by the four judges remaining from the original 13. That brings to 11 the number of judges that participate in the overall result, plus the technical panel.
Figure skating: a guide to jumps:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/201.../2011004576.pdf
