Thursday, November 06, 2008

Calling all Judges...

Okay, I've been looking over the judges sheets for the women's short program at Cup of China (don't worry...no spoilers here). I fully understand how the technical score works. But I remain a bit confused on the Component Score...here's the plain explanation from the ISU:

Program Components

In addition to the Technical Score, the Judges will award points on a scale from 0.25 to 10 with increments of 0.25 for the Program Components to grade the overall presentation of the performance.

These Program Components are for Single and Pair Skating (Short Program and Free Skating

- Skating Skills
- Transitions, Linking Footwork and Movement
- Performance/Execution
- Choreography/Composition
- Interpretation of the music

In Ice Dancing for Compulsory Dances

- Skating Skills
- Performance
- Interpretation
- Timing

for the Original Dance and Free Dance

- Skating Skills
- Transitions / Linking Footwork and Movements
- Performance/Execution
- Composition/ Choreography
- Interpretation/Timing.

The Judges panel’s score for each Program Component is reached by calculating the trimmed mean of the scoring Judges’ results for that Program Component. The panel’s scores for each Program Component are then multiplied by a set factor and the results are rounded to two decimal places.


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My question is how do they determine the Component Score? What warrants a 5.25 versus a 7.50? Are skating skills quantifiable? I'm really trying to understand this. How exactly are the components placed on a 10 point scale...judges discretion? Calling all judges and judging junkies!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

see ISU pages figure skating>ISU judging system>program components overview

(http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152077-169293-64120-0-file,00.pdf)

basically the guideline is that 5 = average etc.

Anonymous said...

Like the old artistic impression score, I'm guessing the PCS is also very subjective. But they can look at things like correct edges, line, body positions, flow, etc, to quantify skating skills and then I suppose it's all in how the judge sees the skater(s) in terms of aesthetics. So if average=5, that makes sense...scores of 7 or 8 in PCS are given to the stronger, more expressive skaters and those with poor edge quality and flow are down in the 4 range. I haven't seen any scores lower than that, at least in the GP, of course.

Anonymous said...

Exactly. It's a donkey no matter how you dress it up. It's the old artistic impression score. Essentially it's up to the judges to give whatever they want to the skaters. So in away, even though there are technical points that are very strict, component scores are much less so. So the judges can cheat and prop up the skaters they like the best. The new scoring system is really not that different from the old. The difference is at least the new technical part of the score is quantifiable. But I would say the new scoring system is probably more fair than the old one since the old one uses placement scoring and the new one uses "earning points system". It's much harder to prop someone up by using the new system. In the past, as a previous World Champion, Meissner would have been propped up for at least a season or two at the Worlds regardless how badly she skated simply because she won before. But with the new scoring system, it's impossible for the judges to do that because no matter how high the component scores they give her, her tech scores simply don't add up enough to prop her up to say top 4. I remember in the early 2000s when Michelle (whom I love dearly) had a disastrous skate one year at the worlds, she still did fairly decently. If I remember correctly, she still ended up with a bronze or a silver. Using the new scoring system, she would most likely be out of medal contention.

Anonymous said...

Although it may be more fair than the other system, I think it's still got the potential to prop up a skater whose performance is not up to snuff (I'm thinking of Patrick Chan at Skate Canada, who admitted that he'd "deserve it next time.") It can still be subjective...but then again, how can a sport like this not be somewhat subjective?