Lutz Level USFS

[hopskipjump]

How do judges decide scores?  My child is having her first comp with USFS and I'm curious how scoring works.  She is only at the lutz level.  With ISI her coach would tell us what went well and what needed work.  Does USFS have comment sheets? 

[Clarice]

Exactly what level is your daughter doing at this competition?

No, there will not be comment sheets.  Some competition allow the skater and coach to meet with a judge for a critique, but that is not usually done at the lowest levels.  A low level event will be judged on the 6.0 ordinal system.  You will not see the actual scores, only the ordinals.  Each judge on the panel will use their scores to put the skaters in order, first to last.  The judges ordinals are combined to create the final placements.  It can get a little confusing, especially if there are ties.  I have absolutely no experience with ISI competition, so I don't know how that judging works or whether you're familiar with how this system works.  Do you want more detail or examples?  The ordinals will only show you the order the skaters finish, but won't tell you by how much.  If they're very mixed, that can be an indication that the competition was pretty close and the judges had to use personal preferences to put them in order - one might go for the fastest skater, while another goes for graceful arms, for instance.  If somebody wins with straight 1's, you know the judges agreed that that was the best skater, but you don't know if it was by a whisker or a mile.

In general, quality matters.  A skater doing easier jumps well may very well place higher than a skater doing more advanced jumps but underrotating them.  Good basic skating skills also matter. 

[Schmeck]

USFS doesn't have a 'lutz level' that I know of.  If your daughter is not doing an axel, then she would be best placed in a basic skills competition, or at the most a no-test group at a nonqualifying competition.  Anything higher than that requires USFS testing first. 

[hopskipjump]

Yes, it's no test, other parents are calling it lutz level because that is the highest jump (no axel's).  With ISI you just saw a place score - you don't have any knowledge of how close it was between skaters, but you just saw one number (even if there were 3 judges).

I think if they do the ordinals it would be more interesting.  Thank you!

[Skittl1321]

It is tough to prepare.for no test. You need to talk to coaches to see what is expected. I've seen kids with huge.flip-loop combos and massive lutzes, and I've seen kids who probably should have competed basic skills against them, but around here, kids who can do that have tested, so it was unexpected.  It is a very varied.event, because coaches have different theories on when to.test...around here they test pre pre as soon as they can, but it appears that (based on visitors to a local comp) not far.from here they wait until they have an axel.

[hopskipjump]

Yes, we are waiting for a solid Axel before freeskating tests.

[Clarice]

Okay, here's a made-up example so you can see how ordinals work.  Say we have 5 skaters in the event, and 5 judges on the panel.  The results might look like this:

                         Judge 1     Judge 2     Judge 3     Judge 4     Judge 5     Majority
Skater A                  1              1             1              2             2             3/1
Skater B                  2              3             2              1             4             3/2
Skater C                  3              2             3              3             1             5/3
Skater D                  4              4             5              4             3             4/4
Skater E                  5              5             4              5             5             5/5

You see that each judge has ranked the skaters 1-5.  Judge 1 was the only one who placed them in the order of actual finish.

In this example, Skater A has the majority of the 1st place ordinals, 3/5, and so takes 1st place.

Skaters B and C are actually numerically tied - if you add up all their placements, both come out with 12.  Skater B has the majority of 2nd place ordinals, though - two actual 2s and one 1, which now counts as a 2 because 1st place has already been claimed.  Skater C has a 2 and a 1, which is not a majority, and takes 3rd place.  The fact that Skater B got a 4th place ordinal from Judge 5 is irrelevant because they had the majority of 2s for 2nd place.  Skater C is counted as having 5 3s, because the 1 and 2 they got now count as 3s since 1st and 2nd place are already taken.

Skater D has four 4s for 4th place, and Skater E has five 5s for 5th.

It is possible for skaters to come out with the same majority.  In that case, you add up the scores that make up the majority and whoever's total is lower places higher.  If when you add the majority scores up you still have a tie, you add up all the scores for each skater, and again, the lower total wins.  If it's still tied, then the skaters tie for the place.  It is even possible for someone to take 1st place with no 1st place ordinals at all, if no other skater claimed the majority of 1sts.  

[hopskipjump]

That is SO helpful!  Thank you go putting all of that up.  I will be curious to see how she places. I'm hoping she has a lot of fun and learns a lot with this experience.

[jjane45]

Great stuff, special thanks to Clarice!!

[isakswings]

I think non-test is a great stepping stone before moving on to pre-pre. Around here, the elements in non-test are the same as the elements in pre-pre...minus an axel being allowed in pre-pre. Honestly, I wanted my daughter to compete non-test before moving on to pre-pre but since she had an axel, her coach wanted her to skate pre-pre. So, she did. I think she wanted her to compete with her axel so it would force her to practice with it also. Here, most kids in pre-pre have axels but a lot compete with out them too. It isn't required in pre-pre so my daughter has competed against girls with axels and girls without axels(or who chose not to jump axels). Good luck to your daughter!

That is SO helpful!  Thank you go putting all of that up.  I will be curious to see how she places. I'm hoping she has a lot of fun and learns a lot with this experience.

[hopskipjump]

Thank you!  She is really excited, but I am SUPER nervous.  I always get bad nerves before any competition though.   So I over think everything and stay quiet around dd.  That makes it harder because I know her coach would answer my questions but I don't want to ask them because I don't want to give dd things to worry about (dd is usually right there when her coach comes off the ice.

[isakswings]

I think it is normal to be nervous. I get that way too! However, I have noticed, the more at ease I am, the more at ease SHE is. She also tends to do MUCH better when we are all relaxed. She is a little high strung to begin with, so I need to learn how to channel my own anxiety to help relieve hers too.

Can you call her coach privately? I do this sometimes when I need to talk to dd's coach but do not want my girl to over hear us talking. I don't know how your coach feels about recieving calls after she is done working. I will usually let my dd's coach know I need to talk to her and go from there.

When is her competition?

[hopskipjump]

It's this month!  Her coach is one of those women who has 2 jobs and coaches and teaches LTS, so I hate to call her, I figure if she has time to answer her phone, she should have that time for herself.  I might send her an email, she is really nice, then she can respond when she wants to respond.  Yes, I try really hard to make sure dd doesn't know I'm panicking.  She isn't frazzled by comps, she gets excited and bouncy so we go early so she can run around the block and explore the rink before her warm-up.

[isakswings]

I bet an email would be fine. Then, like you said, she can reply when she has a free moment. My daughter's coach is a busy one too. She is a little less busy now that school is out(she teaches part time during the school year) which makes lessons easier...lol.

Good luck to both of you. My daughter is competing next week. EEK.

[hopskipjump]

Thank you!