Understanding what I'm seeing at the World's

[TheWriterInBlack]

I've been watching the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships on YouTube.  The Men's Free Skate is what came up first in my search, followed by Men's Short Program (which I'm part way through).

I really haven't followed competition so I'm somewhat confused about what I'm seeing here.  It looks like the score in the Men's Free Skate was added to something else for a final result.  I thought maybe it was added to the Short Program score but the numbers I'm seeing there don't add up.  What am I missing?

It looks like they only score deductions for actual falls.  I've seen skaters touch down with a hand, in one case even going to a knee, coming out of a jump but no deductions in the final score.  I remember when I was younger watching the Olympics (well before the Internet and really the only time I could see ice skating on TV) a fall during competition pretty much ended your chances.  That doesn't seem to be the case any more.  Or is maybe things like sloppy technique and falls also included as part of the technical element and presentation scores?

I notice that, so far at least, there is a dearth of quad jumps in the short program, including for skaters who did do them in the Free Skate session.

Finally, just looking at the number of entrants, there were fewer in Free Skate than in Short Program.  Was there some kind of qualifying score one had to make in short program to enter the Free Skate or did some just drop out for whatever reasons of their own?

[alejeather]

I really haven't followed competition so I'm somewhat confused about what I'm seeing here.  It looks like the score in the Men's Free Skate was added to something else for a final result.  I thought maybe it was added to the Short Program score but the numbers I'm seeing there don't add up.  What am I missing?

The score for each program (short and free) is composed of the TCS (technical components score) and the PCS (program components or "artistic" score). The numbers you see being updated in a box on the screen during the program are only the technical score. You don't see the PCS until they're sitting in the Kiss and Cry and then you'll see the TCS + PCS to get the Total Segment Score (TSS). This applies for both programs. After the free skate, you'll probably also see the TSS for the short get added to the TSS for the free and that total is the number used for placement at the overall competition.

It looks like they only score deductions for actual falls.  I've seen skaters touch down with a hand, in one case even going to a knee, coming out of a jump but no deductions in the final score.  I remember when I was younger watching the Olympics (well before the Internet and really the only time I could see ice skating on TV) a fall during competition pretty much ended your chances.  That doesn't seem to be the case any more.  Or is maybe things like sloppy technique and falls also included as part of the technical element and presentation scores?

A deduction as displayed on the screen is something very specific: complete falls, time violations, costume violations, and other rule violations. The base value for a jump as well as the value of the grade of execution (GOE) for the jump can both be dinged by mistakes on a jump that don't count technically as a fall and so are not included under "deductions" on the score sheet (or on your screen). Those mistakes will impact the technical score (TCS) directly. Rough and sloppy jumping may also be reflected in the component score (PCS) but is not as direct of a correlation. Only something that's judged a "fall" is given a deduction, but that doesn't mean that jump mistakes don't impact the score. A fall generally means your butt touched the ice, but there can be some weird edge cases I won't get into here.

I notice that, so far at least, there is a dearth of quad jumps in the short program, including for skaters who did do them in the Free Skate session.

The short program has required elements, which if not done, means you get NO credit (eg. 0 points) for them. In the free program, you'll get some credit for everything that is done. It changes the risk/reward calculation for the elements attempted in the short program. For example, a jump combination is required in the short. If you *don't* execute a combo, whatever you did in that jump slot will receive no credit. There are only three jump elements in the short program. Many male skaters will plan a triple-triple for their jump combo in the short so they don't end up making a mistake that means they don't execute a combo at all. That's just one example.

Finally, just looking at the number of entrants, there were fewer in Free Skate than in Short Program.  Was there some kind of qualifying score one had to make in short program to enter the Free Skate or did some just drop out for whatever reasons of their own?

At Worlds, you must qualify to the Free Skate through your performance in the short program. I don't believe there are many international competitions where this is the case, but that is how it works at Worlds. I think in singles, it's the top 24 in the short go through to the Free Skate, and it's 16 or so teams in Pairs and Dance but I don't remember the exact numbers.


I enjoy these types of questions, so I hope that helped!

[TheWriterInBlack]

Thank you.  I caught some of that as I continued watching.  Took me a while to notice that box in the upper left hand corner of the screen.  I can be slow sometimes. (Okay, actually, I as more focused on the skater, but still...) I could see that a fall meant a big hit in the GOE in addition to the deduction at the end of program.

One thing I did notice was that if someone doubled a jump that had been planned as a triple or quad, it got a zero score.  I don't recall whether this was just in the short program of if I saw it in the ladies (which I caught after the men's programs--and I'm going through 2018's now).

In the women's short program I noticed that after a number of skaters had run, the top skaters in the group ended up with a "Q" before their score which I interpreted as "qualified" to compete in the free skate program.  It seemed to be based on being in the top "X" skaters rather than a specific score (which is how <i>I</i> would do it...but nobody asked me ).

Question about that presentation score.  Is there any kind of "objective criteria" for it or is it strictly judges opinion?

On a barely tangentially related topic:  when did they start doing testing for entry into certain classes of competition in the US (pre-preliminary through senior)?  I recently rewatched an old favorite movie, the 1978 Ice Castles (which really kindled my interest in skating, although it took...many years...before I could do anything serious about it).  As things stand now in the US, it would be impossible for a skater like Lexie to come out of nowhere and enter a competition like she did.  Was that possible in 77-78 when the movie was made or was that just a case of artistic license?

Again, thank you for the answers.  While I did figure out some of it, you filled in some of the gaps and I do appreciate that.

[TheWriterInBlack]

Watching the 2018 World Figure Skating Championships on YouTube, Ladies Free Skate.  Just got finished watching Wakaba Higuchi of Japan's performance.  As she finished and the music stopped, her arms shot into the air.  She _knew_ she had nailed her performance.  When she got rinkside, she was in tears, outright blubbering.  Her coach wrapped her in a big hug, not something I usually see with the Japanese skaters.  During the slo-mo highlights they show while waiting for the scores to be processed, a shot of her coming off the ice showed tears literally dripping from her face.  And, when they cut to the booth where skater and coach wait for the scores, she was still in tears.

Scores came, "currently in first place", 11 points ahead of Bradie Tennell, one of the American skaters now in second place.

There are six more skaters to go, all of whom placed higher than Ms. Higuchi in the short program, but I think I've just seen the highlight of the competition.

(Since writing the above, saw the rest.  Ms. Higuchi ended up coming in second, just behind Canada's Kaetlyn Osmond.)

[alejeather]

Thank you.  I caught some of that as I continued watching.

This is a bit of a side rant, but it is a great frustration to me that some of this is NOT EXPLAINED by commentators. As a viewer, you do pick up some things, and could understand SO much more with just a little bit of information explained, but they insist instead on just saying you lose points when you fall over and over again... Okay, end rant.

One thing I did notice was that if someone doubled a jump that had been planned as a triple or quad, it got a zero score.  I don't recall whether this was just in the short program of if I saw it in the ladies (which I caught after the men's programs--and I'm going through 2018's now).

This would have just been in the short program. In the free skate program, a double in the place of a planned triple or quad would just receive the points it's worth in the scale of values.

Question about that presentation score.  Is there any kind of "objective criteria" for it or is it strictly judges opinion?

This is a great question and I'm glad you asked it. PCS is made up of five different categories, in which a judge assigns a score from 1-10, given in quarter point (0.25) increments, in each category. Those categories are: Skating Skills, Transitions, Performance, Choreography and Interpretation. I think it's easy to look at that list of categories and think, "Aren't those all the same thing?" or "Isn't *all* of it skating skills?" There certainly is some overlap, but each one is defined distinctly for the purpose of giving a score and a high level overview of the criteria each judge should use to evaluate in each category can be found here: https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/rules/sandp-handbooks-faq/17596-program-component-chart-id-sp-2019-20/file
There is certainly criticism that PCS just tends to go up based on a skater's reputation and not so much on the performance the skater puts out on any given day, but I'll leave you to form your own opinion on that critique.
One more comment on scoring PCS: Judges would rarely (maybe never?) use the full range of 1-10 when scoring PCS in one single event. A 5.5 in PCS would be a devastatingly low score for an elite skater, but an unachievable, unimaginably high mark for someone like me competing in Adult Silver. So there's sort of a customary range within 1-10 that is used in practice based on the level of competition.

On a barely tangentially related topic:  when did they start doing testing for entry into certain classes of competition in the US (pre-preliminary through senior)?  I recently rewatched an old favorite movie, the 1978 Ice Castles (which really kindled my interest in skating, although it took...many years...before I could do anything serious about it).  As things stand now in the US, it would be impossible for a skater like Lexie to come out of nowhere and enter a competition like she did.  Was that possible in 77-78 when the movie was made or was that just a case of artistic license?

I don't know the full history of testing at USFS, but testing figures has been a thing for a long time. I think in the 70s, you would have had to pass a figure test to compete at a certain level, if not a free skate test as well. I would expect a lot of artistic license was taken on the topic of testing in Ice Castles. After all, in 2005's Ice Princess, a skater skips two levels of testing structure and qualifies for a competition just by virtue of a performance in a group recital and testing prerequisites for competition were *certainly* established by then.

[TheWriterInBlack]

The videos I'm watching don't really have any commentators.  All we get is just introducing the skaters and "scores please..." So...watching and comparing what I saw with that box in the upper left corner for the score for the last completed element is how I've been able to piece together some of what's been going on.

I did see in the 2018 ladies free skate at least one person doubling a jump and getting a score for it so I figured that out.

Continuing with the men's short program (Still in 2018) I noticed a Japanese skater where the experience was much like that with Ms. Higuchi in Ladies Free Skate.  He came off the ice with tears in his eyes and, again, I think I saw what would be one of the highlights of that event, however much others to come might yet pass his score.  That's one of the things that gets to me watching these, the skaters reactions when they finish.  They know when they've done well, when they've exceeded their own internal expectations (regardless of what someone else might do), and you can often see that in their face and posture.  Even me with my...issues with reading people can see it.  And that, IMO, is really where the story is, in the skater's competition with themselves.

One of the plot points for the original Ice Castles was that Lexie was "too old" for the figures, which grumpy old coach replied with "the figures are only 30% now".  But I was wondering if it would really have been possible, if only theoretically, for someone to come completely out of nowhere as Lexie did.

[Query]

Judges, especially judges at high end competitions, take classes aimed at causing them to give scores as close as possible to each other. So it isn't as arbitrary as it looks. Unfortunately, most of us don't understand enough about judging to understand exactly how the judges arrive at their scores. I've seen coaches talk to judges to try to get a better understanding of that issue. Some elite coaches even adapt how they tell their students to skate after they find out which judges will be present, taking into account what those judges seem to like based on past history and discussions.

Figure skating isn't entirely unique in being somewhat arbitrary. Even most hockey, football or basketball fans, and amateur players, don't actually know all the fine points of all the rules. And there is a certain level of arbitrariness in the way referees call the plays - e.g., how they determine "excessive force", and how much contact is allowed. Similar issues are probably true of most sports.

Some of the skaters from outside the U.S. have come ALMOST out of nowhere, as far as U.S. sports commentators are concerned. E.g., some of the Russian ladies who have done well at international competitions, have been largely unknown to the U.S. commentators. But I assume they had to come up through the Russian competitive ladder to be allowed at those competitions. Also, at the highest levels of internal competition, including for skaters from the U.S., politics to some extent plays a part in getting invited to participate in the competition.

And you have to "qualify" even within the USFSA for the highest level competitions, by doing well at lower level competitions, or at "challenges", and at the end by being selected by someone or some committee. I'm not sure of the exact rules, but perhaps

https://www.usfigureskating.org/skate/compete/qualifying-competitions

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_skating_competition

will help.

If you want to waste a lot of time, you can read the current rule book at

  https://www.usfigureskating.org/about/rules

There is currently a "Rules for qualifying competitions" section starting at page 117. It is long and hard to understand. I don't understand it. I'm not even clear what the difference between a challenge and a competition is.

Perhaps someone else with more knowledge can explain it in more detail?

Anyway, Ice Castles was a different era, and current rules are probably different.

[TheWriterInBlack]

I've been looking a bit at the competition rules and qualifications since I'm looking at going into competition (Adult competition) myself.  Mostly I leave that to my instructors (after making sure they knew that I am aiming at competition) and I just skate.

The question about the "come from nowhere" was more about "way back when" referring to Lexie's first competition in the 1978 movie Ice Castles.  The current rules, with qualifying tests, let alone "feeder" competitions, pretty much make that impossible.  I was just wondering if anybody knew, regarding the rules as they existed back then, whether it would have been possible or was pure artistic license for the movie.  Not a big deal.  Just curious.

[TheWriterInBlack]

Continuing to watch videos of the worlds going back through the years and got to 2017.  One thing I've found of interest is the skater's faces as they complete their programs.  A lot of them are really stoked as they finish.  I figure that represents a "personal victory" even if they finish rather far back from the leaders.  Then there are cases like Anna Pogorilaya.  She was just having a really tough time out there.  The third time she fell, you could see her hesitate, right on the edge of just quitting right there, but she got up and soldiered on.  The poor girl, after finishing her program, sank to the ice in tears and continued crying through her bows, exiting the ice, and definitely made the "Kiss and Cry booth" live up to the "cry" part of its name.

Her coaches, BTW, appeared to be very sympathetic and supportive while she was awaiting scores in the "Kiss and Cry booth". So at least she had that going for her.

I looked into her a bit after seeing that.  Apparently she had an injury earlier in the season and going forward she had further injuries to the point of withdrawing from several competitions.  I suspect she just never fully recovered from that injury or series of injuries and, well, my heart just goes out to her over this.  Sometimes life just sucks.