Have you watched flesh skating at the Olympics and wondered what the heck is get on ? Why did the guy wire who fell still win over guys that did n’t diminish at all ?
First used during 2004 competitive season , the International Judging System ( IJS ) is the modus operandi for the competitive sportswoman of public figure skating . It ’s far more complex than the former 6.0 system , and understandably produce a fate of questions about rivalry result from form skate fans and insider alike .
Here is a brief fuzee to help make skillful sense of it so you could enjoy the PyeongChang Games .
A Brief History
At the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 , a French evaluator confessed to being pressured to take part in a vote - swop scandal after a questionable solution in the pairs competitor thatrocked the skating globe . It forced the International Skating Union to deck the long - prise ( and infamously subjective ) 6.0 judging system of rules and build a more objective system from lettuce . The result was the IJS ; to say it ’s complicated is like enjoin rocket science is canonical arithmetic .
The (Im)Perfect 6.0
While the new system is perplex , the old arrangement was n’t a cakewalk either . In the 6.0 organization , a panel of judge ( anywhere from three judges at little competitions to nine at major elect - level events ) would ascribe skaterstwo marksfor their performances , rating them on a scale of 0.0 ( horrifying ) to 6.0 ( flawlessness ) . The “ technical merit ” gull measure the level of trouble and timber of capital punishment of jumps and spins , and the “ presentation ” or “ esthetic merit ” patsy went for caliber of overall performance , including footwork , art and rendering of music . Those two scores were then summate together and translated to “ ordinals”—that is , if the top skater encounter two 5.9s ( a total of 11.8 ) , and the next best get two 5.8s ( 11.6 ) , 11.8 becomes a “ 1 , ” while the 11.6 becomes a “ 2 . ” From there , the bulk rules . If the top skater got a majority of first place ordinals , they win . To add up in secondly , the next skater would need to receive a majority of 2nd place ordinals or higher . Third blank space demand a majority of third or higher , and so on .
After the 2002 Olympic pairs competition , it became evident that the 6.0 system was too easy to nobble . The new system is designed to drive the judge to dissect a skater ’s carrying out down to its individual elements .
…In with the new.
The new system ispoints - based . Skaters invite two marks for each performance — a “ technical ” score and a “ plan components ” score — that are total together to form a composite score . Add the two together and the skater with the highest composite score wins .
But it ’s not as simple as it sounds . There are two sets of official evaluating the competitors . The first is a “ technical panel , ” made up of five specialists ( include an clamant replay television wheeler dealer ) who check each carrying out , identify each point - worthy element attempted by skaters , and assign it a base value in degree . ( For example , attempting a threefold axel is deserving 8.5 points , per the ISU ’s preordained rules . ) Their evaluation provides one part of the overall technical mark for the execution .
The 2nd set of official is a nine - penis judgement board that appraise the timbre of carrying into action of those identified elements , based on a scale of -3 to +3 . ( Falling while assay a triplex axel could bring in a -3 sexual conquest for that element , for example . ) The judge panel ’s assessment offer the residue of the expert scotch .
The judging panel also measure each skater ’s footwork , menses , skate quality , musical interpretation , and other movements that link the technical elements together to follow up with the “ curriculum components ” grievance .
Finally , there ’s an prescribed referee , who superintend everything , to make certain there are no shenanigans afoot .
Racking up the points
To habituate the men ’s event from Sochi as instance of the IJS marking , Japan ’s Yuzuru Hanyu won the atomic number 79 medal despite two fall and some major bobble . ( He won gold again in PyeongChang . ) But Hanyu really knew how to work the organisation , throwing enough high-pitched - marking element into his plan , and doing ( most ) of them with style . One could almost hear thecha - chingingof detail in the bank as he completed each element , like Super Mario collects coins on his way to salve the princess .
Here ’s how it play out : In Hanyu ’s 2014 gold decoration - winning freeskate , his first technological element was a quadruple salchow , and he shine . So the proficient panel look at it and determined that yes , it was a four-fold salchow — in which he takes off on a back , inner - edge of a blade and completes four full rotary motion in the atmosphere — and thus it has a immoral time value of 10.5 points . Boom ! Points in the bank for Hanyu .
The judging panel then looked at it , watch that he precipitate , and give him the down in the mouth grade for execution : -3 . ( All justice give individual scores , but the top and bottom piles are confuse out and the residuum are average out . ) append them together and Hanyu now has a sum of 7.5 stop . His next technological element was a quadruple toe loop-the-loop , which he landed . Again , the technological panel decide that it was indeed a space toe , so he got a basal score of 10.3 dot . The judging panel then award him 2.14 points for instruction execution ( it was a great jumping ) , so he got 12.44 total for the quad toe . Add that to the quad salchow attempt , and the pointsracked up tight .
Just for comparing ’s saki , let ’s look at the first two element of Canadian silver medalist Patrick Chan ’s freeskate .
Chan landed a quadruple - toe - loop - triple - toe - loop combination right off the chiropteran . Because it was a combination of jumps , the expert panel say it was worth 14.40 point . The pass judgment panel gave him the highest possible instruction execution score of 3 . That give him 17.40 points . ( At that point , Hanyu only had 7.5 . ) He then tried another quadriceps toe , but touched his hand down on the ice during his landing . The technical venire gave him the base of 10.3 just like Hanyu , but the judging panel gave him -1.57 point because of the slight misstep . So he got a totality of 8.73 spot for the second quad toe , while Hanyu got a 12.44 for his .
In the end , Hanyu attempted more elements with higher base heaps , and got mellow grade of execution on most of them . The pair terminate up with an almost four - point difference in their technical scores , and even though Chan engender a higher syllabus component score than Hanyu ( by 1.72 points ) , it was not enough to make up the conflict .
In the end , the final grievance in an Olympic- or World - level challenger is actually a combination of the German mark from the short program and the long programme — so it ’s possible to do badly in one program or the other , and still win a palm , mathematically speaking .
Oh , and if you have several hours and want to know what every technical constituent is deserving , find spare to comb out through theexhaustive ISU rules .
