Name: How figure skating scoring rewards risk over artistry
Uploaded: 2019-01-05T16:04:03.000Z
Duration: 6 min 37 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

who's competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in
Pyeongchang.

another triple toe combo. There's
a checklist, I'm checking them all.

At the 2018 US Figure Skating Championship in San
Jose, California,

While her Olympic teammate Bradie Tennell
perfectly completed the easier double axel,

worth almost two points more than
Bradie's.

When the score comes up and
it says 127.48

I have no idea if I should be excited or
not. I don't know what that means.

And the new scoring system has changed how
competitors skate and how they win.

Here's how the current scoring system
works.

Skaters perform two routines, the short
program and the free skate and they

The technical element score evaluates the

difficulty and execution of a skaters
jumps, spins, and footwork.

has a base value and a panel of nine
judges provides grade of execution

lowest scores of the judges are ignored
and average of the remaining seven scores

The program component score judges a skaters

presentation or artistry. Judges award
points from 0.25 to 10 on the main

program components, including skating
skills, transitions, performance,

composition, and interpretation of the
music.

score of the short and free skate
determine the final standings.

of this new system is to make every
element accountable for.

the system has also had a huge effect on
the sport and the skaters themselves.

You're seeing a lot more skaters now try
all these quads and the program becomes

messy because maybe they're not so
consistent on it, but they're hoping that

because it's a good base value that they
can up their technical score and then

their artistic score starts to to lag
behind.

That's Tara Lipinski. In 1998 she became
the youngest person to win an Olympic

Some of the skaters are losing the artistry,

because they're trying to cram in
everything when they're not prepared for

Merely attempting a difficult jump can
earn a higher score than perfecting a

Skaters can
increase their grade of execution scores

and earn bonus points for things like
placing jumps into the second half of

Now this is an amazingly challenging program.

Every single jump pass is in the second half.

Or completing a jump with
your hands in the air, but arguably it

seemingly gives less incentive for
skaters to simplify the routines and

Mirai's fellow Olympic teammate Nathan
Chen won gold and became the first and

only skater to complete five different
types of quadruple jumps in competition.

Based on the difficulty of his elements
Nathan's technical score was 32.97

points higher than
Jason Brown, who had no quads in his routine.

Unlike the program component 
score, there is

but artistry is
still important, as it can be the

difference between two skaters competing
with similar technical elements.

Pushing the difficulty envelope is not an
inherently bad thing, as it helps the

but I also think at the
same time we have to figure out a way to

you strip the drama and the politics of
the sport, skaters, like all athletes,

dedicate their lives training and
working towards this one specific goal.

And they just want to be able to skate
knowing they've been judged fairly.

It's why we have the new system in the first
place.

judge fix the results of the 2002
Olympic pairs event so that the Russians

would win, the new system was created as
a step towards accountability and

Figure skating has always been a subjective

sport and it's not like racing or
basketball or hockey where it's

easy to see, but you know performing is something
I really love and I love skating and so

I try to follow the rules to the best of
my ability and to garner as many points

The International Skating Union
which governs the sport, says it wants to

close the gap between the artistic and
technical aspects of the sport. There are

proposals to reduce the base value of
quad jumps or have three different

medals, one for technical, one for
artistic, and one for all-around.

And scoring changes have already been
approved, like increasing grade of

execution scores to range from negative
5 to +5 and standardizing those intervals.

These changes won't be
implemented until after the 2018 Olympics

and whether they will produce
more artistry, remains to be seen.

We have evolved so much and it is
harder and it is going to continue to

get harder, but that is the beauty of
sport and I can't wait to see what

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How figure skating scoring rewards risk over artistry

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