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  • That's Mirai Nagasu,

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

  • Got the triple axel, triple triple,

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

  • which is why so few women ever

  • attempt it.

  • But for how many points it's worth,

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

  • Mirai failed to cleanly

  • land a triple axel.

  • right here

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

  • despite the stumble Mirai's jump was

  • worth almost two points more than Bradie's.

  • Figure skating scoring is complicated.

  • 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

  • receive two sets of scores for each.

  • The technical element score evaluates the

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

  • Each element

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

  • scores which range from +3 to -3.

  • The highest and the

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

  • is added to the base value.

  • 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.

  • Altogether, the combined total

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

  • The goal

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

  • And while it has,

  • 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

  • gold for the ladies single event.

  • Some of the skaters are losing the artistry,

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

  • it yet.

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

  • slightly simpler jump.

  • Skaters can increase their grade of execution scores

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

  • the program.

  • 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

  • perform elements cleanly.

  • If they do, they won't be able to win.

  • At the 2017 Four Continents Championship

  • in Gangnam, South Korea

  • 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.

  • That's five, the first time ever.

  • 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

  • sport to evolve,

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

  • make these skaters have a clean skate.

  • Because at the end of the day when

  • 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.

  • When it was revealed that a French

  • 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

  • decreasing subjectivity.

  • 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

  • as I can.

  • 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

  • what'll happen no guts no glory right?

  • you

That's Mirai Nagasu,

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