Thursday, February 20, 2014

Figure Skating Analysts, TV Commentators, Figure Skating Industry, You Have Failed Ice Dance.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White are the Olympic Champions. People all around are congratulating them for a job well done, a well deserved Gold. Yet, mainstream still considers Ice Dance a farce. This is not another article calling the sport fixed. You will not read the word "fixed" after this one. This is about ice dance as a sport, an OLYMPIC sport, being mocked by your sporting friends. It is you, skating analysts, tv commentators, those involved in the sport of figure skating past and present, failing to contribute to the legitimacy of ice dance.

The Ice Dance Olympic competition is over. Once again, Meryl haven't straightened her free leg once like the rest of her entire skating career. Once again, Charlie's feet wobbled during those lifts where he carried Meryl like a weight. They do not have soft knees, they do not skate with deep edges, they marginally use close dance holds, they reused the same elements for the past five years, and they are the Olympic Champions breaking two World Records in the short dance and free dance while doing it.

They won the event with the highest PCS across the board for both the SD and FD. For the life of me I just don't understand why nobody is questioning this reputation judging. Industry experts, TV commentators, past and present figure skaters and ice dancers, do you actually know the rules and the criteria? They have gotten the best PCS since 2012, and this is basically what it is saying. Read the sentence in bold out loud.

Skating Skills

Davis and White have the best edge control in the world with the best knee actions along with varying speed shown in multi-directional skating and in perfect unison.

There are already pictures and videos out there showing them skating on flats then lean into proper edges, that is not good edge control. They do not have the best knees of the field, they don't dig into the ice. Think about it, when you picture Meryl and Charlie skate you have this image of them going fast across the ice, the picture of deep sweeping edges would never come up. They don't even try to have some sort of unison with their free legs they are not even top 5 in the World.

Transitions/Linking Footwork

Davis and White have the most difficult transitions with the most variety of close and intricate dance hold in and out of their elements.

No. Their holds and stances are wider than others, mostly facing in one direction, and they use more hands to hands. Their transitions are mostly done on two feet and flat edges.

Performance/Execution

Davis and White have the best carriage, variety of movements, unison, balance, harmony, and involvement of the performance.

I doubt any of the judges actually look at what are the requirements under performance and execution.  Meryl and Charlie performed and executed their dance well and Marina choreographed it to their abilities, but they are not the best in terms of carriage (Charlie's hunched shoulders and their open dance holds), variety of movements (you rarely see any dynamic movements of their upper body aside from their arms), unison (already covered in a previous post), harmony (wut...?), and involvement (Meryl is involved but Charlie never really gets into any expression).

Choreography

Davis and White have the best arrangement of movements with purpose, unity, and utilization of space. They also have the best demonstration of pattern and stop requirements of the Finnstep.

Outside of their static movements and choreography, they mostly rely on their arms to add flavor.   It goes in hand with their performance and execution.  Marina choreographed it this way because that's pretty much what Meryl and Charlie's capabilities are.  They have no vertical body movements and outside of their elements they rely on gimmicks to convey a sense of story like the sexy touching and taking turns speed skate down the ice to loud music to show angst.

Interpretation/Timing

Davis and White have the best expression of Foxtrot and Quickstep, and perfect expression of balletic movement in the FD. They have the most variety of tempo, nuance and artistic interpretation of the music.

Foxtrot is suppose to be smooth, long and flowy with continuous movements. Davis and White's are hoppy and skippy, and their interpretation was basically a Waltz in 4/4 times. A lot has already been said about their quickstep and Finnstep. For their Free Dance, Davis and White relies on using grand and sweeping music to carry them because they can't pull subtlety at all. Think about it again. When you think back to Davis and White's repertoire, you probably have in mind the likes of Scheherazade, Die Fledermaus, and Samson and Delilah. Their Tango FD is probably low on your list. Do you even remember they did a Tango FD? Meryl and Charlie probably drilled every muscle into their memory including their expressions. Meryl does the facial Olympics every skate, and Charlie basically has only two expressions: excessive happiness and excessive angst. They pick an expression befitting to the dance and let the music to carry them all the way through. Then they get 10's for Interpretation.

A poster on FSU said this

"D&W OTOH can do some fast tricks and have quite a lot of stamina. They never hold an edge long enough and she has never straightened her free leg in her career, so they cannot show any lines. Therefore they need programs in which they run around the ice like headless chickens, too fast for us to notice all that toe-pushing, free-foot dragging and the rest of the mess. At the end of the program we are completely breathless, don't know what has hit us and decide that it must have been quite something. JMHO of course."

There is no subtlety, no nuance, just two skaters (not dancers) trucking through elements to get points. And with their reputations, it seems the judges are marking them with a different set of starting base with their GOEs. As long as they did them they start with +2s. As an example, for their straight line lift this year I still fail to see how it is better than P/B and V/M (from Carmen). Yet they have received better marks and GOEs even with Meryl's leg oscillating and Charlie's skates wobbling to maintain balance just because it's Davis and White doing it.

Meryl and Charlie won everything since 2012 with top component marks but the criteria prescribed by the ISU just don't match. It is like if the Academy let Michael Bay's Transformers win Best Picture because explosions are cool and they forget about the bad acting, bad pacing, and bad cliches. This will never happen in the movie industry but the equivalent of ice dance played out for the past several years.

Most of the TV commentators refuse to critique Davis and White, always think they put no foot wrong and danced circles at the top of the podium for the past two years. Industry experts and figure skaters / ice dancers congratulating them on their well deserved World Record scores, and don't even bother looking at what those scores represent to tell us why they deserve them. Real ice dance fans on the internet lament on their lines and postures, and beg them to hold on to a position for longer than a second. And those on TV and Twitter tell the World they are the best dancers in the World because who cares right? It's all up to the judges and there is nothing we can do for a subjective sport.

How many times have we read from you, that at the end of the day, it just comes down to which couple skated cleaner with their elements done better.

No.

Meryl and Charlie have a solid PCS cushion regardless of what they do on the ice even when they were not the best in any of the PCS criteria listed above. Not to mention, they always receive credits even with poorly executed technical elements like those un-synced twizzles.

How many times have we read from you that at the end of the day, it just comes down to which style the sitting judging panel liked more.

No!!!

As a friend bluntly puts it,

"I think this is the lowest point ice dance has ever had. I keep thinking about Beverly Smith's line in her blog entry on the Sochi ice dance event about feeling like she'd gone back to that dark time when the medals were only for those with the power to arrange it and the results didn't reflect what happened on the ice. Four years ago, skating was patting itself on the back for having cleaned its act up, especially in ice dance, and now the worst judging scandal in history has happened, and it's just being ignored. People are spouting the judges just prefer a different style, ignoring that there is a rulebook that says certain technical attributes are to be valued. Incorrect skating technique is not a style choice. Ignoring clear technical errors is not a style choice; it's ignoring the damned rules! Coming down on a flat instead of an edge when you're supposed to be on an edge isn't a style choice. It's a mistake. Doing 5 revolutions when the rulebook says 6 are required for a feature to count for levels is not a style choice. Side-stepping, toe-picking and hopping is not a style choice when it comes to properly getting yourself down the ice. Rocking on your blades in a lift is not a style choice! Bad skating is not a style choice, it's bad skating."

And at the end of the day the world do read from you when it comes to ice dance, the commentators, skating analysts, figure skaters chatting it up on Twitter, are you patting each other's backs, that we should just accept what happened, and don't come to you for the details because you weren't judging. You are the ones that are suppose to understand the rules, understand why the scores were given with backup from the rulebook and question the iffy judging like every other sports. But all we heard were semantics like Davis and White were EXPLOSIVE! LIGHTNING FAST! A JOY TO WATCH! Meanwhile slow motion clips and screen-grabs surface on the internet wondering do you people even know what the rulebook says. That is what you are letting the world see how a sport is being won with zero analysis to the rulebook.

It may be fine when it is in the small isolated world of Figure Skating Grand Prix's, Nationals, and ISU Championships. But once every four years when you share the spotlight with the rest of the winter sports, more often than not you let this sport you obvious love mocked and ridiculed.

Once again the world is talking down ice dance like the ugly stepchild of the Olympics, because you contributed to the dump.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Finally!

Finally, an article that gets to the heart of what we've been saying all along.

source: national post

Highlights:

The fix is in.

L’Equipe, the French sports magazine, quoted on Friday an anonymous senior Russian coach who says Russia and the United States have set up a “proposed barter” to help each other at the Sochi Olympic figure skating events.
...
White sometimes gathers speed by “wide-stepping” like a hockey player, one expert said.













Davis gains speed with hops and jumps, not edges.
















Valentin Nikolaev, famed coach of Oksana Baiul, Viktor Petrenko, and Viachaslav Zagorodniuk did an interview addressing this exact issue:
What many people nowadays call difficult steps often are just running on the ice on the toepicks - much like with the ice-dancers. Once upon a time, Christopher Dean very well answered the question what was the difference between their skating and the Soviet one.

Q: And what was it?

A: He and Jane Torvill always skated on the edges and not on the straight line.

Q: Tatiana Tarasova semi-jokingly said in the last European Championships that she considers the peak of her coaching career the work with Maurizio Margaglio, who couldn't skate on the edges at all.

A: I fully agree with Tarasova in that. It's a special coaching ability - to find the instruments so that a sportsman who has rather mediocre abilities started winning over much more talented rivals. A figure skater, for whom skating on edges is a problem, has to "run" on the ice to create the impression of gliding. That's what Oleg Protopopov did once, mixing different running steps on the ice. And I myself noticed an interesting rule: the same way a person walks, that way he skates. All the great gliders walk like hunters. Those who hit the floor with their heels so hard that the entire house shakes, won't glide no matter how much you work with them. I suppose "the huters" are different in some small motorics. And when they're on the ice, they instinctively find any opportunity to go faster.
How D/W runs on the ice
slow motion


Neither Davis nor White extend their free legs .Davis skates often with a bent knee, and they bend forward from the waist, more like free skaters and less like dancers. Virtue and Moir straighten their knees and point their toes, always in alignment. ‘Meryl tends to be clunky with her feet,” one expert said.

What Meryl and Charlie tried to emulate
you be the judge

All we can say is Hallelujah!

But wait...!!!



Meryl: It's a power shift from Russia to skating being rewarded for good skating.
Charlie: If you don't do your job, then you're not gonna get rewarded, and you don't deserve to be. We want it to be a real sport like that.

Except when Virtue & Moir win, right Charlie?
http://daviswhite2014.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-saints-marching-down-ice.html

Nice way to honor the country where you won that world title, by the way, and shit on decades of history. I guess the Russian political machine is not all bad when it guarantees your title, right?


Oh, and let's not forget:
web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130316&content_id=42839970&vkey=ice_news

According to Dore, the ISU considered holding the team event at the end of the Games, after figure skating had concluded. NBC, the U.S. television rights holder, wanted to stick with tradition and broadcast the ladies discipline as the final event.

"You're fighting television contracts, and ladies is the big thing," Dore said. "U.S. television is the biggest monetary contributor to the IOC."

and this:

The tour marks the first time U.S. Figure Skating and IMG have collaborated on a tour. IMG created its Stars on Ice in 1986 to promote its client, Scott Hamilton, and has run the tour independently since then. But the success of last year’s USA Gymnastics tour, which generated $15 million in revenue after the London Games, and the addition of a team figure skating competition to the Sochi Games made USFS and IMG representatives believe that working together would benefit both companies.

“The team event changes the game a bit,” said USFS chief marketer Ramsey Baker. “The American public gets excited about something new and something new that the U.S. has a chance to win. You can only capitalize on that type of momentum once, and we wanted to be sure we worked in unison to do that.”

No wonder Meryl was so pressed about this:
\

But They Are So Consistent!

Let's get back to the skating for this post.

Davis and White are known to be consistent and rarely make mistakes.  Let's test that.

In a previous post we have already discussed how at the Grand Prix Final they received credit on their Finnstep when Meryl was on the wrong edge prescribed by the key point criteria.  Here is a look at their first grand prix competition Skate America.


This is the second keypoint element of the first Finnstep pattern.  To get the key point the lady must come out on an outside edge.  Meryl clearly came out on a flat edge, and leaned into the outside edge which should have resulted in a downgrade.  NOPE because her name ends with Davis she got credit for it.


In the third key point of the second pattern, both should be hitting outside edges when they place their right foot blades down, and Meryl is straddling the line between a flat and an outside edge.  Again, extremely lenient calls.  Also notice again their superior unison of their free legs, I can't even tell which leg is which.

Some say Davis and White's greatest strength is their consistency.  They consistently make mistakes and got credits for them.  




Friday, February 7, 2014

As We All Suspected, Fix Is In For Davis and White

http://www.lequipe.fr/Tous-sports/Article/Petits-arrangements-entre-amis/10186

N'étant pas en concurrence directe, eux vont nous aider pour décrocher l'or par équipes et en couple, et nous les remercierons en votant pour les Américains Davis-White, face aux Canadiens Virtue-Moir, pour ce qui serait le premier titre olympique des États-Unis en danse.

According to one Russian coach, USA will help Russia win the pairs and team event (I suppose put V/T ahead of S/S, and whenever possible put Russian team over Canadian team), and Russia will help US win ice dance.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.


Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Shady Politic Machine and Shady Anonymous Judging (Thank you, Mom)

This blog is about Meryl and Charlie, how they are rewarded for doing elements poorly, how they are routinely and laughably awarded top PCS like they are THE model ice dancers all teams should strive to be, and how they are undeservingly getting labeled as this ice dance juggernaut that is being allowed to win anything and everything easily.

Their "class of the field" skills are questionable, but they have a fiercely aggressive PR machine to maintain that aura of invincibility. Behind the scenes though one can also speculate that there are heavy politicking and shady relationships to not only prop up Meryl and Charlie but also deliberately put down their competition unfairly. Every article that writes about the rivalry between Davis and White, and Virtue and Moir, repeats that these two teams are so close in skills (not), so tight in their abilities to interpret dance (not), it is one of the greatest rivalries in figure skating history.

Yet how is it that one judge continuously give Meryl and Charlie's "close" rivals substantially lower marks?

This post describes in detail that every time a certain US judge sat on the panel Virtue and Moir competed in, they would receive one set of scores that is out of line with the rest of the panel.

US Judge Shawn Rettstatt

source: dubemoir.blogspot.com

Shawn Rettstatt is apparently in the pool to be drawn for the ice dance competition at the Olympics. There is no evidence that he is the one low balling Virtue and Moir thanks to the ISU policy on anonymous judging, but we are all keeping an eye on him.

Since we are speculating, here are some pictures (food for thought)
Jacqui White (Charlie's mom), facebook friends with Shawn Rettstatt

Jacqui White, also friends with Mark Storton (Australian judge)


Anyone recognize whom Jacqui (on the left) is posing with?
What about here?

Jacqui White is also friends with Monica MacDonald an Australian Tech Specialist, and Judy Blumberg an US Tech Specialist.

Politics go a long way in a purely judged sport like figure skating.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The Saints Marching Down The Ice

If you are a figure skating fan and you frequent figure skating discussion boards, it's as if Meryl and Charlie are being protected by a bubble.  Any criticisms are immediately brushed aside as vicious attacks and vitriol. It's not just with the fans though, news outlets and journalists treat these two like saints.

Remember when Jeremy Abbott made that unfortunate comment on LGBT rights in Russia, the US media took him to task.  When Gracie Gold made a joke that was considered racist, she had to publicly apologize.

When Meryl and Charlie said this regarding the LGBT issues in Russia:
“I don’t think we can speak because we haven’t really talked about between the two of us very much,’’ White said.
“I don’t think the Olympics is really the right place for an athlete to make a political statement,” Davis said.
Asked if this was not a political issue but a human rights issue, White said, “Unfortunately, it’s semantics.  To Russia, it is a political statement.  And they are the host country.  I think that is probably all we will say on the subject.”
LGBT getting beat up and killed is just Russia making a political statement, it's semantics!

And here I thought we just established they are so close to one another off the ice and yet they don't talk about it at all when it's on every news channel during the fall? Hold up. Aren't they supposed to be scholar athletes??? Don't think make a point of that in their PR? A human rights issue in a foreign country that's hosting the Olympics, the home country of their coaches, is not something they'd want to discuss? She's an anthropology major, and political science major Charlie wasn't interested either?

link: classroom champions

It was pretty amazing that there was no follow up by any media outlet about their comments...

Maybe because they have this goody two shoes image their PR team worked so hard (heh) to uphold, people gave them a pass?  Yet in the past when other skaters talk trash or questioned the judges, they get chastised by the media and discussed and dissected by the internet.  However when it's from Meryl and Charlie no one seems to care.  Or as mentioned above, any discussions against them are quickly being labeled as vile demon talk by their fans.

Yet petulant tantrums are not what Davis and White want to be known for, even if they have every right to feel aggrieved because instead of chasing a hat-trick of world titles in London, Ontario next week, they will be aiming for a second.

"I don't know we could have pulled off Plushenko's attitude," Davis told Reuters in a telephone interview before dissolving into laughter. "It seems to work for him."
source reuters 
We don't throw tantrums like Plushenko would

Charlie also says this:
His 26-year-old partner added: "A great number of people came up to us and complimented us on our skate at the worlds and told us they thought that we deserved to win.
That was so passive aggressive... like *we* would never wuzrob ourselves, but we just feel compelled to point out that all these *other people* told us we were robbed.

Very sportsmanlike.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Manipulative PR Machine

Meryl Davis and Charlie White have the best PR team in figure skating. They are shaped into this image of hard working, all around athlete role model and the judges ate it right up. Sometimes one even has to wonder if their manipulative PR and tactful politicking are the reason they are consistently on top of the podium because their skating sure as heck isn't suppose to get top scores.

The "We Have Chemistry" Spin

When Davis and White came up the ranks, they are known as this powerful couple with explosive skating (but more on that later). Their closest rivals in terms of scoring were Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir who are known to be lyrical with terrific chemistry. Davis and White have received critique that they don't look at each other, and could use more chemistry like Virtue and Moir have. On the eve of 2012 World Championships, their PR team, Meryl, and Charlie, tried to counter that point:

“There are some other skating pairs who sort of play with the media, pretending they might be a couple,” Ms. Davis said. “But I think people respect and appreciate Charlie and my relationship, and we would never want to pretend it was something else.” Said Mr. White, “Yeah, but we are getting quite good at looking at each other, when we skate like we are one another’s whole world.”
source: nytimes

It was obvious who they were talking about with a jab, and they lost to them in Nice, France.

In the beginning of the following season, they did an interview

Tori R. asks: What’s the most awkward situation you’ve gotten yourselves into skating as a couple?
Charlie White: It’s awkward because a lot of people like to ask if we are a couple off the ice.  Because we are such good actors and it’s a vital part of being an ice dancer to show we’re in love on the ice, everyone just assumes, ‘Hey, they probably are a couple off the ice.’ We get that question a lot and it’s a little bit awkward but we’re used to it.
Christine J. asks: Most great skating duos have chemistry.  Do you think you have it and if so where does that chemistry come from?
Charlie White: Just this season we feel like we’ve captured the special chemistry and started putting it on the ice.  It wasn’t always very natural for us but it was a lot of hard work with acting coaches and figuring out how to bring that out, to be able to connect and show that to the audience.  It was a lot of hard work but it’s definitely something that comes across great on the ice.
Meryl Davis: I think personally too we’re at a place in our careers and our friendship with each other that we feel it’s more natural for that to happen.  Different people mature at different rates and I think this year things have come together nicely for us and we’re enjoying the little changes here and there that we’re able to put out onto the ice.    
"It's really a departure for us from all of our [past] programs, because we've really started to connect on the ice more than ever before," White said on a teleconference last Thursday.
source: ice network

We found the special pixie dust connection that people say we need in 2012 after we skated together for 15 years since 1997
So hold me Charlie
And twirl me romantically
Dont' roll your eyes at me Charlie we need to show our connections!

The "We Work So Hard" Spin

Hard work pays off, success comes with hard work, there is no substitute like hard work.  So here is how Meryl and Charlie work hard over the years.
Davis: "Charlie and I are training harder than we've ever trained before and that's saying something because we usually train really hard. 
source: usa today
With just under two months until the Olympics, this pair is working hard to be in their best shape.
source: access hollywood
They won the silver medal in the 2010 Winter Games in addition to winning numerous championships, and you know they’ve got to work hard to stay in shape for that. As part of our Look Like and Olympian series, Meryl and Charlie share their tips and moves to get started.
source: today
"We realized how much confidence we should have in ourselves based on how hard we worked. If you put in the work, it pays off. 
source: metro live 
This is the best, two kids in well off families endure the streets of Detroit and work hard.
“I think being from Detroit, we can definitely feel that in the city,” Davis said. “Kind of that work ethic, willingness to put yourself all into what you’re doing, whether it’s the auto industry or starting something new.

“While ice dance is an artistic sport, it certainly has its nitty-gritty moments. Training isn’t all lipstick and sparkles every day. I think that definitely the feeling of Detroit, that work ethic, is something we take to the ice every day.
 

White, 25, said the city planted another seed, as well.
 

“Growing up, my biggest idol was Steve Yzerman,” White said. “I think he was a great ambassador, not just for the Red Wings but for the city of Detroit. He led by example …

“Having my dad work in downtown Detroit (too), these are sort of the things that you pull into yourself without even realizing it. I think it’s something we take to the ice.”
White also argued about the ability required in his sport, using some skate-anchored context. Average shifts in hockey last about 45 seconds, while ice dancers move and jump and spin for four minutes or more.

“There’s no reason you shouldn’t be just as exhausted at the end of a figure skating program as any other sport,” he said.
That’s Detroit Tough — with a dash of the finer things
source: detroit free press

The "We Are Unbeatable" Spin

A great comment on FSU, that just because the judges are marking them like they made no mistakes doesn't mean it's true.  But hey let's run with it and affirm the judges on their accurate scoring.
Meryl Davis and Charlie White are on a different level than their American competitors.
Heck, they're lapping the rest of the world, too.
Unlike Virtue/Moir, Davis/White have really not done much wrong this season in competition
source: examiner

The "We Dance!" Spin

How many times have we seen them bring in famous dancers to help with their programs. We still have no idea what Derek Hough and Alex Wong did to add to their routines. But hey, Meryl and Charlie "worked" with them so it must mean they are dancing like pros right?

They even got pro dancers to critique their programs, with gems like these:
"Charlie sneaks little things in there, and he's able to showcase himself," she adds. "That's what makes this couple so exciting to watch. I watch both of them, which is so cool."
"Scott is definitely a great, great partner and Tessa just shines. In my opinion, they work really well together. I just wish he would find moments for himself to be more expressive." 
source: icenetwork
Charlie expresses happiness
Dancing to a happy waltz

By happily smiling

























But Scott needs to be more expressive
More Scott!

C'mon Scott! 












                       






The "Don't Forget Us Too" Spin

On the eve of 2013 World Championship in London,
What makes their accomplishments even more remarkable: Davis is dyslexic and lacks depth perception.
source usatoday
Note: I'm not saying Meryl faked a disability to get press, kudos to her working through her problems and get to where she is today.  But the timing is definitely interesting.

“We would go every year to my relatives’ houses in London (or a family member’s farm house in tiny Iona Station) for Canadian Thanksgiving,” Meryl said. “It was wonderful. One tradition that was unique, and I don’t know if it was just our family, was making riced potatoes. They would take the potatoes and run them through a ricer. 
source: london free press
She's also now a Canadian celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving and about to compete on Canadian ice.

Whoever runs for President in 2016 should hire this PR team.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Stagnant Champions

Davis and White have already won a good deal of Gold medals, and regardless of them getting plenty of gifts from the judges they are still in the record books, champions.  We read and hear stories of champions pushing boundaries, going for new heights, and explore new limits of their abilities.  Davis and White's PR team definitely wants the world to believe this, and at least the judges are buying it by giving them higher and higher scores as we approach the Olympics.

The following videos can be found on youtube demonstrating Davis and White's versatility, talent, and skills.

This is from aWaltzFlower, with videos focusing on the evolution of twizzles from D/W and other couples competing now.



Regardless of theme of the dance, the music, and the tone, D/W use the same set with minimal variation into and out of their twizzles. To them, the arm and body movements of a Persian dance is the same as a waltz or samba. Everytime the twizzles come up it appears that they just forget whatever the theme should be and turn on the four years of muscle memory. Most of the time they execute it well but the element has never showed any versatility or been adapted to the choreography. Other couples sometimes go back to their old elements if they have trouble getting the levels along the way in a season, but Meryl and Charlie just don't bother and use the same ones since 2010. Why learn new variations when the judges eat this right up and hand out 10s and +3s?

Now, you might say to remember ice dancing is a sport, and who cares if the elements are the same, as long as they're level 4 and done correctly? After all pairs and singles skaters do the same jumps every year, right?

However, let's look at the ISU's own rules: www.isu.org/media/104327/handbook-for-referees-and-judges-2013-final.pdf


And with that botched twizzles with no change of interpretation compare to previous dances they've done, here are their marks:




As you can see, asynchronous twizzles such as D&W performed at GPF should received no higher than -1 GOE. Furthermore, a one point BONUS can be achieved if twizzles reflect the character of the chosen dance. How can the same twizzles reflect the character of latin, tango, waltz, lyrical, and Persian dancing???

Why would ANYONE bother to try and match the twizzles to the mood of the dance, when D&W get automatic +3 GOE Just for being D&W?  Judges, stop judging on reputation.

It's ok Kaitlyn, maybe they'll retire this year.
Take a step back and look at the programs themselves, most of their programs looked like rehashes from earlier similar dances.  I mean, in two consecutive seasons there was news that they changed their free dance at the last minute. From La Strada to Die Fledermaus in 2011-12, and from the rumored Sinatra to NDP in 2012-13.  They come out gun blazing in their first competition looked like they have done it a for years, and in a way they did.

The following are taken from Ice Princess's youtube channel:

Sheherazade & Samson and Delilah

My Fair Lady & Die Fledermaus (funny thing My Fair Lady is suppose to be a Foxtrot...)

Notre Dame & Sheherazade (although NDP is more of a clone of the Phantom of the Opera)

Judge for yourselves if the music makes a difference.  Personally I feel they rely on the music to manufacture the impact while doing the same programs without showing any versatility of a champion ice dancer that is supposed to be well versed in various forms of dance.

Ice dance has stagnated because these are the best ice dancers this quadrennial according to the ISU.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Eye of the Beholder: Mote or Beam?

Special post from a contributor.

Looking back at the Grand Prix series and the outrage against scores given out at the Rostelcom Cup (aka Cup of Russia) in the short dance is – comical.

Having read posts at various figure skating forums, one could find it rather amusing that all of a sudden some posters think that there is something wrong with the judging system. Not only did they gave a Russian ice dance couple the lead after the short dance, but gave them a huge lead. Because it’s so massive (in terms of how a team could possibly catch them, not likely to happen), might as well just call it a day. The Russian team was gifted. It’s a travesty how “those two” who made very noticeable mistakes were still given levels on elements that should clearly have had reductions.

Not fair, you say? How can this be? Do the judges and tech panel not see what’s taking place right in front of them? Is this another case of judging “who” is skating and “where” rather than what is actually taking place? Hmmm …


Shoot the duck as performed by D/W in their FD at SA
Shoot the duck as performed by B/S in their SD at CoR























Looking at both photos above, are there any who would suggest that both of these moves are equally done well? If so, then here’s a suggestion of what to look at
·         The man – one male is slightly bent at both the waist and at his knees and using one hand, the other is severely bent at the waist (with his butt clearly bent outward), knees quite bent, using both arms
·         The woman – one female has her legs rather close together and her body well off the ice; the other has her legs spread apart as though having a gynaecological examination and her butt is so close to the ice it almost touches

Should both of these moves be given the same credit in any of the PCS criteria? Oh, you don’t know what the judges use as PCS criteria – will address that later. Would anyone suggest that by looking at the photos, that these two moves are equally well done?

And then there’s the posture when both of these teams are skating in general. Both of these teams show terrible posture at times – especially when in dance hold. When in hold (open or closed) the hips of the two skaters should be close together not so far apart that you could fit a third person between them. One team gets called out for their bad posture (B/S) on figure skating forums while the other hasn’t and still doesn’t. Why? Reputation judging? or something else? Pick a theory and explain why.

Well let’s just say that this isn’t the first time a team has benefitted in scoring and it doesn’t always reflect what’s taking place on the ice. You want an example of over scoring? How about what has been given to Davis & White of the U.S. over the past few seasons. It all starts when they skate “at home” at Skate America. The marks are inflated. Why? Good question but it could be a number of answers, not the least of which is they know exactly how little they need to do to reach the top level. Never mind if it’s same twizzles they’ve been doing for years or lifts where Charlie hauls Meryl into place – as long as it is “ticking off the boxes” to reach the level, that’s all that matters. GMAB.

They make a mistake and it’s either “not seen” or just plain not deducted. Curious as to how that happens. It used to be known as SWR (skating while Russian) but now it seems to be SN D/W (skaters named D/W).

The level on their Finnstep should have been reduced by at least one for it. Did that happen? No way! They were skating “at home”. If another dance couple had made the same mistake would they have gotten a lower level on that pattern? Maybe, perhaps, likely. How can I say such a thing? What happened far too often occurs when other dance couples make mistakes, the mistakes are almost ALWAYS seen and are docked quite accordingly/heavily for it. As a result, the team in second place is so far behind the first place team that the competition is pretty much over.

How can such a thing be, you ask? Well it does happen in other disciplines and there’s a great deal of “wuz-robbing” that goes on about them too. However, most times you can see that deductions were made for mistakes and yet the superiority of the skater and the program still makes up for that (Patrick Chan anyone?).

What’s even funnier? The irony of some of the same people who laugh at fans for thinking the judging is fixed in favour of one team over another are the same ones freaking out over the results in Russia. They even use the same reasoning of why their team should always be in first for the team that finished in 2nd place (Weaver/Poje of Canada) at CoR: they have worked incredibly hard over the past few years; they deserve a fair shot at a medal; they're not going to get one; it's ridiculous and it's sad; can't imagine what it feels like to be them. How do you wake up and have the motivation to train, knowing what's happening behind the scenes and what it means for you, is beyond me.

If they really want to know the answer to that last “question” ask the rivals of Davis/White what it’s like. Oh yeah, and they share the same training rink AND coach.

Is “turning a blind eye” something new in dance? Not if you ask people who have been fans dance for decades.

Some Background
When ice dance first appeared on the World Championship stage (1952) what differentiated it from pairs was that it was to be a disciple that drew from the world of ballroom dancing. At that time the British style of ice dance was usually followed which emphasized upright carriage and strong edges achieved by deep knee bend. Beginning in the 1960s, Eastern European skaters started a trend to dance in more open positions, which allowed for greater speed over the ice, more upper-body involvement, and greater projection towards the audience. The 70’s saw top Soviet dancers develop a more theatrical style of ice dancing incorporating elements of ballet and often based on narrative program themes. The Russian style of dance emphasized extended line and speed, rather than difficult rhythmic footwork. In some cases, elaborate choreography for the upper body was used to camouflage fundamental deficiencies of skating technique. And then ice dance joined the Olympic scene (1968 as demonstration sport, 1976 as an official sport).Who were the first Olympic Gold Medalists you ask? Lyudmila Pakhomova & Aleksandr Gorshkov – from Russia. Because this style of dance was continually used as the barometer of all that was “supposed” to be ice dance and what was being awarded, by the 1990s rolled around you found all the top dance teams were performing dances in the theatrical, rather than ballroom, style. It seemed that if you wanted to beat the Russians, you had to become Russian in your skating.

Did the Russian teams really deserve all those titles? Well that depends upon who you ask and what you “thought” ice dancing should be about. The scores for all teams Russian – were they really merited? Many thought not. Just because one team was “faster” (and usually in open hold) didn’t mean they were better – at least not to the ice dance purists. Those who followed ice dancing thought that teams from the Soviet were getting generous marks aka “over marked”.

Shortly afterward, many discussions took place about the “over scoring” on the “far too dramatic” style of ice dance. Many other members of the ISU began to lobby for a return of ice dance to its ballroom roots.

Why? Quite likely because it seemed one country of dancers was benefitting by a style preferred by a group of people representing many countries who had at one time represented one country – the one that was doing all the winning with the “theatrical” style of ice dancing.

So here we have it. Fans of one dance couple, complaining about the scoring (or over scoring) of a team who makes mistakes yet cannot/will not acknowledge that their own team makes mistakes and are either not docked for the mistake or are over scored far too often. They really should remove the beam in their own eyes before pointing out the mote in others.