Not a Fan of Backloading

Last night we saw a tremendous battle between two rivals who were head-and-shoulders above their competition.  Russian Alina Zagitova ended up winning the gold medal in ladies figure skating by a little more than a point over teammate Evgenia Medvedeva.  In fact, the two tied the free skate, but it was Zagitova's small lead after the short program that proved to be the difference.

I personally preferred Medvedeva's performance, but it's not like she was cheated out of the gold.  They both deserved to win.  And the difference that led to Zagitova's victory can be attributed almost completely to her technical elements.  She's an outstanding jumper (that sequence they showed of her doing five triples in a row at practice was ridiculous).  And the points she got for her jumps provided that extra little bit that put her over the top.  More specifically, the bonus points she got for her jumps.

In figure skating, you get extra points for doing a jump in the second half of your program.  The theory behind this makes sense to a degree.  Jumps are harder when you're legs are tired.  But, as we also saw, skaters are able to manipulate this system for maximum points, often backloading their program with jumps just to get the bonus points.  

That's exactly what Zagitova did.  She basically did two completely different programs.  The first half was ballet on ice.  The second half was nothing but jumps.  I think that's why I liked Medvedeva better.  She did her jumps throughout the program, and it seemed much more complete.

Now, Zagitova didn't do anything against the rules.  In fact, a lot of skaters do this.  But I'm not a fan of it.  And there really is a simple fix.  You require them to attempt at least one jump in the first half of the program.  This way, you don't have them just skating around for two minutes waiting to start jumping.  And this way they don't get bonus points for every jump they take.

Johnny Weir mentioned this repeatedly throughout the Olympics, and I agree with him.  He lamented that there's more math involved in figure skating than ever before.  Skaters are trying to figure out how to get every last point out of each element, and it's become more about finding ways to get more points than anything else.  And, as a result, those who are more artistic and not necessarily the best jumpers are getting left behind.

He also brought up another flaw in the current scoring system that seems to defy logic.  You get more points for simply attempting a harder jump and falling than you do for cleanly landing an easier jump.  (The funny thing is Yevgeny Plushenko was upset for the exact opposite reason when he lost to Evan Lysacek eight years ago in Vancouver.)  That shouldn't be.  A fall is a fall.  Just because you fell trying to do something harder doesn't change the fact that you fell.  And the fact that you can fall, but still get more points than someone else who didn't fall doesn't really make much sense.  

Again, there's an easy solution.  If you fall, you only get credit for the next-lowest value of the jump.  Say you fall on a triple.  Even if you complete the rotations, you only get credit for doing a double.  And you still get the one-point deduction for falling.  That way you don't end up getting rewarded for falling, which is what it sometimes seems like to the untrained eye.

Most people only watch figure skating during the Olympics.  We aren't experts by any means.  We only know what we see.  Which is why fans are often confused by the scores when comparing one skater to another.  It shouldn't be harder for people to understand.  We don't know the difference between a triple salchow and a triple lutz (the axel has that extra half-turn, so it's the only easy one to identify).  But we do know when somebody falls and when somebody doesn't.

Likewise, we know what we like and what we don't.  The ice dancing competition was extremely close.  The judges really seemed to like the French couple, while the fans clearly preferred Virtue & Moir.  It's different styles, I understand, but that arena would NOT have been happy if Tessa & Scott's scores weren't high enough to give them the win.  Just like I preferred watching Evgenia Medvedeva perform for four minutes over Alina Zagitova jumping for two.

Is the current scoring system better than the old 6.0 method?  Yes.  Does it have flaws and need to be improved?  Definitely.  Does it diminish what we saw in PyeongChang?  Absolutely not.

Zagitova and Medvedeva were both brilliant.  They both deserved to win.  It almost makes you wish there were two gold medals so they could each get one.  But, of course, only one could win it.  And that gold medal went to Alina Zagitova.