#scoring discourse

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

Is there a way to watch a competition without caring for scoring? I try but can't accomplish. Not only Shoma but also my other favorites looks like they are victim of scoring all the time. I don't know if I enjoy the competition when especially younger skaters look heartbroken.

Unfortunately I have no solution to offer for this.

As my posts very much show that I am not able to not care for it either...

I think the only way to not care is to either have absolutely no clue on scoring and believe the judges know what they are doing (which was me at the start of following skating back in 2008-2012) or to just not have emotional attachement to any skater and neither is a thing I am capable of.

I think I kind of accomplished that feeling of not caring of scoring for ice dance and rhythmic gymnastics to a certain extent that I am not bugged that much with the scores. But that is only due to the fact that politics play an even greater part there and there is absolutely nothing in the capability of a skater to change this. In singles or pairs you at least have the BVs that if a skater does a higher BV their scores cannot be kept too low even if there are countless ways to still underscore skaters with UR calls or little GOEs, PCS etc...but even the nastiest scoring will not put someone with a terrible skate into first place and therefore there is still some sort of hope that the scoring may be correct or at least understandable...but well it isn't but hope dies last I guess...

I do think though even with all the lamenting about scoring most of the time the right skaters win the medals - not always, but most of the time. Like today I can lament about Shoma's scores but still the final placement is not a discussion for me.

This is may sound a bit harsh but I think it's the only way:

I can only advise that if you personally suffer emotionally too much from the scoring issues, you probably should take a step back from watching competitions. This is not our life, this is a hobby and it should be fun to watch. And even if we do care a lot for those skaters, these skaters don't know us, they aren't our friends and they don't gain anything from our suffering. I know it's hard to step away from something you love, but your own happiness isn't worth it tbh.

For the skaters the scoring issues are a totally different matter - it can destroy careers - but it's not in our hands to change the system and the skaters know better than anyone else how politics and judging goes. I think we as fans can make our voices heard by the ISU and skaters will feel the support by an audience, so we should not stop adressing issues and supporting the skaters but in the end we are just fans and it's also understandable that our opinions don't matter this much bc look how different the opinions about scoring and skaters are from different fan groups.

I think that as much as I personally feel involved into the skaters I like we should not forget that it's our life, our personal wellbeing we need to keep care of. Pls don't forget to live your own life and if skating doesn't bring you joy anymore, take a step back.

I can only say for myself that I do enjoy to watch competitions and as much as scoring often sucks and even if my lamenting is a lot and sometimes it's bringing me personally pain, but not as much as that it influences my daily life in any negative way. I do enjoy skating a lot, unfortunately it comes with a scoring...but that's also making it excited and interesting....

I already said too much again...but I hope that helps a tiny bit.

[enby-axels]

first yuma called out the positive GOE on his 4Lo after the team event free, now he's calling out the GOE on his stsq after the individual event sp, he's so brave for this omg. like how many overscored skaters publicly acknowledge theyre overscored, let alone at the olympics???

[kittyprincessofcats]

My fucking villain origin story, istg.

Like holy shit, I mean... Imagine being Wakaba in this situation! Other people have said it before and I’ll say it again: Imagine narrowly missing out on the Olympics once, then spending the last few years being told you’re not good enough to keep up with the Russians, then spending all that time struggling and learning a 3A... and when you finally make it to the Olympics, land that 3A and skate the short program of your life there, you get scored almost 10 points behind a skater with the same program content, except that skater:

- has worse skating skills that you

- uses cheated jump technique

- isn’t nearly as good of a performer as you

- had two mistakes in their SP: stumbled and almost fell on the 3A landing and the combo looked really shaky, too

- and is literally proven to have doped.

Like holy shit, I’d be furious and I understand why Wakaba was furious. I know that Kamila’s always overscored to hell and back, her scores are literally in a whole new dimension of overscoring, but 82 with an almost-fall and that combo? I’m not trying to shame her for struggling under these circumstances, but there’s no way in hell that should be her score.

If this sport doesn’t go through some major reforms SOON, there’s literally no saving it.

[alchemistys]

the racism in fs is...astounding to me. specifically im bitching about how asian skaters can’t skate to asian music because the judges don’t ‘understand’ it or the artistry. like apparently some motherfucker (Joe Inman) was saying hanyu Yuzuru was lucky to win pyeongchang gold with seimei because japanese music in unintelligible to westerners?? please. I didn’t know jack shit about Abe no seimei when I saw the 2018 olympic free skate as a stupid teenager who’d never been outside fucking North America. yet I cried as I watched it. you don't have to know fuck all about the folklore or the cultural/historical context to feel passion or raw emotion, to appreciate the interpretation. after I finished watching seimei I still didn’t know shit about the guy, but I knew the program, the skating made me feel some kind of way. there’s a bazillion ‘swan lakes’ but let me tell you to this day I don't know shit about fucking swan lake. I can still tell when a skate has good artistry. your average american probably doesn’t know jack shit about swan lake either, same as Abe no seimei, but they'll still prefer swan lake over seimei. like don't try to tell me it's ‘only’ because of cultural differences that you're gonna score swan lake higher, just admit you’re racist. we know. and the absolute stupidity of this is that asian skaters performing a western piece will get scored higher and people will feel the artistry is better. what kind of dumbass logic is it that an asian skater will have a better interpretation of a piece of music from a different culture than of one from their own? you dumb fucks. I hate how skaters have to conform to western culture/standards in order to be taken seriously. are you so convinced of your own fucking superiority? of your own importance? the world doesn’t revolve around you. is someone else’s culture not as, idk, valuable as your own lukewarm white history (and how the fuck can you measure a culture’s value)? there’s over a billion people in china alone yet the country the entire world has got to pander to is the u s of fucking a? ‘cultural differences’ and ‘unintelligible’ my ass, it’s just soft imperialism. reminds me of how kpop is seen in the west. if the entirety of america can bop their bussy to despacito they can also bop it to bts. but nooooo the orientalism just has to get in your way of enjoying amazing cultural exports. you don't have to understand it you just have to appreciate it, which is why that fucking racist bullshit falls apart when you poke it with the critical thinking stick. and admitting that you can't do your job properly is so embarrassing, especially when you admit it’s racism standing between you and competence. i’d say the isu should fire any of these racist chucklefucks who say asian culture is unintelligible and that impedes their scoring, but we all know the isu is a joke that’s also comprised of racist chucklefucks. 

[jennibeultimate]

If Kamila would have been scored like a male skater at CoR (means with the PCS factoring of the men) she would have won the CoR men SP with 96 points without a quad. Really shows you how ridiculous the score was.

Men scoring is nuts, but compared to ladies/women scoring it is quite tame and "fair" 🤪

[small-but-cute]

People be mourning the 85.45 WR but that one was ridiculously overscored so they should be mourning the last real world record: 83.97

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

Shoma's NHK 2023 free skate and what skaters had to say about his skating and scoring:

I personally think it's interesting to see what actual skaters had to say about Shoma's skating and scores. Because they know better than any "couch judges" or fans how hard and difficult it is what skaters do on the ice and they can appreciate with better understanding of the technical aspects of skating and with experience in their own careers how judging works and what's going on politically and personally behind the scenes. If not skaters than who knows better how crucial judging decisions are.

An incomplete list of some skaters opinions on NHK and Shoma's scoring and calls on the quads:

Ashley Wagner and Adam Rippon and guest Sarah Hughes (not the Olympic champion) in the "The Runthrough " podcast Episode 22 (summary done by @RutrumusM (twt) here )

Michail Savitsky (German junior ice dancer) at Anything GOEs Yt podcast NHK Trophy 2023 recap here

Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir on the Peacock/NBC commentary (audio snippet here)

Keiji Tanaka saying to Shoma that his 4Lo was "pristine clean" (i add the source when I find it in the realms of twt sorry)

I didn't listen to the podcasts in full yet so I won't share the full comments but the sentiment is that the scoring and some tech calls of Shoma were questionable or putting it more "neutral" can at least be seen differently.

Some additional posts related to recent discussions about jumps and scoring:

Elizaveta Tuktamysheva on Shoma's jumps in her blogpost on Russian media translated by @ RutrumusM (twt) translation here

A Japanese article didn't criticize the scoring specifically, but adressed - as far as automatic translation is any use - the strictness of the event compared to other GP events and question the equality in judgement in scoring. Source (I added this because it's rare for Jmedia to release something sort of critical on scoring.)

Of course these are all just opinions and none of them or us is a technical controller or do have a monopol on having the "right" opinion but I think it still speaks for itself if other skaters speak in favor of Shoma compared to what some "couch analysts" say.

[enby-axels]

when i say fs is more than landing jumps, i mean it. rika, kaori, and wakaba can fall and pop jumps and still deserve to win over overscored american or russian girls with stiffly landed & cheated jumps and poor skating skills. yuzuru can fall and pop jumps and still deserve to win over overscored american boys and federation faves with empty programs, poor jump quality & tech, shallow edges, stiff knees, etc. sorry but their only current competitors who are comparable in terms of being complete package skaters are alena kostornaia and misha kolyada. none of this should be controversial lmfao