New rules may affect figure skating routines

The new rules for figure skating judges eventually may filter down to regional competitions, but probably won’t cause many changes to skater training in this area.
The rules, laid out by the International Skating Union last week, stemmed from the judging scandal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City after the Russian pairs skaters received the gold medal many felt Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada deserved.
“We just hope for more fair and accurate accountability of the judges,” said Penny McComb, a coach with the local Border Skating Club.
The program assigns a certain level of difficulty to each skill, and allows for an extra three points if the skill is done well or minus three points if it is done poorly.
This means extra work for coaches and choreographers who want to make sure the skaters take as many marks as they can.
A team decision will have to be made as to whether the skater should do lower-level skills they know they can complete or attempt higher-level ones and risk a mistake, said McComb, using the quadruple axel as an example.
That jump currently is the weighing point for many international competitors.
The coach, choreographer, and skater will need to figure out if the skater will get more points doing four rotations and falling on the landing than if they successfully complete a triple axel.
There is a risk, for instance, that if they under-rotate the quadruple axel, completing just three-and-a-half turns rather than four, they may lose credit for the attempt.
“If it depends on how many jumps they do, we may change the way we lay out a program,” said McComb. “We would probably wait to hear from the judges at our level.”
The rule change also allows for a maximum of 12 judges in international competition, with only nine randomly-selected marks to be counted and the highest and lowest thrown out.
For each level under that, the number of maximum judges would be reduced, though McComb noted the regional level currently only has three judges and all three marks are necessary to judge the skater appropriately.
“The rules won’t filter down to us for a while,” she said.
The proposal for the new system passed the ISU with 43 votes out of 54 members, and puts an end to marks out of 6.0 at international competitions.