Skate Chautauqua Competitors Show Off Athleticism, Artistry

By Luke Anderson

8/19/2007 - Imagine a sport that demands both superior athletic skill and transcendent artistic sensibility - a sport so demanding that even its most skilled practitioners often stumble and fall during major competitions.

Figure skating lives in a gray area where artistry and athleticism are blended into a unique product of color, motion and sound, all of which is contested on the edge of a blade. Some of the best young skaters from around the country were featured in the 12th annual Skate Chautauqua this weekend at the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Arena. About 300 skaters of every skill level from beginner to advanced competed during the event, which stretched all day both Friday and Saturday.

For every skater's routine, a panel of at least 14 highly skilled judges and technical experts watched and evaluated each jump, spin and series of footwork for technical proficiency and artistic merit. The system requires an outstanding amount of manpower and attention to detail, and it is designed so that judges may check up on one another, and so that the best and worst scores are thrown out. The old system, called a majority or 6.0 system, relied on fewer judges. Each judge gave a skater a score between zero and 6.0, and the final rankings were determined by majority rule. So if a majority of the judges rated a particular skater first, that skater finished first.

The switch was prompted by the vote-swapping scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, where in pairs figure skating the French judge agreed to vote for the Russian pair for gold in exchange for the Russian judge's vote in the ice dancing competition. In the new system, instead of giving each skater a total score for a routine, judges individually rate each element, then the scores are totalled based on difficulty and execution. The system throws out the high and low scores for each element and averages the rest, with the intent to prevent any one judge from unfairly swaying the outcome.

Although the new system is being used for all the upper-level competition at Skate Chautauqua, beginners are still scored under the old standard, a fact that makes life difficult for the accountants, who are charged with tallying all the scores and verifying their accuracy.

'The old system was time-consuming. All the results had to be put into the computer manually, but it was easier to make adjustments. Now if there's a problem with the computer, the competition comes to a halt,' said Paul Kreppel, an accountant and systems specialist at Skate Chautauqua, which makes him responsible for all of the event's computer equipment. Kreppel has been involved in figure skating for more than 40 years, and has worked at Skate Chautauqua all 12 years of its existence. He has also been an official at two world championship competitions.

Although the new scoring system has ostensibly made judging more fair, there are some concerns over other effects it has had on the sport. The new system stresses degree of difficulty much more than the old one, and it also makes some elements nearly mandatory if a skater wishes to compete at a high level.

'The kids are working like trojans to get everything in the allotted time,' said Mary Handley, event chairperson. 'It's pushing the envelope.' Laura Maki, who as the chief referee oversees all the officials, agreed that the new system has amped up the level of difficulty, but said more difficult routines isn't necessarily a bad thing. 'The new system makes programs in some ways more similar and in some ways more complicated. Some skaters realize they can be more creative in their presentation rather than just doing all the jumps,' said Ms. Maki.

In addition to evaluating the technical elements, the new system does have marks for performance, choreography and interpretation. Ms. Maki said despite the differences in form, the new system probably has not drastically changed the outcome of events.

'It's a different way of getting to the same outcome,' she said.

<< Back to Press Releases