[staytrue]

It would be nice if each judge gave a reason for their scoring.

From past olympics, for the upcoming ladies events, I have inferred that the rules are roughly as follows:

1. you must not be an instant success just for this olympics. no matter what you do, gold is out.

2. if you want to skate in the final 6, you must skate with speed and cover the rink 2 or 3 times. You can fall on a jump, but if you cover the rink and the opponent does not and skates clean, you are still ahead.

3. to make the top 3 in the short program, you must not fall and you must land the triple double combo.

4. to win gold, you must land a triple triple in the long program

5. you must land at least 5 triples in the long or you can forget about a medal, you must have some grace and style or you can forget about a medal.

After these rules, I have no clue what the judges are looking at. I would really like it if the judges could explain how and why they give the marks that they do.

[discostu]

Well basically what you point out there (and pretty accurately I might add) is how the judges are trained to judge the "artistic merit". Part of judge training is a "mentoring" process where the new guy parallel judges with his teacher, he's not allowed to "graduate" until he scores the same way as his teacher. Basically they have a set of standards on how to "appreciate" the sport that they perpetuate through the ages.

Just another reason to come up with an objective scoring method.

[twyn1]

Missed a few rules:

• Wear the right costume -- sparkles and/or feathers are a plus -- grey is a no-no
• Don't have sweaty pits (esp. girls)
• Wear a proper bra (ditto)
• Don't skate to "cheesy American movie music"
• Don't get hit in the knee by a jealous opponent -- thereby creating a "media scene"
• Have a good sob-story -- extra points for overcoming a near-death experience or having to scrape the ice because your town rink can't afford a zamboni

Any more ??