Interview with an Olympic judge - well worth reading

[Elizabeth]

Patrick Ibens of Belgium is a long-time international judge who was part of the short program panel at the Olympics. He is retiring from judging but was interviewed at length after the Olympics with the result being posted here: http://figureskate.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/patrick-ibens-interview/

His comments are well worth reading!

[Helen]

Very interesting reading Elizabeth, I think it gives alot to ponder about.

[Elizabeth]

His comments confirmed to me that Daisuke Takahashi could easily have won the gold medal had he landed his quad. I have to wonder what Mr. Plushenko would have found to complain about then....

[Fred]

I started skating when I was 5 years old, and was done by the time I was 18 due to a back injury.

Ah ha. What have I been saying about when young skaters are pushed too hard. They become judges!!!

[Elizabeth]

Sonia sent a message to Tony Wheeler who did the Ibens interview and he has posted it here.

One comment from Sonia -

The role of a judge now is as exciting as that of a cashier in a supermarket!

[Xiaoxue]

This part blends very well with my own opinion of what the artistic portion of a program should demonstrate.

Choreography:
1. Nice programs with beautiful choreography and good lay-out of the entire program.
2. Good use of the music.

Interpretation:
1. If most of the notes are used by the skater.
2. If the music goes up the moves should also lift upward and if the music goes down… the moves should be done downward.
3. When a skater becomes the character.
4. That the skater is interpreting the music instead of putting on a show program.

I was re-viewing many of the pairs programs from several of the top teams in the world right now, and what I noticed was that many programs seem to be front-loaded. All the singles jumps are completed within the first minute of a program. The only team that I noticed not doing this is Dube/Davison, who often had their sbs triple jumps closer to the middle of the program. When the singles and pairs elements are interwoven throughout a program, it's just so much more interesting because you can't guess what's going to happen next. As it is with many top pairs teams in the world, it's get all the singles elements out of the way, and then we do all the pairs elements. Very boring.

Another thing that really hit me is seeing #1, 2, and 3 in the Interpretation part. I've read the comments people post on YouTube, criticizing Savchenko/Sokolowsky for having placed higher than Kavaguti/Smirnov when the latter are technically so much more superior to the Germans. The only reason besides "reputation judging" that I can think of is that Tamara Moskvina's choreography does not in any way reflect the music. I'm assuming it's Moskvina's choreography because she always used to design B/S's programs, which I believe suffered in the same way. As difficult their programs are, none of the elements and in-betweens compliment the music.

[Elizabeth]

Sally Ann Stapleford & Britta Lindgren have responded to Tony Wheeler's interview with Patrick Ibens. Read it here.