How do Judges Do It

On this website, the article called "What makes a Gold Medal Program" talks about the kinds of things that make a program a winner. The article called "How to Interpret Your Scores" explains how the judge's results are combined to determine the final placements. But what do judges do to arrive at their placements???

Unfortunately, there is no one single magic formula that describes how all judges arrive at their placements for an event. But there are certain general principles that describe the mechanics of how different types of programs are judged.

At all competitions, judges give two marks to each skater. One represents their evaluation of the skater's technical "correctness" -- how well the elements are performed -- good landings, good height, good centers, good carriage and stroking, etc. This mark is called the mark for "Technical Merit". The other mark is called the "Presentation" mark, and it reflects the skater's ability to connect the elements in a way that is pleasing to the eye. It encompasses such things as the use of arm and body positions, the way the elements and their performance express the music, the balance of the program, and other similar things.

In all cases, each mark will be somewhere in the range of zero (0.0) to six (6.0). A mark of six is theoretically for a "faultless" score, five is "very good", four is "good", three is "mediocre", two is "unsatisfactory", one is "bad", and zero is "not skated". Generally, judges try to center the marks around the test "passing average" for the skating level involved. For instance, a Pre-Juvenile skater who skates at just about exactly the level you would expect for a Pre-Juvenile, will probably get about a 2.7 -- skaters who do a little better will get higher marks, skaters who don't do as well will get lower marks.

When calculating each judge's final placements, the score awarded for Technical Merit is added to the score awarded for Presentation. This total represents the judge's final score for the skater. If the judge ties two skaters on total score, then:

It is also important to note the significant difference between long programs (freeskate) and short programs. They are judged from slightly different viewpoints, and the judges typically organize their notes and "thoughts" in slightly different ways.

The Short Program
The Short program is a program of "requirements". Each short program has a very specific list of required elements. Each element in the program must be attempted once, and once only. No added elements are allowed. The short program is very much an "apples-to-apples" comparison of the skaters, because everyone does exactly the same things.

Judges for a short program get a worksheet that looks something like the graphic below:

Competitor	Jump Combo	Axel	Dbl Sal or Dbl Loop	Spin; camel, sit, or upright	Spin Combo	Step Sqnc	Required Elements		Pres	Place
	2F-2L	High/fast	2L	C6 110%	C4/S6	Quiet Flo+ Both dir	Basic Mark	3.3	6.1
Lisa	5	3	7	7	6	5	Deductions	0.3	6.1
	Flow -	2ft - D	Hi, flow+	Ctr ++	Psns+		Total	3.0	3.1
							Basic Mark
DeAnna							Deductions
							Total
							Basic Mark
Lauren							Deductions
							Total

The sheet will be filled in with the proper skater's names, and always has the proper elements for the particular event listed at the tops of the columns (this sample sheet is for an Intermediate Short Program).

As each skater performs, the judge will watch for each of the listed elements, and usually writes quick notes in the appropriate box as they are performed. Sometimes they will put a quick 1-10 rating of relative goodness to help them sort it all out later.

The short program has a very specific list of errors for which there are specified "deductions". This list is generated by the ISU and is the same for all competitions, everywhere. A copy of the current one is shown elsewhere in this booklet. Whenever a skater makes one of the listed errors, a deduction must be taken from the score. More about that later; for now just be aware that if such an error occurs, the judge will make some sort of a notation in the element's box to help him remember later.

When a skater has completed his or her program, the judge looks over all of the notes for that skater's performance, and assigns a "Basic Mark" for the Required Elements. This mark comprehends the basic quality of the elements, without taking required deductions into account. This score initially represents an assessment of the skater's merit as compared against the general expectation or test passing average for that level. As the event progresses of course, the scores will be mostly impacted by the relative differences between the skaters. In general, judges will set the marks so that an "average" skater for the level will have marks close to the test "passing average" for that level. For instance, in the example above, you can safely assume that Charles (with a 3.3 base mark) probably did just a little better than what would be expected for an average Intermediate skater).

Having completed the assessment general technical quality, the judge then reviews the notes for required deductions. The assigned value for each noted fault is totaled, and the total deduction is indicated in the "Deductions" box, then the adjusted technical mark is written in the "Total" box. In the example above, Charles' two-footed landing on the Axel cost him 0.3 points, dropping his technical score from 3.3 to 3.0.

Next, the judge assigns a mark for "Presentation". In this case, Jackie earned a 3.1 for presentation, which is marked in the appropriate box, then the judge totals Technical Merit and Presentation to create a total score of 6.1.

The Long Program
The Long Program, or Freeskate, is somewhat more difficult to judge, because as it's name suggests, the skater is allowed a lot more freedom in the composition of the program. The judge must watch the program and assess not only the general quality of the elements performed, but also factor in the impact of the difficulty and mixture of the elements used.

Though it is generally true that the better skaters will demonstrate more elements or more difficult ones, it is not always true that the skaters attempting the most difficult elements will have the best overall quality.

Usually judges take notes on a worksheet that looks something like the graphic below:

The way judges take notes varies a lot, according to their own particular style and method of organization. There's very little time to write, and a lot to watch, so the notes are usually pretty abbreviated, and usually very messy. On this sample sheet, the judge has listed the jumps in 3 internal columns -- one for combos, one for jumps which would be hard at this level, and one for jumps which are less difficult at that level. Usually some notations would be made about the quality of the jumps. The judge has indicated spins in the next major column, again with some notes about quality. Then finally, notes on moves (i.e. spirals, bauers, etc) and style or presentation or just general notes in the last major column.

The long program has no specific deductions for poorly executed elements. There are no penalties for falls. A fall is just considered "an element not performed", and doesn't factor into the decision process, unless there are so many that it distracts from the flow of the program, in which case the presentation mark will usually fall a bit. The judge doesn't count up "credits" for elements performed.

When the skater has finished, it's not uncommon for judges to write down a quick "A-B-C" quality categorization ("A" is better than average, "B" is average, "C" is less than average) in the major columns to help with placement comparisons. That way, when you start to get late into the event, and you have just finished watching, say an "A/B" skater, you can quickly look up the sheet for other skaters that are "A/B" or close, and then look more closely at the particular elements and notes for all the "similar" skaters to make your final placement decision.

Anyhow, after deciding what marks to give the skater, the judge writes them in the boxes on the right side of the sheet, and totals them in the "Tot" column. In this example, the judge gave Lisa a 3.2 for Technical Merit, and a 3.1 for Presentation, for a total of 6.3.

Like Short programs, judges try to center the marks around the "passing average" for the skater's test level. They try to spread out the marks enough to leave enough room to place each skater in-between 2 others to avoid ties. Every now and then a judge ends up with a horrible situation where they didn't leave enough "spread" and several skaters get bunched up, then there's no room to place someone. That's when you see the judge frantically erasing numbers and rewriting new ones with the same order but a greater spread. They call that "getting boxed in".

When it's all over
When the event is over, the judge transfers the marks from the worksheet to an official record sheet. Only the 2 final scores (TM and P) for each skater are transferred to the sheet. The judge signs the sheet, and turns it in to the event referee. The referee checks to make sure all scores are present and legible, then sends the packet to the accountants. The accountants enter everything into the computer for calculation and printout. Usually 2 teams of accounts separately figure all the results, which are crosschecked before the accountant signs the posting sheet. After that, the sheets are taken back to the event referee, who looks it over and gives it a final signature before it gets posted.