SkateHistory.Ca

July 2005

A Short History
by Debbi Wilkes

Debbi Wilkes For over 100 years, the format surrounding "6.0" was the basis for determining our champions and then suddenly, following the fiasco during the 2002 Olympic pairs competition in Salt Lake City, the face of skating changed.

With the proposed creation of a new judging system, all the old touch-points and benchmarks were instantly obsolete and every one of us was thrown into a panic. Not only were we shell-shocked and horrified at the thought of change, we were incensed at the necessity for such a drastic step.

Many of us, me included, dragged our blades, kicked the ice and dug in with our picks to protect the old 6.0 system.

Looking back on it now, I realize it was my love of skating tradition that I was hungry to keep. Like many of you, I was aching to return to a simpler time when our sport was relatively untarnished and when politics weren't such a big part of the result. Sadly, with time, I also began to understand that in wanting to keep our beloved 6.0, the by-product of that was also giving some kind of tacit permission for the crooks to keep up with their games too.

Not that the new system is foolproof either. We've still got a long way to go, particularly with the Components.

Education will be the best antidote to that problem … and … dare I say, replacing some of the old guard, especially those that have never been on a pair of skates.

My belief is that for the highest level of competitions, it should be mandatory that officials have a minimum of national level experience as a competitor. Why? There is absolutely no way anyone can appreciate the total beauty (or awkwardness) of a step or element unless they have experienced it too. That sense of control is something you feel down deep in your gut and never something you can discover reading a set of rules.

Now before you get your laces all knotted up, I'm not saying every judge should have been able to do a quad. I am saying that to fully understand the quality and control of a jump, for example, a judge should have been able to turn at least a couple of times in the air at some point in their competitive career.

As I delve further into the details of the new system, I've discovered something else too: I'm looking at skating in a whole new light … and I thought I'd seen everything! I've learned more about skating in the last year that at any other time since I finished competing … and it's been exciting.

Mostly I'm thrilled for the skaters. They're also seeing the sport through fresh eyes and beginning to understand that their marks are no longer the result of some kind of general impression.

Let's face it. With such minute differences separating the top 10 in the world on any given day, skating has needed a better measuring stick than 6.0 for some time. Now competitors see that every step, every idea, every move, every bit of creativity, every entrance and every exit has value. They see that at last they are in charge of their own marks.

The new system has taken some time to grow. The 2002-03 season was the year of construction, two panels operating simultaneously at some events, one for 6.0, one for the new system, what was originally called Code of Points. It was tested again as the official system during the GP series in the fall of 2003 but it was only last year that it fully replaced 6.0 for ISU events.

Throughout the various stages of growth, international competitors, coaches and officials have been generous in their feedback to the ISU about the system. I've talked to many of them as well and, interestingly, to a man, not one wants to go back to 6.0.

This year in preparation for the Turino Olympics, the new system has reacted to that feedback and has expanded even further. The kinks are being worked on. There are more levels of difficulty, clearer definitions and interpretations, new additions and some grateful deletions (crotch lifts in Dance, for one).

Three years may not be much of a "history" in comparison to the more than 100 years of 6.0. And yet if you look at the new ISU judging system, its design, its implementation and its effects on the world of skating, you'll realize its progress has been nothing short of a miracle.