By the numbers: why a different system for team selection would help U.S. Figure Skating
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Tomoki Hiwatashi and coach Damon Allen fist bump after free skate at U.S. Championships (Getty Images)
Two years ago, when there was uproar over who got the final men’s figure skating spot on the 2018 U.S. Olympic team, I wrote that the selection process is too opaque to prevent questions and angry reactions.
There has been some tinkering with the process since, but it still lacks the clarity people need to fully grasp the rationale behind U.S. Figure Skating’s selections for major events, including the final spot in both men’s singles and pairs for the 2020 world championship team.
Why was Vincent Zhou, fourth at the 2020 nationals, picked in men’s singles over Tomoki Hiwatashi, who was third? Why were Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, fourth at the 2020 nationals, picked in pairs over Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson, who were second with a dazzling free skate?
There are reasonable and defensible answers to both questions (I will get to that later) but the process – based on the notion of a “body of work” - remains murky.
A little background:
In December 2016, U.S. Figure Skating made a dramatic change to its selection process by eliminating the automatic Olympic and /or world spot for that season’s U.S. champion. He, she or they would simply be part of the eligible pool to which designated selection criteria would be applied.
At that time, USFS also put the events considered for selection into tiers, without defining how much weight each tier carried.
The only changes since then are moving the World Junior Championships up a tier and a parenthetical clause highlighted here that seeks to spell out some of the factors used by the USFS International Committee:
“. . .the International Committee will take into consideration the performance (which can include performance data, placement, competitive depth of field, and element markers) at the events listed below in priority order:”
(“Element markers” refers to levels of technical proficiency. In men’s singles, they are a quad and triple axel; in women’s, a triple-triple-combination; in pairs, triple jumps. It is important to emphasize these are markers, not requirements.)
The events, as before, are divided into three tiers of importance:
Tier 1 - 2020 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, 2019 Grand Prix Final, 2019 World Figure Skating Championships.
Tier 2 - 2019 Grand Prix Series competitions, 2019 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, 2019 World Junior Figure Skating Championships.
Tier 3 - 2019 Challenger Series events and other senior international competitions; 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships; 2019 ISU Junior Grand Prix Final.
(In the case of Grand Prix events, 2019 refers to this season; the other 2019 events are from last season.)
Within each tier, the events carry equal weight.
And that is part of the problem, which is why I suggested in 2018 that a system with different weights for each tier and each event could produce quantifiable standings that would better explain who is picked.
USFS contends it needs wiggle room to implement the underlying philosophy behind its team selections: picking those with the best chance to win a medal at the season’s biggest competition, whether Olympics or worlds.
Figure skating is a subjectively judged sport, so some subjectivity in the selection process – the idea of “best chance to win a medal” is de facto subjective – is not necessarily antithetical to fairness but also not necessarily a good idea except under extenuating circumstances (injury or illness.) I mean, Nathan Chen belongs on the 2020 world team, period.
The idea behind the International Judging System was to increase objectivity by quantifying the sport as much as possible. Because there are extensive guidelines but no hard-and-fast criteria for deciding grades of execution and program component scores, many people think reputation or a desire to promote one skater over another counts as much as ever in which athletes get which scores.
This is what I wrote in 2018 about such quantifying of the USFS selection system, when I did not mention wiggle room:
As an example, Tier I could weight the U.S. championships at 50 percent, the Grand Prix Final at 30 percent and the most recent world championships at 20 percent. Tier I's numbers could be considered as 50 percent of the total, Tier II as 30 and Tier III as 20.
There could then be a category that factored in scores and results, even if those criteria are imperfect because of different judging panels and varying strengths of fields in Grand Prix events.
All these numbers could be turned into a ranking that would let everyone know where each skater stood before the final event impacting selection, that season's U.S. championships. U.S Figure Skating could still have leeway to set aside the ranking after the U.S. championships should injury or illness prevent an obviously superior skater from competing in the championships.
(I also said there should be a way to factor in head-to-head results, which seem more useful because they came from the same judging panel. And you would have to assign different numbers than simply those pf the finish place and give more weight to medals to calculate the ranking – say, 20 points for first, 15 for second, 11 for third, nine for fourth, then 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, with anything below 12 getting a zero. In events with fewer than 12 skaters, make it 15-11-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
(I’m just spitballing here; I need to ask a math and computer whiz like the person behind skatingscores.com to work out an algorithm.)
In that 2018 story, I noted that Samuel Auxier, then USFS president, had given good reasons in a press conference for the Olympic men’s decision (passing over nationals runner-up Ross Miner in favor of fourth finisher Adam Rippon), and had also told me in text messages he would ask the organization’s board to review the criteria and consider weighting. I asked him this week if that review had happened.
“It was discussed a few times including again this past weekend,” Auxier replied via text. “Athletes are involved in developing and looking at a couple of different models which will need to be back-tested and refined before they can be relied on.
“We want to have a quantitative model for support next season so it is tested prior to Olympic season. We need a consistency metric, as that has been the biggest challenge, i.e., sending out skaters based on one great performance and then (their) not being able to come close to that performance.”
That response is entirely sensible.
And so were the 2020 world team selections in men’s singles and pairs, even if it would be better to have a more numerically based process. (I have sought comment on this from current USFS President Anne Cammett but received no response.)
So let’s look at the men first.
Tier I: Hiwatashi was third, Zhou fourth at the 2020 nationals. Hiwatashi did not go to last season’s senior worlds, while Zhou won the bronze medal. Neither qualified for this season’s Grand Prix Final. Who has the edge? Impossible to know exactly unless there are weights assigned to each category.
Tier II: Hiwatashi competed on the Grand Prix circuit, but his results were mediocre: 10th and 5th; Zhou, who enrolled at Brown University last August, withdrew from his Grand Prix events for lack of training due to ice time issues and conflicts with school. Zhou was bronze medalist at the 2019 Four Continents Championships; Hiwatashi was 8th. Hiwatashi won the world juniors; Zhou competed at senior worlds. Edge? Are poor Grand Prix results better than none? Does Zhou’s solid skating at nationals stand in for no Grand Prix results?
Tier III: Both skated at the U.S. International Classic in September, with Zhou getting third and Hiwatashi, fifth. Zhou was second at the 2019 nationals, with Hiwatashi fourth. The edge here clearly goes to Zhou.
Overall edge? Zhou, based on his bronze medals at 2019 worlds and Four Continents. On top of that, with little consistent training from October until January, Zhou beat Hiwatashi in the short program at the 2020 nationals and finished just 2.85 points behind Hiwatashi overall.
And now the pairs, where the choice of Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc actually looks clearer, even if Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson confused the issue by winning the free skate with one of he most compelling performances by a U.S. pair in several years. (The third-place team at nationals, Tarah Kayne and Danny O’Shea, fall short of the other two in body of work for the time period under consideration.)
Tier I: Calalang and Johnson were second at nationals, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc fourth, more than 16 points behind the silver medalists. But Cain-Gribble and LeDuc finished ninth at the 2019 worlds, the highest finish for a U.S. pair since 2016 and good enough to regain the second U.S. pairs spot lost in 2018. Calalang and Johnson, a partnership barely 18 months old, have not been to worlds. (Neither team made the Grand Prix Final.) Without weighting, it is hard to see whether 2020 nationals or 2019 worlds counts more, but the impact of the Cain-Gribble and LeDuc finish tips the scales to them.
Tier II: Their 2019 Grand Prix results were almost identical. Each had a fourth in one event; in the other, Cain-Gribble and LeDuc had a fifth, Calalang and Johnson a sixth. Cain-Gribble and LeDuc were fourth at 2019 Four Continents; Calalang and Johnson weren’t on that U.S. team, based on 2018 nationals results. The edge here is toward Cain-Gribble and LeDuc.
Tier III: Cain-Gribble and LeDuc won both their Challenger Series events, beating Calalang and Johnson head-to-head at one, where they were sixth. Cain-Gribble and LeDuc won 2019 nationals; Calalang and Johnson were fifth. Clear edge for Cain-Gribble and LeDuc.
When you separate the emotion of one shining moment from the calculations, as was necessary with both Miner not making the Olympic team in 2018 and Mirai Nagasu not making it in 2014, there are enough good reasons to support the “body-of-work” decisions that were made.
But a more detailed way to quantify body of work could only make everybody more able – and willing? - to understand those reasons.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said Tomoki Hiwatashi did not compete at the 2019 Four Continents Championships. He did compete and finished eighth.
