Latest news on figure skating scoring changes? I stumbled upon that needle in the haystack

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Latest news on figure skating scoring changes? I stumbled upon that needle in the haystack

The International Skating Union sure doesn’t make it easy.

In mid-May, it published two communications about significant changes to the scale of values and grades of execution used to score and judge singles and pairs skating. There was no email alerting media to the changes. I learned of them from a figure skating official who had received the communications.

In mid-June, with the Covid-19 pandemic having put the viability of the 2020-21 season in serious doubt, the ISU said it was suspending the changes published in May. Once again, there was no media notification of the decision.

Only because ISU vice-president Alexander Lakernik of Russia had told me last month that there would be further news about the suspended changes this week, I went to the ISU web site Friday morning to look.

There was nothing under the “Latest News” rubric at the top of the web site (see photo above.) And nothing on the entire front page of the web site. But, just for the heck of it, I clicked on the “Communications” link near the very bottom of the front page.

And discovered that a communication about the changes to the changes had been published two days earlier.

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With upcoming season in doubt, Jason Brown maintains focus on '22 Olympics

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With upcoming season in doubt, Jason Brown maintains focus on '22 Olympics

For Jason Brown, the last figure skating season began and ended with some unexpected challenges.

On Aug. 22, 2019, the day he arrived for U.S. Figure Skating’s pre-season Champs Camp in Irvine, Calif., Brown was a backseat passenger in a vehicle involved in an accident. He sustained a concussion that compromised his training for several weeks and forced him to withdraw from what was to have been his season debut competition.

On March 16, 2020, the day Brown was to fly from his training base in Toronto to the World Championships in Montreal, he went the other direction, driving home to his family’s home in the Chicago suburbs because the world meet had been cancelled five days earlier over Covid-19 health concerns. His most successful competitive season, with silver medals at nationals, the Four Continents Championships and Skate America, left him feeling both fulfilled and unfinished.

Now Brown, 25, is back in Toronto (finally getting there June 23 brought another unexpected challenge). He is undergoing a Canadian government-mandated 14-day self-quarantine before a planned July 8 return to the ice at the Cricket Club to prepare for a season that may not take place.

We caught up with Brown, the 2014 Olympic team event bronze medalist, by phone at the end of last week for a wide-ranging conversation:

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At 14, after consecutive U.S. figure skating titles, Alysa Liu leaves longtime coach

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At 14, after consecutive U.S. figure skating titles, Alysa Liu leaves longtime coach

Two-time reigning U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu has left her longtime coach, Laura Lipetsky, to work with a team including coaches in California and Canada.

Liu, 14, of Richmond, Calif. had been coached by Lipetsky since she began skating at age 5.

Liu is now to train with three-time Italian Olympic ice dancer Massimo Scali, who is based in Oakland, and with Lori Nichol and Lee Barkell, who are based at the Granite Club in Toronto.

“I have really enjoyed working with Alysa for her entire skating career,” Lipetsky said in a text message. “Massimo Scali and her father informed me that I would no longer be working with her. To not add to her distraction and allow her the opportunity to focus on being the best she can be, I prefer not to comment any further.”

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Nathan Chen weighs unknown variables of next figure skating season

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Nathan Chen weighs unknown variables of next figure skating season

Nathan Chen is a statistics and data science major at Yale.

But even his fluency in those subjects can’t help Chen much now in finding answers to questions about his future.

“Too many variables,” Chen said this week via telephone from California.

Not to mention all the complete unknowns in any equation Chen might use to help define his plans.

For the two-time defending figure skating world champion, that starts with the unknown about when he can back on the ice for the first time since the 2020 World Championships were cancelled in mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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New math: Figure skating’s latest recalculations change skaters’ formula for success

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New math: Figure skating’s latest recalculations change skaters’ formula for success

In the ever-changing calculus of figure skating’s mathlympics, the latest recalculations change some of Nathan Chen’s formula for success.

His two highest-valued jumps, the quadruple Lutz and quad flip, no longer add up to much – or as much – of an advantage.

When Chen hit his first quad Lutz in 2016, the element had a base value of 13.6 points, the highest score for a jump anyone has landed in competition. At that time, a quad Lutz was worth 1.3 points more than a quad flip and 1.6 more than a quad loop.

By last season, when Chen won his second straight world title with brilliant quad Lutzes in the short program and free skate, the jump’s value had been reduced to 11.5, compared to 11.0 for the flip and 10.5 for the loop.

Next season, according to the scale-of-value list the International Skating Union published last week, the Lutz, flip and loop all will have a base value of 11.0. And the Lutz now will be worth just 1.5 more than the mundane quad toe loop after having been worth 3.3 more back in 2016.

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