Do figure skating judges unfairly favor athleticism over artistry?

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Does figure skating judging unfairly favor athleticism over artistry? Originally answered on February 15th, 2014

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Answer by Joseph Lee, U.S. Junior Nationals competitor in both singles and pairs

No.

When the International Judging System (IJS) was first implemented in 2004, the ISU balanced the two parts of the score, the element score and the component score, to give relatively equal weight to the final score.

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At increasing levels of competition, component scores (five categories scored out of 10.00) are given a greater factor to align with the increasing point value given to more difficult elements (i.e. the transition from double jumps to triple jumps).

It's not uncommon to see extremely athletic skaters who lack certain elements of artistry and vice versa. It takes a blending of these two elements to truly embody what it means to be a figure skater. Sometimes, male figure skaters receive flak for being "too feminine" — i say to those people, imagine the training, muscles, and technique necessary to propel your body meters above the ground and rotate multiple times in the air. Realize how much raw strength and power (and masculinity?) it takes to accomplish this 9 times in a 4 and half minute period, sometimes two or three in succession.

In the 2010 Olympic games, many felt that Evgeny Plyuschenko was robbed of an Olympic gold by Evan Lysacek, simply due to the fact that Evan didn't attempt a quadruple jump. This is a typical argument regarding the Athleticism v. Artistry debate. In my opinion,  Plyuschenko sacrificed some elements of artistry to focus more on his extremely difficult jump combinations. I maintain that Plyuschenko should have won. Evan's performance was more safe and didn't really wow me the same way as Plyuschenkos. However, I don't think anyone could say that it wasn't artistic. Lysacek and Plyschenko were gold and silver by the slimmest margin, showing that artistry and athleticism hold relatively equal weight in judging.

There has been over a legacy of longstanding athleticism in figure skating, but I don't think that artistry is overshadowed in any way.

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