Judging System Explained by Aaron - Repost

It's competition season now. And if any of you are like me - you're pining over the days of 6.0 and can't make heads or tails of the new system, all while you're brain is full trying to remember the names of the top pair skaters and ice dancers. So I thought I would repost a simple, yet comprehensive explanation by Aaron of Axels, Loops, and Spins on judging.

Enjoy!

There are parts I like about it...parts I don't. Here's the easy way of beginning to understand it.

Every element (spin, jump, lift, etc.) has an assigned point value. Then the judges rate how well you do it...great is +3...terrible is -3...and there's everything in between. These are called Grade's of Execution (GOE's). The GOE's on each element are averaged and the skater get's that much bonus or deduction for the element.

Spins, footwork, spiral sequences have what they call levels. Level 1 stuff is pretty basic...level 4 stuff is the manic crazy stuff you were mentioning. The higher the level...the more points you get.

The old artistic score is now the program component score. Things like skating skills, transitions, choreography, interpretation, timing are each judged on a 10 point scale. 10 is great, 1 is really bad.

When it's time for the marks, a random selection of judges is chosen (we or the judges don't know which judges scores are counting)...the technical element score is all points and levels the skaters got on their elements all added up. The Program component scores are all those things on the 10 point scale added up. This gives you the segment total.

The final score is found by adding all the segment scores together...highest points wins.

Thanks!