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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Expert poster, can you give me some insight on something I noticed in the pairs competition?  I used to watch figure skating obsessively until about 10 years ago. (when having children displaced all but my most critical personal indulgences!)  I couldn't help but notice all the ugly lifts that the pairs were doing.  A lot of positions in the air had the female skater grabbing her skate.  Other lift positions were variations of traditional ones but were slanted in the air.  In both cases, the lifts just didn't have those beautiful lines and extensions that make them so breathtaking.  It was very disappointing.  Is this a new trend?  And if so, WHY??

[/quote]
I am not that poster but I have the answer for you.  After the Salt Lake City scandal with judging in the pairs event (completely made up, in my opinion), the International Skating Union has instituted a new judging system.  Instead of the ordinal ranking (which ranks athletes in relation to each other), they moved to cumulative judging, where each element is assigned a point value, and the score is a sum of the value of all the elements taken together, adjusted for quality (grade of execution) and complexity (levels 1 through 4) of each element. The highest scoring athlete wins.

In that process, they have assigned different levels of complexity to each element - lifts, spins, step sequences, spirals etc.  In very simple terms, the more you do during your element, the higher the point value.  A simple lift, while it looks beautiful, may only score as level 1.  Increasing complexity of hold (i.e. grabbing your skate), may be a level 2 element.  Spinning or changing positions frequently during a lift or a spin (thus not giving you, the viewer, an opportunity to enjoy a sustained beautiful line) may be a level 3 element. On and on it goes.  And since the victory goes to the person/pair that scores the highest, athletes go after the elements that produce the highest point value.  In some cases, visual beauty of a simple lift, simple spin, simple spiral may be sacrificed to get a higher point value.

I hope that makes sense for you. [/quote]

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