Yet, because the scoring system favors strong jumpers and Zagitova tailored her routine and her strengths to maximize the number of points she could earn, she ultimately came out on top.
In fact, from a strictly numbers standpoint, the women’s free skate ended with a tie - Medvedeva beat Zagitova by 2.44 points in her component score but trailed Zagitova by 2.44 points in the technical elements. The judges clearly felt that Medvedeva skated a superior program in terms of its overall aesthetic and Medvedeva’s artistic performance.īut because the more technical side of figure skating scoring is such a numbers game, Zagitova’s high base values and large number of bonus-eligible jumps kept the two skaters close. Notice the 10s littered throughout Medvedeva’s scoresheet. ISU/OlympicsĪnd here’s a breakdown of Medvedeva’s higher 77.47 component score: Medvedeva’s component score. Here’s a breakdown of Zagitova’s 75.03 component score: Zagitova’s score in the free skate. The component score primarily applies to the appearance, choreography, and interpretation elements of a skater’s program. Medvedeva also had the better component score. Medvedeva’s GOE scores from her Olympic free skate. Zagitova’s was 66.01 points - 3.68 points higher.īut when you add in the two skaters’ GOE scores, Medvedeva closed the gap to 2.44 points (Medvedeva’s score once her GOE scores were factored in was 79.18, while Zagitova’s was 81.62), meaning that Medvedeva did a better job of performing the elements in her routine. Medvedeva’s base scores for her free skate elements, including all her jumps, was 62.33 points. Many people who watched the women’s free skate came away thinking that Medvedeva skated better. #WinterOlympics /mZFRNI25mO- NBC Olympics February 23, 2018 was stunning in the free skate, a performance that earned her silver.
Medvedeva turned in the better performance, but it wasn’t enough to catch Zagitova
Medvedeva actually tied Zagitova in the free skate, but didn’t have enough difficulty in her short program to make up the difference. Zagitova’s ability to complete all of her jumps in the second half of her program makes her an exception - Medvedeva was only able to put five of her jumping passes into the second half.īy stacking her difficulty in both her short program and free skate Zagitova made it very difficult for the other skaters to catch her. It’s conventional wisdom that It’s easier to hit jumps earlier when your legs are fresher. By doing this, she took advantage of a detail of the scoring system that awards a 10 percent bonus to the base value of all jumps performed during the second half of a routine, because those jumps are done on ostensibly tired legs. Zagitova also made a point to maximize how many points she could earn by strategically stacking all her jumps closer to the end of her program. Being able to hit that combination was crucial to Zagitova’s routine, and to her gold medal win. Medvedeva actually had two triple-triple combinations in her routine - a triple flip–triple toe loop and a triple salchow–triple toe loop - but neither one was worth as many points as Zagitova’s combination. Winter Olympics 2018: figure skating scoring explained for people who don’t follow figure skating The GOE measures how well (or how poorly) a skater performed a technical element like jumps, spins, and step sequences. Zagitova’s combination had a base value of 12.21 points, and she earned an additional 1.70 points in her Grade of Execution (GOE) for the combination, bringing her total number of jumps to 13.91. So she ended up adding the triple loop after the second triple lutz in her program (highlighted in yellow on the scoresheet below): Zagitova’s scoresheet from her free skate at the Olympics. The only difference was that when she first attempted it as the opening jumping pass of her program - where she usually places the combination - she hesitated on the landing of the lutz and didn't perform the loop. The women's free skate was almost a repeat of the short program in that Zagitova successfully landed her triple lutz–triple loop combination in both programs. Winter Olympics figure skating: why Russians Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva are so hard to beatīut the best explanation of Zagitova’s win lies in the current figure skating scoring system - which favors jumps - and Zagitova’s ability to hit the most difficult jumping combination in the women's field: a triple lutz–triple loop.