Olympic Figure Skating Preview: Team Event
SYWTW FS
And finally, part 5 of my Olympics preview posts! This post covers the figure skating team event, which will make its debut at the Olympics in Sochi.
If you’ve read some of the other posts on this blog, you may know about something called the World Team Trophy - a skating team event that takes place every two years after all the major competitions in the skating season are over. Like WTT, teams are divided by country in the Olympic team event. There is one main difference between WTT and the Olympic team event: WTT takes into account the placements of two ladies, two men, one pair, and one dance team per country, while the Olympic team event only allows ONE lady and ONE man per team to compete in each short program or free skate. In other words, WTT favors countries with strong singles skaters, while the Olympic team event emphasizes strength across all disciplines.
SCORING:
All of the skaters will compete in a short program/short dance (SP or SD) and free program/free dance (FS or FD). These will be judged just like normal skating competitions. Skaters will then earn points based on their placement in each segment. The higher the placement, the higher the number of points they get. The points for each team are added up and the team with the highest number of points in the end wins. Ten countries qualified for the team event, but only the top five will advance to the free skate after the short programs are done.
Points for the short programs:
1st: 10 points
2nd: 9 points
3rd: 8 points
4th: 7 points
5th: 6 points
6th: 5 points
7th: 4 points
8th: 3 points
9th: 2 points
10th: 1 point
Points for the free programs:
1st: 10 points
2nd: 9 points
3rd: 8 points
4th: 7 points
5th: 6 points
For example, if Russia places 1st in the pairs’ short, 4th in the short dance, 3rd in the men’s short, and 2nd in the ladies’ short, they will get 34 points for the short programs, and the same method applies to the free skates.
THE TEAMS:
The countries that have qualified for the Olympic team event are:
Canada
China
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Japan
Russia
Ukraine
United States
Each country must have skaters in each of the four disciplines (men’s, ladies’, pairs and dance). Each country participating in the team event must have qualified skaters in their individual Olympic events in at least three disciplines. If a country has only qualified skaters in three disciplines, they are allowed to bring in an “extra” skater/team in order to complete their team. This extra skater/team can only participate in the team event. For example, Matthew Parr of Great Britain has not qualified for the men’s individual event, but he is allowed to compete in the team event because his teammates have qualified in three other events.
Teams are allowed to use different skaters for the short and free programs, but only if they have more than one skater in any particular discipline. For example, Han Yan is China’s only male skater who has qualified for the men’s singles event. He must do both the team SP, team FS and the individual event. Meanwhile, Japan has qualified the maximum three men in the individual competition. Japan can choose any combination of these three men to do the team SP and FS. Who skates each segment of the team event is up to each country to decide on their own. Only skaters who actually participate in the team event can win a team medal; the third skater/team who does not compete in the team event cannot get a medal along with their compatriots who do.
Since the team event takes place before the individual events, teams that can substitute skaters have the advantage of not tiring out any one skater before their individual event. This might not matter if their skaters aren’t medal contenders in the individual events anyway, but if they have a better chance of medaling in individuals than team, it would naturally be smarter to focus their energy on the individual events. For example, Japan has some of the strongest singles skaters in the world, but their pairs and dance teams are weak and it’s unlikely they will medal barring complete meltdowns from other countries.
At the moment, we don’t know the exact skaters that each team plans to use, so it’s difficult to predict how the results might go. But I can tell you now that if the podium isn’t some combination of Russia, USA and Canada, I will be very, very shocked. France, Italy, Japan and China also have a shot at making it to the free skate (ie. top 5).
So this concludes my series of Olympic figure skating previews! I hope they’ve been helpful and not too long-winded; always feel free to ask me questions if you want! In the next few days I will probably post a schedule for all the Sochi skating events and livestreams you can use to watch.