Worlds 2008 final routines

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 19 Aug 2008 21:10

ok, sorry. My comment was meaninglessly facetious anyway.

Faco · Post by **Faco** » 20 Aug 2008 04:04

Jeremy wrote:I think it's important to note that given there were 5 ranking points difference and 6 judges, it's probably that at least 2 of the judges (and possibly 3) did not rank Damian first, so I don't think explanations from particular judges is meaningful. Nor should this be about targeting and blaming the particular judges that did rank Damian first. I absolutely accept their decision and would completely oppose changing it.

One of the judges actually told me that there were 5 judges against Vasek and only 1 for him.
I would very much like to understand the criteria their decision was based upon.

atze · Post by **atze** » 20 Aug 2008 07:14

just a few quick ones:

routines are crucial and the paramount event in footbag freestyle (i wasn't at the circle finals, but did the crowd react in the same way to the circle finals as they did to the freestyle?

sergey would have placed better (maybe even 1st) if he had been later in the pool. but that's OK. on his next tournament sergey will have a better ranking and therefore better chance to be one of the later players in the final.

any order of the first three (vasek, damian, sergey) would have inspired this very same discussion.

it's ok to discuss the results on the forum if we remember that its only a voicing of opinion. i think the judges can and need to live with the fact that their decision will be scrutinized and should not in the least take it personally.
on the other hand everybody in this discussion should realize that they are voicing their opinions OPENLY and that some things they say might be OK for a private discussion over a beer but not really appropriate for a public forum.

making the judging of routines anything but subjective will never work because footbag is so much more intricate than most other sports. in figure skating the jumps are what counts towards difficulty. and there are only so many that you can do. the quadrupple spin will dominate the tripple spin. simple. but with the huge variety of tricks in freestyle it will always be hard to say which routine was more difficult or define what constitutes a routine from the technical side.

drops: this is a timeless discussion!
yes, in principle players should strive towards dropless routines. on the other hand if we impose too harsh penalties on the drop we will only get minimalistic routines. because EVERY trick is a risk in freestyle. we've seen drops on everything from a toe stall to tripple around the worlds, in euros and worlds finals!
so i do think we should not be too harsh if a routine has one or possibly even two drops. not to say that a dropless routine of slightly less difficulty should not rank higher in technical than a routine with one drop. but then there's all these other factors to consider like confidence, posture, variety, etc.

choice of judges:
i think sergey has a point (and this is really not meant as an offence to any of the judges). nobody can claim to be free of bias. and therefore it would have been better to have maybe only one polish player on the judging panel. on the other hand qualified judges are not lining up on the street and i am sure if there had been enough judges available the judging panel would have been set up more homogeneously.

now my personal opinion on this years finals:
if sergey had gone right before vasek i would have been hard pressed to decide between sergey and vasek for the title. in the end though i would probably have given vasek the benefit of the doubt. just like i would have given vasek the benefit of the doubt over damian in the finals as they were.
I simply think that to beat a multimple world champion you have to really beat him hands down. and for many reasons damians routine (and sergeys) did not fullfill that criterion. it is for the exact same reason that i would have placed ryan over vasek in the 2002 finals. i simply would not give a "newcomer" the benefit of the doubt in a world championship final.

needless to say i do agree that vaseks routines have steadily declined in the last years but i guess he's gotten a bit bored with winning all the time. let's hope he steps up to the challenge and amazes us again next year (and lets hope that players like damian, sergey, penske, moir and clavens continue to close the gap and thta in the next years we see finals where anyone of the finalists puts out a kick ass routine worthy of the title).

over and out

Moglum · Post by **Moglum** » 20 Aug 2008 07:34

For those interested, should be self explanatory:

mattbeall · Post by **mattbeall** » 20 Aug 2008 08:11

Thanks for the post, Jan. It at least seemed to represent a nice, logical rundown of some of the things (I'm guessing) the community at large operates according to. And it made good sense.

The dropping thing still kills me, though. Haha. The world champion's routine should theoretically be a great thing to show a non-player what mastery of the game looks like. Seeing someone drop the damn bag totally undermines the viewer's sense of mastery, and rightfully so. I know, I know, I'm just stubborn. The explanation for allowing drops makes sense too.

atze · Post by **atze** » 20 Aug 2008 12:53

thanks for the file vojta!
i couldn't help myself but analyze the data a bit and i stumbled accross the following:

looking at the artistic notes you will notice that for serge and arek the ranking is pretty scattered (both range from rank 3 to

. in fact serge ranks 5.33 on average with a standard deviation of 1.6 and arek ranks 6.33 with a standard deviation of even 1.9. while all the rest have a maximum standard deviation of about 1.0 (which i would say is a decent value).

what this tells me, is that we seem to have a great discreptancy in the judges opinion of what constitutes a good routine in terms of artistic merit (much more so than for instance the technical side, at least in the finals). and i think this is something we might need to work on. after all, the players need to know if a "showy" routine like serge's is appreciated for its artistic merit or not. right now the data tells him: maybe, depending on who the judges are...

Ian Brill · Post by **Ian Brill** » 20 Aug 2008 12:58

Well-stated.

johnkasta · Post by **johnkasta** » 20 Aug 2008 14:26

The only thing I would like to add to this discussion is, that a few people have posted here that Vasek is still the best player in the world. In my opinion, especially in the last 2 years, there have been a few players that are at or above his level. I think it is a stretch to say with certainty, that any player around right now is far ahead of the other top players. And I am very happy that the top tier players have caught up with Vasek's skill. Vasek is definitely still one of the cleanest looking players around, but to say he is still ahead of the other top players is absurd to me.

We all have our opinion about who is best, and whether or not routines is an indicator for this. To me, circle is the most accurate indicator of the world champion, though passbacks have been pretty controversial this time around.

Ian Brill · Post by **Ian Brill** » 20 Aug 2008 14:59

This thread just grew wings.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 20 Aug 2008 15:09

Vasek is easily better than anybody else in a circle still. There are a few coming closer, but still not there.

And thank you for the scoring sheet type thing. It's interesting to see how each judge scored.

My personal final routines rankings:

1. Sergey
2. Vasek
3. Damian
4. Phil
5. Serge
6. Honza
7. Milan
8. Norek

King Monkey · Post by **King Monkey** » 20 Aug 2008 19:20

johnkasta wrote:In my opinion, especially in the last 2 years, there have been a few players that are at or above his level.

OMG LOL

ObArA'BaRs · Post by **ObArA'BaRs** » 20 Aug 2008 21:25

Jeremy wrote:I ranked Damian 3rd behind Vasek and Sergey Kozlov. 1 drop and not as much variety. Vasek's routine was still easily the best. Much better choreography, much better variety and no drops. Dropless vs 1 drop shouldn't even be a debate.

Faco · Post by **Faco** » 21 Aug 2008 02:47

johnkasta wrote:In my opinion, especially in the last 2 years, there have been a few players that are at or above his level.

It is funny because you have no idea what you are saying

Anywayz, thank you vojta for the score sheet.

If I were Vasek, I would compete in ALL disciplines next year and take home every single title, haha.

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 21 Aug 2008 04:28

I would compete in ALL disciplines next year and take home every single title

Back in the day (maybe still?) there was an "all around title". At the time, all around meant net, consecs, freestyle etc. That's sort of obsolete now because each game has progressed so far, that most players specialize in net or freestyle etc.

But, I was thinking (and this post reminded me of it) that an all around freestyle title could be pretty cool. There's enough varied events now, that someone that did well across many of them, would really have "proved" something in terms of competition. Events could possibly be weighted to some degree as appropriate (say, double weighted less than singles maybe? it's up for debate).

For one, if you won the all around, it would be a pretty cool indicator of how skilled and well rounded a competitor is ("competitor"... note that best player by popular opinion still may be someone that doesn't compete.. but my comments are for those that choose to compete).

Maybe we do this already? Can someone that has attended some recent huge events (euros, worlds etc.) comment? Thanks!

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 21 Aug 2008 06:46

Saying others have met or exceeded Vasek lacks physical evidence. In order to pass him you would have to break his records for like the next 6 years.

Look at Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. Usain had to beat the world record to gain the title and respect of worlds fastest man. Same is true in freestyle.

Ian Brill · Post by **Ian Brill** » 21 Aug 2008 08:15

FlexThis wrote:Saying others have met or exceeded Vasek lacks physical evidence. In order to pass him you would have to break his records for like the next 6 years.

Look at Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. Usain had to beat the world record to gain the title and respect of worlds fastest man. Same is true in freestyle.

I question the 6 consecutive year part, but I completely agree on what else you said.

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 21 Aug 2008 09:24

My point is that he has been dominating since he was 14 - he is now like what 20 or so? And when he stepped on the scene he broke a ton of world records in a few runs.

We have not seen that level since. Some are close, but not that close.

LEGOMAN · Post by **LEGOMAN** » 21 Aug 2008 10:48

vasek has been losing it since 2005 IMO

Ian Brill · Post by **Ian Brill** » 21 Aug 2008 10:50

FlexThis wrote:My point is that he has been dominating since he was 14 - he is now like what 20 or so? And when he stepped on the scene he broke a ton of world records in a few runs.

We have not seen that level since. Some are close, but not that close.

Right, so there is an arguement that relative to a specific context, era, generation etc, he may have broke more world records than anyone else.
And, currently he may even have more records than anyone else. I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he is the greatest player in the world atm, provided he can be bothered to demonstrate it. Based soley on context, however, I would Kenny Shultz laid down a bunch of records himself. So perhaps you uinderstand why for me what best indicates the strongest player in the world is the one actively demonstrating the goods.

Faco · Post by **Faco** » 21 Aug 2008 10:52

Maybe we do this already? Can someone that has attended some recent huge events (euros, worlds etc.) comment? Thanks!

Not that I know of...there was a Drop Master title at this worlds, which really made me laugh though