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Tabulating Salsa and
DanceSport Competition Marks
THE SKATING SYSTEM
The Skating System consists
of a set of ELEVEN rules. Each rule
applies to a specific step in the process of marking and then tabulating the
results. There is a systematic progression
from one to the next, until you end up with the final result.
A
judge’s view of what they see on the floor in front of them is their view and
their view alone. Human nature almost guarantees that there will be an element
of subjectivity. That is why there are normally an odd number of judges, 3, 5,
7, 11 . . . To minimize the skew effect of a single judge’s marks and the
possibility of couples being tied. The
Skating System in no way manipulates the marks of a judge; it neither
introduces marks nor deletes marks. The
starting point for the Skating System is the judges mark sheet. It may happen that a judge has duplicated a
number or a number is illegible. In all
cases the sheet is passed to the Chairman of Adjudicators to correct the error
with the judge concerned.
The first four rules apply specifically to the competition judges.
Rule1. In all preliminary
rounds, judges must call back the number of couples requested by the Chairman
of Adjudicators
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No |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
Total
|
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10 |
|
X |
X |
X |
|
X |
|
4 * |
|
11 |
X |
|
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
6 |
|
12 |
X |
X |
|
X |
|
|
X |
4 * |
|
13 |
|
|
X |
|
|
X |
X |
3 |
|
14 |
X |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
|
4 * |
|
15 |
|
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
6 |
|
16 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 |
|
17 |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
|
X |
6 |
|
18 |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
7 |
|
19 |
X |
|
|
|
X |
|
|
2 |
|
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A
preliminary round is any round in a section excluding the final. Examples are round 1, round 2, quarterfinal,
and semi-final. The judges do not have to mark the competitors in any order.
They simply indicate on their mark sheet the couples they wish to see in the
next round. The judge MUST ONLY mark as
many couples as the Chairman requests.
As an example in a semi-final of eleven dancers the Chairman may request
that six couples be recalled to the final.
Each judge should then recall six couples for each dance in the section.
The couples that advance to the next round are simply
those with the most callback marks. The
scrutineer will add the marks together for each couple from all judges to find
out who has advanced to the next round.
It is not an uncommon occurrence for the scrutineer to
not be able to call back the number of competitors requested by the Chairman.
Several couples may have received the same number of callback marks. The judges
can all have provided the correct number of marks but the result just does not
work out. Take a semi-final of 11
couples with 6 couples requested for the final.
Couples
11, 15, 17, and 18 are the couples with the highest marks. Couples 10, 12, and 14 all have 4 callback
marks. The results therefore mean that 4
couples or 7 couples can be recalled, not the 6 that were requested. The decision passes to the Chairman as to how
many couples are recalled. The Chairman
alone makes the decision, not the scrutineer.
Rule 2. In a final round all couples must receive a
placement from each judge.
A final round of a section
can contain a maximum of eight couples. If more than eight couples have been
recalled from a semi-final then a further preliminary round must be
danced. In some cases even a round with
eight couples must be danced as a semi-final.
Again the Chairman alone makes the decision. Often a particular section will be danced as
a straight final, meaning that there were not enough couples entered to require
a preliminary round. Also in this situation organizers typically award, say,
only 3 prizes for a section of 6 couples. The judges are still required to
allocate a place to each and every couple on the floor.
Rule 3. In a final round a judges first choice is
marked “1,” second choice is marked “2,” third choice is marked “3,” and so on.
Typically each judge has a
different opinion as to the placement of the finalists. That is why we need the
Skating System and scrutinizers.
Rule 4. In a final
round a judge may not tie any couple for any place of any dance
Since the final round is
intended to determine final placements a judge is not allowed to tie any
couples.
After applying the Skating
System to the judge’s marks an unbreakable tie may result. This is not because the judge tied the
couples but through the method by which the marks are tabulated. A possible cause of this is that the opinions
of the judges differ because the ability of the couples varies wildly or are
very similar to each other. Both of
these extremes result in no clear-cut winner, runner-up, etc.
The remaining seven rules are the ones that determine how the final
result is calculated. It starts of
simply and then gets progressively more complicated. The Skating System uses two concepts to
arrive at a final result. The first is “majority”
and the second is “overall performance.” A couple must convince a
majority of the judges to mark them to win the dance. Furthermore they must achieve this in a
majority of the dances making up the section for them to win the section.
Obviously this does not always happen. The Skating System rules therefore
define how to tabulate the results when there is no clear-cut winner either for
an individual dance or for the section as a whole. The Skating System attempts to always reward
overall performance. As we progress through
these seven rules you will begin to understand why a couple that does not win
any individual dance can win the section.
Conversely a couple can win an individual dance and may only be placed 4th in
the section.
Rules
5, 6, 7, and 8 apply to tabulating the results for the individual dances in a
section or for a single-dance section, such as seen in Freestyle.
Rule 5. How to allocate positions in each dance
The
Skating System is based on the marks a couple receives from a majority of
judges. The first and simplest step is
to ascertain what makes up a majority. A
few examples should suffice, the majority of 3 is 2; the majority of 5 is 3;
the majority of 7 is 4, and so on.
We
now tabulate each couple's marks in the final.
The next step is to place the winner by inspecting the marks for the
number of 1st places. It
is important to note that in this rule we simply count the number of places, we
do not add them together. A couple’s
results are 1,1,2,3,1,2,1; they have 4 1st
places.
The
couple who has received the majority of 1st
place marks is the winner of that dance and their marks have no further impact
on the tabulation process. The next step
is to determine who is to be placed second.
This follows a similar process.
In this case, however, we count the number of “2nd
place and higher marks” for the remaining couples. The next step is to determine who is to be
placed third. We, similarly, count the
number of “3rd
place and higher marks” for each of the remaining couples. This process is repeated until all couples
have been placed.
In the following simple
example the positions are awarded as follows:
1.
1. There are 5 judges so the
majority is three.
2.
2. Count 1st places. #51 has 4 first-place marks and #52 has 1.
The remaining couples have no first-place marks. #51 has attained a majority of
first-place marks and is therefore is placed first.
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Waltz
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Result |
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Judges |
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Places |
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No |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
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1 |
1-2 |
1-3 |
1-4 |
1-5 |
1-6 |
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