Figure skating is one of the more aesthetically striking competitive sporting endeavors in the Winter Olympics. It demands a unique combination of strength, dexterity, speed and grace. One of the special challenges figure skaters face is that success in their sport is determined by judges, meaning that winning is not a simple matter of out-jumping, outrunning or outhitting opponents. As with other judged Olympic sports, such as gymnastics and diving, figure skaters operate within a particularly stringent framework of rules.
Eligibility
The International Skating Union, or ISU, is the international governing body for figure skating, and as with individual countries' figure-skating championship events, its rules are applied by the International Olympic Committee, or IOC. In order to be eligible for Olympic skating competition, females must have turned 15 by the preceding July 1 to compete, a rule that was put in place in 1996 in an attempt to forestall injuries to younger skaters. Also, if skaters participate in exhibition or other events not sanctioned by the ISU, they lose their eligibility to skate in future ISU-sanctioned events, including the Olympics.
Advertising
During warm-ups and in pre- and post-competition interviews, women figure skaters in the Olympics may display up to four company trademarks on their uniforms as long as they do not exceed 60 square centimeters in area and no not advertise alcohol or tobacco products. However, during competition itself as well as at the medal awards ceremony, skaters may not display any trademarks.
Entry Limits
The maximum number of women figure skaters in the single event in an Olympics is 30, while up to 20 male-female pairs are allowed. Of the 30 single skaters, the best 24 from the Short Program advance to the final Free Skating competition to determine the individual gold, silver and bronze medalists. Twenty-four of the 30 woman entrants are selected based on how many points they accumulate in the preceding year's ISU World Senior Championships, while the remaining open slots are filled based on other criteria.
Officials
Referees in Olympic women's figure-skating events must be ISU referees. The country that hosts the Olympic Games may not recommend more than two of its own referees, technical controllers, or technical specialists for consideration in the pool of officials. All of these potential officials must be contacted at least 90 days before the start of the Olympic Games in question, and their names must be communicated by the ISU to both the organizing committee of the host nation and its national Olympics governing body.
Competition Format and Scoring
The Olympic women's -- or ladies', as the ISU formally calls it -- individual skating competition consists of a short program and a free-skating program. Different jumps and maneuvers are scored individually by a panel of nine judges, and the highest and lowest scores in each competitive segment are discarded before a mean score is calculated, and final scores for each segment are calculated by multiplying the mean by a factor of 0.8 in the short program and 1.6 in the free-skating program. Points along the way are deducted for falls, delays and others violations. The final scores for the competition on the whole are tallied by summing the short-program and free-skating segments.
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