The Scoring

Tara Lipinski’s gold-medal victory over Michelle Kwan was as much a rarity as it was a surprise, with Kwan receiving the best artistic scores yet losing the long program and the championship.

In the long program, nine judges assign skaters two sets of marks--the first for technical merit, the second for artistic presentation. The technical scores are based on three factors: 1) difficulty of the performance, 2) variety of the program’s content, and 3) cleanness of the skating. Presentation scores are based on artistic expression and interpretation of the music, the composition of the program as a whole, utilization of the ice surface and the ease and style with which the skater carries herself.

As their rivalry has developed, Lipinski has gained a reputation as the better technical skater, Kwan the superior artistic skater.

Their long program grades Friday reflected those reputations. They are listed below--technical marks on the top line, artistic presentation marks on the bottom--with 6.0 being a perfect score:

Kwan had the better artistic marks, outscoring Lipinski five times with four ties. But Lipinski carried the technical marks with eight superior scores and one tie.

Rankings of the skaters are determined by adding the technical and artistic scores together to see which skater an individual judge favored. For instance, the first judge, from Australia, favored Lipinski over Kwan, 11.7 to 11.6. Ties are broken by the higher second mark.

Six judges favored Lipinski overall, three favored Kwan--thus, the gold medal to Lipinski.

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MICHELLE KWAN’S SCORECARD

JUDGES (BY COUNTRY): REQUIRED ELEMENTS, PRESENTATION, POS.

Australia: 5.7, 5.9, 2

Hungary: 5.7, 5.9, 2

Austria: 5.8, 5.9, 2

Germany: 5.7, 5.9, 1

U.S.: 5.8, 5.9, 1

Russia: 5.8, 5.9, 2

Ukraine: 5.7, 5.9, 2

Poland: 5.7, 5.9, 1

France: 5.8, 5.9, 2

TARA LIPINSKI’S SCORECARD

JUDGES (BY COUNTRY): REQUIRED ELEMENTS, PRESENTATION, POS.

Australia: 5.9, 5.8, 1

Hungary: 5.9, 5.8, 1

Austria: 5.9, 5.9, 1

Germany: 5.8, 5.8, 2

U.S.: 5.8, 5.8, 2

Russia: 5.9, 5.9, 1

Ukraine: 5.9, 5.9, 1

Poland: 5.8, 5.8, 2

France: 5.9, 5.9, 1