emotional baggage

[cheshire]

Her victory came in the first Olympics to make use of a judging system that has scrapped the 6.0 mark and all its emotional baggage for a cumulative points system that supposedly favors complete skaters over phenomenal jumpers.

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What is "emotional baggage"? In this case, is it something like "emotional elements influencing judges"?

 

[Hockey13]

Think about it as literally baggage. The 6.0 mark caused a lot of emotional scars in the past. It brought with it emotional baggage.

 

[Dimcl]

If you have had an unhappy life ie. mean parents, a sad childhood, broken love affairs, no friends... this is the "emotional baggage" you carry with you in your life. It's always with you and affects all of your relationships and how you look at life.

With ice skating, the previous system of marking caused a lot of resentment, lost competitions, etc. for a lot of skaters thus they carried "emotional baggage" from the old scoring system.

 

[cheshire]

Thanks, Hockey13 and Dimcl!
You both are common in seeing it as "emotional scars," but is there no posssibility that it is judge's emotions affecting how they evaluate skating in the previous judging system?

 

[Hockey13]

Thanks, Hockey13 and Dimcl!
You both are common in seeing it as "emotional scars," but is there no posssibility that it is judge's emotions affecting how they evaluate skating in the previous judging system?

Nope, none. That would be something like "...and the biases that came with it..."

 

[Dimcl]

Thanks, Hockey13 and Dimcl!
You both are common in seeing it as "emotional scars," but is there no posssibility that it is judge's emotions affecting how they evaluate skating in the previous judging system?

Hockey13 is right, Cheshire. I understand how you might possibly read the sentence that way but the operative part of the sentence regarding the "emotional baggage" is:

"...the 6.0 mark and all its emotional baggage (for the skaters) for a cumulative points system"

 

[panjandrum]

In the quote, the emotional baggage is associated very specifically with the 6.0 score, not the old scoring system in general. In the old system, 6.0 was a perfect score. I don't know enough about ice skating to understand exactly how that perfect score would, in itself, create emotional baggage.

However, there is no doubt that the old scoring system itself had fallen into disrepute as a result of the various fiascos at the Salt Lake City Winter Games. The prospect of those events being re-played in Turin would have placed the skaters under considerable emotional stress.




<< Mod note.
Posts discussing intellectual baggage have been moved to the thread simultaneously discussing that topic.
Panj>>