The ISU have updated the scale of values of elements and some judging guidelines to reflect current developments in figure skating ©Getty Images

The International Skating Union (ISU) have updated the scale of values of elements and some judging guidelines to reflect current developments in figure skating.

The most significant change is the equalisation of the quad lutz, flip and loop, with all three now given the same base value of 11.00 points. 

Before, a quad loop had a value of 10.50 and a quad lutz the value of 11.50. 

The flip already was worth 11.00 points.

In addition, the triple lutz and triple flip now have the same base value of 5.30 points, with the triple lutz previously worth 5.90.

"After research conducted during the season, the difficulty of the triple flip and the triple lutz was considered absolutely the same," said ISU Technical Committee chairman Fabio Bianchetti.

"The technique of the two jumps is the same as well as the preparation, therefore the bigger difficulty of one of the two jumps is very subjective and depends on the body of the skater.

"If you look at the statistics, the quad loop very likely is the most difficult quad, but again this depends mainly on the body of the skater, so finally we have decided to give all these quad jumps the same value."

The Technical Committee also introduced an additional identification for under-rotated jumps - "on the quarter", or "q".

Depending on the degree of an under-rotation, the technical panel will call the jump either "on the quarter", "under-rotated" or "downgraded". 

"The penalty for a skater was very high if the jump was called under-rotated because there was a deduction in the base value and also a reduction in the grade of execution," said Bianchetti.

"Practically we will have something in between a fully rotated jump and an under-rotated one to be fairer to the skaters."

In pairs skating, the Technical Committee decided to award a different base value to each death spiral, reflecting their different difficulties.

The forward inside death spiral is now considered to be the easiest, followed by the backward inside death spiral, the backward outside death spiral and then the forward outside death spiral.

There were also some changes in the levels of difficulty and guidelines for marking the grade of execution and programme component scores.