How do the Special Olympics figure skating rules differ from the traditional Olympics?

In the 2014 Olympics, how does figure skating's new team event work?

• I've heard that the team event will be new and different, but I haven't been able to find many details. From Wikipedia: For the first time at the Winter Olympics a team event in figure skating will be held. For this reason the competition will start a day before the Opening ceremony. How will the team event work, and why will it necessitate starting before the opening ceremonies? How will the scoring be structured? Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_skating_at_the_2014_Winter_Olympics

• Answer:

  The gist of the event is explained in this NBC OlympicTalk blog post, which highlights Elvis Stojko's criticism of the event. http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/16/elvis-stojko-figure-skating-team-event-sochi-olympics/ All four disciplines will skate a short and free program, just like they do for their individual events. The top five teams after the short programs move on to the free programs portion of the event. The interesting part, pointed out in the post, is that teams can rotate out skaters between the short and free. (Reminds me of Pokemon.) Scores are aggregated based on the standings from each discipline to get each nation's final team standing. The team with the most points wins the team event. Many in the figure skating world find this event to be superfluous, especially since synchronized skating still has not been recognized as an Olympic sport. But that's another discussion altogether. More details: http://figureskating.about.com/od/olympiciceskatingevents/g/Olympic-Figure-Skating-Team-Trophy-Event.htm