"Tatiana Tarasova outraged at refereeing of the World Championship of Figure Skating"

[Dragonlady]

I always thought that the hype for I&K to win gold in Socchi was way premature especially because it was based on the success of V&M in Vancouver. The Canadians did it and so can we, we have the team. But V&M had already been skating together for 9 years when they won Jr. Worlds which gave them a huge head start over a team like I&K which had been together less than 2 years when they Jr. Worlds.

What also helped V&M was that all of the top teams from 2006 were gone except Dom/Shabs who were hobbled by his knee problems, and F&S who had never made the podium prior to 2010 Worlds. I&K will have to contend with the teams who finished 1st and 2nd in Vancouver, P&B and W&P in order to make the podium. P&B have shown tremendous improvement since they went to C&K and W&P are also coming on strong. Both teams have been together longer, and are technically stronger than I&K.

And last but not least, we get back to packaging. I’m not impressed with the choreography Morosov has given I&K. The phrase “hackneyed” comes to mind.

As for Ally S., it was her idea to send Dom/Shabs to Linichuk and she was publically supportive of Linichuk’s programs for D&S, including the dreadful aboriginal program. TT thinks that Ally S. was blinded by her friendship with Linichuk. I remember one of the Russian posters from SkateFans who was at the test skate where their Olympic programs were introduced saying that TT and her group were aghast at those programs but no one could say anything to Piseev because his wife was totally on board with Linichuk’s vision and saying they were going to bring home the gold.

[gmyers]

Obivously I/K need to leave Russia and that whole environment if they want to do well. The same is true for any Russian team. They don't know what they think is good is crap. All their coaches need to be trained by S/Z and K/C. Isn't Gorshkov going to be learning from S/Z? Even being in charge of Ice Dance and getting the straps legalized for D/S could not get them higher than bronze in Vancouver. That was a tremendous accomplishment but everything needs to be changed.

[gmyers]

Yes, that's how I understood it. And that she blames Alla S. for everything that has happened to Russian ice dancing in the past 10 years, rather than blaming politicking.

She feels a properly coached I&K could be winning the bronze by now. Who knows? Maybe they should have been sent to S&Z

However, that would require an I&K that would actually either work hard or have been coached or pushed to work hard, on the pattern dance parts of their SD's. Both their Golden waltz and rhumba were kind of subpar for the last 2 seasons. It should be remembered that they are very young. Elena is not yet 18, and as early as when they won Jr. Worlds, already people were talking like they were going to win gold in Sochi. That is a heavy burden to land on the shoulders of a young teen, particularly when the burden is as huge as the history of gold medals in Russian ice dancing.

TAT and everyone else should cut them some slack. They are talented kids.

They aren't too young to medal - Shibutani's have a world bronze and so should I/K but they're in the Russian Ice Dance catastrophe

[skatinginbc]

Joubert:
Performance: 8.00 7.75 8.75 8.25 8.25 8.50 8.50 9.00 7.75 (Untrimmed mean = 8.31, median = 8.25)
Choreography: 8.00 7.75 8.50 8.50 8.00 8.25 8.50 9.25 8.25 (Untrimmed mean = 8.33, median = 8.25)
Interpretation: 8.25 8.00 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 9.50 8.00 (Untrimmed mean = 8.47, median = 8.50)
Mean total = 25.10, Median total = 25.00

Hanyu:
Performance:7.75 9.00 8.75 9.00 8.25 8.25 7.50 8.75 8.00 (Untrimmed mean = 8.36, median = 8.25)
Choreography: 7.50 8.50 8.50 9.00 8.25 8.00 7.75 8.75 8.25 (Untrimmed mean = 8.28, median = 8.25)
Interpretation: 7.75 9.50 8.50 9.25 8.25 8.25 7.50 8.75 8.25 (Untrimmed mean = 8.44, median = 8.25)
Mean total = 25.08, Median total = 24.75

As both estimates of central tendency slightly favored Joubert presentation-wise, I can see why Tarasova felt Joubert had a better performance that day.

[Bluebonnet]

Tarasova likes Joubert so much. Joubert is like Yagudin The Second to her. She surported him whenever it's possible. I think her opinions are a little too much more emotional than rational. I wouldn't take them too seriously even though I love her.

[phaeljones]

I remember the days when there was real funny stuff with the scoring. For those of you not around, it was a lot like the general elections today in Russia. Thank goodness those days are gone and I hope that they are gone for good. Presently, I do not follow dance competition, but I do closely follow the Men's. I do think that Joubert skated cleanly and well, but Hanyu on that day (and I have a sense that he will get better) was in a different and better league. That is only my opinion, but I think that the judges' scores are defendable for their third and fourth placements. Watching some of the other competitions, especially the event in Montreal, Hanyu seemed to be underscored, but I only mention that here because I get the sense that this kid is not a one hit wonder and deserves more respect than is shown by these very public remarks made by Tarasova. There will be placements that each of us will disagree with, but as long as they are made in good faith and without prejudice, and at least are not so far out of the realm to be unsupportable, we should accept them without being publicly angry. Regardless of the placements, however, what did come out the men's competition was an indication that the 2014 Olympics has the potential to have one of the best fields for men's skating in a long time. All of the top four skaters are still improving and the results appear to have been inspiring rather than dispiriting to them all. And if there is not a better indication that the scoring at least had some merit, I don't know what it could be.

[SkateFiguring]

Welcome phaeljones. I agree much with your level headed OP.

It is true that each of the top four Men has expressed their acceptance and gladness of their placement which represented their season's goal and improvements in their targeted aspects of skating.

[Mathman]

Joubert interpretation: 8.25 8.00 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 9.50 8.00 (median = 8.50)

The median is a more subtle statistic than it is given credit for. If we assume that these data represent measurement along a continuum, then rounded to the nearest .25 point, we probably should handle it a little differently in the case where the median class has more than one datum. The most convincing way to see this is to draw a histogram. We want 50% of the data to be above the median and 50% below.

8.00 8.00 8.25 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.50 9.50

The median is the 8.50 that is bolded, not the 8.50 that is a little less than that one or the three that are a little bigger. The class boundaries for the five 8.50s are 8.375 to 8.625. Since three numbers are below 8.375 we need 1.5 data points to make 4.5 (half). 1.5/5 = .3. So we need to split the 8.5 class, not down the middle, but in the ratio of .3 to .7.

Median = 8.375+.3x,25 = 8.45

Check: 8.625-.7x.25 = 8.45

So Joubert's median for Interpretation is 8.45.

Hanyu's median for Interpretation , by this method, is 8.125+.25x(2.5/3) = 8.33.

This takes into account the fact that Hanyu had three data points in his median class of 8.25.

Median total

Adding medians is slippery sands. Better, if the are many categories, to say, One skater got a higher median than the other in four out of five components, or whatever. The old problem again, are we counting or measuring, Cop or ordinals.

Even the trimmed mean suffers a little in this regard (what exactly do we get when to add them?) compared to the mean over all judges. Speaking of the trimmed mean, that 9.50 that Joubert got for interpretation stands out like a sore thumb. It is 2.34 standard deviations above the mean. Was there a French Judge on the panel? I think Skatefiguring had a point when he observed that Hanyu was the beneficiary of trimming.

Anyway, all of these numbers are so close together I don't think any conclusion can be drawn. Mrs. T. liked Joubert. OK. So did I in 2008, but what do I know?

[Boeing787]

Just remember only the judges opinion counts, folks (including you Madame Tarasova)!

[Mathman]

Welcome, Phaeljones; thanks for joining us.Post often, post long!

[Leonardo]

LOL, Chan's fans are the only people in the world who think his victory (in the LP especially) was fair, except maybe the (cheaters)judges and himself . And anyone who doesn't think this way (commentators, coaches, other skaters, audience, all the other fans) is not rational, doesn't understand the sport and so on. So funny Ridiculous really. But Takahashi is such a hero, even with the cheating, the lower pcs, still got first in the WTT and a world record.

[skatinginbc]

If we assume that these data represent measurement along a continuum...

But it won't make any difference in conclusions even if we use the formula: Median = L + W x (N/2 - C)/F
where:
L: the lower class boundary of median class
W: the width of median class
N/2: the sample size divided by 2
F: the frequency of median class
C: the previous cumulative frequency of the median class

Joubert PE median = 8.31 = Hanyu PE median
Joubert CH median = 8.31 = Hanyu CH median
Joubert IN median = 8.45 > Hany IN median = 8.33

Joubert median total > Hany median total (Yes, I should have said Joubert got a higher median than Hanyu in IN and tied with Hanyu in the other two categories).

Was there a French Judge on the panel?

No. The judges were: Evgeni ROKHIN (UZB), Karin EHRHARDT (Austria), Ekaterina SEROVA (BLR), Eddy WU (TPE), Hailan JIANG (CHN), Ebru ANILDI (TUR), Sung-Hee KOH (KOR), Elena FOMINA (RUS), Inger ANDERSSON (SWE).

That 9.50 that Joubert got for interpretation stands out like a sore thumb. It is 2.34 standard deviations above the mean.

Are you assuming a normal distribution in scores since the concept of standard deviation and mean is used in your identification of outliers? If the judges were calibrated to apply similar criteria in assessing the performance, and if no more than, say, 1-point discrepancy among judges was the threshold of their training qualification, then it was Hanyu's 9.50 (i.e., an absolute deviation of 1.25 from the median) that would be considered a rogue score. It was likely contaminated because the judge apparently did not apply the same criteria as other judges and it had a "gaming" effect in a small sample size--able to pull up the favorite by saving the adjacent high score from trimming (if the highest and the lowest are trimmed) or by inflating the non-robust standard deviation so that some high scores would fall below the cutoff (if the trimming is determined by standard deviation). Even if we assume a normal distribution of the scores and ignore the limitation of the sample size and the unknown distribution of measurement error, why do we use μ + 2σ (95.45% confidence interval) rather than μ + 3σ (99.73% confidence interval, which is employed by the International Tchaikovsky Competition as the criterion for identifying rogue scores)? Roughly 5% of the scores (or 1 in 20 observed scores) will fall outside the 2-standard deviation cutoff, but those "outliers" may still very well be part of the "normal" distribution. Why do we automatically reject a score greater than 2SD rather than take it as a possibly legitimate opinion from the judge and winsorize it to the nearest acceptable score?

Of course, if we assume a normal distribution and use Dixon's Q test, the 9.50 that Joubert received would look even worse: Q = gap/range = 1/1.5 = 0.67 > Q99% = 0.598

[skatinginbc]

LOL, Chan's fans are the only people in the world who think his victory (in the LP especially) was fair, except maybe the (cheaters)judges and himself .

I personally don't think there was cheating going on. There were so many judges from small federations that day (e.g., Uzbekistan, Taiwan, Turkey, Korea, to name just a few). I suspect some of the judges might be less experienced and thus scored the performances based on previous competition results to keep themselves within the prescribed corridor--"Reputation judging" in other words.

[Leonardo]

I personally don't think there was cheating going on. There were so many judges from small federations that day (e.g., Uzbekistan, Taiwan, Turkey, Korea, to name just a few). I suspect some of the judges might be less experienced and thus scored the performances based on previous competition results to keep themselves within the prescribed corridor--"Reputation judging" in other words.

I kinda agree with you. But the more experienced judges certainly do the same thing. The thing is, PChan has been falling all over the place for the whole year (since his victory at 2011 worlds), and still always get the highest PCs of all the guys (and all time biggest pcs), including performance (except today) for programs that sometimes are very obviously very far from brilliant: rushed, uninspired, w/ falls, problems with timing, etc. And of course, that are certain skaters who were better in CH, PE and IN in some competitions, and Chan won in every aspect. I DON'T like conspiracy theories, but it's hard not to think there's some serious cheating going on.

[Mathman]

Are you assuming a normal distribution in scores?

I did a few chi squared (not chi square ) goodness of fit tests, and it looks like that is an OK assumption. But the sample size (9) is so small that it is hard to conclude anything.

Q = gap/range

Yeah, it's that big gap that makes the 9.5 stand out.

..................8.50
..................8.50
..................8.50
8.00............8.50
8.00...8.25...8.50................................ .....9.50