Supposed cheating scandals even before IJS | Golden Skate

Supposed cheating scandals even before IJS

Poodlepal

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
I was thinking as I posted on the "cheating" thread, how many cheating scandals were there even before the new system?

I have heard of only three: the 2002 scandal, some judge tapping his foot an an ice dancing competition (to tell the other judges what to score) and a supposed deal between the East Germans and British that led to Linda Fratianne's downfall (well, fall to silver, anyway).

I said on the other thread that I think judges could still sort of get together and set scores if they wanted even today, but I'm wondering now how common it was even in the good/bad old days.

Does anyone know of any other results that were supposedly a result of collusion and not just genuine differences of taste or opinion?
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Bourne and Kratz were supposedly told by the Canadian judge at the Olympics that they would be placed no higher than 4th no matter what (98, maybe?). This was NOT relate to the foot tapping incident with Yuri Balkov which was around the same time. Balkov was only given a slight slap on the hand for his foot tapping and was back to judging within a short time...
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I find the use of "even before IJS" to be perplexing. The whole reason for introducing anonymous judging (first in the "interim" 6.0 system and then with IJS) and rushing IJS into existence in the first place was in response to scandals under 6.0.

Of course, in most cases they were just hints and rumors, not proven facts. Without actual evidence of collusion (witnesses, tapes, etc.), it would all be the accuser's word against the accused's plausible explanations for ranking skaters the way they did.

Offhand, I know that all the Soviet judges were suspended in 1977, and six of the judges on the ice dance panel at 1993 Worlds were also suspended briefly, although I don't know the details in either case.


There were two completely cases in the late 1990s that have gotten mixed up in people's minds, including mskater93's. :)

1998 Olympic ice dance:
according to Bourne & Kraatz and their supporters, including Tracy Wilson, there was bloc judging at fall competitions that season as well as at the Olympics, with the Ukrainian, Italian, Russian, French, and Czech judges conspiring to keep B&K off the podium in favor of Anissina & Peizerat, and to boost the fortunes of the other teams from countries in that bloc, notably Fusar Poli & Margaglio.
The evidence for this accusation was patterns of these judges agreeing with each other in their ordinals, and probably some comments made unofficially, not documented, either to the Canadians or within their hearing. So we can't really say how much actual collusion really took place and how much was interpretation based on paranoia -- because ice dance had long been subject to such rumors of predetermined results.

During or immediately before the Olympics, Canadian dance judge Jean Senft and Ukrainian dance judge Yuri Balkov had a conversation about results, which Senft taped as evidence Balkov attempting to make a deal, trading votes for their teams. So there was some hard evidence in that case, which Senft brought to the ISU. However, because Senft's placements in the event matched the purported deal better than Balkov's did, she got a harsher punishment.

1999 Worlds Pairs
COMPLETELY separate incident that also involved a (different) Ukrainian judge.

During the pairs competition, some observers including Canadian television caught Russian judge Sviatoslav Babenko and Ukrainian judge Alfred Korytek communicating on the judges' stand about how to rank some of the teams, specifically by tapping toes twice to indicate that Shen & Zhao should be placed 2nd behind Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze.

Both of these judges were suspended. Korytek later ended up judging for Israel.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Korytek later ended up judging for Israel.

Didier Gailhauget is the betting favprite for the next ISU president after Ottavio Cinquanta retires.

1927 Worlds. Fourteen-year old Sonia Henie of Norway beat 5-time and reigning world champion Herma Szabo of Austria, three judges to two, in Oslo. The three Norwegian judges placed Henie first and the Austrian and German judges placed Szabo first.

The next year the ISU changed the rules to disallow more than one judge per country.
 

Poodlepal

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
I find the use of "even before IJS" to be perplexing. The whole reason for introducing anonymous judging (first in the "interim" 6.0 system and then with IJS) and rushing IJS into existence in the first place was in response to scandals under 6.0.

This is referring to the other thread about "biggest cheats under COP" or something like that.

Of course, in most cases they were just hints and rumors, not proven facts. Without actual evidence of collusion (witnesses, tapes, etc.), it would all be the accuser's word against the accused's plausible explanations for ranking skaters the way they did.

Of course, none of these could be admitted in a court of law, they're all hearsay, but it's interesting. I was unaware of many of the cases other than the three that I mentioned, and I only knew some hazy facts about the toe-tapping scheme.
 
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