Russian coach: The US will help us win team gold and pairs

Mathman said:

Back on topic, what struck me first about the original L'Equipe article is it's jocular tone. Like the writer is saying, oh ha ha, those crazy crooks in figure skating are at it again, ha ha.

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I would caution against attempting to read the tone of the author based on translated text, especially trying to judge it from an American's perspective as there is evidently significant cultural difference between France and the United States. From a linguistic standpoint, the author wrote her piece not in a standard conversational French - she went one level beyond that, although not Molière (or Shakespeare for the English equivalent), it feels as though she wants her audience to use their own imagination to picture what was going on. And this is fairly typical in high level French writing. Modern English as a language is concise and directly to the point - French is not and it remains a language of literature where even today, it is considered to be special, if you allow me the expression, that the author can demonstrate a mastery and richness of the language. In a way, she was trying to show off, if you will, which in fact conveys her feelings and own biases more transparently than say a matter of fact reporting that is more typical in English publications. And frankly, that is to be expected in a latin culture - people are more passionate and emotional and it shows in their writing. I certainly know I am here in GS, which drives some people nuts, especially some mods who shall not be named.

Now another poster raised a good point which I didn't emphasize :

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...gold-and-pairs&p=842848&viewfull=1#post842848

There was a passage, which I translated as under-the-table deals originally. What Sk9n Mama pointed out however is worth noting because in the original text, the author was drawing a curious image with an ironic tone yet at the same time, deliberately vague. I feel I need re-examine this particular phrase and translate its meaning in a different light : <<Avec son lot de rumeurs sur la circulation d'enveloppes (voire de valises)>> The image that that the author is trying to convey here is that there are rumors of bribes going around between different parties. In this sense, I feel "under-the-table deals" as I originally translated was not strong enough and overly simplistic. The reason why "enveloppes" was used is because it implies it is cash transaction or equivalent, therefore, untraceable. But more importantly, the author adds "voire de valises", which literaly means, <<seriously, more like suitcases being moved around for "diplomacy">>. If you can picture in a typical spy movie, like James Bond. How do spies pass messages to each other? Well, one will go to a certain place, say in an airport, deliberately leave a suitcase somewhere, then another person will go pick it up. There are many ways in trying to decipher what the author is saying. 1) We know it's intended to be untraceable. 2) The bribes are likely large sum, because calling them envelopes are a deliberate understatement as they can't actually fit in envelopes but more like size of suitcases. But the last part of the same sentence: <<ou d'échanges de « bons procédés ». >> implies a certain element of quid pro quo, IOUs or future favors, which likely means that some parties want favors and while others want money. The author then ends the paragraph by pointing at Russia as being in the center of it all.

I feel like I am deciphering ancient Egyptian writing...and yes, I wish she provided more details as opposed to leave us to our imaginations as to what she knew or she saw.

without coach name this is false information, and claim is invalid. it is fact

Mathman said:

OT -- On the television coverage tonight they showed Zoueva joining the U.S. team after Davis and White's skate wearing her Canada team jacket. Realizing her mistake, she hurriedly changed into her USA jacket for the kiss and cry.

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I remember that one of her dancers (Moir?) joked in 2010 about Zoueva feeling hyper about her dueling jackets .. and making everyone around her hyper as well.

LOL, for the SD and FD for the individual discipline in 2014, Zoueva's quick-change act will be tested even further. Shibs (switch), Virtue/Moir (switch), Davis/White.

Speaking of Team Canton and the Kiss and Cry:
I haven't seen the Team FD yet. But I did notice when Zoueva and Epstein were sitting in the Team SD Kiss and Cry with V/M, Moir graciously encouraged the coaches to go ahead and slip out -- so that they could offer their final wisdom to Davis/White before their skate.
I wish Moir's good sportsmanship would get as much recognition as his rare pot-stirring comments.

bestskate8 said:

without coach name this is false information, and claim is invalid. it is fact

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Erm... the fact that it was reported anonymously makes it potentially unverifiable, not false. Printing the coach's name wouldn't have made it true, either.

And the claim may or may not be invalid, but the notion that it shouldn't be investigated because it comes from an anonymous tip to a reporter seems kind of absurd. Do the police work that way with serious fraud and crime cases? I can't imagine they do... Given judging's chequered past, and for the integrity of the sport, the figure skating community has to offer more in response to an allegation like this than "sorry, nothing to see here, move along!"

Ice Dance said:

The real problem ice dance faces is that too few people understand it well enough to analyze it on their own. And for a long time there has been very limited expert dance commentary in North America. Tracy Wilson has been practically the only former ice dancer commentating on the Olympics in the entire CONTINENT. One voice. (Whether you like her or dislike her, one voice is not enough to create a balanced view of the sport). Now, here we are, again at the Olympics; and NBC hasn't even bothered to bring in an ice dancer to analyze the live coverage of what could very likely be the first gold medal performance in U.S. ice dance. We have this phenomenal opportunity to educate the audience about DANCE and to garner some serious enthusiasm for U.S. figure skating! And instead we have Tara & Johnny just trying to hold their heads above water by repeating stuff they've heard from real dance commentators, rather than having someone who can analyze the actual live performances happening on the ice.

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It's true that Tracy Wilson has been the main Ice Dance commentator in North America over the past decade or more. It's a testament to her abilities that both Canadian and American networks have hired her. But I agree with you that perhaps there need to be some other regular Ice Dance commentators as well.

Victor Kraatz did Ice Dance commentary for the Canadian network at the Vancouver Olympics, and I remember that Susie Wynne used to do so for ABC during the GP events a number of years back. For some reason CBC hired Carol Lane to take over from Tracy Wilson this year, although I think Tracy Wilson is still scheduled to do commentary for NBC. I was surprised when Lane was hired because while I like her and she's very knowledgable (a former ice dancer & British national medalist from Torvill/Dean era), it's unusual for a coach of current teams to also be commentating. (eg. Lane coaches Gilles/Poirier, Ralph/Hill, etc) So it's been surprising this year during the GP, 4CC's etc. hearing her doing commentary for her own teams! If G&P had finished one spot higher at Nationals, she would have been doing commentary for them at the Olympics too!

So I think you're right that the Ice Dance world is smaller than that of other disciplines. One of the reasons may be that until the last 2 Olympic cycles, there had only been one Canadian team and one American team to have gotten onto the Olympic dance podium. Wilson & McCall were the only Canadians to win an Olympic medal in Dance until Virtue & Moir came along. And until Belbin & Agosto and Davis & White, the U.S. was in the same situation.

Now that more Canadians and Americans are moving up the ranks in Dance and the era of European/Russian dominance in Dance has ended, we may see the commentating field expanding in the years ahead. I guess we are seeing a bit of that now that Belbin is doing some commentary.

It is absolutely true that a call can be appealed to the tech panel by the coach. Igor appealed whether P&B fell during a botched lift earlier this season, and the appeal was granted. I don't know whether Marina appealed or not.

It is true that neither team had perfectly synched twizzles in the FD, but neither team was downgraded for them, but synchronization is a GOE issue, not a tech panel issue.

It is always possible to bribe all but one of the judges and all but one of the tech panel, but that would be a much bigger operation than we have seen before in skating. However, what is claimed requires the bribing not only of all the dance judges and the dance tech panel, but also all the judges for the dance individual event and all the judges for the pairs individual event, which have not yet occurred.

The reporter does not claim that she has seen these transactions herself. The reporter had a meeting with a high level Russian coach. She does not claim more than one coach. She does not claim the deal was actually completed,only that the high level coach said that it was proposed. Because L'Equipe is not a tabloid, and the reporter is a known skating reporter, I am sure that these facts are as reported.

However, it is also true that the allegations of the coach are not provable to be true or false based on the content of the article. Just because I claim you committed a crime doesn't mean you committed it. I may be as highly placed as you want, and still have motives of my own for making false allegations, even to the point of manufacturing some form of evidence that might be convincing to a reporter. These days it is not hard to do, given Photoshop. And I have not heard that any "proofs" are claimed to have been provided to the reporter, in any case.

Oh my, I just cannot take it anymore. This conspiracy theory is preposterous and really unworthy of all this attention. This baloney theory was planted by Canada to: 1. Force judges to prove they aren't cheating by giving higher scores to v/m and lower ones to marlie. 2. Explain how the Americans could possibly defeat v/m, seeing as voir are the greatest skaters of all time. 3. Taint the inevitable victory by marlie and provide more excuses for v/m. Meryl and Charlie don't need help; they beat v/m on a regular basis. And Russia doesn't need help in team event or pairs! They are going to win both on their own, and it's insulting to insinuate otherwise.

Most of all, it would be nearly impossible for two judges to collude in this way. Scores are randomly tossed, so the judges don't even know if their scores count. And two out of 9 (or 13) can hardly rig a competition.

Unfortunately for voir this little plot didn't work. The Russians are furious, as evidenced by the cold reaction voir received from the audience tonight and the ultra-low scores from the judges. I/k scored 50.36 in the technical marks tonight. V/m scored 50.37. Anyone think that was a message? And Meryl and Charlie are ticked. Lookout!

These claims were planted without a shred of evidence. None. Nada. Only the claim of one anonymous source. As for the credibility of the newspaper, assertions that the rumor is true simply because it was reported are laughable. Remember, the New York Times reported that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When they got to Iraq, however, they found none. Nada. But it got bush his war. Same here. Sad. Really really sad all around.

Welcome, bamaformarlie. Thanks for joining the discussion.

One little correction. The silly business about randomly discarding some of the judges' marks was done away with a couple of years ago, as were 13-judge panels. All judging panels have 9 members, the highest and lowest marks for each GOE and PCS are tossed, the remaining 7 averaged. As applied to the Olympics, the interesting thing is that this procedure was pushed through by the iSU executive council without the required vote by the full congress, if I remember the details correctly. Nobody complained about this procedural omission, however.

To Wallylutz: Thanks for the remarks about French language and culture. Very interesting. About those suitcases, maybe that's where the 30 billion dollars went that reportedly turned up missing from the Sochi Olympic enterprise.

chuckm said:

The grading of the elements is done by the TECH TEAM, not by the judges. The tech team for Ice Dance was Halina Gordon Poltorak (POL), the Technical Controller; and Technical Specialists Ayako Higashino (JPN) and Gyorgy Elek (HUN). The tech team gave V/M L2 for the Diagonal Step Sequence. Then each judge added a Grade of Execution to the base level for an L2 DiStSq. The 'allegations' refer to deals among judges, and do not implicate members of the technical team.

Yes, one judge gave V/M several 0 GOEs. ONE JUDGE. Not a group of judges, but one judge, and those marks wouldn't counted anyway since the high mark and the low mark are discarded. That judge will probably be asked to justify scores that are so out of line. If there was a conspiracy, I think you'd see more variance in the scores than there are here. If you take out that one judge's scores, the rest are remarkably similar to one another.

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The GOE scores are all over the place anyway. Virtue and Moir got one +3 GOE for that first lift which they clearly biffed. Davis and White got two +3 GOEs on twizzles that were clearly out of sync on slo-mo.

chuckm said:

The grading of the elements is done by the TECH TEAM, not by the judges. The tech team for Ice Dance was Halina Gordon Poltorak (POL), the Technical Controller; and Technical Specialists Ayako Higashino (JPN) and Gyorgy Elek (HUN). The tech team gave V/M L2 for the Diagonal Step Sequence. Then each judge added a Grade of Execution to the base level for an L2 DiStSq. The 'allegations' refer to deals among judges, and do not implicate members of the technical team.

Yes, one judge gave V/M several 0 GOEs. ONE JUDGE. Not a group of judges, but one judge, and those marks wouldn't counted anyway since the high mark and the low mark are discarded. That judge will probably be asked to justify scores that are so out of line. If there was a conspiracy, I think you'd see more variance in the scores than there are here. If you take out that one judge's scores, the rest are remarkably similar to one another.

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You do realize that ONE JUDGE giving marks that are way low for a particular would still make a difference, even if that judge's mark is discarded?

Let's say each skater is marked by 5 judges. One of them is more strict with marking than others (the "stingy" judge). Both skaters perform well. Skater A gets four +3s and a +1 from the stingy judge. Highest and lowest discarded, average of three remaining marks is +3. Skater B also gets three +3s and a +1 from the stingy judge. But the last judge gives them a 0 because they have an agenda. Highest and lowest discarded, average is +2.33. A difference of +0.67 GOEs even though four of the five judges marked Skater A and Skater B to be equivalent. See the problem?

The point of throwing away the highest and lowest marks is to throw away the outliers. If someone is deliberately giving super high or super low marks to ensure that they'll be the outlier that's tossed, the true outlier (the "fair" outlier) will still be included in the total. So if ONE JUDGE is giving V/W low scores but giving other pairs fair scores, the mark from the "stingy" judge on the panel will be tossed for everyone else but not for V/M.

I haven't looked at the protocols yet so I'm not going to comment on whether there's actually a conspiracy, but ONE JUDGE can still make a tremendous difference even under the current rules.

dorispulaski said:

It is absolutely true that a call can be appealed to the tech panel by the coach. Igor appealed whether P&B fell during a botched lift earlier this season, and the appeal was granted. I don't know whether Marina appealed or not.

It is true that neither team had perfectly synched twizzles in the FD, but neither team was downgraded for them, but synchronization is a GOE issue, not a tech panel issue.

It is always possible to bribe all but one of the judges and all but one of the tech panel, but that would be a much bigger operation than we have seen before in skating. However, what is claimed requires the bribing not only of all the dance judges and the dance tech panel, but also all the judges for the dance individual event and all the judges for the pairs individual event, which have not yet occurred.

The reporter does not claim that she has seen these transactions herself. The reporter had a meeting with a high level Russian coach. She does not claim more than one coach. She does not claim the deal was actually completed,only that the high level coach said that it was proposed. Because L'Equipe is not a tabloid, and the reporter is a known skating reporter, I am sure that these facts are as reported.

However, it is also true that the allegations of the coach are not provable to be true or false based on the content of the article. Just because I claim you committed a crime doesn't mean you committed it. I may be as highly placed as you want, and still have motives of my own for making false allegations, even to the point of manufacturing some form of evidence that might be convincing to a reporter. These days it is not hard to do, given Photoshop. And I have not heard that any "proofs" are claimed to have been provided to the reporter, in any case.

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Thanks Doris for the recollection. Any thoughts on the Lvl 2 step?

I guess that's my only question regarding the sourcing of this article. I know some refer to Deep Throat and Watergate as an example of an anonymous source driving an investigation, but that's not exactly true. Deep Throat (later revealed to be FBI asst. director Mark Felt) was a major tipster/informant, but Woodward and Bernstein still had multiple other (anonymous) sources involved in their investigation.

I agree with Doris that the reporter is probably accurate and what has been reported, but it doesn't necessarily verify what source said happened is true. As the New York Times story pointed out there isn't, at this point, a smoking gun.

Just a humorous thought, if it turns out that USFSA did pull off such a thing then I've really been underestimating the federation all these years. USFSA is practically a bunch of country bumpkins compared to other federations. On the other hand, if there turns out to be such a plot and it completely fails, then I suppose one could argue it's because they are a bunch of country bumpkins compared to other federations...

bamaformarlie said:

Oh my, I just cannot take it anymore. This conspiracy theory is preposterous and really unworthy of all this attention. This baloney theory was planted by Canada...

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You're responding to one conspiracy theory by spreading another conspiracy theory. And your "theory" -- that Canada somehow made a Russian judge tell a fib to a French reporter -- doesn't have any evidence either. That's at least as far-fetched a chain of events! An anonymous source quoted in a credible newspaper IS actually evidence. It's very weak evidence, but surely, in a sport already known for rigged judging in the past, it's enough to at least prompt something other than derision. We're not doing ourselves or the sport any favour by laughing off allegations when they come up. It would be different if figure skating had a firmly established reputation for objective and reputable judging, but, well...

And I don't think you've even understood what the supposed conspiracy actually is. If the fix is in, we won't expect to have seen the second part of it yet anyways. Part 1 of the fix, if I understand it right, was to help Russia win the team event. Part 2 of the fix was to make sure Meryl and Charlie won the individual dance event. So the ice dance scores we've seen so far are irrelevant to any sort of conspiracy. If -- again I say IF -- there was a conspiracy to start with.

Despite Wallylutz' explanation above of the French penchant for literary witticisms, I cannot see anything here to get my teeth into. The writer waxes clever with "suitcases, wink, wink." Is this all the Russian coach told her?

Instead of "suitcases,wink,wink," why didn't the reporter say, the Russian coach told me that on Octovber 23rd there was a meeting in St Petersburg where Valentin Piseev gave 10,000 dollars in cash to the Finnish judge to assure inflated scores for pairs team V&S, with a promise of another 10,000 after the deed was done?

The only way this story will get anywhere is if there is actually a controversial result in one of those events. The team event is over and there was nothing remotedly controversial about Russia's victory. V&T will have to bomb badly and S&S skate perfectly for a V&T gold to be somewhat controversial. That combination is unlikely to happen as S&S already had their Hayleys Comet once every 3 years clean competition at the Grand Prix final, and anyway I would expect V&T to skate better than their last two outings, especialy already having an Olympic Gold. The mens could produce a big controversy but they arent involved in this rumor. A controversial win or medal, for Patrick Chan who is already widely touted the most held up and overscored skater in history by most in the skating World, would not create any new news or gain any new traction for the story either as it has been going on for years. If D&W skate as they almost always do there will be no big controversy over their win. Some might argue for V&M, but D&W would have to make a major error for it to be so clearly for V&M to create a real controversy (and even then they cant make the silly mistakes they made their last couple outings). So that leaves the ladies. I guess if Yu Na Kim doesnt have a semi disaester and Julia wins the gold it will be a large controversy to some, but I honestly cant see the judges giving Julia the gold unless Kim does indeed have a semi disaester; and again that doesnt seem to be tied into this article.

So in this summary this article has next to zero chance of gaining any traction. Whether its contents are true or merited or not, it is highly unlikely we will see circumstances that create such a big controversy to even bring it to light.

NorthernDancers said:

when Plushy wins the men's free based on him outscoring Jason Brown and Kevin Reynolds on PCS, there is definitely something wrong.

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I nearly spit out my coffee reading this. I am no Plushenko fan but you are surprised he handily beats REYNOLDS, yes REYNOLDS, on PCS?!!?! As for Brown, yes he deserves higher PCS than he gets but that is to be expected from an international newbie. If Brown keeps skating like this and gets a quad his PCS will magically rise a large amount soon.

Ice Network article:

http://www.icenetwork.com/news/2014/02/10/67619362/borscht-belts-shpilband-scoffs-at-collusion-talk

Sounds right to me. Agree, this nonsense is dying a well-deserved death.

Although Trankov can be mistake-prone, he and Volosozhar are heavily favored to take the pairs gold, so much so that their main rivals, Germans Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, developed a new short program, set to music from The Pink Panther, at the eleventh hour in an attempt to catch up to the Russians' program components scores. As for Davis and White, the U.S. world champions haven't been defeated since the 2012 World Figure Skating Championships.
Doesn't sound like any of the named parties in this deal need much help to win.

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And this is what makes this whole article so stupid, pointless, and basically impossible go gain any traction. Even if there was some truth to it (and being that it is figure skating it wouldnt stun me if there was) the fact is the Team Gold for Russia was clearly won with no controversy to speak of, and V&T and D&W will both have to badly underperform for there to be controversy over their win (D&W would have to falter much less for their to be controversy over their victory over a perfect V&M I know, but ice dance it is far harder to make mistakes of the quantity or magnitude of pairs, so it events out). It is hugely unlikely a set of performances that even makes a controversy of any magnitude possible to happen.

Anyway NBC are the driving force of the sport during the Olympics, and as they want D&W to win, and want to milk the story of "Russia's return to prominence" on home ice as it makes good fluffy pieces. So given that V&M and D&W would really have to meltdown for NBC to get involved and help create any kind of controversy.

FYI, NorthernDancers was referring to the incident that virtually all Canadian Figure Skaters in the Team Event were asked to do a "random" drug test and especially Osmond, who was woken up during her planned nap to do so on Saturday.

It was very curious indeed that a supposedly random drug test seemed to target athletes of an entire nation but not the others and also, the timing of these tests especially on the youngest skater of the team.

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I just caught up with this thread (which scares me and saddens me, btw), but this point caught my eye. Wait, what? Really? This really is a thing that happened? But other skaters from other countries (and Russian skaters) were not part of this random drug testing? What? How could they get away with something like that? It does not compute.

Lucy25 said:

Ice Network article:

http://www.icenetwork.com/news/2014/02/10/67619362/borscht-belts-shpilband-scoffs-at-collusion-talk

Sounds right to me. Agree, this nonsense is dying a well-deserved death.

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So Rutherford made that her top topic because the controversy is dying a well-deserved death? That's an interesting choice of subject matter, then. BTW, she didn't even bother to get the name of the L'Equipe journalist right - the byline reads Céline Nony. Since it appears right at the top of the article, it shouldn't have been so difficult to check.

As for the "well, it's not like V/T or D/W or Team Russia or [insert skater name here] needs help" argument: the point of dealing and politicking isn't whether certain parties objectively need the help, it's whether their federations perceive a need to ensure good results.

Of course, I have no idea if the report itself is true or if Nony's source gave her incorrect information (intentionally or unintentionally). But I have no doubt that there is a lot of politicking and, let's say, attempts at persuasion, going on - probably even more than the usual in skating.

p.s. I know IN love the punny local food headlines, but Borscht Belts does not bring to mind Sochi. Hungarian Goulash at least made sense.

Lucy25 said:

Ice Network article:

http://www.icenetwork.com/news/2014/02/10/67619362/borscht-belts-shpilband-scoffs-at-collusion-talk

Sounds right to me. Agree, this nonsense is dying a well-deserved death.

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Good to see Frank Carroll saying what most people are thinking that Julia's scores are getting out of control and that her component scores are out of control for a 15 year old who's not as mature as the older ladies.