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

KKonas said:

This “story” is all absolute nonsense. First of all, the Ice Dance Technical Committee purposely stipulated that none of the dance tech panels in Sochi will be from countries represented by the top 5 finalists at the 2013 Worlds, ostensibly to avoid any “conspiracy issues.” The tech panel has more influence on the overall score than one or two judges. (Check the Protocols for the Tech Panel in the Short Dance. Chair of the IDTC is the Tech Controller from Poland; the tech specialist is Japanese, the Asst. Tech Specialist is Hungarian, and the Ref is Israeli.) Also the judging panel itself is drawn 30 minutes before the event so there is no guarantee that either a Russian or American judge will be on the panel. And once on the panel there is no guarantee which marks will be discarded.
Whoever “leaked” this alleged scheme either doesn’t know this, nor does L’Equipe . There are numerous cases of errors printed by respectable newspapers that are often retracted after further investigation.
In my opinion, Igor Shpilband was the most influential individual in turning US Ice Dance into the strong program it is today. I’ve known Igor for more than 20 years. It’s ludicrous to think that he would be behind this lie since he has become one of the most successful coaches in the US and refused to return to Russia when they begged him to return to head their dying dance program.

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I used to think that. But there is definitely something very rotten going on. When V/M and D/W both have identical base technical scores in the SD, but D/W score more than 3 points higher in PCS and GOE, when one team gets knocked badly for twizzles, but the other team hardly sees any impact at all for errors on twizzles, when Plushy wins the men's free based on him outscoring Jason Brown and Kevin Reynolds on PCS, there is definitely something wrong. When an athlete is tested a few hours before an event, and almost everyone on one team is tested, while others are not subjected to this, it makes one wonder. Sure maybe 1 set of marks won't matter. But who's to say the scandal isn't bigger than that? I'd like to see further investigation and see where this leads. To quote the national news last night, "in figure skating, where there's smoke, there's generally an inferno".

I think a different standard of marks is being applied to V/M than everyone else. And there is definitely funny business going on with a number of performances of skaters for PCS and GOE. And if this nonsense is not fixed before the individual events, I fear skating will be lobbied to be removed from the Olympics. And that's a huge blow to the growth of skating as a serious legitimate sport. You want to know why skating is on the decline? Because parents will not invest money, and it takes a lot of money to produce an Olympic champion, on something that is not considered a legitimate sport, where the rules are not respected by all, and where there is no predictability in the results based on how one skates. Already now, just with the news articles, I fear the cause of skating has been set back to 2002. It's been a LONG road back for people to trust skating as a sport. And all the good work has been undone by repeated questionable judging especially this season but also last, and now this "revelation" by L'Equipe. It's time for the ISU to get serious about cleaning this up.

NorthernDancers -- really good analysis.

On the surface of it, an American-Russian deal sounds fairly, well, incredible. As in NOT credible.

But the problem gets compounded by how it is handled by the IOC and ISU. So far, that response basically seems to be, "nah, don't worry -- it's all good!"

The problem is that this sort of accusation tends to ring true even despite being implausible because that's precisely the sort of deal-making that has gone on in the past. The proper response for the people who have to enforce the rules isn't to glibly deny there could possibly be any truth to the rumors -- it's to say they will treat any allegation seriously and make sure there is nothing to them.

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.

L'Equipe has a journalistic responsibility to provide some facts. So far they have just lobbed out a smoke bomb -- hey, some anonymous guy just told us that the ISU is a bunch of crooks -- and now they are sitting back enjoying the fun. I think readers of this magazine should expect more.

At the very least, they should interview a second Russian coach and ask him, have you heard about what the first Russian coach said? Is that true? (Second Russian coach: "Of course it's true. I read it in :'Equipe.")

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...ympic-fix-slur&p=842621&viewfull=1#post842621

dress said:

The first media which published the story about a possible agreement between Russia and USA is the french journal. L'Équipe. It's the first journal who published the doping scandal of Lance Armstrong. Canadian and American medias only relayed the information...

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I suppose L'Équipe exposing Armstrong was non-sense as well, considering how many Tour de France he won, or did he actually?

wallylutz said:

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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The trouble is, once you add in the possibility that the drug test system is being manipulated to try and throw the Canadians off their game, you have to add even more people into this supposed conspiracy.

Who actually administers the tests during the middle of the Olympics? I don't actually know here, but obviously it's not the judges. So now you have even more people involved in the alleged scheme.

I don't know very much about conspiracies, either, but I do know that the more people you let in on the secret, the more likely the whole thing is going to get blown open. Although I suppose the obvious response to this is "yeah -- that's exactly what's happening now!"

Mia_ said:

Actually, it did happen at this season's GPF SD. D/W made an error on the twizzles, and some judges still gave them +3 GOE and +2s.

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Which supports my point. I think the GPF was D&W's weakest performance of the season, but D&W still won. Therefore, there is no clear evidence that a clean performance by V&M can defeat a slightly flawed one by D&W this season. (It could certainly happen, but the scores thus far don't reflect it).

Name me one Olympics without a dance "conspiracy theory." (I've been watching dance seriously since 1992, and I can't think of one; though if you go back and analyze the actual performances & marks, you find the holes in the theories). 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.

KKonas said:

This “story” is all absolute nonsense. First of all, the Ice Dance Technical Committee purposely stipulated that none of the dance tech panels in Sochi will be from countries represented by the top 5 finalists at the 2013 Worlds, ostensibly to avoid any “conspiracy issues.” The tech panel has more influence on the overall score than one or two judges. (Check the Protocols for the Tech Panel in the Short Dance. Chair of the IDTC is the Tech Controller from Poland; the tech specialist is Japanese, the Asst. Tech Specialist is Hungarian, and the Ref is Israeli.) Also the judging panel itself is drawn 30 minutes before the event so there is no guarantee that either a Russian or American judge will be on the panel. And once on the panel there is no guarantee which marks will be discarded.
Whoever “leaked” this alleged scheme either doesn’t know this, nor does L’Equipe . There are numerous cases of errors printed by respectable newspapers that are often retracted after further investigation.
In my opinion, Igor Shpilband was the most influential individual in turning US Ice Dance into the strong program it is today. I’ve known Igor for more than 20 years. It’s ludicrous to think that he would be behind this lie since he has become one of the most successful coaches in the US and refused to return to Russia when they begged him to return to head their dying dance program.

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With all due respect, I am disappointed that you didn't show more respect and professionalism for your French colleagues at L'Équipe given that you are a journalist as well. To be clear, you have every right to question the reliability of such story, as do many of us. Speaking for myself, I am skeptical about some of the details given and am unsure how this would work out in practice, even if there are such deals. Nevertheless, the results of Team Event, in particular the way Russian skaters have been scored is puzzling to me. To put it bluntly, I don't think the scores that Russians received in Pairs, Men's and Ladies' are justifiable or defensible. Several errors were deliberately overlooked and scores close to world record level were given for mediocre skates including but not limited to the Russian Pair who scored a 130+ "phenomenal" free skate where the only clean SBS jump is a pair of Double Axels that even top level Junior pairs wouldn't use in competition today. Not wanting to derail this thread with details of scoring anomalies and questionable calls, I want to address some of the questions you raised, which deserved to be discussed and explored.

While there is little to speculate re: the Ice Dance Technical Panel, regarding the identity of the judges, the same cannot be said however. Everyone knows who the judges are or will be. For the Team Event, there is no draw 30 minutes before. In fact, the 9 judges were pre-selected and given that we know in advance who will represent each country as judge, the judges for the Team Event are known months in advance. Notice that Team Event judges do not alternate between SP and FS either and some of the judges at the Team Event will not be at the Individual competition. For example, there was a Canadian judge at the Men's Team Event panel but she will not be at the Individual event. Given that we know exactly who the 9 judges for each Team Event will be, there is no uncertainty regarding whether an American or a Russian judge will be on a given panel or not - it is known with absolute certainty and it will not alternate. As yourself noted before, the USFS nominated its judges for the Olympics months in advance - we know exactly what each judge will be doing what events. Same thing goes for Skate Canada and other skating federations, these are not secret information - they are so public that a journalist is not required to dig up and gather these information. As far as the Team Event is concerned, this indeed opens this inaugural competition up for manipulation due to these facts.

Furthermore, I notice your info is slightly outdated. Marks will no longer be randomly discarded for about 2 years already. The only marks that will be discarded are the highest and lowest marks. However, 2 or more judges who collude will still result in higher and lower marks for the intended skaters because some judges, who are otherwise impartial, can be especially stingy or lenient. Therefore, dropping the highest and lowest marks may not necessarily throw out the marks of the colluded judges.

One key point raised by L'Équipe is the fact that deal(s) is not limited to Russia and USA but also between Russia and other countries. It is unlikely 2 judges colluding could have a significant impact on the final results during a close competition but if there other deals, then it's hard to say.

The way I see it, assuming the Technical Panel is independent and unlikely to be influenced, judges who are nominated by their own Federation is another story. If some judges have been told to mark certain way by their federations, then it stands to reason this is an insurance policy that they are buying. A competition can have many factors outside the judges' control. What becomes tricky is what if the competition was close? Going into these Olympics, we knew the competition will be close, whether in Dance, Pairs or Team Event. What if V/T made some errors? Can they stay above a mostly clean S/S? What if V/M and D/W are again more or less tied on the levels? Then what? This is where if the judges have agreed to vote a certain way, e.g. USA deliberately hold up V/T while Russia vote for D/W during a similar close call in Dance, can be significant. Manipulating results is about eliminating the uncertainty during a close call. In this sense, they are an insurance policy. But the insurance policy may not be exercisable if the hole is too big. In that case, there is nothing anyone can do. However, if it's within reasons, then it's not clear anymore...

In the Lance Armstrong case, L'Equipe actually presented some facts. A book had been written (co-authored by a former L'Equipe editor) the year before the magazine article came out describing in substantial detail the prevalence of the doping culture in cycling and Armstrong's involvement. Many athletes , trainers, etc., were interviewed, including Armstrong's teammates. The 2005 story was backed up by laboratory reports, naming the medical lab (the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory) where the tests were conducted and quoting doctors, technicians, and medical experts.

In the current case, we have nothing but a quote from one unnamed Russian coach. This is not good investigative journalism.

I think L'Equipe would probably respond that given the ongoing Olympics the urgency of the situation dictated that they go to print with what they did have, and that further investigation is ongoing as well.

And the editor probably did ensure that whatever the source(s) may be, it was enough to protect them following publication. Although I'm not sure exactly what the legal/ethical bars may be in that respect in France...

davogt said:

I think L'Equipe would probably respond that given the ongoing Olympics the urgency of the situation dictated that they go to print with what they did have, and that further investigation is ongoing as well.

And the editor probably did ensure that whatever the source(s) may be, it was enough to protect them following publication. Although I'm not sure exactly what the legal/ethical bars may be in that respect in France...

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This New York Times story from 2010 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/media/20sources.html) does point out that France has a shield law, a national law that enables media to protect sources, but that then President Nicolas Sarkozy often try to get around it.

It should be noted that the article speaks about a proposal by the Russian coach, but does not say that the proposal was accepted or that an actual agreement was reached and a plan was in place to affect placements at the Olympics.

That being the case, what was the purpose of this article other than to cause trouble?

Thanks, hyperinflation. I speak French & your translation was very good.

So far, no deals were needed: Russia earned the team title. However, pairs will be interesting. If V/T don't skate great and win anyway, we'll have our answer. The author of the article speaks with authority, as if to say he or she has seen the envelopes being passed, and being passed without a lot of effort to conceal.

V/M had their diagonal step sequence downgraded to a 2, and one judge gave them multiple '0' GOE. That's suspicious. Whether you are V/M fans or not, you have to admit their technical is neither Level 2 nor GOE 0. When I saw that, I felt that the fix was in.

I love figure skating. I started skating at age 7, skated competitively, and I'm in my 40s now. I don't want this to be true because it is so bad for the sport.

NorthernDancers said:

I used to think that. But there is definitely something very rotten going on. When V/M and D/W both have identical base technical scores in the SD, but D/W score more than 3 points higher in PCS and GOE, when one team gets knocked badly for twizzles, but the other team hardly sees any impact at all for errors on twizzles, when Plushy wins the men's free based on him outscoring Jason Brown and Kevin Reynolds on PCS, there is definitely something wrong. When an athlete is tested a few hours before an event, and almost everyone on one team is tested, while others are not subjected to this, it makes one wonder. Sure maybe 1 set of marks won't matter. But who's to say the scandal isn't bigger than that? I'd like to see further investigation and see where this leads. To quote the national news last night, "in figure skating, where there's smoke, there's generally an inferno".

I think a different standard of marks is being applied to V/M than everyone else. And there is definitely funny business going on with a number of performances of skaters for PCS and GOE. And if this nonsense is not fixed before the individual events, I fear skating will be lobbied to be removed from the Olympics. And that's a huge blow to the growth of skating as a serious legitimate sport. You want to know why skating is on the decline? Because parents will not invest money, and it takes a lot of money to produce an Olympic champion, on something that is not considered a legitimate sport, where the rules are not respected by all, and where there is no predictability in the results based on how one skates. Already now, just with the news articles, I fear the cause of skating has been set back to 2002. It's been a LONG road back for people to trust skating as a sport. And all the good work has been undone by repeated questionable judging especially this season but also last, and now this "revelation" by L'Equipe. It's time for the ISU to get serious about cleaning this up.

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I agree. I did not think much of the allegations when I first heard them, but, from watching the skates and the scores, the biases are impossible not to observe.

When ISU spokesperson Selina Vanier communicated, “The ISU does not react to allegations without evidence,” what is happening with the scoring is about all the evidence the public needs. What ISU should start doing is applying some common sense. There is blatantly a problem with the judging whether it is related to a "deal" or not. As well, the manner in which Canadians have been targeted for drug testing amounts to thug behavior and undue harassment. The ISU needs to act quickly and thoroughly to all of this. This could kill the sport for another ten years if not properly addressed.

Sk8n Mama said:

V/M had their diagonal step sequence downgraded to a 2, and one judge gave them multiple '0' GOE. That's suspicious. Whether you are V/M fans or not, you have to admit their technical is neither Level 2 nor GOE 0. When I saw that, I felt that the fix was in.

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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.

Yes, thank you, Chuck. I'm well aware of those CoP basics.

Why do all of these posts assume a technical specialist must be above board? So they don't have a country in the running? Vote swapping is the only possible incentive?

I still haven't heard a viable answer to the L2 DiaStS. Just because it's only ONE JUDGE doesn't mean that judge knew it was only him/her and the scores would be tossed. And ONE JUDGE on Olympic judging panel either didn't judge what was on the ice, or doesn't know a Choctaw from a Mowhawk, both of which are pretty disconcerting scenarios!

These kids out there invest their lives at this. I know for a fact that some of the athletes families are in debt up to their eyeballs to pay for this. Is it too much to ask for transparent judging, or judges who know what they're looking at, or an ISU who cares enough about the sport to investigate and quash these rumours to bring validity to the sport???

I'm not saying it is true, but I'm not sure that judges judged what happened on the ice in the free dance.

Sk8n Mama said:

Why do all of these posts assume a technical specialist must be above board? So they don't have a country in the running? Vote swapping is the only possible incentive?

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No, but if you're going to speculate about the possibility of -- let's say -- bribing a technical specialist from an uninvolved country, you're going outside of the allegation that was made in the French press. That allegation was that there was a vote-swapping deal between the U.S. and Russia.

Of course it's possible that there is some other conspiracy actually going on, but if it's not the one that was alleged in L'Equipe, then you're left where plenty of people were before -- lots of suspicions, and no actual evidence of anything.

Sk8n Mama said:

I still haven't heard a viable answer to the L2 DiaStS. Just because it's only ONE JUDGE doesn't mean that judge knew it was only him/her and the scores would be tossed. And ONE JUDGE on Olympic judging panel either didn't judge what was on the ice, or doesn't know a Choctaw from a Mowhawk, both of which are pretty disconcerting scenarios!

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I'm hoping someone can come in and explain the level 2. Doris usually is good about doing that kind of thing but I have a feeling she's occupied working on GS stuff.

For the record, Marina Zoueva can go back and question a technical call. Igor did that with P/B during the SD at Cup of China (I think; again Doris can recall that better than me). Though I think there's only a certain amount of time to do so...

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.

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.

Mathman said:

In the current case, we have nothing but a quote from one unnamed Russian coach. This is not good investigative journalism.

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It is good investigative journalism to protect one's source, though, and maybe L'Equipe can't run more without jeopardizing the anonymity of that source.