How Sotnikova beat Kim - Move by Move | Page 3 | Golden Skate

How Sotnikova beat Kim - Move by Move

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
I hate how the camera work shot the step sequence of all the skaters from the side so that it hid the ice coverage of the skaters. Of course, hardcore fans have seen the step sequence done in other competitions so I know that Adelina's itty-bitty, awkward step sequence only covers half as much ice as Mao's.

The choice in camera work was just another little way the Skating Feds tried to cover up their cheating.
 

Nadia01

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
I hate how the camera work shot the step sequence of all the skaters from the side so that it hid the ice coverage of the skaters. Of course, hardcore fans have seen the step sequence done in other competitions so I know that Adelina's awkward step sequence covers half as much as Mao's.

The choice in camera work was another little way the Skating Feds tried to cover up their cheating.

It angers me Adelina outscored Mao. Ugh. And beat Mao in PCS too. Mao deserved better.
 

verysmuchso

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 30, 2007
Article from Japan Times.

Scandalous outcome: Skating judges steal Kim’s title, hand it to Sotnikova

SOCHI, RUSSIA – Yuna Kim got robbed on Thursday night. Plain and simple.

What happened to her at the Sochi Games was a complete and utter disgrace. Another black eye for figure skating.

The elegant and magnetic South Korean superstar gave a wonderful performance in very difficult circumstances, not making a single mistake, yet came away with only a silver medal in what can only be deemed a scandalous result.

Russian gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova was impressive in her free skate, but was she five points better than Kim?

No way. How over the top was Sotnikova’s score in the free skate? Sixteen points better than her previous personal best.
Give me a break. What should have been a glorious moment for Russian skating was taking on a decidedly different tone the morning after, with some very disturbing information emerging.

I spoke with several journalists in the Main Press Center on Friday morning and it was nearly unanimous — they almost all thought that Kim had beaten home favorite Sotnikova.

Before I even made it back to my hotel after the competition, the debate was already beginning to rage.

With the arrival of Kim and Mao Asada many years ago, skating in Asia has been enjoying a boom. But the sad reality is that in many other places it has been languishing. The results in women’s singles here will only make promoting it harder. Every time something like this occurs it does exponential damage.

Millions of people around the world are watching and presuming it is all legitimate. Skating is a great sport — one that teaches important values to youngsters about dedication, hard work and sportsmanship — and to see it besmirched again is very disturbing.

What are the young skaters and fans who watched the free skate supposed to think?

What bothers me most is that here was this great champion, an incredible symbol for skating, giving it her all one more time. Kim is a millionaire many times over and certainly didn’t need to compete. She is set for life.

But she knew she was still young enough to give it another go and wanted her fans to have another chance to see her on the greatest stage. She put her legacy on the line in a bid to become only the third woman ever to retain the Olympic title (after Norway’s Sonja Henie and Germany’s Katarina Witt). It was a gutsy move.

Brennan, the author of the highly acclaimed skating book “Inside Edge,” didn’t mince any words in her analysis of the free skate, telling it exactly like it was.
“....Kim could not have gotten out of the Iceberg Skating Palace with the gold medal if she had left with it in an armored car.
I almost felt as if I were watching a play where Kim was going to be brought out and sacrificed as the final act.
That would have gone along with the story line, but Kim would have none of it. She displayed the heart and courage of a true champion in an amazing effort.

What happened next was a damn shame.


http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/...kims-title-hand-it-to-sotnikova/#.UwiwcWJ_tjM

This pretty much sums up how I felt that evening, though I imagined something more like a crucifixion awaiting Yuna.
 

luckyguy

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
TES is not what really is in question though. Well aside of no GOE taken off by most judges for Sotnikova's flutz and extremely high GOE for her step sequence which didn't have the speed and flow of many other skaters.

It's Sotnikova's PCS that were ridiculously high for what she has shown.
OK, but Sotnikova was almost 6 pts higher. You think her PCS should be 6 pts lower (like Gracie Gold)?
 

yuki90

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 8, 2014
OK, but Sotnikova was almost 6 pts higher. You think her PCS should be 6 pts lower (like Gracie Gold)?
YuNa
3Lz+3T 10.10
3F 5.30
2A 3.63 x

3Lz+3T 10.10
3F 5.30
3S+2T 5.50
3Lz 6.60 
2A+2T+2Lo 7.04 
3S 4.62 x
2A 3.63 x 
Total 61.84

Sotnikova
3T+3T 8.20 
3F 5.30
2A 3.63 x

3Lz+3T 10.10 (Wrong edge. should get -GOE -1~-2 but Judges gave +GOE.)
3F 5.30
3Lo 5.10 
2A+3T 8.14 x
3F+2T+2Lo 9.24 x 
3S 4.62 x 
2A 3.63 x
Total 63.26 

the difference is only 1.42 point.
Their PCS is almost same in both SP and FP.
YuNa's step sequence got level 3 in SP and FP and Adelina got level 4 and 1.7 GOE.
This is fixed from the beginnig.YuNa was robbed of gold medal.
 

zephyrskates

On the Ice
Joined
May 2, 2007
It has been discussed ad infinitum, it is true that math is math. As a Yuna supporter, I cede the fact that she did perform a less technically difficult program in the LP. However, are we forgetting the SP? People have illustrated plenty of times, that the BV difference between Kim and Sotnikova is about 2 points, but Sotnikova did not beat Kim by two points. What is so egregious is that in terms of PCS Sotnikova was only a couple hundreths of points behind Kim, and ahead of Asada and Kostner. That is blasphemous.
 

jenm

The Last One Degree
Medalist
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Math is math. 6 technical score difference, period. Proven point by point, element by element. And you bitter people need to shut up! There is a reason the 6.0 system is gone.
Let's write a petition to ISU to invalidate math! Math is corrupted! Math is a russophile! Putin corrupted math!

Even in artististry Yuna's marks were overblown in my opinion. No choreography. Performing to tango without a tango? It's the same as performing to waltz with a some random tempo. Just going from jump to a jump with no concept of any performance in between. I am not an expert in dance at all, but I know enough that you cannot just randomly skate around to tango music, because the result will be terrible. If she had chosen some contemporary classical then she would not have exposed her lack of choreography so much. The tango choice was really bad.
However, it's my own personal opinion. It's just how I saw tangos performed before and how Yuna looked disconnected from it.

Not to mention she lacked energy and looked very passive in her performance.

That doesn't really answer the question of how Adelina got higher PCS than Yuna, Caro and Mao who had better artistic and presentation skills than Adelina.
Math is adding figures that was given. What it failed to do is explain HOW and WHY those figures were given. Math doesn't really apply in this situation because the numbers were given by people, the judges. It's not like an absolute figure found in nature. It is made by people and therefore subject to being questioned.
 

jenm

The Last One Degree
Medalist
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Said this before but I'll say it again: we cannot deny Mao had a fantastic LP and for it to score 7 points below Sotnikova was all sorts of WRONG WRONG WRONG.

This^
This is one of the things I could not process until now. It's just absolutely ridiculous. Their argument about Adelina winning by "math" is moot because how can they explain this? Mao was the best in LP IMO.
 

bekalc

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
It has been discussed ad infinitum, it is true that math is math. As a Yuna supporter, I cede the fact that she did perform a less technically difficult program in the LP. However, are we forgetting the SP? People have illustrated plenty of times, that the BV difference between Kim and Sotnikova is about 2 points, but Sotnikova did not beat Kim by two points. What is so egregious is that in terms of PCS Sotnikova was only a couple hundreths of points behind Kim, and ahead of Asada and Kostner. That is blasphemous.

Adelina's base value was only one point behind Yu-na's when you factor in that Adelina got higher levels on her spin and footwork than Yu-na did. And Yu-na herself admitted she missed levels.

In terms of GOE both are going to get high GOE on their jumps. But Adelina absolutely deserves to get higher GOE on her spins in comparision to Yu-na. I thought their PCS were to close together, but even if you lower Adelina's PCS a little bit-she still wins.
 

Procrastinator

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Umm no and if she did Kim and Kostner should have had higher on most all of theirs than they got.

It is hilarious there are still a few delusional Sotnikovabots trying to convince anyone else the result was remotedly justifiable.

I'm not an anything-bot. If anything, I'm a fan of Yuna, but she wasn't at her A-game here. It was more like A- game. Sotnikova's jumps (edit: AND spins) were huge and with the exception of that one combo, super clean and deserving of high GOE.The jump in PCS is still sketchy and it's a fault of the system but she's not the first skater to just magically start earning higher PCS and she certainly wouldn't be the last. There didn't even have to be a "fix," the make-up of the final was already inherently biased so it's not even a surprise that she earned what she did especially given what her SP got with a different set of judges. We should have seen it coming after the SP.
 

whatif

Medalist
Joined
Feb 20, 2014
I'm not an anything-bot. If anything, I'm a fan of Yuna, but she wasn't at her A-game here. It was more like A- game. Sotnikova's jumps were huge and with the exception of that one combo, super clean and deserving of high GOE.The jump in PCS is still sketchy and it's a fault of the system but she's not the first skater to just magically start earning higher PCS and she certainly wouldn't be the last. There didn't even have to be a "fix," the make-up of the final was already inherently biased so it's not even a surprise that she earned what she did especially given what her SP got with a different set of judges. We should have seen it coming after the SP.

Thank you.
 

gds102

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Anyway, I am sure many will remember this Olympics as one of the most controversial one. Poor Russians. I hope they read some articles and realize how absurd things are.
 

sk8ing mom

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 30, 2012
Said this before but I'll say it again: we cannot deny Mao had a fantastic LP and for it to score 7 points below Sotnikova was all sorts of WRONG WRONG WRONG.

This.

Mao won that FS. Because she was so far behind from the SP that no gold medal was at stake this is not getting the attention it deserves.
 

vegarin

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 19, 2013
It doesn't matter whether Yuna brought A game or A++ game or C-game. She didn't have a chance in this game. No one did. As many already said, Mao had 5 BV over Adelina. And placed 7 points behind Adelina, who wasn't even clean. Ad nauseam, yes, but Mao with the highest BV ever AND with 3A that no land else landed AND with the clean skate, placed 7 points behind Adelina. We keep pointing this out, and yet those who defend the judging keep conveniently trying to leave that out. When confronted with it, they say, oh, Oh, but Mao made a mistake with a jump there and got >, so the numbers of triple landed doesn't really mean much. Oh, really. :rolleye:Then why is it suddenly a number of triplesgame when it comes to who should've won between Yuna and Adelina? Adelina two footed one jump and Yuna didn't, so maybe the number of jumps here shouldn't matter, either, no?

Stop trying to make it about Yuna not performing an extra triple, therefore 7 vs 6, therefore Adelina wins gold. That kind of math may work on the general public who don't know any better, but people who have been paying attention have seen Mao land 8 triples cleanly and that did squat. She went nowhere close to the amazing score Adelina got. Why don't we use the same argument of base value here, then? If technical scores are all there to it, Mao should've won the free. Easy. And this is something that Elvis and Scott seem to be conveniently forgetting when they're sprouting this nonsense. There's no defense for it.

Adelina's skate with a mistake > clean and impeccable skates by world champions and Olympians Yuna/Caro/Mao

...is what happened at this Olympics.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
It has been discussed ad infinitum, it is true that math is math. As a Yuna supporter, I cede the fact that she did perform a less technically difficult program in the LP. However, are we forgetting the SP? People have illustrated plenty of times, that the BV difference between Kim and Sotnikova is about 2 points, but Sotnikova did not beat Kim by two points. What is so egregious is that in terms of PCS Sotnikova was only a couple hundreths of points behind Kim, and ahead of Asada and Kostner. That is blasphemous.

That's right. There seems to be an intentionally misleading campaign from some news outlets (NBC, NYT) to sweep this under the rug and only focus on one thing.

It's like if you watch a basketball game, and then at the end all of kinds of ridiculous shady referee calls get made, but then the commentators say "well, the winning team had more rebounds, so we're ok with the result!"
 

yunasashafan

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 22, 2010
Re-posting from another thread, but this is relevant here also:

I have been trying to stay out of this because I am a huge fan of Yuna (obviously) and Adelina. But I have to say that there were multiple errors that were committed by the tech panel. First, the step squence levels for Yuna (and Carolina for that matter) were not called properly. Yuna's LP step sequence was much better than Adelina's. If that was a level 3 then Adelina's was as well. Second, triple toe at the end of Adelina's 3Lz-3T was not called under-rotated when it should have been. Third, the wrong edge on Adelina's Lutz was not called, and fourth, the double at the end of Adelina's 3 jump combination was VERY obviously downgradable and it wasn't. These three combined, with impact on GOE are worth, at least, 5 points. Add to that (AT LEAST) a couple of extra points in PCS for Yuna for each program and there you go! Almost the same point difference but in opposite order.

ETA and if we're going to use the 'Andelina landed more triples' argument then consider this: Mao landed more triples than Adelina, with no obvious errors (unlike Adelina) and still ended behind her. And no, her combinations were not under-rotated and her components should have been ahead of Adelina's.
 

vegarin

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 19, 2013
Blades of Passion posted this in another thread that got pushed back somewhere else, so I thought I'd add it here for reference (hope it's okay, BoP)!

Skating is also about blade control and it's most definitely an athletic aspect. After having analyzed the performances as much as possible, I've got to say the judging of the step sequences was crap. Sotnikova's step sequence had rough edges all the way through it and I saw nothing wrong in Yu-Na Kim's LP footwork sequence that should drop it to a Level 3. In the SP, yes, she made some edge mistakes that deservedly dropped the level, but in the LP her sequence hit the requirements and was executed FAR better than Sotnikova's.

Combine that with bad PCS judging and Sotnikova not being called for underrotation on her 3Lutz+3Toe< combo (Sotnikova has NEVER done this combo fully rotated in her entire career; she's always had a technique issue on the toeloop off the landing of the lutz and tried to do 3Lutz+3Loop in the past instead) and I'm officially upset with this result. It definitely still should have been pretty close, but she was massively held up and Yu-Na deserved it in the end; if Yu-Na's PCS were even just 2.5 points higher than Sotnikova's, that would be enough in my book. The fact that Yu-Na only got 0.09 more in PCS is an outrage.

It's sad that I trust BoP more than the judges, but I think he's never really been a Yuna fan, so I trust him to be objective.
 

jenaj

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Country
United-States
OK, but Sotnikova was almost 6 pts higher. You think her PCS should be 6 pts lower (like Gracie Gold)?

Yes, at least. I think she deserved around a 65, which is an average score of just above 8.
 

Krislite

Medalist
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
Sotnikova won by PCS inflation. Plain and simple. It took Kim and Kostner 7 years to increase their PCS in the magnitude that Sotnikova's PCS did in 3 months time. By Sochi they were supposedly all equal in PCS. The 7-triple nonsense just doesn't hold up, especially when you compare it against Kostner's 7-triple program or Mao's 8-triple program, both of which were scored far below Sotnikova's despite being far superior in choreography, skating skills and interpretation.

Sotnikova's SP GOE: 8.66
Kim's SP GOE: 7.62

Sotnikova's LP GOE: 14.11
Kim's LP GOE: 12.2

Sotnikova had the highest GOE of the whole competition and matched Kim and Kostner in PCS. :laugh:
 
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