South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging | Page 89 | Golden Skate

South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging

qwertyskates

Medalist
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
I can't fathom the cognitive dissonance of someone who can put these two sentences side-by-side.



It's easy enough to write code to iterate through different possibilities, but I'm not sure what the study is exactly supposed to be. Is it trying to figure out that assuming each permutation were equally likely, what were the rankings for each skater from each judge? How many skaters would be compared (and which)?


Like I said, almost ALL of the world's mainstream press and media reported on the results of Sochi, statistically, how many % questioned the results?

Yuna fans claimed a MAJORITY of public opinion agrees with them, based on repetitious echo chamber pinging of the same quotes over and over, opinions actively sought and amplified. Truth lies in a real statistical compilation of ascertaining Sochi results dissent as a % of total reporting.

And I don't mean Korea or Russia = World, so whose cognitive dissonance here, really? :rolleye:
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I point out that Mathman's scenario 2 of assuming cheating on the part of judges is based on a twisted pretzel logic that would be almost implausible.

I still think that you misunderstood my earlier post. My claim is that we cannot draw any conclusions based on an examination of the protocols. In support of this claim I presented the two extreme cases, each statistically very unlikely (as verified by Rhodium's tables) under the assumption of fair let-the-chips-fall-as-they-may judging.

It is neither logical nor illogical to speculate about whether the judges are saints or sinners. :) This question is beyond the scope of both logic and statistics, without further information.

That's my wishy-washy story and I'm sticking to it! ;)
 
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Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
In support of this claim I presented the two extreme cases, each statistically very unlikely (as verified by Rhodium's tables) under the assumption of fair let-the-chips-fall-as-they-may judging.

I think that's the problem with the analysis, the assumption that the judging was random, fair, and unbiased. If there was willful intent on the part of conspirators, the most unlikely of scenarios would become much more likely, if not probable.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I think that's the problem with the analysis, the assumption that the judging was random, fair, and unbiased. If there was willful intent on the part of conspirators, the most unlikely of scenarios would become much more likely, if not probable.

That is what we cannot tell by looking at the numbers alone. The point of the exercise was to illustrate that fact.

Edited to add: By the way, I think that is why the Korean Federation took the route of basing their complaint on the slender reed of hugs and kinship. If you challenge the marks of the judges and the decisions of the technical panel, all they have to say is, "Well, yes, I really did think that Sotnikova's wonderful program deserved a 9.5 in choreography. I don't really care what other judges thought about it at Cup of Russia." Or, "Did I miss an edge call? Oh, darn!" This is just chit-chat, not evidence of anything.
 
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Ophelia

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 6, 2013
Like I said, almost ALL of the world's mainstream press and media reported on the results of Sochi, statistically, how many % questioned the results?

Yuna fans claimed a MAJORITY of public opinion agrees with them, based on repetitious echo chamber pinging of the same quotes over and over, opinions actively sought and amplified. Truth lies in a real statistical compilation of ascertaining Sochi results dissent as a % of total reporting.

And I don't mean Korea or Russia = World, so whose cognitive dissonance here, really? :rolleye:

It's one thing to argue coherently for your stance, it's another to throw out wildly exaggerated claims.

The media outlets that questioned the results and reported on the suspicions of fraudulent judging included (off the top of my head): CNN, NYTimes (yes, there was an article other than the jumps comparison), the Atlantic, Yahoo, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, USA Today, ESPN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, LATimes. That's covers just about all the major news outlets in the United States and together, reaches nearly all of the U.S population. Add to that several of the most popular skater blogs (The Skating Lesson being one) voiced dissent with the results, and the majority of the commentators (who aren't Korean judging by their grasp of the English grammar) agreed with the dissent. Outside of the US: International Business Times, France's L'Equippe, China's Xinhua, Japan's JapanTimes, the German newspapers, Britain's BBC, which are all national newspapers.

Most of these newspapers didn't tiptoe around the issue. ESPN's headline was "Russian Homecooking", and JapanTimes was "Judges steals Kim's gold and hands it to Sotnikova!". So I'm not sure where you're getting your grandiose claim of "ALMOST ALL the world's mainstream press concurred with the results". What is your statistical notion of "majority of mainstream opinion"? 2?%?
 

sk8in

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Like I said, almost ALL of the world's mainstream press and media reported on the results of Sochi, statistically, how many % questioned the results?

Yuna fans claimed a MAJORITY of public opinion agrees with them, based on repetitious echo chamber pinging of the same quotes over and over, opinions actively sought and amplified. Truth lies in a real statistical compilation of ascertaining Sochi results dissent as a % of total reporting.

And I don't mean Korea or Russia = World, so whose cognitive dissonance here, really? :rolleye:
Almost every major publication had an article commenting on the controversy of Adelina's win. Aside from the fact that, no, there is no majority opinion agreeing with Adelina's win, presenting the idea of a linear consensus is itself disingenuous. That isn't how journalism and news reporting specifically works. Even the New York Times which gave us the oft quoted 'how Adelina won't article, with the 'cheated' photo diagrams of her triple-triple, published an alternative article titled 'Adelina's Upset is Hard to Figure.' The bottom line while her defenders core argument depends on base value, Adelina had the weakest jumping layout of ANY of the top ladies across multiple nationalities. It is not just a case of Korea vs Russia. It is every lady who can readily perform a lutz, and somehow didn't get astronomical component scores of the top 3. The logic of Adelina's win is first that she skated relatively clean (something no one can deny), but second that she is Russian. Russian figure skating events have a notorious history for rewarding their 'home team' (a concept which is supposed to be anathema to an individual sport like figure skating), and the stakes for Russia as the host of this Olympics were huge.
 

Vanshilar

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
So the data I used was (let me know if I messed up any of the numbers):

48.00 47.75 45.50 44.25 47.75 46.50 48.25 44.25 45.00 Adelina (avg 46.36)
45.75 42.00 48.75 45.25 47.00 47.75 46.75 46.00 48.00 Yuna (avg 46.36)
44.00 45.00 45.75 45.50 47.75 47.50 47.00 48.50 42.75 Carolina (avg 45.97)
42.75 46.50 44.00 41.25 45.50 42.25 40.75 45.75 44.75 Yulia (avg 43.72)
42.75 44.25 43.00 44.25 47.00 41.00 41.25 44.25 44.75 Mao (avg 43.61)

I found it interesting that Adelina and Yuna had the exact same total raw scores by the judges, down to the 0.25 point; the reason why Yuna ended up with a slightly higher PCS was that the extremes were eliminated. Carolina's total PCS was slightly lower.

So onto the permutations, showing the number of judges favoring the second skater (tie was considered 0.5, so equally favored would mean 4.5), the percentage, and the number of permutations out of 362880:

0 = Yuna, 9 = Adelina:
0.0 00.00% 0
0.5 00.00% 0
1.0 00.00% 0
1.5 00.04% 144
2.0 00.95% 3456
2.5 01.94% 7056
3.0 12.94% 46944
3.5 10.48% 38016
4.0 33.17% 120384
4.5 12.06% 43776
5.0 21.67% 78624
5.5 03.13% 11376
6.0 03.41% 12384
6.5 00.12% 432
7.0 00.08% 288
7.5 00.00% 0
8.0 00.00% 0
8.5 00.00% 0
9.0 00.00% 0
mean: 4.1667

0 = Carolina, 9 = Adelina
0.0 00.00% 0
0.5 00.00% 0
1.0 00.00% 0
1.5 00.00% 0
2.0 00.00% 0
2.5 00.05% 192
3.0 01.07% 3888
3.5 02.29% 8304
4.0 13.44% 48768
4.5 12.22% 44352
5.0 32.04% 116256
5.5 13.97% 50688
6.0 18.81% 68256
6.5 03.49% 12672
7.0 02.46% 8928
7.5 00.12% 432
8.0 00.04% 144
8.5 00.00% 0
9.0 00.00% 0
mean: 5.1111

0 = Carolina, 9 = Yuna
0.0 00.00% 0
0.5 00.00% 0
1.0 00.00% 0
1.5 00.00% 0
2.0 00.00% 0
2.5 00.01% 48
3.0 00.72% 2616
3.5 01.16% 4200
4.0 11.27% 40896
4.5 08.31% 30144
5.0 33.07% 120000
5.5 12.09% 43872
6.0 24.60% 89280
6.5 04.01% 14544
7.0 04.42% 16056
7.5 00.22% 792
8.0 00.12% 432
8.5 00.00% 0
9.0 00.00% 0
mean: 5.2778

0 = Mao, 9 = Yulia
0.0 00.00% 0
0.5 00.00% 0
1.0 00.00% 0
1.5 00.00% 0
2.0 00.00% 0
2.5 00.27% 972
3.0 05.03% 18270
3.5 05.23% 18978
4.0 27.94% 101376
4.5 12.84% 46608
5.0 32.03% 116220
5.5 06.76% 24540
6.0 08.78% 31872
6.5 00.68% 2484
7.0 00.42% 1542
7.5 00.00% 18
8.0 00.00% 0
8.5 00.00% 0
9.0 00.00% 0
mean: 4.6111

Basically it was around 5-4 for Yuna over Adelina, 5-4 for Yuna over Carolina, and 5-4 for Adelina over Carolina in terms of the PCS. Between Mao and Yulia it was pretty evenly matched. I'm not sure how well this could actually detect any bias by judges though -- to me the clearest thing would be if we knew which judge gave which scores, so that the we can look at correlation and such. Of course, that's impossible under anonymous judging, where the correlation can be hidden inside of the overall variation between judges.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Thannk you for doing all this work, Venshilar. :rock:

No surprises.

Still, I am pleased to see these results. If it were later revealed that, say, 7 judges gave Yuna higher marks than Adelina, we could say, "Whoa, Jack -- that would happen less than one-tenth of one percent of the time if the numbers, high and low, are not artificially matched up.

I found it interesting that Adelina and Yuna had the exact same total raw scores by the judges, down to the 0.25 point; the reason why Yuna ended up with a slightly higher PCS was that the extremes were eliminated.

I noticed that, too. It the effect were more pronounced I suppose that might count for something. Too slight, though.
 

Alain

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 28, 2014
It's one thing to argue coherently for your stance, it's another to throw out wildly exaggerated claims.

The media outlets that questioned the results and reported on the suspicions of fraudulent judging included (off the top of my head): CNN, NYTimes (yes, there was an article other than the jumps comparison), the Atlantic, Yahoo, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, USA Today, ESPN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, LATimes. That's covers just about all the major news outlets in the United States and together, reaches nearly all of the U.S population. Add to that several of the most popular skater blogs (The Skating Lesson being one) voiced dissent with the results, and the majority of the commentators (who aren't Korean judging by their grasp of the English grammar) agreed with the dissent. Outside of the US: International Business Times, France's L'Equippe, China's Xinhua, Japan's JapanTimes, the German newspapers, Britain's BBC, which are all national newspapers.

Most of these newspapers didn't tiptoe around the issue. ESPN's headline was "Russian Homecooking", and JapanTimes was "Judges steals Kim's gold and hands it to Sotnikova!". So I'm not sure where you're getting your grandiose claim of "ALMOST ALL the world's mainstream press concurred with the results". What is your statistical notion of "majority of mainstream opinion"? 2?%?
Now all of them are writing the comlaint got dismissed, Adelina is the winner. They were and they are doing media work. Yuna fans keeps embarrassing her with silly math cheat. But its their problem. Not a news anymore.
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
As someone who has no skin in the game, I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the two sides RE: public opinion.

There were media outlets and skaters who did not agree with the result. We saw that play out in real time on Twitter and other social media outlets. However, those same skaters and media outlets also could understand how/why she won. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

The fact is that media outlets have other assignments and stories to do. There wasn't anything worth investigating with the scoring and there are other stories/deadlines to tackle. THAT said, it's not unusual for reporters (if they are so inclined) to go back and investigate something and for things to come in the open months and years later. Not saying that is necessarily the case here, but I've seen it happen regarding other sports scandals/incidents.
 

cebi26

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
All the cheaters conspirators need to consider the SP judging as well. There were different judges in the two events, and in BOTH, they gave Adelina very high marks.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
There were media outlets and skaters who did not agree with the result. We saw that play out in real time on Twitter and other social media outlets. However, those same skaters and media outlets also could understand how/why she won. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

This video, from an AP writer who thought Yuna (or perhaps Caro) should have won, seems to reflect this sentiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrWWYHgtHs

While I don't agree with much of what he says, I do understand and respect his viewpoint.
 
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