South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging | Page 79 | Golden Skate

South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging

RABID

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
There was no cheating so there was nothing to "own up" to. The ISU, or the judges, or insiders at the federations, are all in a position to bring up cheating if it happened, and no one has. This is what is so frustrating for Yuna fans, that an objective judging panel found that she wasn't the best with her reserved program that night. If you live in South Korea, or perhaps Southern California, and you talk to people everyone agrees that it is impossible for a panel to not agree that Yuna won, but outside of those communities, where fans are more objective, people see that it could have gone in favor of any of the top 3.

Okay, I get it now. A skater needs to jump up and down with excitement to encourage judges. I look forward to next season; perhaps we'll see this tactic universally employed then.
 

nguyenghita

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Kim expressed a desire to join the IOC. I can't help thinking that her "fans", continuing to drone on about Sochi even now, are an embarassment to her now, and rather than helping her, they are spoiling her chances with the IOC. Does the IOC want someone who has that kind of "baggage" following behind her?
Thank you for your concern. 2 years ago Yuna said that she would like to join the IOC athlete board. Recently (after Sochi) in her fan meeting ang interview, she slightly changed her mind that she not so sure about that anymore. Well, that's up to Yuna. The IOC idea was bring up just because Yuna herself said she want that, not because it's something so important. Now since she didn't want as much as before, many people show less interested about that. So whatever we are doing now, it's not going to hurt any "Yuna chance" by any mean.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Country
United-States
Okay, I get it now. A skater needs to jump up and down with excitement to encourage judges. I look forward to next season; perhaps we'll see this tactic universally employed then.

To play devils advocate here, I can name a certain young skater who was criticized regularly for not showing excitement or smiling during and after her skates. So which is it?
 

sk8in

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
I think a 2A+3T is fine. After all, Kostner did 7 triples, which is a gold-worthy standard.

Certainly compared to anything Kostner had previously done it was a gold-standard.

Obviously I'd prefer a skater does a 3-3 in both programs, but Kostner showed she's capable of it in the SP. A 3T-3T isn't really a whole lot more different than a 2A-3T in terms of difficulty of execution.
Kostner did a 3F+3T in her short program. 2A+3T is not a particularly hard combination. The triple is only a toe loop. When you have two Americans, two Russians, and Yuna who are at least capable of 3-3s, I don't think its acceptable for her not to have one in the free skate. 3-3 is the new standard.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
And Salt Lake City? Where an actual judge admitted to fixing the results?

Yes bigger than SLC because at least in dance the top teams (including 2002) are very close to each other. The difference between clean Kim and clean Sotnikova in any neutral competition was probably 20 points. Also, ladies is the biggest event, bigger than ice dance.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
I think certain posters need to cool it with "Yuna fans". Your attempt to derail this into a fan-war will not be successful. This is not about various fans contending their skater is better than another, this is about the credibility of the entire sport, because right now the shroud of suspicion covers the entire ISU and its federations. If you'd like DMD, I will start posting all of the office holders of all federations and list them as guilty by association.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Yes bigger than SLC because at least in dance the top teams (including 2002) are very close to each other. The difference between clean Kim and clean Sotnikova in any neutral competition was probably 20 points. Also, ladies is the biggest event, bigger than ice dance.
I don't think so. In SLC a judge admitted the fixing, like what happened in WC 2002 where 2 referees admitted they were paid beforehand.

In Sochi, even though the scoring was dubious, there is no one in the judge panel has admitted the fixing, at least not yet. I am just using common sense here. We can't tell for sure who gave which score so until now it's still premature to assume that the Western judges favor Adelina.

We need to know who to blame. Until now it's still anonymous. You can't tell people it's the biggest scandal in sport without a single name. Like: "It's cheating, it's obvious but I can't tell who!" People need more than that.

Compare it to the most popular event where obvious cheating with referees admitted that they cheated, it's totally different, isn't it? That's why we need ISU show us the identity of judges in Sochi, or else we all sound like whiners because there is no evidence with enough credibility.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
I can tell you the names of 3 of the cheaters because they were the technical panel who made incorrect calls. They did not just make one errant call, but they made many errant calls on Sotnikova's jumps and the step sequence levels between Kim and Sotnikova as BoP pointed out.

Alexander Lakernik
Vanessa Gusmeroli
Olga Baranova

These three are guilty as charged. How else can one explain multiple bad calls. They don't know how to do their job correctly? Or they were involved in rigging the competition. Door #2 please.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
It's also amazing that in SLC the conspirators were the French and the Russians, now look at those three names. A French, a Russian, and an ethnic Russian (who raced to hug Sotnikova after she "won").
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
I can tell you the names of 3 of the cheaters because they were the technical panel who made incorrect calls. They did not just make one errant call, but they made many errant calls on Sotnikova's jumps and the step sequence levels between Kim and Sotnikova as BoP pointed out.
Alexander Lakernik
Vanessa Gusmeroli
Olga Baranova
These three are guilty as charged.
If we had evidence that they were paid beforehand, any emails/phone calls/letters/records in which show us they were deliberately talking about the fixing, we can't do anything otherwise. They can always say "we are sorry, we made mistakes" and that's it. It's extremely futile to assume so much but find nothing to go further. :scratch:

They are all not guilty until we have the right evidence, that's the common sense. We can't say, because you guys made wrong calls, you guys are cheaters. :no: they will always ask where's the evidence? Unlike World Cup 2002 where the referees admitted they accepted money for the fix, or like in SLC where the judge said she was forced to the fix, in Sochi we haven't had such evidence. I hope we will have, though.

In this case, I don't know if we can ask for any inquiry like investigation on the tech panel. If we can, then the action itself has more credibility than pure assumption.
 

mich2

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
lol

Isn't it time to move on? Or get some therapy? What is there to be said, that hasn't been said in this thread and the others, 1000 times?

Kim moved on. She moved on after 2010, pretty much. Why can't her so-called fans? Nothing is going to change Sochi, it's over, finished. Look to the future and lobby for changes in ISU, judging, scoring, whatever, if you didn't like the way it panned out.

Kim expressed a desire to join the IOC. I can't help thinking that her "fans", continuing to drone on about Sochi even now, are an embarassment to her now, and rather than helping her, they are spoiling her chances with the IOC. Does the IOC want someone who has that kind of "baggage" following behind her?
I agree about so-called fans. They are not doing Yuna any favour.
 

TMC

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
If we had evidence that they were paid beforehand, any emails/phone calls/letters/records in which show us they were deliberately talking about the fixing, we can't do anything otherwise. They can always say "we are sorry, we made mistakes" and that's it. It's extremely futile to assume so much but find nothing to go further. :scratch:

They are all not guilty until we have the right evidence, that's the common sense. We can't say, because you guys made wrong calls, you guys are cheaters. :no: they will always ask where's the evidence? Unlike World Cup 2002 where the referees admitted they accepted money for the fix, or like in SLC where the judge said she was forced to the fix, in Sochi we haven't had such evidence. I hope we will have, though.

In this case, I don't know if we can ask for any inquiry like investigation on the tech panel. If we can, then the action itself has more credibility than pure assumption.

We may not have evidence of rigging, but from how they did their jobs, how well they performed their duties, we have clear evidence of incompetency. Guys, you had one job. As for Mr. Lakernik: is this the quality that we should expect from the effing Chairman of the Technical Committee? For such a sorry performance, any other person should have been sacked. Well, you can't really sack the boss, can you?
 

BusyMom

Medalist
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
In WC 2002 it's not just one but 4 games consecutive in the biggest sport event. I remember my dad smashed 2 remotes that WC because the cheating was so obvious. It's the game where you score more goals you win but it's funny that the referees denied your goals no matter how fair they were. In the end the referees admitted they were paid before hand. The fraud surely was bigger than that but at least the referees were not anonymous like in figure skating.
That's why I said I am against anonymous judging. Because in all circumstance, we need to know someone to blame for.
It was really a totally different perspective. Since you insisted in World Cup 2002, in the world of football the real upset from Italian fan was not the fixed game but for the Korean football player who at the time played for Perugia scored the golden goal knocking Italian team out of the game. I was in Italy at the time I knew how bad it was. The poor guy was sacked right away from Italian team. Another upset involved a English referee who issued three yellow card to Croatian football.

In football the fixing is worst than FS since it involving the dirty gambling and mafia. The whole campaign for the World Cup involving at least 4 games in the first round, 5 for the Euro. If the cheating is about winning the Cup they need all of their games fixed in order to win the title. That's why I said that your comparison here is invalid because the cheating in football and FS are totally in nature and also the effect to the fan as well.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
In football the fixing is worst than FS since it involving the dirty gambling and mafia. The whole campaign for the World Cup involving at least 4 games in the first round, 5 for the Euro. If the cheating is about winning the Cup they need all of their games fixed in order to win the title. That's why I said that your comparison here is invalid because the cheating in football and FS are totally in nature and also the effect to the fan as well.
I don't think that they need to win the whole series of games. In fact, sometimes they only need to win one ore two game for the money on the gamble charts.

Small team's goal is not the title, they only need to win as many as they can. Or they only need people help them to fix a game, not all. In national champion, or even international national champion league, people always play dirty, it's FIFA who turns the blind eyes and helps them even then.

Cheating will always effect any kinds of fans regardless of the sport. But if you ask me which I consider bigger? Then of course I consider cheating in football the biggest because it's a team sport, it is the most popular sport in the world and it involved dirty gambling and mafia as you said. Thank God FS doesn't have such involve, does it?

I think cheating in football the biggest doesn't mean I don't think the nature of these cheating is not the same. Yes, it affects to the fans just as bad as in the FS but it involve much more. More power, more money, more people, more dirty tricks and the whole system is rotten.
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
We may not have evidence of rigging, but from how they did their jobs, how well they performed their duties, we have clear evidence of incompetency. Guys, you had one job. As for Mr. Lakernik: is this the quality that we should expect from the effing Chairman of the Technical Committee? For such a sorry performance, any other person should have been sacked. Well, you can't really sack the boss, can you?
Who knows if ISU hasn't investigate the tech panel and judges? I remember someone on the other thread said there is a certain number of judges got reprimanded each year and the official documents are often release in June.

My guess is that they know which judges did not do their jobs properly but they won't or dare not give out the name for fear of more mess-up situation. Or they might give out a warning to those judges already but we haven't been in the known yet.

As Mathman said, I don't think ISU is full of the devils as people often think. There are many dubious decisions/activities, of course, but not all. There are times they did very well. But the anonymity only helps increasing the doubt.

Actually even if we get rid of the anonymous judging, we still couldn't prevent the cheating. Especially when the tech panel does not work perfectly. The new rules give tech panel too many power now. But at least we could know who to blame in such case.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Who knows if ISU hasn't investigate the tech panel and judges? I remember someone on the other thread said there is a certain number of judges got reprimanded each year and the official documents are often release in June.

My guess is that they know which judges did not do their jobs properly but they won't or dare not give out the name for fear of more mess-up situation. Or they might give out a warning to those judges already but we haven't been in the known yet.

I have no inside information, but this is what I think.

Looking at the protocols, there are no "anomalies" in the judging that are sufficiently blatant as to trigger the ISU process for review according to the ISU rules. (See ISU Communication 1631). No member federation has raised a protest, at least not publicly. (The Korean letter of protest -- if it exists -- is of much less importance to the Korean Skating Federation than is their request for a reserved host nation spot in pairs in 2018. And in any case it was prepared only to placate irate grass roots skating fans in Korea.)

The official and publicly stated position of the ISU with regard to the judging controversy is, "What judging controversy."

As for hoping that the ISU will clean its own house, ha ha, and, may I add, ho ho. ;) i do not expect the rascals to succumb to a sudden pang of conscience and decide to throw themselves out of power. The ISU brass is immune even from the pressure of declining revenues and declining interest in the sport. The rats will cheerfully go down with the ship.

All that notwithstanding, I'm with Anne Frank: "In spite of everything, I believe that people are good at heart." In the great majority of skating contests, in spite of everything, the skater who performs the best ends up the winner.
 

[email protected]

Medalist
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
Won't change much. I remember in the old 6.0 days there were cases when the same skater received 5.2 and 5.8 and it was also apparent "block voting". There were controversies and there were dubious decisions. In fact it was worse because of the Cold War. There is an article that shows that it was consistent bias which in 6.0 world reduced after 1990. http://users.polisci.wisc.edu/schatzberg/ps616/Sala2007.pdf

Interesting to see, that speaking of medal contenders during the Cold War the judging bias of USSR in favor of USSR was 0.66, USA for USA 0.38, and all other countries in favor of themselves 0.68. Somehow, USA was the most objective (well, the analysis is done by the Americans :) and USSR was still better than other countries (the math answer to "the Russian cheaters" choir). The negative bias was lower: USSR against USA -0.1 and USA against USSR just 0. So, statistically there were no big issues in judging even then, and the 1978 case was pure politics. After the Cold war the Russian bias for the Russian skaters reduced to 0.54, US bias increased to 0.56 - we became even. The negative bias Russia vs. USA became -0.31 and vice versa -0.19.

I never saw a big objective scandal in FS. In Sochi it would have been when, say, Natalie Weinzierl had won or Yulia with all her falls.
 

DarR

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Won't change much. I remember in the old 6.0 days there were cases when the same skater received 5.2 and 5.8 and it was also apparent "block voting". There were controversies and there were dubious decisions. In fact it was worse because of the Cold War. There is an article that shows that it was consistent bias which in 6.0 world reduced after 1990. http://users.polisci.wisc.edu/schatzberg/ps616/Sala2007.pdf

Interesting to see, that speaking of medal contenders during the Cold War the judging bias of USSR in favor of USSR was 0.66, USA for USA 0.38, and all other countries in favor of themselves 0.68. Somehow, USA was the most objective (well, the analysis is done by the Americans :) and USSR was still better than other countries (the math answer to "the Russian cheaters" choir). The negative bias was lower: USSR against USA -0.1 and USA against USSR just 0. So, statistically there were no big issues in judging even then, and the 1978 case was pure politics. After the Cold war the Russian bias for the Russian skaters reduced to 0.54, US bias increased to 0.56 - we became even. The negative bias Russia vs. USA became -0.31 and vice versa -0.19.

I never saw a big objective scandal in FS. In Sochi it would have been when, say, Natalie Weinzierl had won or Yulia with all her falls.

How can there be an objective scandal in FS if that implies outright cheating? The ISU wouldn't allow that in the first place.
 

[email protected]

Medalist
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 26, 2014
How can there be an objective scandal in FS if that implies outright cheating? The ISU wouldn't allow that in the first place.

There was given an example in football when judges admitted bribes to ensure the "right score". After all these years it would be a leak if the corruption in FS was real. What is real is favoritism. The article I gave reference to explains this and assesses the size of the problem which was not very big before and, hence, hardly became bigger. We gave higher marks to ours and lower to theirs - they do the same. In the end, the result is always close to fair. I would not remove FS from the Olympics.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
My guess? $51 billion can buy a lot more silence than $60,000.

You also have more scrutiny on the calls in soccer, by fans and media, because the scoring and rules are easily understandable. The officials who make obvious and repeated mistakes ... their names are known.

Figure skating on the other hand has obscure scoring that fans and media don't understand.
Even if they think something doesn't add up, they don't know why it doesn't add up.

And even worse? The guilty judges get to hide behind anonymity.
 
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