Piseev and the Eastern Bloc | Golden Skate

Piseev and the Eastern Bloc

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Is there still an "Eastern Bloc?"

Alexandra Stevenson, writing in Blades on Ice, makes the point that at the recent ISU Congress, the New Judging System (CoP) passed by a vote of 43 to 54. A proposed amendment by the USA to identify individual judges received a majority (30 to 16) but fell three votes shy of the two-thirds needed to pass.

A counterproposal put forward by Russia, to retain a version of the old 6.0 system while the CoP underwent more testing, garnered only three votes: Russia, Kazakhstan and Israel. Stevenson editorializes:

"What a snub this was for Valentin Pissev, the long time head of the Soviet Federation....Russia (remains) one of the most powerful nations in the sport. However, Piseev, obviously, no longer commands the clout he once held over the former Soviet countries."

Comments?

Mathman
 

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
I think she's jumping to conclusions. With the way that Speedy was pushing COP forward, steamrolling really, Pissev's last minute effort to retain 6.0 was dead before it even began. Keeping judging anonymous does however help any "bloc", Eastern or otherwise, so a much greater battle was won. COP produced very few surpise winners last season. Letting a host federation keep an outdated system would be a PR disaster for the ISU who is desperate to put spin on the SLC scandal. The initiative was doomed to fail from the get go.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Well, that looks to me like Piseev won one and lost one. He managed to protect the identity of the judges even though the majority wanted to get rid of secrrecy.

(I've never understood that the punishment of the French as the sole collaborators in the SLC scandal and Piseev and the Russian dance judge were not penalized. It takes at least two components to collaborate on a scheme.).

I think we are quite aware of the hesitancy of the Russian Federation to accept the CoP.. I think by the Olys, all Nationals will be by CoP. IMO, he won big on keeping the secrecy but the Cop is not that earth shattering..

Joe
 

Jaana

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Joesitz said:
(I've never understood that the punishment of the French as the sole collaborators in the SLC scandal and Piseev and the Russian dance judge were not penalized. It takes at least two components to collaborate on a scheme.).
Joe

What is it that the Russian dance judge actually did in SLC dance competition to get penalized?
 
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berthes ghost

Final Flight
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Jul 30, 2003
Jaana said:
What is it that the Russian dance judge actually did in SLC dance competition to get penalized?
Exactly. There was no investigation into the alleged conspiracy. Marie-Reign disgraced/implicated herself and Didier by confessing her own guilt and accusing him of being in on it. If it were true, she should have named names, not clam-up. If there really is a Russian mob controling sporting outcomes, then I'm sure she done enough already to have to keep looking over her shoulder for years to come. It was blatently obvious from the "review" that the French were subjected to, that the ISU has no interest whatsoever in really investigating judging corruption. Rug lifted, scandal swept under, hands cleaned. THE only reason that they slapped her and Didier on the wrists is because the dozy cow forced them to with her crazy blabber mouth. Despite the FBI naming Marina directly, the ISU never persued it.

Likewise, there was no investigation into the Nagano worlds Ice Dance accusations, and that involved a lot more than just the ramblings of one judge.

Did anyone see the BBC show recently where they secretly taped IOC members talking about influence buying? At least one IOC member has been ousted because of it. And the IOC had promissed us that the bad guys were gone.
:rolleye:

IMHO, this is way bigger than just two judges. I seriously doubt that Stapleford pressuring LaGorge to admit a falsehood is really what happened. M-R isn't that emotionally unstable. Nothing is going to be done until epople name names, and that's just not gonna happen.
 

euterpe

Medalist
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
George Rossano wrote a paper about bias in judging and CoP, and he concluded that biased judges, working in colloboration, absolutely could affect the outcome of a skating competition.

http://www.iceskatingintnl.com/current/content/stm_bias.htm

Piseev may not have gotten his way on the 6.0 proposal, but I think it may have been a red herring to keep some federations from voting for the end to secrecy proposal. Secrecy is a staunch protector of judges' colloboration.

So despite the introduction of CoP, nothing has really been done to ensure that a judging scandal such as the one at SLC won't happen again. All that has been done is ensuring that we won't find out about it until it is too late, if at all.
 
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RealtorGal

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Is there a public justification for voting to maintain secrecy in judging? I mean, after the judging scandal, how can one justify to the public a vote to retain secrecy?
 

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
RealtorGal said:
Is there a public justification for voting to maintain secrecy in judging? I mean, after the judging scandal, how can one justify to the public a vote to retain secrecy?
Not sure what you mean, but the offical excuse from Speedy and Co. is that if the marks aren't tracable, then the judges can vote as their hearts dictate. If the marks are tracable, then bad people will be able to tell if the judge they pressured voted as they dictated or not. So in Speedy's world, the Russian mob (or whomever) will still treaten the French and Russian judges for example, it's just that now Marie-Reign and her ilk can vote as they please and the mob won't know for sure that she didn't vote as they told her to.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Here I go as devil's advocate again (the devil being Speedy C. :laugh: )

IMHO Cinquanta, far from being a tool of the powerful voting blocs, has a vision of the ISU gradually achieving independence and authority over the sport in its own right. In his mind, the secrecy thing is a step in the right direction in freeing the judging process from political control of the federations.

To me, this goal makes sense. It is, after all, the main job of each national federation to get as many medals for its country as possible, by whatever means necessary. In contrast, it is the job of the ISU to advance the fortunes of the sport of figure skating. That's a big difference in outlook.

As part of approving the CoP, the ISU included a system of oversight and review of judges' marks, and they created a new Code of Ethics and a Disciplinary Commission whose members are directly employed by the ISU. If Cinquanta had his way, all judges would work strictly for the ISU and would not be appointed or recommended by the member federations.

Mathman

PS. I agree with Berthes Ghost about the irony of the IOC trying to get on the ISU's case. The IOC, and especially the USOC, has been riddled with politics, corruption and influence peddling for decades.

BTW, I also read recently that the reason M. Gailhaguet was forced to step down as president of the French Federation was not because of Salt Lake City, his suspension by the ISU, or any of that. Rather it was because he had run the organization into the ground financially, and the Federation is now in the French bankruptcy courts.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Bronzeis - You do well by putting down Didier and LeGougne by their own admission to the collaboration, but you say there was no investigation into who they were collaborating. She didn't name the russian dance judge or Piseev for that matter in the collaboration. So you seem to be saying that the French collaborated with nobody. Can you tell me how one can collaborate with no one and calll it a collaboration? It's not a conspiracy. It's a collaboration.

What haplpened in SLC was the French judge gave the gold to Russia in Pairs and the Russian judge gave the gold to the French in Dance. This is fact!!! Who else would there be a collaboration with?

Why there wasn't a further investigation beyond the honesty of LeGounge is moot. There had to be someone. You seem to be saying that there was no further investigation therefore the Russians had nothing to do with this.

Mathman - Praise to be that Didier is out. Now let's get Piseev.

Joe
 

Jaana

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Joesitz said:
What haplpened in SLC was the French judge gave the gold to Russia in Pairs and the Russian judge gave the gold to the French in Dance. This is fact!!! Who else would there be a collaboration with?
Joe

Joe, actually that is not fact and did not happen in that way at all. The Russian judge gave Anissina & Peizeral the second place and for Russia´s own pair that judge of course gave the first place in freedance:

http://www.aya.or.jp/~polaris/winter_olympic/index.htm

That is the way the Russian judges seem to work, they support their own skaters, and have been accused of that many times, LOL. Along with the Canadian judges...

The Russians had the possibility to win BOTH pairs AND ice dance in SLC, why would they have settled for just one gold? A deal would have been more likely if they had not had also an ice dance pair competing about the gold medal. A deal for a Russian judge to vote against their own gold medal hopeful team seems extremely unlikely, in my opinion.

I have always been wondering the actual reason why in the first place Stapleford questioned the French judge about her vote at all? The pairs were really even and could have gone either way. What other reason was there to question the French judge, unless if it was already beforehand expected from the French judge to give the gold to the Canadian pair and she didn´t?

Marjaana
 
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hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Since LeGougne said she was pressured before the Dance competition was over, only a complete idiot of a judge would have implicated him/herself by a vote that confirmed a deal. Had it happened after the Dance competition, there may have been an audit trail. If a deal was in the works, not the ramblings of a mob guy who may have just wanted to seem like a big macher to Anissina's mother.

LeGougne said that she was pressured by Gailhauget, both to Stapleford and then in the referee's meeting in front of the entire judging panel. If she was pressured, there's no reason to believe that Gailhauget gave her any details other than "vote this way, if you know what's good for you." She may not have had any names to name.
 

floskate

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Well why shouldn't Sally Stapleford question her about it? It was a strange vote in many peoples eyes and as head of the ISU technical commitee at the time, she surely had every right. I just don't buy all this rubbish that she was forced to confess etc. Stapleford did what she thought she had to do and paid for it with her job in the end.

Otherwise I agree with Hockeyfans assumption. I don't think M-R actually knew anything other than what Didier had told her to do.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
BronzeisGolden said:
LOL....I stirred the pot without even posting!
I am so jealous. I am doing everything can to stir up some controversy -- even defending Cinquanta! -- and my posts just come out blah.

MM;)
 

Jaana

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floskate said:
Well why shouldn't Sally Stapleford question her about it? It was a strange vote in many peoples eyes and as head of the ISU technical commitee at the time, she surely had every right.

Well, I saw it as strange that she was questioned, because putting B&S first was not "wrong" or questionable judging. The whole matter looked to me like that it was expected from some reason that she will put the Canadians on the first place and as she did not, she was approached. Like "why did you not put the Canadian pairs as first". It was beforehand decided by certain powers that the Canadians are winning, that is the impression I got from this whole matter.

Marjaana
 
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berthes ghost

Final Flight
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Jul 30, 2003
Well, M-R did say later that she was pressured to vote for the Canadians. Skate Canada wasn't investigated any more than the Russian Federation was. We'll never know what really happened because nobody in power seems to have the slightest interest in getting to the bottom of it.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Here is ESPN’s take on the “pressure by Canada” issue.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/figure/news?id=1339812

SALT LAKE CITY -- As the French judge in the middle of the figure skating controversy sat in a meeting the day after the pairs final, something was bothering her. Finally, she said she'd been pressured by her federation, mentioning its president by name.

The emotional outburst was real, the panel's referee said Sunday. There was nothing scripted or staged about it. And contrary to Marie-Reine Le Gougne's latest story, there was no mention of pressure by the Canadians.

"Am I surprised? My surprise is only in that she appears to be changing her statement almost daily," referee Ron Pfenning said from his home in Hyannis, Mass….

An interview mentioning Canadian pressure was published in Sunday's New York Times. Le Gougne said the lobbying effort was led by senior skating officials from Canada and began in September.

"They needed my vote," she was quoted as saying. "It was going to be very close. I was in the middle."…

After the meeting, Pfenning filed a report describing Le Gougne's outburst directly to ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta, who then interviewed Le Gougne personally.

She told him the same thing and signed a written statement: She had been pressured by her federation to vote for the Russians….

However, now Le Gougne says that despite the pressure she voted with her "heart and soul."

She said she only accused Gailhaguet and her federation because she was verbally attacked and felt physically threatened by other skating officials. When she reached her hotel after the event, Stapleford scolded her for voting for the Russians, Le Gougne told L'Equipe.

But several people who saw Le Gougne's exchange with Stapleford dispute her account. It was Le Gougne who approached Stapleford, said Jon Jackson, an ISU judge and an attorney from San Francisco.

"She came right up to Sally Stapleford and said, `Ice dancing is ruining the sport of figure skating. I have to defend myself. I did this for my dance team. It's a deal with the Russians, first place for first place,"' said Jackson, who wrote a letter to Cinquanta about the incident and was later interviewed by ISU investigators.
My personal opinion about the lack of a thorough investigation by the ISU is that there was really nothing to investigate, except business as usual. My impression is that as soon as the judging panels are announced, months in advance, officials of the national federations are expected to start lobbying and lining up support for their skaters.

This seems to be the accepted protocol and culture of the insiders of the sport, especially in ice dance. I think it quite likely that all of Le Gougne’s conflicting stories are true, pressure from the Canadians, the French, the Russians. Not to mention, at the event itself, pressure from the U.S. crowd, from television commentators who shouted that if you thought Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze won, then you were a disgrace to the sport, etc., etc.

Mathman :mad:
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Mathman said:
Here is ESPN’s take on the “pressure by Canada” issue.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/figure/news?id=1339812

My personal opinion about the lack of a thorough investigation by the ISU is that there was really nothing to investigate, except business as usual. My impression is that as soon as the judging panels are announced, months in advance, officials of the national federations are expected to start lobbying and lining up support for their skaters.
Mathman :mad:

I don't feel any animosity for the lobbying bit either. But LeGougne herself admited that it was an exchange for France to win the Dance in Gold if the Russians give France the nod. The Russians did just that!. Why do we whitewash them in these threads? It is more than lobbying. Just because there was no investigation does that excuse any Federation from collaborating with another? What would Didier want if it it was not for France to win Dance?

The French accused themselves and the Russians. That was enough for the ISU to pevent any investigation so that a collaboration would not be proven and further wreck the Olympics relationship with the ISU.

IMO, the Russian Federation got off scott free, and my trust in the ISU no longer exists. They can will do whatever they please.

Joe
 

Jaana

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Joesitz said:
I don't feel any animosity for the lobbying bit either. But LeGougne herself admited that it was an exchange for France to win the Dance in Gold if the Russians give France the nod. The Russians did just that!. Joe

Excuse me Joe, but the Russian judge did not do that! The Russian judge put their own team (L&A) on first place to win and not the French dance pair. It was a 5/4 split for the French team.

Marjaana
 
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