Ice Dancing Judging stinks

I just saw that acting as a Technical Controller for ice dance is Alla Shekhovtseva, a Russian judge who just happens to be the wife of the Russian Figure Skating Federation President Valentin Piseev. Is it just me, or does it stink?! Besides actual impropriety, there is such a thing as "appearane of impropriety", which any self respecting organization should take seriously. Apparently, ISU disagrees...

Ptichka said:

I just saw that acting as a Technical Controller for ice dance is Alla Shekhovtseva, a Russian judge who just happens to be the wife of the Russian Figure Skating Federation President Valentin Piseev. Is it just me, or does it stink?! Besides actual impropriety, there is such a thing as "appearane of impropriety", which any self respecting organization should take seriously. Apparently, ISU disagrees...

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so all the russians are going to win because they are russians right?

curious said:

so all the russians are going to win because they are russians right?

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Curious, I did not say that! In fact, it is more than likely that Navka & Kostomarov are indeed the best. However, I do believe that it is a responsibility of a self respecting organization to prevent the appearnace of impropiety. That judges represent their federations and there is certain bias there is a fact. Technical Controller, however, is appointed by the ISU, not individual federations. I find it hard to belive that Mrs. Shekhovtseva was the only choice.

I agree, I do think in light of all the problems that have plagued judging in the last number of seasons, an effort should be made to not create a situation that could be so obviously construed as improper.

However I wonder if they do have a wide choice of people to pick their technical experts from. It is a new system and perhaps there are simply not enough people to choose from and if that is the case then I am glad she was technical advisor for the CD's as there is less to be to be objective about as every one is skating the exact same thing and rather that than the Free dance.

I guess we'll see as the competition goes on.

My understanding is that the same panel will be used for all three parts of the competition.

In that case she is going to have to work extremely hard to maintain the role of unbiased technical advisor.

She doesn't actually grant any of the marks does she and can she only advise if asked by a judge?

I'm still trying to get my head around this new system

diver chick said:

I'm still trying to get my head around this new system

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I've given up, there is not enough aspirin in Southern California to remedy the ensuing headaches..... Should be interesting to see how they explain this when the Olympic telecasts roll around; they could run three entire ski races in the time it'll take to make sense of that for the "once every 4 years" viewers. And yet in the past the ISU was SO concerned with having a marking system that the casual viewer could understand so as to make the sport more "TV viewer friendly". Guess that one went right out the window, but then again if the ISU has basically been telling its longtime fans to take a hike, this is OUR show, then I guess they wouldn't have that much more respect for the casual viewer.

As far as this thread's original point -- Ptichka, I completely agree. It's about up there with each competitor being allowed to bring a relative to the competition to act as a judge. (And who knows, with all this secrecy as to who's doing what, they could well be slipping a few of them in there for all we know). However, it's been going on for decades; I guess they count on most fans not knowing the dyamics among the ISU higher-ups. (I mean, I didn't know that Shikhovetseva was married to Piseev, tho I've heard both those names for years.) What is amazing to me is that even after SLC, as opposed to making a serious effort to cleaning things up, the ISU seems to be taking on an increased 'ah, whatever, who cares' attitude towards this type of thing.

diver chick said:

She doesn't actually grant any of the marks does she and can she only advise if asked by a judge?

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Well, Technical Controller is probably indeed the least important part of the team. Here is the description from the ISU:

• supervises and corrects (if necessary) the call of the Technical Specialists and the input of
the names and correct Levels of Difficulty performed elements, however if both Technical
Specialists disagree with correction, their initial decision stays;
• authorizes or corrects the deletion of elements;
• authorizes or corrects the identification of illegal elements;
• confirms or corrects innovative element bonus;
• confirms the deletion of additional elements
• moderates the Round Table Discussion together with the Event Referee (with the purpose
of feed back among the Judges in regards to the application and validity of current
regulations and discussions on the general quality of skating); the Technical Controller
provides mainly the input regarding Technical Content
• helps the Event Referee to prepare the Report.
• participates in the Victory ceremony;

Technical Advisor

Scary isn't it! The ISU has only added more problems with the judging system. Looks like another scandal waiting to happen. So sad for the sport of figure skating. So Sad!