chuckm said:What many people have complained of, specifically, was Irina's PCS scores for the FS, which seemed much too high for this performance.
Few have said Irina did not deserve the gold medal, just that she should not have won the FS. And people could have arrived at that conclusion just from looking at the protocols. Irina's PCS scores weren't much lower than they were for her excellent performances in the GP, and that just didn't gibe with the technical content of her program.
What I noticed, after seeing Irina's performance, was that Irina also got +2 GOEs for the layback spin immediately following the fall on the lutz. That spin was much slower and more labored than usual for Irina, and IMO did not rate a +2. Irina also received +GOE for her doubled loop.
I felt that the judges were boosting Irina's scores, based on reputation, not only in the PCS scores, but also on the technical elements.
There is no doubt that Irina is a far more skilled skater than any of her competitors, but that was not evident at this particular segment of the competition. The judges were supposed to be scoring that performance, not the performance Irina usually puts forth.
I've read a few articles that have only mentioned Irina winning as the problem. And quite a few of the people that were complaining about the competition did the same. They never went into the PCS issue or talked about Irina's SP lead.
I agree with what you say. I think Irina was overscored on PCS (I'd have to watch the program again to see if I agree with you on the overscoring of her TE). But then again, I thought Julia was overscored on PCS, too. She came in second to Irina on that part of the judging. Reputation scoring is still a reality, and well known skaters have benefited from it for years- including Yags, Plushy, Sasha, Michelle, Irina, S&Z, S&P, B&S and too many ice dancers to mention. I'm hesitant to call that corruption, though. I'd rather call it incompetency, and an inability to differentiate the five components of PCS. They're still using PCS as the second mark on the 6.0 system.