You are not new to this board so that you should know about the member with the theory that judges and tech controllers from Russia, Eastern Europe, and just with slavic names like "Kovalski" tend to be very biased towards the Russians and Eastern Europeans. I personally find this theory ridiculous: there is obvious country bias so that the Russians give slack to the Russians and the Americans to the Americans but block voting is way back in the past. That's why I said lol.
well, my theory is borne out by the reality: the skaters who got < and<< and include WAGNER, GOLD, ASADA, DALEMAN, BELL, PARK and MURAKAMI---but of course not SAKHANOVICH or KUCHVALSKA....