ISU needs to go further says Phil Hersh

[chaser]

The latest from Phil Hersh

http://www.globetrottingbyphilipher...ds-from-judging-isu-still-needs-to-go-further

I agree with Phil Hersh on limiting Presidents from officiating at any events in their own countries or internationally during their tenure. If a conflict of interest is perceived, then it is a conflict.

He is correct in saying the ISU needs to go further. How many Presidents or their family members make a living/money from operating skating related businesses including coaching or are involved with ice shows or rinks?

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Haha..lol. Go Phil :agree:

I wish instead of tweaking the on ice rules the ISU would focus its efforts on fixing and creating a system that is designed to analyze and rate scoring bias amongst the judges. The judging in my opinion is the most pressing issue in need of addressing by a very large margin. It would make more sense than expanding GOE and PCS which will likely make judging even worse in the coming seasons. Two of the worst ideas I could have possibly imagined but will probably be enacted anyway regardless of my concerns

He’s naming names

 

[NaVi]

National bias is going to always exist. IMO, the best way to deal with it is just to increase the amount of judges and to have extremely stiff penalties for collusion. The IJS has it's merits, that that alone would have been a better response than changing the judging system.

There are a couple good proposals IIRC... one to increase the number of judges for Worlds/Olympics(and I think it should include GPF) and another to split the judging between GOE and PCS. But that still leaves the tech panel as the single point of failure.

 

[chaser]

Correct me if this is incorrect, but possibly Phil Hersh got one fact wrong in his story.

To remain as a judge on the ISU list, you just need to do one international competition in the last 3 years - not three in three years.

If that is the case, maybe the ISU rules could be amended to exclude Presidents from ISU Championships, Grand Prix and Challengers, but be able to keep their “hand” in at other ISU events to satisfy the three year rule.

And while a few of us are discussing this, what do you think about ISU Council and Technical Committee members? Perhaps they should only be referees and therefore not have a direct impact on any result?

All up for discussion.

 

[moriel]

I personally think that ISU will simply not pass it. After all, they got more important stuff to do.

Overall i think it is kinda simple: top fed officials cannot be active judges, simple like that. There are many people who are not judges who can be presidents, and also quite a fe judges who are not presidents either. If anything, ISU can, for example, put their membership on hold, and make it easier for them to return to judging after their term.

Or at least, restrict them to challenger events, there are quite a few of those every year to get enough judging to remain a judge on the ISU list.

Other skating related stuff is fine imho, since it has less impact on the results, but being an international judge.

 

[Spirals for Miles]

I think the ISU needs to focus on fixing their crap new scoring system ...

 

[Shayuki]

A thought would be to make a judge unable to score skaters from their nation. So they'd judge the rest of the skaters normally, but for the 1-3 skaters from their home country, they get to give no scores.

 

[OS]

A thought would be to make a judge unable to score skaters from their nation. So they'd judge the rest of the skaters normally, but for the 1-3 skaters from their home country, they get to give no scores.

That is what I have suggested, seems fair... except for the fact, it does not stop rival nations mark down their skaters.

I would not just stop at Federation presidents, what about the likes of Russia Fed lifetime Vice President like Alexander Lakernik, who just happen to be apparently lifetime ISU Technical Committee Chairman of ISU who gets to putout rule changes and scale value changes, including judges at competitions and likely placing tech judges at competitions?

They could place maximum allowable time to hold to positions to no more than 2-3 years (with rotate nationality), this should minimise the chance of corruption and federation strategies as Russia has been doing 'working' the system in their favour, for their skaters.

 

[WeakAnkles]

Until the ISU finally does what almost every other professional sport does and hire truly independent judges, there will ALWAYS be national bias. Always.

 

[chopinskate]

What are truly independent judges, though?

 

[Spirals for Miles]

chopinskate is a philosopher

 

[zounger]

A thought would be to make a judge unable to score skaters from their nation. So they'd judge the rest of the skaters normally, but for the 1-3 skaters from their home country, they get to give no scores.

That is what I have suggested, seems fair... except for the fact, it does not stop rival nations mark down their skaters.

But there is currently a prevention mechanism for this cases. The highest and lowest scores don't count. I'm not saying that the rules are perfect but to be fair it's not like someone will put 10's to his country athlete and 0's to his rival country athlete and the scores will count. You have to actually predict the highest "safe" mean of what other judges will give so that you doesn't "lose" you score. there is some safety in this mechanism.

 

[chopinskate]

chopinskate is a philosopher

It's actually a genuine question! I want to know what these other sports do. And why can't we adopt it if it's obvious?

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Not a fan of Phil at all but yes, if there is perceived conflict of interest then the ISU should make every possible effort to mitigate them.

 

[Mawwerg]

I think there are a number of more significant problems than this thing.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

I think there are a number of more significant problems than this thing.

I can’t think of one problem that needs addressing more than biased judging. Maybe a need to reduce PCS overall but they seem to be going the opposite direction in that regard

 

[Roast Toast]

I think there are a number of more significant problems than this thing.

I feel like this is the definition of Phil's investigative journalism tbh

 

[Sabrina]

In big competitions (Olympics, Worlds, GPF) they should not allow judges to have the same nationality with any skater in that competition. So, when Canadian skaters are in, Canadian judges should be out. Now I know that might be not enough, as geo political judging always occur, not only in skating.

 

[moriel]

In big competitions (Olympics, Worlds, GPF) they should not allow judges to have the same nationality with any skater in that competition. So, when Canadian skaters are in, Canadian judges should be out. Now I know that might be not enough, as geo political judging always occur, not only in skating.

I dont think this would be possible at, say worlds, since there is a major effort to include the most different nations in there.
But GPF should be easy, since there are very few skaters.

For Worlds and Olympics, maybe something like this: take the nationalities of the top 20 highest scores of the season, and all those cannot judge. This would remove national bias for the major contenders, which is the actually relevant part.

 

[lyndichee]

I wouldn't eliminate nations from scoring their own skaters because theoretically all judges should be able to score "without bias" regardless of what fans say.

What I would like would be more communication publications from ISU on judging abnormalities. I think if a judge is scoring outside of the standard deviation, then an immediate investigation and the judge, as a professional, must provide 500 word analysis based on the video clip and rulebook as to why they scored differently. This helps people understand the rationale at the very least and casual viewers can choose to read them if they want to learn more about the sport.

For example:

http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/gpcan2016/gpcan2016_Pairs_FS_Scores.pdf

Mr. Jeroen Prins accidentally gave them a -3 on Duhamel/Radford's twist. He commented on GS stating that it was an error, the score was dropped and he had personally spoken to them and said it was meant to be positive GOE. This wouldn't have influenced results but this should be published to inspire some confidence in the scoring system and let the judges know that they must be able to back up their scores.

Another example is the hilarious scoring of Allison Ryan from Australia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaxLsYnBuPK/?hl=en&taken-by=skatingprotocol

If you are an expert and score like that, ISU should require the judge to justify how they go that rogue.