And I really want to know how the ISU determines the number of judges per country, because when the UK has three judging spots and Japan has one... how did that happen?
Long story short, the ISU conducts annual draws to determine the composition of judging panels for ISU Championships.
(For
2021 Worlds, the ISU Council
decided to use the unused draws for
2020 Worlds.)
I am no expert on this subject, but the draws for judging panels at ISU Championships are discussed in Rule 521, starting on p. 95 of
ISU Special Regulations and Technical Rules.
"For ISU Championships, the panel of Judges shall consist only of Judges on the current lists of ISU Judges and all Judges must be designated ISU."
For each discipline, there is a draw to determine the composition of the judging panel.
For each draw:
"Each ISU Member may enter one Judge by number (not by name) in each discipline in which Judges of this ISU Member are qualified to judge and in which that ISU Member has participated with at least one (1) Skater/Pair/Couple in the same Championships of the preceding year, who has/have finished at least one segment of the individual competition;"
"An ISU Member can be represented with Judges in all four (4) disciplines within one Championships;"
"The draw procedure of the panels of Judges for all ISU Championships will take place annually between October 1st and November 15th. The draw is open to all ISU Members who may send one (1) Representative at their own expense. The draw shall take place in Switzerland in the presence of a certified Swiss auditor. The ISU President will appoint the person(s) who will conduct the draw;"
For 2020 ISU Championships, the draw for Judges by number was held on October 10, 2019, at the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva.
(Side note that
Japan would not have been eligible to enter the judges draw for pairs, because Japan did not have a pair at
2019 Worlds.)
ETA (on Mar 21):
Sorry that I did not have the full story re judges draw for pairs.
Andrea82's Mar 20 post below noted (I am paraphrasing): In the case of pair judges, a second draw was necessary because only twelve federations who competed in 2019 Worlds SP also have ISU-level pair judges.
For the second draw, the ISU language is: "If there are not enough ISU Members available, there will be an additional draw amongst all ISU Members available and willing to serve but not yet represented in the panel concerned, to complete the panel of Judges with up to thirteen (13) Judges".
So it is possible that Japan entered the second draw for pair judges.
ETA:
If my number-crunching is more or less correct (assuming that all ISU federations entered the 2020 Worlds draws for which they were eligible), then:
- 13 out of approx. 29 federations were drawn to have a judge on the Ladies panel for 2020 Worlds
- 13 out of approx. 24 federations were drawn to have a judge on the Men's panel for 2020 Worlds
32 federations had Ladies who completed
2019 Worlds SP:
ARM, AUS, AUT, AZE, BEL,
BRA, BUL, CAN, CHN, CZE,
DEN, ESP, EST, FIN, FRA,
GBR, GER, HKG, HUN, ITA,
JPN, KAZ, KOR, LTU, NED,
ROU, RUS, SLO, SUI, SVK,
SWE, USA
27 federations had Men who completed
2019 Worlds SP:
ARM, AUS, AUT, AZE, CAN,
CHN, CZE, EST, FIN, FRA,
GBR, GEO, GER, ISR, ITA,
JPN, KOR, LAT, MAS, MEX,
POL, RUS, SUI, SWE, TUR,
UKR, USA
I think that at the time of the draws, the following otherwise-eligible federations had no ISU-level singles judge:
ARM, BRA, LAT, LTU, MAS
