Judges give higher scores to skaters with more reputation and momentum, plain and simple. PCS also vary considerably from event to event.
But how much of that is because skaters who deservedly earn higher scores develop more reputation and momentum as a result?
My take is that it works both ways.
First, and primarily, it works the way it's supposed to -- skaters skate, and judges evaluate that skating according to the existing rules and guidelines to the best of their ability.
Some judges have better ability than others. Some may be equally competent but differ on which criteria they pay the most attention to, or in how generous or strict they are in assigning marks, or in how wide a range of numbers they use to reflect the differences they see between skaters (or between components in the.
All of the above is competent, honest judging that reflects some unavoidable variance between judges and between competitions because of the subjective nature of assigning a finite amount of digital scores to a much larger amount qualitative evaluations of analog criteria.
And then you
also get judging that doesn't work exactly the way it's supposed to.
Less experienced/less confident judges may still be adjusting their understanding of the rules and standards from one event to the next. Some of that adjustment process might involve bringing their evaluations closer in line with the way that more established judges have scored the same skaters in the past -- a form of reputation judging.
These judges are trying to bring their own scores in line with the consensus of what the judging community as a whole thinks of these skaters' performances. It might be motivated purely by a desire to learn the standards and to become a better judge, or purely by a desire to make sure their scores don't fall outside the "corridor" often enough that they will lose judging privileges, or a combination of the above.
All judges will, unconsciously, see what they expect to see. For a skater who scored well in the past, they will expect to see skating that deserves high scores. So all else being equal, they will tend to give higher scores to a skater with a past history of good results than to one with less of a positive reputation -- another form of reputation judging.
International judges and other officials talk up the good qualities of their home country skaters, influencing other countries' judges' perceptions of the skaters' reputation and the other judges' ability to recognize the skater's very real strong points (and perhaps ignore their weak points) -- a form of political influence on judging.
Senior officials including referees may make comments about the kinds of skating the ISU wants to see rewarded or the kind of results (e.g., by nationality or by style of skating) that would be "good for the sport" in the eyes of the public and potential sponsors. Judges may take (and the officials may or may not intend) those comments as suggestions about which specific skaters they're expected to score generously -- another form of political influence on judging.
And sometimes international judges may deliberately make an effort to overscore their own skaters or to make deals with other judges -- i.e., outright cheating.
We can't get inside the judges' heads, and in most cases we have no way of knowing exactly what is being said in the judges' room or in other conversations among officials.
So how can we tell how much of the variances in PCS (including differences between the panels' scores and our own personal opinions of the skating) are attributable to natural variations in honest judging, how much are attributable to reputation effects or politics, and how much to actual cheating?
