The Judging Controversy Thread

[vegarin]

Don't be too defensive. I'm only saying this because when you are comparing seven triple skate, you have to consider this angle too. If you want to compare Sotnikova's seven triple skate, Gracie Gold's one is much more suitable

Kim's Technical Element Score:69.69
Kostner's Technical Element Score:68.84
Gold's Technical Element Score:69.57

You can see Gold's TES is higher than Kostner even with a fall. Also she is tied with Kim, and yes even with a fall.

I'm being defensive, huh? Okay, then.

Ah, those questionable GOEs. That's the answer to everything.

 

[Manitou]

I understand the results had emotional impact on fans on user forums, but this is just ridiculous. They have no foundations for this, no proof, no basis. Just plain bitterness. They are supposed to a serious organization, not some angry fans. In what light is this putting them? Sore losers? In what light is this putting Yuna?
Or maybe we should remind them the soccer World Cup in Korea where practically every game with Koreans seemed fixed. Should Italians have filed a complaint? At least they had a hard proof of horrendous referee decisions there. At least there was something to complain about. And what do they have now? Bitterness?
I hope Yuna has nothing to do with this.

 

[vegarin]

Yuna has moved on to better and brighter things, and she has gracefully accepted the judging as it is. It is, as you say, some of us bitter fans moaning and whining. So please free to ignore us. If we are delusional and have no substance in wanting some accountability with judging, then it should be easy enough to dismiss as just that, delusional.

 

[Juliasochi]

I understand the results had emotional impact on fans on user forums, but this is just ridiculous. They have no foundations for this, no proof, no basis. Just plain bitterness. They are supposed to a serious organization, not some angry fans. In what light is this putting them? Sore losers? In what light is this putting Yuna?
Or maybe we should remind them the soccer World Cup in Korea where practically every game with Koreans seemed fixed. Should Italians have filed a complaint? At least they had a hard proof of horrendous referee decisions there. At least there was something to complain about. And what do they have now? Bitterness?
I hope Yuna has nothing to do with this.

No foundation? Then disclose each judge's scores. If they do not have anything to hide , why hide? The judge from Ukraine got caught on tape of cheat, you call it no foundation? Ha ha. Cheaters are always cheaters.

 

[Juliasochi]

Yuna has moved on to better and brighter things, and she has gracefully accepted the judging as it is. It is, as you say, some of us bitter fans moaning and whining. So please free to ignore us. If we are delusional and have no substance in wanting some accountability with judging, then it should be easy enough to dismiss as just that, delusional.

She may have moved on but people have the right to ask for justice. They have the right to request a thorough investigation.

 

[leafygreens]

The rule itself does not apply to the present case. This is not the type of a clearcut question whether a lineback fell shy of a touchdown line or not or whether Adelina two-footed her loop or not. The allegation of the slanted judging panel could be raised after the bio of one judges was available to the public, the wife judge of the president of the Russian Figureskating Federation and a sainctioned judge with a colorful background of bribery. The harm accrued was not acknowledged within thiry minutes after the event. So the rule itself does not and should not apply.

I think the Korean federation would be better off complaining to a different governing body, like the CAS, who would actually pay attention to the very valid concerns presented here. The ISU will just sweep it under the rug as not following Section C, Bullet 3, Part E within 15 minutes. The scores are really irrelevant if the judging panel is comprised of conflict of interest and corruption.

The ISU is so much about protests being "within the rules," yet they break their own rules namely rule (121-j-ii-5), "that disqualifies anyone from officiating an event who “due to their relationships, may reasonably appear to be in a conflict of interest position regarding a competing skater.’’ "

I am tired of the false arguments being made by the U.S. media with a seeming agenda to squash this controversy, so I'm currently writing an article that will breakdown the scoring and illustrate how outrageous Sotnikova's scores were. We need another wave of outrage and backlash to eliminate the cheats in this sport.

I look forward to reading it.

 

[jkun]

If she's skating against Asada, I think it'd be really laughable if her PCS goes near Mao's PCS.

AND Mao has got more triples.

If Adelina's PCS is anywhere close to Mao's PCS in Japan there will be serious problems from the Japanese Fed and from Japanese fans. This is why it will be interesting. If they lower Adelina's PCS to near regular levels, there will be huge question marks raised over how the results from Sochi happened. If Adelina's PCS is similar to Sochi and is higher than Mao's you can bet the JSF and the Japanese will not stand for that. And the JSF is arguably the most influential skating federation in the world, currently.

 

[Mao88]

No, that is incorrect.

My mistake, if that is the case. I hope that if a protest is lodged, that journalists have the where with all to ask Kim the direct question in yes or no terms as to whether she supports the protest or not.

The rule itself does not apply to the present case. This is not the type of a clearcut question whether a lineback fell shy of a touchdown line or not or whether Adelina two-footed her loop or not. The allegation of the slanted judging panel could be raised after the bio of one judges was available to the public, the wife judge of the president of the Russian Figureskating Federation and a sainctioned judge with a colorful background of bribery. The harm accrued was not acknowledged within thiry minutes after the event. So the rule itself does not and should not apply.

Of course the rule applies to this case and it most certainly is clearcut. The Yuna fans have no hard evidence whatsoever of any kind. All they have is malicious innuendo. Malicious innuendo does not constitute hard evidence. The two key elements of the innuendo are:-

- One of the judges is the wife of the president of the Russian Figure skating Federation. So what? There is nothing within the rules that precludes this lady from being a judge. Moreover, there is absolutely nothing in this lady's history as a judge that would even remotely suggest that she is corrupt. Furthermore, who you happen to be married to does not form the basis for questioning somebodies integrity. Those who do are a disgrace. It is also worth pointing out that many people these days do not get married. If this silly argument were taken to its logical conclusion, then the ISU would have to carry out indepth investigations into every judge every 3 months to ensure that they had not hooked up with the 'wrong person' that would disqualify them from being a judge. Don't be ridiculous.

- One of the Judges was suspended for a year. Whatever the rights or wrongs as to whether he should have been allowed back or not (which is a completely separate and unrelated issue), the fact remains that his eligibility for being selected as one of the Judges was within the rules. Moreover, there is no hard evidence of any kind whatsoever that he did not mark the competition fairly and objectively.

As stated, all there is is malicious innuendo, and that does not constitute hard evidence. There is not one shred of hard evidence that any of the judges did not mark the competition fairly, justly, and objectively. Moreover, the marks for the highest and the lowest scores are excluded to produce the final score. It would therefore be next to impossible for one person to manipulate the results. And for your information, the judges for the free program came from Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. That is not a judging panel that is likely to favour one or the other of the top 2 overall. But, of course, there was no conspiracy here whatsoever. The competition was marked fairly and objectively, and Adelina Sotnikova was the deserved winner.

 

[leafygreens]

Article Debacle on Ice: What Happened With the Ladies in Sochi?

Quotes a scholarly paper titled "Does Transparency Really Increase Corruption? Evidence from the 'Reform' of Figure Skating Judging," which concludes:

The results of this analysis suggest that a return to 2002 levels of transparency would reduce judging biases.

 

[Ophelia]

My mistake, if that is the case. I hope that if a protest is lodged, that journalists have the where with all to ask Kim the direct question in yes or no terms as to whether she supports the protest or not.



Of course the rule applies to this case and it most certainly is clearcut. The Yuna fans have no hard evidence whatsoever of any kind. All they have is malicious innuendo. Malicious innuendo does not constitute hard evidence. The two key elements of the innuendo are:-

- One of the judges (Alla Shekhovtseva) is the wife of the president of the Russian Figure skating Federation. So what? There is nothing within the rules that precludes this lady from being a judge. Moreover, there is absolutely nothing in this lady's history as a judge that would even remotely suggest that she is corrupt. Furthermore, who you happen to be married to she not form the basis for questioning somebodies integrity. Those who do are a disgrace. It is also worth pointing out that many people these days do not get married. If this silly argument were taken to its logical conclusion, then the ISU would have to carry out indepth investigations into every judge every 3 months to ensure that they had not hooked up with the 'wrong person' that would disqualify them from being a judge. Don't be ridiculous.

- Yuri Balkov (suspended for a year). Whatever the rights or wrongs as whether he should have been allowed back or not, the fact remains that his eligibility for being selected as one of the Judges was within the rules. Moreover, there is no hard evidence of any kind whatsoever that he did not mark the competition fairly and objectively.

As stated, all there is is malicious innuendo, and that does not constitute hard evidence. There is not one shred of hard evidence that any of the judges did not mark the competition fairly, justly, and objectively. Moreover, the marks for the highest and the lowest scores are excluded to produce the final score. It would therefore be next to impossible for one person to manipulate the results. And for your information, the judges for the free program came from Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. That is not a judging panel that is likely to favour one or the other of the top 2 overall. But, of course, there was no conspiracy here whatsoever. The competition was marked fairly and objectively, and Adelina Sotnikova was the deserved winner.

Cherry picking at its finest. You seem to disregard all the articles and discussions that show the scorecards of the competitors and highlight the inconsistencies both across the scorecards of competitors in Sochi, but also within the context of Sotnikova's historical scores.

Also, if Mao was switched with Yuna/if she managed to do a clean SP and placed below Sotnikova, you'd be screaming for justice.

 

[Juliasochi]

Article Debacle on Ice: What Happened With the Ladies in Sochi?

Quotes a scholarly paper titled "Does Transparency Really Increase Corruption? Evidence from the 'Reform' of Figure Skating Judging," which concludes:

This researcher should work for North Korea or Putin. It is just bizarre that twisted minds try to find some evidence to argue dictatorship is better than democracy, secret balloting is better than transparency.

 

[Skater Boy]

For the bloody love of skating no wonder there are judging conspiracies and whing and complaining when this web site move and amalgamates commentsat whim while allowing some threads that also could be amalagamated. Ie. jason brown does he really warrant yet anothe thread when it could be one. I wanted to hear comments about the S. Korean complaint over the ladies skating results and itis thrown in here and I can't even find it now. Meanwhile Jason Brown gets another thread which could have been left in one thread. see we all have different opinions, sorry for my frustration folks, but that is wy we get odd skating results -b ecause to someone else it isn't odd what is odd is my or your perception.

 

[whatif]

Swedish ice hockey team is protesting that Canadian is chosen as a referee during the final match tomorrow.

 

[leafygreens]

This researcher should work for North Korea or Putin. It is just bizarre that twisted minds try to find some evidence to argue dictatorship is better than democracy, secret balloting is better than transparency.

The researcher is arguing for no anonymous judging.

 

[Mao88]

Cherry picking at its finest. You seem to disregard all the articles and discussions that show the scorecards of the competitors and highlight the inconsistencies both across the scorecards of competitors in Sochi, but also within the context of Sotnikova's historical scores.

That is subjective opinion, not factual evidence. Anybody can cherry pick a few subjective opinions. But, the fact remains that there is no hard evidence of corruption

 

[Juliasochi]

Swedish ice hockey team is protesting that Canadian is chosen as a referee during the final match tomorrow.

They should. When people feel there might be conflict of interest, they have every right to complain.

 

[hurrah]

That is subjective opinion, not factual evidence. Anybody can cherry pick a few subjective opinions. But, the fact remains that there is no hard evidence of corruption

Are you okay?

 

[Juliasochi]

That is subjective opinion, not factual evidence. Anybody can cherry pick a few subjective opinions. But, the fact remains that there is no hard evidence of corruption

When you have to defend a cheating judge who was caught on tape to prove your point, you are not going to win a case before grand jury.

 

[whatif]

Cherry picking at its finest. You seem to disregard all the articles and discussions that show the scorecards of the competitors and highlight the inconsistencies both across the scorecards of competitors in Sochi, but also within the context of Sotnikova's historical scores.

Also, if Mao was switched with Yuna/if she managed to do a clean SP and placed below Sotnikova, you'd be screaming for justice.

There is nothing in ISU regulations, that all skaters via their respective skating federations agreed to, that requires judges to take into consideration historical records in their scoring. They judge a specific performance on the day they were assigned to judge. That's all.

 

[Juliasochi]

The researcher is arguing for no anonymous judging.

Ok, I thought you referred to another article I read earlier which said there had no evidence that non-anonymous judging helped Fairness in FS.