The Judging Controversy Thread

[louisa05]

I believe this is the direction this whole thing is evolving: if the sport is to be considered competitive and stay at the Olympics, then it needs to comply to every definition of a "sport". It has to be based on clearly measurable athletics and eliminate subjectivity as much as possible. Probably it means departure from "artistry", which to me is the right thing to do. I wouldn't mind, for example, elimination of ice dance completely from Olympics, thus also from ISU. I love ice dance, but the Olympics is not a place for it. It's simply not a sport, period.

Every element should be clearly scorable. The only subjectivity would come from deductions and bonuses.
Something like the way things are measured in free style skiing. There are certain points for certain elements considering difficulties and level of execution, transitions between elements, etc. Presentation would be just another element with a certain percentage of the total score, but never even close to present 50%. And again: it would has to be broken down to very definable and scorable elements too.

I don't think the sport can survive becoming an X-Games style contest of tricks, either, though. Drastically devaluing the present PCS would lead to just that and to even worse edges and blade work than we already see post-figures.

The sport can be repaired with a few simple steps. It can never be perfect because there will always be subjectivity. But some simple changes are in order:

1--End anonymous judging.
2--Diligently make sure panels are balanced by geography/region/ethnicity.
3--Do not allow any judges who have clear conflicts of interest regarding skaters or federations such as the blatant one we saw in the ladies free skate.
4--Require judges to refrain from developing personal relationships with skaters and to disclose them and remove themselves if they do have a relationship.
5--Require specific GOE deductions for common errors such as 2-footing, edge calls, etc...not the arbitrary requirement that exists now.
5--Review scoring before final results are confirmed to ensure that proper GOE deductions have been applied. This may result in slight changes from what is announced, but skaters, coaches and fans would have to be aware and prepared for it. If scores are reviewed at the conclusion of each warm-up group, it would not result in huge delays. This could, also, perhaps be a rule only applied to major comps like Worlds and the Olympics.

 

[RiceSkate]

Maybe having skating in Russia should be eliminated and having Russian tech callers, judges, wives, husbands, mistresses, etc

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

You're calling forum users "ubers" for reacting to a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world.

Uber is not an insulting word. I am an Adelina "uber". However, "a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world" is quite a bit of hyperbole. While many don't agree with the result, many do. Scott, Sandra, Tara, Johnny are skaters who do. Many are attacking them for expressing their opinion, calling them biased or idiotic. People are hell bent on looking for evidence of misbehavior and it is getting ridiculous. A judge hugs Adelina after the event has concluded and everyone is up in arms. The figure skating world is small and the judges and top athletes from a country are going to be very familiar with one another. Yuna left points on the table with her spins and only doing 6 jumps, and people assume every time she skates clean she should score as high as her fantastic LP from Worlds last year. Performance-wise this was not at the same level.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

When did drivingmissdaisy become a GS mod? Have I missed something?

I am not and have not claimed to be

 

[Ven]

Uber is not an insulting word. I am an Adelina "uber". However, "a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world" is quite a bit of hyperbole. While many don't agree with the result, many do. Scott, Sandra, Tara, Johnny are skaters who do. Many are attacking them for expressing their opinion, calling them biased or idiotic. People are hell bent on looking for evidence of misbehavior and it is getting ridiculous. A judge hugs Adelina after the event has concluded and everyone is up in arms. The figure skating world is small and the judges and top athletes from a country are going to be very familiar with one another. Yuna left points on the table with her spins and only doing 6 jumps, and people assume every time she skates clean she should score as high as her fantastic LP from Worlds last year. Performance-wise this was not at the same level.

lol even her Les Mis would have lost. Even Gershwin (minus the spiral) would have lost.

Maybe you have been living under a rock, but the headlines are everywhere. To say "a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world" is quite accurate.

Scott, Tara, Johnny, etc. have not presented a points based reason why they think the results were justified. They presented total red herring arguments, the equivalent of saying a team with the most rebounds or happiest faces deserves to win a basketball game. Preposterous. They have been put to shame by excellent, fact based reporting coming out of USA Today, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and especially The Wire.

 

[Silvia451]

I wouldn't like it to be eliminated. It's a great feeling when my favorite skaters win olympic medals and I can accept the situation when they don't.

 

[mskater93]

The sooner people understand that judging bias/favorites/snubs/lowballing/cheating/etc. is just the way it is, the sooner they'll learn to appreciate the sport for the skating rather than get hung up on the results. Honestly, that's the only reason I still continue to watch. I've made my peace with the "judging" aspect of the sport and no longer base my satisfaction on a fair outcome b/c fair figure skating competition is an oxymoron.

This is where I believe you are wrong. Something needs to be done to clean up this sport rather than be an ostrich and stick our heads in the sand. Skating has lost viewership in NA due to this perception and it is going to lose the budding interest in South Korea (and eventually Japan). Does the EU and Russia have the $$ to support figure skating? I think no. And if the viewership is continuing to turn away, this sport is done. It's already hard enough to sell the TV contracts in NA (where the cash to float the ISU used to come from) but this just made it all the harder. After all, if the judges and technical panel can rig this system that's supposed to be "cheat proof" (and if they didn't, it certainly SEEMS as if they did to some extent), then why should we watch? Why should we allow our kids to participate when they're just going to get ****ed over by judges and tech panels who have their favorites? Participation (along with viewership) is down in many countries. Why should I let my child participate in this sport when they can get on a good hockey team and win "fairly"!

 

[moviechick]

They're not getting rid of the marquee event of the Winter Olympics. Figure skating could basically turn into American Idol and it would still be at the Olympics.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Scott, Tara, Johnny, etc. have not presented a points based reason why they think the results were justified. They presented total red herring arguments, the equivalent of saying a team with the most rebounds or happiest faces deserves to win a basketball game. Preposterous.

Their argument is basic math; the skater who accrues the most points wins. Scott's argument on PCS is that, while she is not the most polished, Adelina's skating meets all the requirements necessary to earn high PCS. I suppose if you think that is "the equivalent of saying a team with the most rebounds or happiest faces deserves to win a basketball game" then you are refusing to consider an opinion other that your own.

 

[Manitou]

1--End anonymous judging.

That should never happen. There is a reason why it is anonymous - to relieve the pressure from the judges. Imagine you are judging an event in Korea, a Korean is skating and the Korean audience is going crazy. Imagine the personal pressure on the judge is she/he knows her/his score is public to everyone. The same if you change the word "Korea" with "Russia", "Canada" or "USA".
If the judges had been personally exposed in Sochi then the outcome would have been even much worse and more controversial than it actually was. The pro-Russian bias would be even bigger. Much bigger!
Actually the same would apply to any country anywhere.

 

[Ven]

The latest article from The Wire. So good that they are looking at the points and protocols, and not resulting to idiotic sayings like "she deserved to win because she created a moment" or "she had more triples in 1 of 2 programs" or any of the other preposterous things that have become the hallmark of our ethically challenged pseudo-journalists at NBC.

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014...y-rigged-gold-medal-win/358425/#disqus_thread

 

[louisa05]

That should never happen. There is a reason why it is anonymous - to relieve the pressure from the judges. Imagine you are judging an event in Korea, a Korean is skating and the Korean audience is going crazy. Imagine the personal pressure on the judge is she/he knows her/his score is public to everyone. The same if you change the word "Korea" with "Russia", "Canada" or "USA".
If the judges had been personally exposed in Sochi then the outcome would have been even much worse and more controversial than it actually was. The pro-Russian bias would be even bigger. Much bigger!
Actually the same would apply to any country anywhere.

No. Transparency is key. If someone can't handle the pressure and still behave ethically, then perhaps they should not be judging. Anonymous judging means no one can be held accountable for questionable results. And I have believed from the beginning that that was the point of changing the judging system more than anything else. If only one change is made, it needs to be that.

I used to judge high school forensics. I was required to print and sign my name on every competitor's ballot. As it should be.

 

[verysmuchso]

Uber is not an insulting word. I am an Adelina "uber". However, "a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world" is quite a bit of hyperbole. While many don't agree with the result, many do. Scott, Sandra, Tara, Johnny are skaters who do. Many are attacking them for expressing their opinion, calling them biased or idiotic. People are hell bent on looking for evidence of misbehavior and it is getting ridiculous. A judge hugs Adelina after the event has concluded and everyone is up in arms. The figure skating world is small and the judges and top athletes from a country are going to be very familiar with one another. Yuna left points on the table with her spins and only doing 6 jumps, and people assume every time she skates clean she should score as high as her fantastic LP from Worlds last year. Performance-wise this was not at the same level.

'Uber' may not be an insulting word, but you qualified anyone who question this judging ubers of "a certain skater" in a snarky attempt to dismiss the whole questioning as BS. I wish you endless hours of joy watching fake competitions with fake scores issued by crooks you defer to.

 

[leafygreens]

The latest article from The Wire. So good that they are looking at the points and protocols, and not resulting to idiotic sayings like "she deserved to win because she created a moment" or "she had more triples in 1 of 2 programs" or any of the other preposterous things that have become the hallmark of our ethically challenged pseudo-journalists at NBC.

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014...y-rigged-gold-medal-win/358425/#disqus_thread

I like how they count up the number of 3+'s. Lip had 27, more than Yuna and Caro combined. What a disgrace.

 

[Demandred]

The IOC is all about the money, the wouldn't remove one of their most popular winter sports just because of cheating accusations. Hell, even if the corruption is proven, they still won't do it. As long as enough people watch, they couldn't care less whether there's corruption and scandals.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

'Uber' may not be an insulting word, but you qualified anyone who question this judging ubers of "a certain skater" in a snarky attempt to dismiss the whole questioning as BS.

Here's the thing. I look at the protocols (http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf) and what I see is:
1) One judge REALLY loved Adelina (judge in her column 7), but ALL the rest scored her very high. Even her two lowest scoring judges in columns 3 and 8 gave her mostly +2 GOE for her technical elements. In fact, only one judge, column 8, gave her more than 3 marks below +2.
2) Two judges (columns 3 and 6) REALLY loved Yuna but the rest gave her plenty of marks <+2 GOE on the elements.

Why I'm not convinced that anything fishy was going on is because it appears 7 of the judges did not mark Yuna generously, while 7 marked Adelina very generously. I cannot list 7 judges on that panel all of whom I would believe have a bias towards Adelina for any reason other than she skated better. At most 2 or 3 but not 7.

I wish the focus would be on the marks rather than about whom she hugged after the event.

 

[kslr0816]

again, i'm repeating myself here:

What can "we" the people do about it? Korea's filed the complaint, we've signed petitions, all the articles, etc. seem to fall on deaf ears: is there anything we can do, while it is at least somewhat in the public light?

i think by this point it's become so obvious that some of the original naysayers you've seen commenting in this thread have up and vanished - but what can we do? it just seems like there is no system of checks and balances, and the public has squat say in this.

 

[Lyanpark]

The latest article from The Wire. So good that they are looking at the points and protocols, and not resulting to idiotic sayings like "she deserved to win because she created a moment" or "she had more triples in 1 of 2 programs" or any of the other preposterous things that have become the hallmark of our ethically challenged pseudo-journalists at NBC.

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014...y-rigged-gold-medal-win/358425/#disqus_thread

After reading thewire.com, I just give this data from other web site.

Base value + GOE + PCS by judges

Judges Yuna Adelina Sotnikova
1 134.09 141.83
2 140.39 143.13
3 143.09 145.33
4 144.09 145.63
5 144.69 151.13
6 144.79 151.53
7 145.79 153.93
8 149.49 154.03
9 151.79 155.73
Exclusion of “biased” 4 147.31 145.41

There were 4 judges who were biased.

 

[Ven]

again, i'm repeating myself here:

What can "we" the people do about it? Korea's filed the complaint, we've signed petitions, all the articles, etc. seem to fall on deaf ears: is there anything we can do, while it is at least somewhat in the public light?

i think by this point it's become so obvious that some of the original naysayers you've seen commenting in this thread have up and vanished - but what can we do? it just seems like there is no system of checks and balances, and the public has squat say in this.

Keep posting on here. Send messages to skating writers. Hersh, Brennan, Armour, anyone else you know. Probably the best thing would be a full scale expose like CNNSI did with Barry Bonds or Lance Armstrong.

I wonder if we could contact any writers at Sports Illustrated?

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I like how they count up the number of 3+'s. Lip had 27, more than Yuna and Caro combined. What a disgrace.

Only 4 of her +3 were for jumps. Her spins are amazing. This is more irresponsible journalism. +3's are a lot rarer for jumps than for spins.