Those are the questions I want to ask. The lack of transparency provides self serving purpose to ISU, and shut any criticism out.
The Judging Controversy Thread
- Thread starter Andre Smith
- Start date
Those are the questions I want to ask. The lack of transparency provides self serving purpose to ISU, and shut any criticism out.
Interesting analysis. A couple of things come out of this
A. Did Adelina receive the the highest total GOEs EVER in the history of this sport based on that performance? Surpass anything by Chan, Takahashi, Hanyu, Kim, Mao, Kostner?
B. If so, it seem to indicate GOEs is more vulnerable to manipulation than PCS, because the point variation from PCS at elite level are usually between 8 to 10, roughly 2 points separation and 10 is a rarity. They are Factored differently for short and long which makes FS a far more important event. With GOEs scale of +-3 can be a matter of up to 6 points differences, with 30% reduced GOE since Vancouver reduces the advantage of superior execution. This actually made the Adelina's GOEs scoring even more incredible consider it has been reduced by 30% since Vancouver. At Vancouver, that'd be worth 29.614(22.78 *1.3) .
C. What also struck me about Adelina's PCS is that it beat Kim's at Vancouver with a inferior program and performance and no precedence in PCS to justify these marks. How is it fair for someone like Kim/Mao/Kostner to take 7/8 years of world championships to earn their PCS, a young skater with no major podium finish (WC, GPF) can gain in a matter of few weeks?
D. The fundamental flaw of all the number crunching analysis is that it assumes people's marking are genuine fair across the board based absolute scale instead of abusing it like ordinal scale of relative scoring. That all judges are marking skaters with the same degree of good conscious and impartiality. That they have no agendas to prop their own skaters while repress their direct rivals? It ultimately shows why anonymity must go, if agenda can not be erased under the COP system.
A useful analysis is not possible without taking account of past judging history, the variance in scoring trends and who they marked.
For example here are the facts.
Despite Adelina and Yulia's young and short careers, why are the judges who gave their most important wins in their young career are on the same Sochi FS panel
Some of the judges that sticks out are are
1. Alla SHEKHOVTSEVA of Russia
- Other than her personal conflict of interest married to the director general of Russia Federation.
- She were at the panel of every single one of Adelina's competiton this season. She is practically her personal judge.
- Marked Adelina and Yulia's at European Championship which saw her PCS rise by 9 points in her FS even though she was 2nd in the FS behind Yulia.
Adelina coming 2nd at that FS received the 7th highest PCS of ALL TIME then. Is this unusual or merely accidental?
- Marking the Russian skaters, at home. She shares no same agenda as her husband I presume.
2. Helene CUCUPHAT of France
- Responsible for 3 of the most important win in Sotnikova's career.
- Marked Adelina at Junior worlds 2012 (Where Yulia was 1st, Adelina 3rd)
- Marked Adelina at European Championships which saw her PCS rose to the 7th highest of all time despite coming 2nd.
- Marking Adelina again at Sochi.
3. Zana KULIK of Estonia
- Responsible for Adelina's most critical win up to date, 2011 Junior world championships.
- Judged here at Sochi which makes a nice Eastern bloc judging if skating history has proved to rear its ugly head again here in Sochi.
4. Can a panel consist of an Italian judge and a Japanese judge and no Korean judge in the FS affect the scoring for Kim? We simply don't know under anonymous judging.
5. Yuri BALKOV of Ukraine.
- Should have been banned for life from his cheating ways at 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
Balkov was taped by the Canadian judge Jean Senft explaining what order the competitors would finish in the ice-dancing competition before it took place. He was suspended for one year. He returned to judging and is certified by the international federation next year.
- Yet he judged ice dance panel of judges at Salt lake.
- He is here again at ladies event, does he even have the experience to judge the ladies? Why is he here? Why wasn't he vetoed by ISU's internal Quality control?
Consider all the above, what are the chances they all come together on the same panel on the most important event in Russia ladies figures skating since Salt Lake 2002?
I did wonder what happened to that incredible whistle blower Canadian judge Jean Senft, so I googled and found this old article of her from the TIMES
http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,203274,00.html
This bit caught my eye and made me loled since I have been saying the EXACT same thing on Gkelly's judge selection thread. It would be wonderful if this can be adapted as part of the reform process.
A reform is really necessary to protect the judges as well as the skaters and the sport. For example all the above judges mentioned could have been completely innocent despite what their profile indicate a clear conflict of interest to impartiality to the competition to treat ALL skaters equally, but there's just no way to prove it under anonymity.
They should just reveal all the marking of all the judges and simply let the mark speak for itself. If there are indeed deliberate biases or sabotage then these judges should be penalized, end of. Without removing this shield of secrecy, it encourages all sort of speculation that does the reputation of the sport, the skaters involved no good and it is simply unfair to them all.
Few rotten apples and incompetent governance of this sport should not ruin the great work of every hard working judge who dedicate their life uphold the integrity of the sport with honesty and compassion. Remove anonymity, improve transparency and accountability. Make the ISU judges a professional organization, well run and governed with strong ethical guidance in place. Without it, the sport is sham and will only ever be a tug of war among the old boys' club.
The draw was random! How could it have been planned ahead and had any belief that all these judges would be together to fix the even? But this is important because I think it does show ISU could pass a rule banning former soviet countries from judging together on a panel. Also having a strict ethnic test to make sure more than one Russian judge isn't on a panel! Or judges of any ethnicity really. So not more than one Russian or French or whatever. It seems like there would be support for strict ethnic and geographic political tests on judges. Like is Kulik an eastern blocker? You could investigate her for unseemly pro Russian feeling that makes her biased or you can just ban Russia and Estonia from being on a panel together.
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- Feb 23, 2014
My guess is that the Koreans are hoping to shine a light on the ISU. They will probably cite the mistakes made on the Tech Panel (no doubt using their experts to pick apart Adelian's flutz/UR/Footwork-step level etc.) and Lakernik's involvement as being inappropriate. They will cite Alla (and her conflict of interest due to her husband) being on every judging panel for events Adelina has skated in this season. Also that French Judge, Helene Cucuphat has likewise been on all of those panels. Helene was with Alla when Alla and Adelina hugged. They'll bring up Yuri Balkov. They may have done their own investigating and may have connections that we're not aware of...
In the end, my guess is the bigger stink they make about this, they hope to bring scrutiny on the officials. the more scrutiny, the more pressure if there was wrongdoing. If there was wrongdoing on one or more of the panels, they hope someone will crack under this pressure and that the truth will out. If there is no wrongdoing, then this scrutiny should be welcomed to put this matter to rest.
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- Mar 7, 2011
The answer from Speedy at the ISU is, "Sit down, and shut up. If you don't like it, switch sports."
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- Feb 18, 2014
To which I'd like to respond w/ a favorite from Mikhail Gorbachev: "Trust, but verify."
Then they hope the gold will be stripped from Sotnikova and given to Yuna! That is the goal.
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- Feb 23, 2014
How could they give the medal to Yuna? The entire event would have to be rejudged and that would not be fair to any of the skaters (as it would have to be done via video recording). You keep worrying about the blasted medal and attempting to justify Adelina's skate instead of admitting that their were some irregularities in the scoring that need to be examined to see if the system should be changed. Adelina's gold medal is secure. Now let's just fix this!
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2011
Verification is what's missing here.
I believe any reputable federation would want to spread out their judges onto different events, to build an experienced judging pool. I can only think of two reasons to put the same judge (Alla) at all of these events:
1) Hubby puts her on the panel to make her happy and get her out of the house;
2) Russian fed knows she will swing the scores in their favor.
This would be the correct outcome, if the judges are proven to be corrupt. At very least a dual gold medal should be awarded, since it wasn't Adelina's fault (only her pompous, arrogant bloating afterwards was. But there's no rule against that.)
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- Feb 23, 2014
Specifically the belief that she's been propping up Russian skaters all season. Again, no proof, but PCS/GOE inflation has been outrageous. Not ruling out the first one though, lol.
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- Feb 23, 2014
Per my message, you can't "dual gold it" because then Italy will (rightfully) cry foul and say that Carolina deserves a gold too. Then the US will say that since Gracie's last name is "Gold" that she deserves one too.
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- Mar 7, 2011
Per my message, you can't "dual gold it" because then Italy will (rightfully) cry foul and say that Carolina deserves a gold too. Then the US will say that since Gracie's last name is "Gold" that she deserves one too.
They could always vacate the gold. If Gold got a gold then you might as well give 5th-place Julia one too, to keep the Russians from rioting.
Joking aside, I think any demand for a gold for Carolina would be met with as much skepticism as Slutskaya in 2002. Carolina seems to be ok with the bronze and I haven't heard a peep out of Italy. The injustice against Yuna is a lot more clear.
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- Feb 23, 2014
The point is that it is too subjective just to award an extra gold. In 2002, an actual criteria was used to award Sale and Pelltier an extra gold (the French judge's vote was vacated leaving the ordinals tied at 4-4. Since there was a tie for first, another gold was awarded). What objective criteria would be used to award Yuna another gold? She deserved to win, but I just don't see it.
As far as vacating the gold, it would not just be unfair to Adelina but would be punitive to her. It would really be setting a dangerous precedent.
Exactly. It is an incredulous display of hypocrisy to demand proof here and then to be against any measure to acquire proof when it comes down to it. It's gotta be either amnesia or really disgusting minds.
No one seriously believe there will/should be new medalists. What many want is a reform. It need not (and should not) be limited to Russian Federation.
Some people do not see the cognitive dissonance in practically demanding video evidence of money switching hands before letting people discuss possible motivations for judging inconsistencies, yet declaring with no evidence the inner motivations of why people might want to discuss judging inconsistencies.
If I may ask, what are the possible benefits of using absolute value over sum of squares?
Sincerley hope Korea included a proper statistical analysis with their petition
hwell:Whaaaaaat??!?!?!?!?
How can this possibly be legitimate!? You would have an average of 2 if 4 judges gave 1's and 5 judges gave 3's LOL!
Essentially this means you can have a panel where ALL OF THE JUDGES are cheating, and NONE of them get caught because none of them tripped the corridor that THEY THEMSELVES CREATED THROUGH THEIR OWN AVERAGE CHEATING SCORES?!
Please tell me that's not right
I am DYING to know
Can someone explain this process? Is it done by computer, or does everyone write their name on a paper and put it into a glass bowl? Is the draw held publicly, or does it happen behind closed doors? (doesn't mean much that it's "random" if nobody can verify that).
:thumbsup:
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- Jun 21, 2003
Oh, thank you, thank you! That makes perfect sense.
So I guess if there is a mistake in your favor you just keep quiet and hope for the best.
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- Jul 26, 2003
Which is why, if I were a cheating tech panel member, my strategy would be to fail to make any calls against the skater I was cheating for (all level4's, no ur's, no edge calls), and I would be tough but correct on everyone else. Other skaters can appeal their own calls, but they would be correct. They cannot appeal the crooked calls because they are another skater's calls. If one of the other two panel members calls for a review, I can say, gee I missed that. Safe as houses.
Actually, you could even be slightly tougher than correct on other skaters and still get away with it. Other skaters and federations will recognize that protesting just to get 1 or 2 points back, when it doesn't appreciably affect the results (i.e. affect the rankings), will turn public opinion against them for holding up the event. So even though they would be correct to protest and receive the few additional points for their skater, they wouldn't for fear of the backlash. In doing so, you can make the margin between skaters seem even larger under this strategy -- so that the difference is large enough to the general public that they hopefully won't consider judging as a factor.
There's a difference in public perception between a 2 point difference and a 10 point difference, as well as protesting for 1.5 points in those circumstances. And all the public sees is the final point difference, not the difference if the protest had been made, if in fact it weren't.
I remember reading somewhere along the line on this forum that the people with the biggest "pull" on the scores are actually the people on the technical panel. The 9 judges that give out GOEs and stuff certainly can affect the results, but not to the same degree as the technical panel.
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
The worst part is it seems that cheating is sadly protected by several rules within the ISU's own rules and guidelines! It's like the "Anarchist's Cook Book" for figure skating cheaters. A cheater's 'how to guide' if you will.
The unfortunate thing is in the right hands and executed with a fair mind the guidelines could really promote the sport in a more artistic direction which is why I assume there is so much room for interpretation in the first place. People exploiting it are akin to a river eroding its banks! Eventually your plain becomes flooded and your river has grown into an unrecognizable shape. Everytime there is an exploitation of the rules there is a chance that the rules will be forced to be restricted again. Ultimately harming the artistic freedom of this sport we all have come to love and I'd go so far as to say crave. Ugh
The unfortunate thing is in the right hands and executed with a fair mind the guidelines could really promote the sport in a more artistic direction which is why I assume there is so much room for interpretation in the first place. People exploiting it are akin to a river eroding its banks! Eventually your plain becomes flooded and your river has grown into an unrecognizable shape. Everytime there is an exploitation of the rules there is a chance that the rules will be forced to be restricted again. Ultimately harming the artistic freedom of this sport we all have come to love and I'd go so far as to say crave. Ugh
