Hey MM. Excellent post on this. I always put you in the category that of full faith and trust in the judges. I suppose if the consensus comes up with a certain winner, it could dispel the incompetent ones - maybe, but for me that depends on the favorites of all the individual judges. Cultural bias does exist.Mathman said:Plenty of leeway.
First, the technical specialist (caller) can decide, pretty much without challenge, whether a triple jump should be downgraded to a double (because of a slight underrotation, for example), whether a spin should get a level 3 or a level 4 (did the skater hold each change of position long enough), etc. Although there are guidelines about this, there is still a lot of responsibility on the caller and his assistant.
Secondly, the judges add (or subtract) the Grade of Execution (GOE). This is somewhat subjective, too. If you look at the judges scoresheets (protocols) after an event, you will see that one judge might give a +2 and a different judge a -1 for the same element.
For instance, a triple Lutz is worth 6.0 "base points," but the judges can add or subtract up to 3 extra points, so the range is 3 to 9 points for that element.
Finally, the Program Component Scores (like the "presentation score" in the old system, worth about half of the total score) seems, in practice, to be completely up to the whim of the judges. Although there are five different categories, each with its own criteria for what constitutes excellence, in many contests it seem like the judges just give out blanket high scores to the skaters whose performances they liked the best, without paying too much attention to the actual rules.
MM
Justafan said:Not sure I understand it 100%, but is there any leeway for favoritism? For instance, if a skill is worth a certain number of points, is there an up/down spread the judges can score it or is it an absolute x number of points?