Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS | Page 62 | Golden Skate

Analyzing Sotnikova and Kim's footwork in the FS

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sk8in

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Jan 15, 2014
@Mathman components are not "skating with caution." That is your psychological projection.
 

Skater Boy

Record Breaker
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Feb 24, 2012
I have two theories:
1. like you said, her short program was so disastrous there was no chance she could medal unless everyone else bombed. They scored her high enough to let her medal if everyone skated really badly, but everyone else skated fine.
2. The Japanese aren't the type to complain much about not being favored. The Japanese will love figure skating regardless of it anyone Japanese medalled. Also, Hanyu had already won gold so Japan had its share of figure skating glory at Sochi

For whatever reason a bad short program and skating earlier doesn't "allow" you or usually equate getting perhaps as generous scores in the free skate even if you skate well.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
@Mathman
I respect your opinion, and I think your characterization of the ISU is probably the closest one to reality. So, I agree with the essential point you're making.

But I must disagree on your assessment of Mao's free skate. She made me a fan that night. She may not have skated with the same fire as, say, Adelina (give the girl some due--whether you think she deserved her placement or not, she did skate like she wanted that OGM), but she skated with a different type of abandon. She skated like she carried all the emotions of the world within her, and instead of being crushed under the weight, she channeled them--right until the last moment, when she burst into tears.

Considering the difficulty of her skate, and the powerful, emotional performance it was (for me), there is no doubt in my mind that she deserved the highest technical mark, the highest component marks, and the highest overall marks of the night. Of course, that's just my personal opinion, and other people (and other judges) are likely to think differently.

I'm hardly a technical expert, so I can't speak for how justified the UR calls were. I will note: On the CBC broadcast, Kurt Browning said he didn't think the judges would even need to replay the 3F-3Lo, because of how clean it looked. They ended up giving Mao a UR call. Of course, it's perfectly possible that Kurt's wrong--he also called her 3A slightly two-footed, only to realize it wasn't two-footed at all upon replay. Even if Mao's UR calls were justified, I still think the judges were way too stingy in terms of GOE for her, compared to both Adelina and Yuna. Her terribly low component scores were even more baffling for me.

That being said, while I think Mao's scores were unjust, I'm not sure if it's some kind of crazy conspiracy. Her horrific short program probably left a sour impression that won't be erased anytime soon, and no matter how they scored her in the free, I don't think she'd get on the podium. So it's likely a case of, "She's out of medal contention anyway, we don't care about how we score her." :no: Some kind of weird modern-day version of Viktor Petrenko's LP scores back in the Lillehammer, but more egregious. This is sad and awful, but I attribute Mao's scores to sheer incompetence on the judges' part, rather than malice.
 

CarneAsada

Medalist
Joined
Sep 17, 2011
Mao's scores might not be all that outrageous if we're going by stingy judging like the sort of stuff we saw in 2010-11 or 2007-08. But by Olympic standards, especially Sochi Olympics standards, they were. If Adelina could get her 3Lz-3T ratified, Mao deserved credit for both the 3-3 and the 3T. As for skating with caution, so did Carolina and Yuna and they had 73.77 and 74.50 PCS respectively. So they skate faster than Mao. That is one category out of 5. The other parts of PCS? If you said Mao's LP was relatively unbalanced in choreography, I'd agree. But what she did in the last 2 minutes of her LP was unmatched artistically by anyone in the Sochi ladies' event, and for me that more than makes up for any "caution" she showed early on.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
@Mathman components are not "skating with caution." That is your psychological projection.

Well, here's what I think. When it comes to figure skating judging, there are two separate worlds. The real world, and the fantasy world populated by folks who take the published rules of the IJS and ISU documents as an infallible guide. People in the fantasy world delight in doing technical and statistical analyses to prove that figure skating judges are not actually operating in the fantasy world. No, they are not. They are judging in the real world.

In the real world, no set of rules, however detailed, tells the whole story. There are always unstated "rules behind the rules" involving tradition, history, interpretation, context, and even politics that color the black-and-white text.

Here is an example. Both Julia Lipnitskaia and Adelina Sotnikova zoomed up the ladder in terms of program component scores coming into Sochi. In the fantasy world -- the world where we go strictly by the published rules of the CoP -- this would not be possible.

But one of the unwritten rules in the real world (which every skater and coach knows) is that to get high program scores a skater must first work her way up the reputation ladder by delivering a series of convincing programs over several competitions. Is this "right"? Well, it's real. ;) Lipnitskaia really did improve rapidly during the 2013 and delivered the goods in a consistent way, and by the end of the season the judges were prepared to score her higher than in the past for the same quality performance. As for Sotnikova, she lacked only consistency. The judges were prepared to boost her scores for a performance with few errors.

Please don't shoot the messenger. I am not saying this is a good thing. I just think it is far too facile an interpretation of events to say "conspiracy" and let it go at that. The true situation is always more complicated than can be distilled down to a single word.
 
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kwanatic

Check out my YT channel, Bare Ice!
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May 19, 2011
Well, here's what I think. When it comes to figure skating judging, there are two separate worlds. The real world, and the fantasy world populated by folks who take the published rules of the IJS and ISU documents as an infallible guide. People in the fantasy world delight in doing technical and statistical analyses to prove that figure skating judges are not actually operating in the fantasy world. No, they are not. They are judging in the real world.

In the real world, no set of rules, however detailed, tells the whole story. There are always unstated "rules behind the rules" involving tradition, history, interpretation, context, and even politics that color the black-and-white text.

Here is an example. Both Julia Lipnitskaia and Adelina Sotnikova zoomed up the latter in terms of program component scores coming into Sochi. In the fantasy world -- the world where we go strictly by the published rules of the CoP -- this would not be possible.

But one of the unwritten rules in the real world (which every skater and coach knows) is that to get high program scores a skater must first work her way up the reputation ladder by delivering a series of convincing programs over several competitions. Is this "right"? Well, it's real. ;) Lipnitskaia really did improve rapidly during the 2013 and delivered the goods in a consistent way, and by the end of the season the judges were prepared to score her higher than in the past for the same quality performance. As for Sotnikova, she lacked only consistency. The judges were prepared to boost her scores for a performance with few errors.

Please don't shoot the messenger. I am not saying this is a good thing. I just think it is far too facile an interpretation of events to say "conspiracy" and let it go at that. The true situation is always more complicated than can be distilled down to a single word.

Well said. :thumbsup:
 

Meoima

Match Penalty
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
I have the same feeling (as Sandpiper) about Mao that night in Sochi. Personally I think she couldn't be on the podium due to her SP, but her LP deserved a world record. Because...it was so moving, so awesome, the best she could have ever done. Why they didn't reward her the highest LP of that night, I am baffled anyways. Yup, if she got a world record for that LP, she could have been 5th or 4th and it doesn't mean much to her anyways. But still, if we are talking about fair judging, then she could have been 1st in LP.;)

Frankly I have never been her fan and I am not so fond of the ladies event because...if I want some ballet on ice I would rather watch real ballet. I want powerful jumps, thus I usually follow men event.
To me, Mao has always been too fragile and I think it's frustrated me. Her heavy make-up and costume at Vancouver left a not so good impression on her, thus I didn't bother watching her Bell of Moscow in 2010. It's true that I have only truly watched her 3-4 times until recently, but it seems yuna's fans don't believe me. Because they think I am against Yuna. :confused: heck tell me I am shallow but the main reason I voted for Yuna in Vancouver was because she looked the prettiest in that competition. :p

I expect nothing when Mao came out on the ice that night and skated her LP. I dislike Rachmaninov as hell so I just wanted her performance to finish asap. But she skated her best that night, truly emotional and technically I think she was much better than Adelina, yet the score...:confused:
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
But I must disagree on your assessment of Mao's free skate. She made me a fan that night. She may not have skated with the same fire as, say, Adelina (give the girl some due--whether you think she deserved her placement or not, she did skate like she wanted that OGM), but she skated with a different type of abandon. She skated like she carried all the emotions of the world within her, and instead of being crushed under the weight, she channeled them--right until the last moment, when she burst into tears.

But don't you think that part of that reactions was that we already knew that she was carrying all the emotions of the world within her, and that we were hoping and praying with all our hearts that somehow a miracle would happen and she would rise above their crushing weight?

(Meoima' experience was different, though. Meoima basically had no hopes or expectations, but was still enchanted. So maybe I don't know what I am talking about.)
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
I agree with Mathman on both comments, ISU&judges and Mao's performance that night, and I'm a fan of Mao.
 

Sandpiper

Record Breaker
Joined
Apr 16, 2014
But don't you think that part of that reactions was that we already knew that she was carrying all the emotions of the world within her, and that we were hoping and praying with all our hearts that somehow a miracle would happen and she would rise above their crushing weight?

(Meoima' experience was different, though. Meoima basically had no hopes or expectations, but was still enchanted. So maybe I don't know what I am talking about.)
It's possible. But I wasn't a Mao fan before that night. She made me a fan. So I'm pretty much in the same boat as Meoima, except I liked the performance even more (I assume, since I turned into a fan). Trust me, before that LP I was completely on Team Yuna. I wasn't really all that heartbroken on the day of the SP; I was heartbroken after the fact, when the LP showed me what Mao could really do.

That being said, there is a lot of subjectivity in the sport. Things like emotion and performance are very much part of figure skating, and there's nothing wrong with that. If we four (me, Mathman, Alba, and Meoima) sat there as a panel of judges, Meoima and I would've given higher scores to Mao than Mathman or Alba. That's fine. I don't think Mathman or Alba would be wrong--they just feel differently. I disagree with Mathman's assessment on Mao's LP, but it's an understandable opinion.

I just think, in light of the other scores that night in Sochi--not just talking about the Russians here, but basically everyone--I don't think Mao would've gotten those low-balled LP scores with that same skate if circumstances were different. If she hadn't had that disaster short program that caused the judges to basically take an "I don't care" attitude, for instance. Even if Mao skated tentatively (I don't quite agree with this, but it's subjective), Yuna skated even more tentatively, imo, and she still outscored Mao in the LP.

I'm with CarneAsada--Mao's scores wouldn't be out of line in a strictly judged competition, but the judges and tech panel seemed to restrict the stingy judging for Mao alone that night. I don't think the actual number matters that much (especially in light of the inflation in the past four years), but I care about the placements in a competition, and placements will shift if you mark one person by a stricter standard than the entire field. I'm not about to cry "Conspiracy!" because it would be one heck of a pointless conspiracy--Mao wasn't even a podium threat at that point, let alone an OGM threat. But I disagree with her scores--that's all. My opinion. ;)
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Mathman, you are slowly and diplomatically inching towards the logical conclusions. For all of the hard statistical analysis that you and others have done, and all of the levels analysis that people like BoP have done, none of it matters because the numbers are all made up and goal-seeked at the end. The evidence is visible across all areas of the judging and scoring: technical calls on jumps, levels, GOEs, and PCS.

-----

Technical calls on jumps:
There seems to be a group of people in the figure skating community who accept cheating and believe it is a part of the sport. They are OK with political competitions, and will come out after the fact and defend results with cherry picked arguments. In the case of Sochi Ladies 2014, they were often quoted after the competition as saying Sotnikova did 7 triples, and Yuna Kim did 6, and so Sotnikova deserved to win.

The problem with this argument is that Sotnikova did not actually do 7 triples. The technical panel committed fraud by giving her credit for a triple instead of the double she actually did. They created another fraud when they did not give her an edge call, which would have deducted further points from her score. Meanwhile, Mao Asada did a historic 8(!) triples, but the technical panel was quick to ding her for downgrades.

In this case, it did not matter how many triples the skaters did on the ice. A skater could do 8 triples and arbitrarily be given credit for 6, or they could do 6 and arbitrarily be given credit for 7. What kind of sport is this?

Scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Levels:
One can go back and look at the step sequence levels the skaters have received in the past. The mode for Sotnikova is Level 3, and the mode for Yuna Kim is level 4. All other things being equal, an observer would expect the most likely score either of these skaters would receive at a competition would be Sotnikova-3 and Kim-4. However, these are not gift scores, the skaters must earn them, and they can vary from competition to competition. But, when the Levels come out reversed, with Sotnikova earning a 4, and Kim earning a 3, eyebrows are at least raised and we have to go back and look to see how the skaters deviated from their norm.

BoP and others did just that, and the extra scrutiny tells a different story than the one the judges gave. No, Sotnikova did not outperform her usual abilities on this day, and no, Yuna Kim was not uncharacteristically sloppy. Careful analysis shows that Adelina Sotnikova should have received her usual Level 3 Step Sequence score, and Yuna Kim should have received her usual Level 4 Step Sequence score.

Instead, the scores were arbitrarily reversed, further aiding the Russian's cause.

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Grades of Execution:
Sotnikova received the highest GOEs of any skater in the competition, including the most number of +3 scores. Her defenders (or defenders of the results) will argue that, as the winner, it makes sense she would have the highest GOE scores. However, it's strikingly curious that the skater who received the second highest GOEs in the competition was the other Russian skater, Lipnitskaia, who was actually quite terrible and skated embarrassingly bad during the individual event. Together, the two Russian girls received nearly two-thirds of all +3s handed out in the entire competition. Lipnitskaia (5th place) herself received more +3s than Yuna Kim (2nd) and Carolina Kostner (3rd) combined.

Further, one judge specifically gave Sotnikova +3 on every single element except for her double footed step-out, which was still graded +2.

A judge also gave Yuna Kim mostly +1 on all elements...same judge perhaps? We may never know thanks to ISU's anonymous judging policy, but there was one judge on the panel convicted of trying to rig the 1998 Olympics, and another Russian judge on the panel married to one of the most powerful people in Russian Skating Federation.

scoring bias: in favor of both Russian girls (including Sotnikova)

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PCS scores
Adelina Sotnikova's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
56, 59, 55, 63, 60, 59, 60, 64, 60

Just a few weeks prior to the Olympics (as of January 2014), she had received ~64 at her very best (twice), with her average +/- 60, including her most recent competition.

Over numerous competitions through multiple seasons, Adelina Sotnikova had demonstrated skating abilities consistent with second rate components scores, when compared to the best of the very best, like Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner, etc. But after Russian Nationals and her spot on the Olympic Team, in order to "prep" her score for the Olympics, she suddenly received 69.6 (with mistakes) at Euros, and 74.41 at Olympics, which is the 2nd highest PCS score of all time.

Julia Lipnitskaia's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
59, 60, 63, 60

That is a remarkably consistent score throughout the Olympic season; however, in the final weeks leading up to the Olympics, her PCS score magically shot up to:
68 at Euros, 69.82 at Olympics Team Event, and 70.06 at Olympics individual

Compare these inflationary increases to Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner and their senior international (free skate) PCS scores during the same time...

Yuna Kim:
70, 73, 71 ... 74.5 @ Olympics

Carolina Kostner:
70, 70, 70, 65, 68, 71 ... 73.77 at Olympics

While Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner may have received the tiniest of bumps to their scores, they were already scoring @ 70+ and in Kim's case, higher.

The Russian girls however were consistently scoring around 60 (or 64 when Sotnikova was at her very best) and rather than a similar modest "Olympics bump", what ... their scores increase by 10 points overnight? How can someone close a 10 point PCS gap and make it to world record territory overnight, unless the judges are intent to make it happen, regardless of the skater's ability on the ice?

At their previous "very best", Yuna Kim had a 9 point PCS advantage over Adelina Sotnikova, which is a night and day margin. At Sochi, both skaters received their highest PCS ever, and in Kim's case the highest PCS score of all time, but now they were only separated by 0.09 points, essentially a tie?

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Conclusion

The above demonstrates why people do not accept the results as anything other than a farce ... Sotnikova had never won a major international competition in her career, and had never finished on the podium at worlds. Yuna Kim was a 2-time World Champion, the defending World and Olympic Champion, and Carolina Kostner herself was a World Champion with many other major victories to her credit. This was not a case of two skaters at the top of the world, so close together that the judges narrowly pick out one winner and one loser. This was a case where you can look at all of the scoring components and see a clear bias for a skater not in their league.

If one of the scoring categories had been amiss, we might assume it was an unintentional error. But when you look at the scoring you see willful intent and bias in ALL categories ... jump calls, technical levels, grades of execution, and components scores. There is a bias in every single category of the scoring that turned a good but unpolished skater into the winner over two world class skaters who skated extremely well.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
Record Breaker
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Dec 29, 2013
Country
United-States
Re: Yulia's FS

She had a total of 25 +3 GOE's ... YES of course. :confused2:. Twenty of them were on her last two spins and her Choreographed Sequence(Ina Bauer and Spiral)! Both were well centered and executed as well as anyone in the world could do them. The same scores she has been getting all year too. She had five +3 GOE's on jumps and three were tossed out because it was an outlier judge. So she actually recieved only two +3 GOE on her jumps in the end. Same thing in the SP except after the only +3 GOE FOR a jump that she recieved was an outlier and consequently tossed out. So no +3's except the last spin and her level 3 step sequence who even BoP said was a well delivered level 3. These are facts and not just opinion. It's better to use the facts with the proper context included. It's hard to argue that she didnt deserve her +3's...even the one for the level 3 StSeq.

I would love to stop discussing her here but I more so just want you to stop slandering her and making things bend in a way that is unfair and untrue.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
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Dec 29, 2013
Country
United-States
This is the most dishonest thing I've ever read on GoldenSkate.

Great way to divert the discussion from the fact that you blatantly bent the truth to "prove" your ridiculously OTT postings. Yes, once again..ignore the facts and resort to cheap shots and diversion. :laugh:

What say you to your GOE theory falling apart?
 

RABID

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Mathman, you are slowly and diplomatically inching towards the logical conclusions. For all of the hard statistical analysis that you and others have done, and all of the levels analysis that people like BoP have done, none of it matters because the numbers are all made up and goal-seeked at the end. The evidence is visible across all areas of the judging and scoring: technical calls on jumps, levels, GOEs, and PCS.

-----

Technical calls on jumps:
There seems to be a group of people in the figure skating community who accept cheating and believe it is a part of the sport. They are OK with political competitions, and will come out after the fact and defend results with cherry picked arguments. In the case of Sochi Ladies 2014, they were often quoted after the competition as saying Sotnikova did 7 triples, and Yuna Kim did 6, and so Sotnikova deserved to win.

The problem with this argument is that Sotnikova did not actually do 7 triples. The technical panel committed fraud by giving her credit for a triple instead of the double she actually did. They created another fraud when they did not give her an edge call, which would have deducted further points from her score. Meanwhile, Mao Asada did a historic 8(!) triples, but the technical panel was quick to ding her for downgrades.

In this case, it did not matter how many triples the skaters did on the ice. A skater could do 8 triples and arbitrarily be given credit for 6, or they could do 6 and arbitrarily be given credit for 7. What kind of sport is this?

Scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

-----

Levels:
One can go back and look at the step sequence levels the skaters have received in the past. The mode for Sotnikova is Level 3, and the mode for Yuna Kim is level 4. All other things being equal, an observer would expect the most likely score either of these skaters would receive at a competition would be Sotnikova-3 and Kim-4. However, these are not gift scores, the skaters must earn them, and they can vary from competition to competition. But, when the Levels come out reversed, with Sotnikova earning a 4, and Kim earning a 3, eyebrows are at least raised and we have to go back and look to see how the skaters deviated from their norm.

BoP and others did just that, and the extra scrutiny tells a different story than the one the judges gave. No, Sotnikova did not outperform her usual abilities on this day, and no, Yuna Kim was not uncharacteristically sloppy. Careful analysis shows that Adelina Sotnikova should have received her usual Level 3 Step Sequence score, and Yuna Kim should have received her usual Level 4 Step Sequence score.

Instead, the scores were arbitrarily reversed, further aiding the Russian's cause.

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Grades of Execution:
Sotnikova received the highest GOEs of any skater in the competition, including the most number of +3 scores. Her defenders (or defenders of the results) will argue that, as the winner, it makes sense she would have the highest GOE scores. However, it's strikingly curious that the skater who received the second highest GOEs in the competition was the other Russian skater, Lipnitskaia, who was actually quite terrible and skated embarrassingly bad during the individual event. Together, the two Russian girls received nearly two-thirds of all +3s handed out in the entire competition. Lipnitskaia (5th place) herself received more +3s than Yuna Kim (2nd) and Carolina Kostner (3rd) combined.

Further, one judge specifically gave Sotnikova +3 on every single element except for her double footed step-out, which was still graded +2.

A judge also gave Yuna Kim mostly +1 on all elements...same judge perhaps? We may never know thanks to ISU's anonymous judging policy, but there was one judge on the panel convicted of trying to rig the 1998 Olympics, and another Russian judge on the panel married to one of the most powerful people in Russian Skating Federation.

scoring bias: in favor of both Russian girls (including Sotnikova)

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PCS scores
Adelina Sotnikova's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
56, 59, 55, 63, 60, 59, 60, 64, 60

Just a few weeks prior to the Olympics (as of January 2014), she had received ~64 at her very best (twice), with her average +/- 60, including her most recent competition.

Over numerous competitions through multiple seasons, Adelina Sotnikova had demonstrated skating abilities consistent with second rate components scores, when compared to the best of the very best, like Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner, etc. But after Russian Nationals and her spot on the Olympic Team, in order to "prep" her score for the Olympics, she suddenly received 69.6 (with mistakes) at Euros, and 74.41 at Olympics, which is the 2nd highest PCS score of all time.

Julia Lipnitskaia's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
59, 60, 63, 60

That is a remarkably consistent score throughout the Olympic season; however, in the final weeks leading up to the Olympics, her PCS score magically shot up to:
68 at Euros, 69.82 at Olympics Team Event, and 70.06 at Olympics individual

Compare these inflationary increases to Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner and their senior international (free skate) PCS scores during the same time...

Yuna Kim:
70, 73, 71 ... 74.5 @ Olympics

Carolina Kostner:
70, 70, 70, 65, 68, 71 ... 73.77 at Olympics

While Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner may have received the tiniest of bumps to their scores, they were already scoring @ 70+ and in Kim's case, higher.

The Russian girls however were consistently scoring around 60 (or 64 when Sotnikova was at her very best) and rather than a similar modest "Olympics bump", what ... their scores increase by 10 points overnight? How can someone close a 10 point PCS gap and make it to world record territory overnight, unless the judges are intent to make it happen, regardless of the skater's ability on the ice?

At their previous "very best", Yuna Kim had a 9 point PCS advantage over Adelina Sotnikova, which is a night and day margin. At Sochi, both skaters received their highest PCS ever, and in Kim's case the highest PCS score of all time, but now they were only separated by 0.09 points, essentially a tie?

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

-----

Conclusion

The above demonstrates why people do not accept the results as anything other than a farce ... Sotnikova had never won a major international competition in her career, and had never finished on the podium at worlds. Yuna Kim was a 2-time World Champion, the defending World and Olympic Champion, and Carolina Kostner herself was a World Champion with many other major victories to her credit. This was not a case of two skaters at the top of the world, so close together that the judges narrowly pick out one winner and one loser. This was a case where you can look at all of the scoring components and see a clear bias for a skater not in their league.

If one of the scoring categories had been amiss, we might assume it was an unintentional error. But when you look at the scoring you see willful intent and bias in ALL categories ... jump calls, technical levels, grades of execution, and components scores. There is a bias in every single category of the scoring that turned a good but unpolished skater into the winner over two world class skaters who skated extremely well.

Bottom line..... :laugh: :agree:
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Yes, once again..ignore the facts and resort to cheap shots and diversion. :laugh:

The facts are:

1. Defenders of the results argued that Sotnikova should be expected to have the highest GOEs and most +3s, since she was the winner after all.

2. This same logic apparently does not apply to Lipnitskaia, however, who finished 5th but had more +3s than the 2nd and 3rd place finishers combined.

3. Both of the Russian girls saw a magical, overnight 10 point increase in their PCS that put them on par with skaters clearly superior to them. This can't be attributed to Olympics "inflation", because Kim and Kostner did not benefit from a similar increase.

4. Although nearly my entire lengthy post was regarding Kim, Kostner, and Sotnikova, not unexpectedly, the only thing you wish to discuss is the brief mention of the other Russian girl. In her case, her jump GOEs were wildly inflated. Her 3F, for instance, was graded higher than Kim's. I dare anyone to look at those two jumps side-by-side and say Lipnitskaia's deserves a higher GOE.

-----

I think everyone would acknowledge Lipnitskaia is a good spinner, but let's look at a side by side comparison of the clean jump GOEs between Lipnitskaia and Kim, who is clearly the bigger and smoother jumper between the two:

3Lz-3T
Kim 1.60, Lipnitskaia 1.10

3F
Kim 1.20, Lipnitskaia 1.30

2A-2T-2Lo and 2A-3T-2T
Kim 0.79, Lipnitskaia 1.00

2A
Kim 0.79, Lipnitskaia 0.71

Lipnitskaia could not help but fall on the ice a couple of times, so we can only guess what her magical GOEs might have been on her other jumping passes, but comparing the ones we can, we find that Lipnitskaia received higher GOEs than Kim on 2 out of 4 jumping passes, and in the case of the 2A, a jump which the Russian is widely ridiculed for barely being able to get off the ice, she received several +2s and nearly the same score.

-----

So yes, those are the facts, and as much as you seem to obsess about the little 15 year old girl, her skating abilities are not in the same league as Sotnikova, let alone Kim and Kostner. It wasn't just her spins that she received high scores for ... but she received unexplainable and indefensible high scores for her borderline acceptable jumps.

Hopefully we can now go back to our regularly scheduled programming.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
A skater could do 8 triples and arbitrarily be given credit for 6, or they could do 6 and arbitrarily be given credit for 7. What kind of sport is this?

Further, one judge specifically gave Sotnikova +3 on every single element except for her double footed step-out, which was still graded +2.

But after Russian Nationals and her spot on the Olympic Team, in order to "prep" her score for the Olympics, she suddenly received 69.6 (with mistakes) at Euros, and 74.41 at Olympics, which is the 2nd highest PCS score of all time.

I don't you if you're trying to blatantly lie about these things or if you actually believe these things as a result of your endless discussions with other biased uberfans.

Adelina got at least two 9+ PCS scores from EVERY judge. There was a universal consensus on the panel that her program was very strong.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Mathman, you are slowly and diplomatically inching towards the logical conclusions. For all of the hard statistical analysis that you and others have done, and all of the levels analysis that people like BoP have done, none of it matters because the numbers are all made up and goal-seeked at the end. The evidence is visible across all areas of the judging and scoring: technical calls on jumps, levels, GOEs, and PCS.

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Technical calls on jumps:
There seems to be a group of people in the figure skating community who accept cheating and believe it is a part of the sport. They are OK with political competitions, and will come out after the fact and defend results with cherry picked arguments. In the case of Sochi Ladies 2014, they were often quoted after the competition as saying Sotnikova did 7 triples, and Yuna Kim did 6, and so Sotnikova deserved to win.

The problem with this argument is that Sotnikova did not actually do 7 triples. The technical panel committed fraud by giving her credit for a triple instead of the double she actually did. They created another fraud when they did not give her an edge call, which would have deducted further points from her score. Meanwhile, Mao Asada did a historic 8(!) triples, but the technical panel was quick to ding her for downgrades.

In this case, it did not matter how many triples the skaters did on the ice. A skater could do 8 triples and arbitrarily be given credit for 6, or they could do 6 and arbitrarily be given credit for 7. What kind of sport is this?

Scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Levels:
One can go back and look at the step sequence levels the skaters have received in the past. The mode for Sotnikova is Level 3, and the mode for Yuna Kim is level 4. All other things being equal, an observer would expect the most likely score either of these skaters would receive at a competition would be Sotnikova-3 and Kim-4. However, these are not gift scores, the skaters must earn them, and they can vary from competition to competition. But, when the Levels come out reversed, with Sotnikova earning a 4, and Kim earning a 3, eyebrows are at least raised and we have to go back and look to see how the skaters deviated from their norm.

BoP and others did just that, and the extra scrutiny tells a different story than the one the judges gave. No, Sotnikova did not outperform her usual abilities on this day, and no, Yuna Kim was not uncharacteristically sloppy. Careful analysis shows that Adelina Sotnikova should have received her usual Level 3 Step Sequence score, and Yuna Kim should have received her usual Level 4 Step Sequence score.

Instead, the scores were arbitrarily reversed, further aiding the Russian's cause.

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Grades of Execution:
Sotnikova received the highest GOEs of any skater in the competition, including the most number of +3 scores. Her defenders (or defenders of the results) will argue that, as the winner, it makes sense she would have the highest GOE scores. However, it's strikingly curious that the skater who received the second highest GOEs in the competition was the other Russian skater, Lipnitskaia, who was actually quite terrible and skated embarrassingly bad during the individual event. Together, the two Russian girls received nearly two-thirds of all +3s handed out in the entire competition. Lipnitskaia (5th place) herself received more +3s than Yuna Kim (2nd) and Carolina Kostner (3rd) combined.

Further, one judge specifically gave Sotnikova +3 on every single element except for her double footed step-out, which was still graded +2.

A judge also gave Yuna Kim mostly +1 on all elements...same judge perhaps? We may never know thanks to ISU's anonymous judging policy, but there was one judge on the panel convicted of trying to rig the 1998 Olympics, and another Russian judge on the panel married to one of the most powerful people in Russian Skating Federation.

scoring bias: in favor of both Russian girls (including Sotnikova)

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PCS scores
Adelina Sotnikova's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
56, 59, 55, 63, 60, 59, 60, 64, 60

Just a few weeks prior to the Olympics (as of January 2014), she had received ~64 at her very best (twice), with her average +/- 60, including her most recent competition.

Over numerous competitions through multiple seasons, Adelina Sotnikova had demonstrated skating abilities consistent with second rate components scores, when compared to the best of the very best, like Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner, etc. But after Russian Nationals and her spot on the Olympic Team, in order to "prep" her score for the Olympics, she suddenly received 69.6 (with mistakes) at Euros, and 74.41 at Olympics, which is the 2nd highest PCS score of all time.

Julia Lipnitskaia's senior international PCS scores (free skate), prior to being named to Russian 2014 Olympic Team:
59, 60, 63, 60

That is a remarkably consistent score throughout the Olympic season; however, in the final weeks leading up to the Olympics, her PCS score magically shot up to:
68 at Euros, 69.82 at Olympics Team Event, and 70.06 at Olympics individual

Compare these inflationary increases to Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner and their senior international (free skate) PCS scores during the same time...

Yuna Kim:
70, 73, 71 ... 74.5 @ Olympics

Carolina Kostner:
70, 70, 70, 65, 68, 71 ... 73.77 at Olympics

While Yuna Kim and Carolina Kostner may have received the tiniest of bumps to their scores, they were already scoring @ 70+ and in Kim's case, higher.

The Russian girls however were consistently scoring around 60 (or 64 when Sotnikova was at her very best) and rather than a similar modest "Olympics bump", what ... their scores increase by 10 points overnight? How can someone close a 10 point PCS gap and make it to world record territory overnight, unless the judges are intent to make it happen, regardless of the skater's ability on the ice?

At their previous "very best", Yuna Kim had a 9 point PCS advantage over Adelina Sotnikova, which is a night and day margin. At Sochi, both skaters received their highest PCS ever, and in Kim's case the highest PCS score of all time, but now they were only separated by 0.09 points, essentially a tie?

scoring bias: in favor of Sotnikova

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Conclusion

The above demonstrates why people do not accept the results as anything other than a farce ... Sotnikova had never won a major international competition in her career, and had never finished on the podium at worlds. Yuna Kim was a 2-time World Champion, the defending World and Olympic Champion, and Carolina Kostner herself was a World Champion with many other major victories to her credit. This was not a case of two skaters at the top of the world, so close together that the judges narrowly pick out one winner and one loser. This was a case where you can look at all of the scoring components and see a clear bias for a skater not in their league.

If one of the scoring categories had been amiss, we might assume it was an unintentional error. But when you look at the scoring you see willful intent and bias in ALL categories ... jump calls, technical levels, grades of execution, and components scores. There is a bias in every single category of the scoring that turned a good but unpolished skater into the winner over two world class skaters who skated extremely well.

It sticks out that you need to learn and must learn all tech elements are judged in isolation of one another. Think about that.
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
I don't you if you're trying to blatantly lie about these things or if you actually believe these things as a result of your endless discussions with other biased uberfans.

1. Mao Asada attempted 8 triples and received credit for 6 because of downgrades. If the technical calls are made on an objective basis, then Sotnikova attempted 7 triples and should have been given credit for 6. But that did not happen, because the scoring is fictional and goal-seeked to fulfill predetermined results.

2. You can look on the score sheet here: http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf
Other than the two footed jump, where a minimum -1 was given, one judge gave Sotnikova all +3s on every element (correction, they gave a single +2 near the end).

3. All of the PCS scores I listed are accurate and can be looked up on the ISU results pages.

Sotnikova's free skate PCS scores in the past two seasons at senior ISU events:
56, 59, 55, 63, 60, 59, 60, 64, 60 ... and then after Russian nationals and the final weeks leading up to Olympics (around the time the french newspaper story was coming out, not surprisingly) ... 69.6 and 74.41.

It is irrelevant how many judges helped her to those PCS marks. She had consistently shown over two seasons, including through the majority of the Olympic season itself, to be on her good days 10 points behind Kim and Kostner, and on her bad days even further behind. She had never in her career demonstrated the artistic polish or skating skills to earn her marks among the greatest of all time. It does not matter how many judges gave her those marks, or why they gave those marks, but they are inconsistent with reality and the reason why Kurt Browning and others asked "what, she suddenly became that much better of a skater overnight?"

When you have a skater score 56, 59, 55, 63, 60, 59, 60, 64, and 60 ... over and over again the same scores ... and then all of a sudden they score almost 70 and 74.41 near world record, something else is going on.

I am not among the group that would blame one or two questionable judges as scapegoats. As you mentioned and I agree with, the wildly inflated GOEs and PCS scores for certain skaters existed among a great many judges, but they only existed in the final weeks leading up to the Olympics, and at no other time during their career. Whether deals were made or people were bribed or the judges suddenly lost their mind, who knows, but the scores do not add up with reality, and that's why millions of people have signed petitions to investigate the results, tens of thousands have signed petitions to remove Cinquanta and clean out the ISU, former famous skaters have come out questioning the results, countless articles and blogs have been written slamming figure skating, and on and on.
 
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