South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging | Page 84 | Golden Skate

South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
FS really ought to take note from the artistic gymnastics scoring system. They're similar in the sense that there is a "technical" and "artistic" mark (and that they moved away from a "perfect" mark system, 6.0 and the 10). However, you haven't heard of cheating in gymnastics ever since the eastern-block judging in the late 80s for 3 simple reasons:

1. Judges are not allowed to give marks to athletes from their own country. This includes the difficulty panel which is somewhat equivalent to the technical callers in FS. I am still astounded that no one seems to care about that fact in FS. You can't tell me that there aren't enough qualified judges (who haven't cheated in the past) that you can hire who don't bring forth that huge conflict of interest. Nor can you tell me that a judge can be truly impartial to an athlete from their country.

2. In the all-around and team competitions, judges are randomly selected and only give scores to one group of athletes (~6 gymnasts out of 24-30 in total). This eliminates the possibility of fixing results because there are so many judges. It may seem messy, but it works.

3. Judges are not anonymous and their respective scores for each athlete are released after each competition. Also, if a certain judge's score deviates too much from the average of all the other judges for that athlete, they are suspended (whether they are attempting to fix results or are just incompetent at judging).

I do think the gymnastics system works well for gymnastics but would be harder to implement in figure skating. In response to your points:

1) I don't mind if one of the nine judges on the panel is from the skater's country because if the judge is out of line in the scoring the scores will be thrown out. The tech panel is a bit different, because they have a lot of power and there are fewer members. The ISU tries to address that by preventing panel members from the countries with the top ranked skaters being there, so clearly the ISU sees that there would be some advantage if a top skater had a countryman/woman on the tech panel. I'm not sure what the solution is there.

2) I prefer seeing the same panel judge the entire competition, personally. I would hate to see the results affected by a skater being unlucky to have a few very tough judges on her panel and a close competitor have a different set of judges who aren't as harsh.

3) This must happen. I guess the ISU made anonymous judging to prevent judges from having to be pressured to score athletes a certain way as part of deals with other nations, as well as for people not to focus as much on the composition of the judging panel. However, if a judge doesn't score how he/she is supposed to as part of a deal with another country, then the other federation might get mad and not offer to make another deal, which would be a good thing.
 

cooper

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
I am sorry, what are you saying? He did, all judges gave Adelina high score. Call them cheaters. What else is left for desperate fans.

you said that ALL judges gave adelina a high score.. including yuri balkov.. who is a known cheater which is a fact gave adelina the high score..
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Actually, it is impossible to prove that, since you don' t know which scores go together. You can only prove it if every score of Adelina's is higher than every score of YuNa's. and even then you have the question of whether the tech panel's calls were correct or not.
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/index.htm

If you look at GOE and PCS, which are the scores judges give, YuNa is ahead on more than one judge's scorecard. It is her base value that defeated her, and that is partially due to the tech panel and partially to her own choice of elements.

Adelina's base value was 61.43, YuNa's 57.49. 0.9 of that difference is due to YuNa being awarded level3 for her step sequence and her layback spin.
 
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cooper

Medalist
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Balkov was 1/9.

so it's OK for you to let a known cheater to judge a very close scoring after the sp in the lp.. as they allowed a known cheater to judge again?? :p after all you said it's only 1/9.. that kind of thinking why many outsiders are saying that figure skating is not a sport.. :rolleye:
 

Ven

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
The ISU doesn't want you to know. They don't want you to know any of it. All of the obfuscation happens on purpose.

Edit: hmm this was a reply for Mathman, whose post fell into the black hole.
(and now appeared below mine) :)
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Actually, it is impossible to prove that, since you don' t know which scores go together. You can only prove it if every score of Adelina's is higher than every score of YuNa's. and even then you have the question of whether the tech panel's calls were correct or not.

http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/index.htm

If you look at GOE and PCS, which are the scores judges give, YuNa is ahead on more than one judge's scorecard.

The IJS hornswoggles us out of making any sense of these numbers at all. Here are the total PCS given by the nine judges, listed in two different orders.

SOT 48.25…..48……48……47.75..46.5….45.5….45...44.25...44.25
KIM …48……….47.75……47……..46.25……46…….45.25…..42…48.25…...45.25

Sotnikova wins 7 to 2.

Here are the same numbers arranged differently.

KIM 48.25……48……47.25…47…..46.75….46….45.25…45.25….42
SOT ….48…...47.25….46.5….45.5…..45…..44.25….44.25… 48.25….48

Mow Kim wins 7 to 2.

Under ordinal judging, even with anonymity at least we knew how many forst place ordinalsd each skater received.
 
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skatedreamer

Medalist
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
The ISU's position is that they do not have to prove anything to anyone. They do not care what the KSU demands or does not demand.

Yup, there's the rub.

Reminds me of a mug I gave my best friend when her kids were little. It said "BECAUSE I'M THE MOMMY, THAT'S WHY."
 

Vanshilar

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
It is her base value that defeated her, and that is partially due to the tech panel and partially to her own choice of elements.

Adelina's base value was 61.43, YuNa's 57.49. 0.9 of that difference is due to YuNa being awarded level3 for her step sequence and her layback spin.

Actually, since the points are fungible, it's somewhat meaningless to talk about the points being due to any one thing. However, even if their base values were the same, Adelina would still have won because of the higher GOEs and technical calls etc.; she expanded her lead beyond the base values. Saying that it was the base values would be more appropriate if the points were such that Adelina's lead decreased once GOEs and technical calls were considered; it would mean that Adelina tried a harder program but wasn't as successful at it, but still eked out a win due to attempting a harder program.

The increase in the lead is why I don't really accept the "harder technical program" or "one more triple" argument for Adelina's win. Notwithstanding the other ladies who did 7 (or 8, Mao) triples, those arguments would only have been valid if Adelina's lead had decreased. For example, Yuna's short program had a higher base value (31.43 vs 30.43, so +1.00) and better PCS (35.89 vs 35.55, so +0.34), yet her overall score was only slightly higher (74.92 vs 74.64, or +0.28). In that case it would be appropriate to say that the base value was the reason (or really, one of the reasons, since she needed the PCS differential as well) why she "won" the SP, since if it were not considered, then she wouldn't be in first place after the SP. But this is not what happened in the FS.

Based on the points given, the judges were not merely saying that Adelina's program was technically harder (i.e. higher base value). They were also saying that the elements were performed with a better quality (higher GOEs, technical calls, etc.) and that both were virtually equally matched in terms of the program components (skating skills, interpretation, etc.).

Regarding the complaint, since ISU's rules apparently don't allow questioning how the scores were determined (i.e. the actual judging), unless it's the skater herself in question (or representatives) that filed the complaint, the Koreans don't have standing to question overly lenient calls given to other skaters. Thus the focus on other things like composition of judges and whatnot. I think whether or not the overall judging itself was according to the rules and guidelines would be more appropriate, but that's considered out of bounds and would have been rejected out of hand. Evidently there's a loophole in the overall scoring system and appeals process.
 

AliceInWonderland

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
so it's OK for you to let a known cheater to judge a very close scoring after the sp in the lp.. as they allowed a known cheater to judge again?? :p after all you said it's only 1/9.. that kind of thinking why many outsiders are saying that figure skating is not a sport.. :rolleye:

If Balkov's scores had been extremely high, they would have been thrown out. If his scores had been average, then his scores would not have been higher than the others' and therefore not problematic. TL; DR: Balkov alone could not have fixed the results. To fix the results, he would have needed 3 or more people on the panel helping him.
 

Manitou

Medalist
Joined
Jan 17, 2014
It really took ISU long time!
Pangpangpangpangfan, can you remind how much exactly Putin paid them? I forgot the amount....
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Vanshilar said:
Actually, since the points are fungible, it's somewhat meaningless to talk about the points being due to any one thing. However, even if their base values were the same, Adelina would still have won because of the higher GOEs and technical calls etc.; she expanded her lead beyond the base values. Saying that it was the base values would be more appropriate if the points were such that Adelina's lead decreased once GOEs and technical calls were considered; it would mean that Adelina tried a harder program but wasn't as successful at it, but still eked out a win due to attempting a harder program.

If the judges are convinced that one skater presented a program of greater difficulty as measured by the base values, and if the skater goes more or less clean, they often pile on the GOEs and PCS to ensure that this skater wins. So in that sense, yes, we can say that Adelina's victory was due to higher base value (together with the automatic GOE and PCS boost that accompanies it.)

On the other hand, sometimes the judges don't do that.
 
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AliceInWonderland

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Of course the ISU dismissed it, their complaint was backed up with flimsy and ridiculous arguments. The lawyer obviously wasn't very good.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
so it's OK for you to let a known cheater to judge a very close scoring after the sp in the lp.. as they allowed a known cheater to judge again?? :p after all you said it's only 1/9.. that kind of thinking why many outsiders are saying that figure skating is not a sport.. :rolleye:

He was punished and served his punishment. You want a one infraction equals permanent ban rule. And all the judges on the panel basically agreed with his scores- they were all very close.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
He was punished and served his punishment. You want a one infraction equals permanent ban rule.

Yes. Certainly from the highest levels of competition. Balkov should be judging nothing bigger than Nebelhorn or Finlandia the rest of his judging career... maybe a GP if we're being extra nice... not the ladies final of the Olympics.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Yes. Certainly from the highest levels of competition. Balkov should be judging nothing bigger than Nebelhorn or Finlandia the rest of his judging career... maybe a GP if we're being extra nice... not the ladies final of the Olympics.

The rule could be passed but as there's no evidence of wrongdoing or abnormal scoring by him I don't even think that rule could pass!
 

sk8in

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
He was punished and served his punishment. You want a one infraction equals permanent ban rule. And all the judges on the panel basically agreed with his scores- they were all very close.
Why shouldn't this be the case? How is the figure skating judging anything but a strange and highly privileged position? If you screw up, you should not be allowed to do it anymore period.
 

drivingmissdaisy

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
A complaint based on a bad judge being on the panel should be filed when the judge is assigned, not after the competition has concluded. It makes the complaint look more like they didn't like the outcome, rather than not liking the judge. (Although I agree it's stupid to have someone like that on the panel in the first place.)
 
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