- Joined
- Mar 23, 2010
This Russian Coach who frequent FSU under the username sfahurut has this to say about Assistant Technical Specialist Olga Barnova of Finland.
http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/sho...inary-issues&p=4209185&viewfull=1#post4209185
There were also comments on the net (CNN) left by someone called Mark Rodriguez that said she is actually one of Adelina's ex coaches. Can someone debuff or confirm any of the above which is verified by 2 sources? Can someone from Russia confirm or deny this?
In any case there are enough clues to start investigation and debunk truth and lies once and for all. If it turn out to be true, then it really doesn't look good on ISU, the host country or IOC does it? This has nothing to do with the competency or the honesty of the judges but about risk management. IF at least 2/3d of Tech panel is firmly on the Russia's side with inherent biases, and those inherent biases has somehow affect their work including making the wrong judgement as the case been proven here, then it is a bedrock of catastrophic system failure with no preventative measures in place, where people can be held accountable or being challenged. ISU has failed the sport at the highest level again, so how can they be trusted?
Consider 9 people judge panel consist of at least 3 judges who has proven to have made critical impacts to advance Russian ladies and likely personal interests, + 1 banned judge for cheating in ice dancing, +2 judges with aligned interest to handicap their shared main rival skater, how can it be any surprise of a likely outcome and the mark everyone received? On top of that 2 out of 3 Technical judges who made several questionable calls, one might be a formal coach of the winning skater, the other the Vice President of the Russian federation who desperately want her to win the gold. What are the chances of them all get to judge on the same panel on the most important ladies event every 4 years, one that Russian lady has never won but desperately want? (Putin, Russian Politics, Hockey factors aside)
ISU's job and responsibility is suppose to ensure every effort has been taken to ensure fair minded individuals with no conflict of interest in any of the competitors to deliver a universally fair outcome. Based on the result, indeed EVERY effort has been given to ENSURE the opposite happen. Given the make up of the panel, their CV, personal relationship as well as probable nationality biases. These panel of judges are inherently biased without anything needed to be skated on ice.
The system is simply flawed. The only random part of the judge selection is whether they get to judge either SP or LP or both, but actually ISU still get to nominate which countries can send judges. If ISU can nominate which countries, AND hold all records of judge's history and familiar with judge's scoring trends and personal opinions, AND wrote all the rules to remove accountability and transparency, they can distort the outcome in anyway they like by putting the right panel together. Between Speedy and the VP of Russia Skating Federation / Chairman of Technical committee / Incompetent Tech ruler at Sochi (who established Julia's flutz is perfectly acceptable since Team event), they have come up with this system they can manipulate under anonymity as long as they are in power, since they have also written the backout clause/rules so no one can challenge them.
I don't think it is a matter of nationality or national bias among the judges, since there are honest judges everywhere regardless of nationality, but whether they get to judge at the highest level is an issue that must be examined more carefully. This sport relies on 100% judging, if the judges can not be trusted, the sport is doom to fail.
Separate judges from federation, remove anonymity, improve accountability and transparency are the only ways to minimize political influences/impact to regain public trust.
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). Yes, technically, you are correct, but as we've established the feds make these decisions and will put VP's, spouses of officers and even presidents of Feds on these panels. If these officials act fairly desite apparent conflicts, then the system works. The problem comes when they act in ways that flaunt the fairness of the proceedings. When this happens, the system fails. The more egregious and obvious, the more outraged people are.
