Junior Grand Prix Final Judging Scandal Under Investigation???

[Mathman]

More fun with numbers. Decide for yourselves how much the judges are in lock step -- or not.

Free Dance

Points and ranking for SS + TR

(note how J5 could not make a decision for the top 3)

Just for the sake of the argument, let's break the tie by going 1, 3, 2. Then judges 4 (RUS), 5 (UKR), and 6 (GEO) go like this:

Maria MONKO & Ilia TKACHENKO 1 1 1

Emily SAMUELSON & Evan BATES 3 3 3

Kristina GORSHKOVA & Vitali BUTIKOV 2 2 2

Vanessa CRONE & Paul POIRIER 4 4 5

Madison CHOCK & Greg ZUERLEIN 5 5 4

Alisa AGAFONOVA & Dmitri DUN 6 6 6 (another tie-breaker )

Ekaterina RIAZANOVA & John GUERREIRO 8 8 8

Isabella PAJARDI & Stefano CARUSO 6 6 6 (yet another )


Points and ranking for PE + CH + IN

Maria MONKO & Ilia TKACHENKO 1 1 1

Emily SAMUELSON & Evan BATES 3 3 3

Kristina GORSHKOVA & Vitali BUTIKOV 2 2 2

4 4 1 4 5 5 3 4 3 Vanessa CRONE & Paul POIRIER 5 5 6 (another one.)

Madison CHOCK & Greg ZUERLEIN 6 6 4

Alisa AGAFONOVA & Dmitri DUN 4 4 5 (some more)

Ekaterina RIAZANOVA & John GUERREIRO 8 8 8

Isabella PAJARDI & Stefano CARUSO 7 7 7

OT -- BTW, the name "John Guerreiro" kind of caught my eye. An English first name, a Spanish-sounding family name, skating for Russia. I looked him up. His dad is Portuguese, his mom is Russian (she skated with Gorsha Sur), and he was born in Australia, now living in Moscow. Gosh, if only there had been a Portuguese judge and an Australian judge on the panel!

 

[oxade21]

In legal system, it is called circumstantial evidence. Keep musing and guessing, people. This is funny.

 

[Mathman]

^ No, it's sad.

 

[oxade21]

^ No, it's sad.

You mean sad people who can't get life looking for a conspiracy where it is obvious without all this fuss?
I mean everyone knows there is country bias among judges. Now, some of the posters are just pissed because Russian Federation tends to put some of the colleagues on their board. These posters with simple nationalism and offensive comments do not help matter at all. You wanna complain?? Complain about the whole judging system that facilitates this situation. Do not make unsupported accusations, this does not help. If Canada or US Federations are not happy complain, make changes BUT the fact is they are OK with that as they are not so clean themselves.

 

[gsrossano]

One final fun with numbers for tonight.

Take out the evil RUS, UKR and GEO judges. And also take out the CAN, USA and ITA judges who can't be trusted either. Average the three left over -- and you get that same order of finish as the official results.

Put in the ITA judge who only propped up their last place team, and do a single trimmed mean result -- and you get the same order of finish as the official results.

(On the other hand, if you keep the CAN, USA, JPN and ITA judges, couples in 5 and 6 end up in the same place, and all the otehrs are different.)

So I don't see that you can prove much from this event other than the usual national bias.

 

[Mathman]

You mean sad people who can't get life looking for a conspiracy where it is obvious without all this fuss?

No, what is sad is that this so-called sport employs judges who have a stake in the outcome.

It's like if you sue somebody in court, and when you go before the judge, he turns out to be the other guy's cousin.

Take out the evil RUS, UKR and GEO judges. And also take out the CAN, USA and ITA judges who can't be trusted either. Average the three left over -- and you get that same order of finish as the official results.

Aha! The dreaded Poland, Japan, Czech alliance!

 

[gsrossano]

In legal system, it is called circumstantial evidence. Keep musing and guessing, people. This is funny.

And in white collar crime it is called forensic accounting and gets CEOs sent to jail.

 

[oxade21]

What is sad is that this so-called sport employs judges who have a stake in the outcome.

It's like if you sue somebody in court, and when you go before the judge, he turns out to be the other guy's cousin.

Change the system do not go out for skaters ], team, coaches or judges, who are just chess figures in the game.
You do not like that Absliamova represents Armenia, well there is solution to that. Prohibit Russian Fed to support skating in that country and help them yourself. Send Canadian coaches, give Canadian ice, lend Canadian judges to that country. Make an ally. Will that solve the cheating? NO! But it will help Canadian skaters aand I believe that's something some of the posters want to see.
I find ironic that it's been only two Olympic season North American dance emerged and we already cry foul???

The only solution IS to create new pool of independent judges and change the entire system.

 

[bekalc]

I looked at the scores again. First of all, when it came to PCS, all of the judges put the first place Russians ahead (at least in the Free dance) on PCS. Except for the Canadians and the US judges. The Canadians gave the Russians a ridiculously low number that was just about 4 points lower than the Average score the Russian team received.. The Canadians are quite good at lowballing the teams they need to lowball.

I didn't analayze the bronze medalist, so that I can score. But a quick glance shows that the PCS the Japanese judge gave the Bronze medalists, and the PCS the Americans and the C andians gave the third place Russians, were significantly different. The Japanese gave the bronze medalists 37.125. The Americans gave the Bronze medalists 24.8125 And the Canadians gave the Bronze medalists 31.9375.. When you consider that the Bronze medalists average PCS were 38.66. Well, that's once again a significant difference.

A quick glance again tells me that all the Judges but the Canadians and the Americans, had the Bronze medalists, at the very least in third place.
The point I'm making is I wouldn't be suprised if there's block judging going on. But I think quite a lot of judges on that panel need to be investigated.

 

[Mathman]

The only solution IS to create new pool of independent judges and change the entire system.

I have suspected for some time that this is part of Cinquanta's long-term plan.

The first step was to give a substantial part of the judges' power to the technical specialist and his crew. Of course there is no guarantee that the tech specialists will be impartial either, but at least they work directly for the ISU and not for a particular national federation.

One impediment to making further progress is, IMHO, the fact that the judges are volunteers. Since they don't get paid, and whatever intangible reward they get comes from their good standing in their federation, the ISU really has little control over what they do.

 

[skatingfan04]

Judging is not anonymous in the JGP. The identities of the judges are known, and you can match each judge to his/her scores. There's no random selection in the JGP either. ALL the scores count.

Thanks, I didn't know that. Is the ISU blind?? These kind of discrepencies in judging are horribly obvious. This is one of the worst judged events I've seen in ages. What I hate about situations like this is that all of the skaters are affected through no fault of their own. The podium finishers have their victories tarnished, and clouded by questioning about whether or not they really earned that spot, and the rest of the field, particularly 4th and 5th, are left wondering if they really did belong on that podium. Scandals likle this make the sport look bad, and leave a bad taste in the mouths of the fans who get wind of it. Then people wonder why the sports popularity is going down.:scowl:

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

deleted as moved to another thread.

 

[sillylionlove]

Guess it's time for me to call Oliver Stone again!!

 

[Brandi_DeLain]

And judges that have been suspended should not be allowed back. And do away with anonymous judging on the senior international level. Probably everyone has heard Dick Button wax eloquently about this since the Olympics. It is scandulous and is giving the sport a bad name and losing fans.

ITA. :thumbsup:

 

[bekalc]

For the record, the poster I mentioned who reported on another board is a European based figure skating reporter, who has a great deal of technical knowledge in this sport, and is known for being fairly unbaised.

Plus, there is a bit of ridiculousness to say that the Russians had block judging that would have put the American team in third and the two Russians in first, second. When, the Americans finished a quite easy second.

 

[chuckm]

Yes, the reporter you mentioned tries to be fair, but I have noticed in all her reporting, regardless of the other ice dance teams in the competition, she always prefers the Russian teams. That may be due to her particular background and experience, but hers is only ONE opinion and cannot be assumed to be the definitive word on how these particular teams performed.

 

[bekalc]

Yes, the reporter you mentioned tries to be fair, but I have noticed in all her reporting, regardless of the other ice dance teams in the competition, she always prefers the Russian teams. That may be due to her particular background and experience, but hers is only ONE opinion and cannot be assumed to be the definitive word on how these particular teams performed.

Maybe not, but she did say that the Americans deserved to be over the second Russian team. And who do you have that was there, who says that the competition wasn't scored fairly. Hopefully, someone who isn't upset because their favorite lost?

 

[chuckm]

Maybe not, but she did say that the Americans deserved to be over the second Russian team. And who do you have that was there, who says that the competition wasn't scored fairly. Hopefully, someone who isn't upset because their favorite lost?

Again, one opinion, from one background/experience (which, btw, is entirely European).

And who is to say that the competition WAS scored fairly? There is evidence to show that there were definite irregularities. Those who want to ignore or dispute that evidence are those who wanted the winning team to come out on top.

From the judge selection, Junior Worlds will very likely come out the same way. :sheesh:

 

[bekalc]

Again, one opinion, from one background/experience (which, btw, is entirely European).

And who is to say that the competition WAS scored fairly? There is evidence to show that there were definite irregularities. Those who want to ignore or dispute that evidence are those who wanted the winning team to come out on top.

From the judge selection, Junior Worlds will very likely come out the same way. :sheesh:

I don't care who won or didn't win.. I just think you should actually watch the competition first. Something tells me you didn't..

 

[Mathman]

To me, what hurts the sport is the widespread perception, right or wrong, that all you have to do is look at the nationalities of the judges to predict who will win and who will lose.

At 2002 Worlds, in the pre-event banter, Peggy Fleming asked Dick Button about Michelle Kwan's chances. Button famously said, "Oh, she can't possibly win over Slutskaya with this panel of judges."

That is the problem that the ISU needs to address, in my humble opinion, even if 99% of the judges are honestly striving to do their best (which I believe to be true).