Of course the Judges's opinion and perception matters, but they are trained to be as objective as possible by following the rules set out by the COP, and that objectivity is suppose to rise above personal preferences and biases. It is the difference of being professional vs a hack
And in their opinion they are not biased but as much objective as they can be, so what are we going to do about this?!
hwell:
I'm not speaking about this case in particular but in general. For as long as I remember there has been a controversy almost in every Olympic.
If not the ladies than ice dance, if not them than pairs, men.
However, there are many factors contributing in a victory I think.
Politics it's one of these and a major one. Big Fed's fight for power, and it includes ALL big federations. No one excluded! To pretend otherwise it's pure hypocrisy, and no offence to North Americans because I'm not talking about the nation, but their press and lobby are the worst when it comes to hypocrisy. Of course you have to have good skaters in order to play this game of politics, but big fed's usually do have them.
There are also other factor such as the schools of figure skating, formation, culture and style. I think people often forget about this but that does matter. A judge from Poland (just a random example) it's most likely to find a strong Russian skater much better than another strong skater from USA, Canadian or German simply because he/she/them represent the “ideal” skating.
An Italian judge most probably will never get tired of a Swan Lake program, Tosca or any classic style while a NA judge most probably would. I find that quite natural tbh.
There are also the personal preferences. To pretend that judges don't have them it's like pretending they're not human. There is also the reputation that skaters have, and of course there are also mistakes (see Sasha Cohen in 2006) and poor preparation.
They also sometimes reward a "brave" performance, or you might call that politics as well, like Zhang & Zhang LP in Torino 2006, for example?
They were awarded the silver medal and the second place in free skating even though they stopped skating for more than three minutes after that horrible fall. They finish their routine and skated well, so “gold medal” for her courage but silver medal for a competition result? Just not possible, and here rules are very clear and simple.
The interruption taken by Zhang & Zhang exceeded the two minutes allowance by at least one minute, but no penalty was applied. Deductions should be applied for interruption to the program (1.0 for 11-20 seconds' interruption, -2.0 for 21-30 seconds' interruption, etc.) but the deduction for this was not applied. Components marks, was their personal best of 125 points. How can you possibly give them their personal best in components when the performance was clearly affected by this long interruption? That was absolutely not fair to the other pairs but nobody protested, why?! Because the third and fourth place pairs were also from China (internal affair of the Chinese federation ) so who cares?!
There a lot more for the 4rth and 5th places and that's important because a skater who's placed in 4rth today most probably will finish on top the next year. That's how judges and federations push their skaters. Nobody seems to care though, unless of course it's not someone from your own federation. In that case it's a huge scandal, depending which country has the best and biggest mouth media.
It was a shame to even start to compare Bourne&Kraatz with Anissina&Peizerat in 2002, or with the top 2 Russians and the French in 1998.
Nevertheless, their media always accused the judges of fixing the results. B&K and their coach said they "just" wanted a fair judging. No, they did not want a fair judging. They wanted judges on their side, because if they really wanted fair judging than the Lithuanian's would've finished on 2nd or 3rd place, in 2002, with the Canadians placing 5th, and rightly so.
Hell no, their people and the press started to play the same tune over and over again, since 1998, and it became a “fact” that they were robbed.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. (cit.) right?
That's how reputations are build as well.
However, I get all this. I don't like it but I understand the purpose of all this charade.
Skaters, coaches, federations, their respective press has many things at stake and various interests. What I don't understand it's the fans. They act like mad people and the majority takes everything that comes out from the press, or various “experts” to be the bible.
When they lose judges are corrupt, when they win judges are ok. When they lose, it was a fixing, when they win "hard work paid".
How does this works exactly?! How can we possibly think these people are sincere when they say "we want to clean this sport"?!
Do they really want to change this sport for the better? Fine, they have the power do so.
Coaches, skaters, judges, and officials can get organised and put pressure on their own federations and therefore to the ISU.
