South Korean federation's complaint to the ISU about judging

[Sandpiper]

^Pretty much. Looks a lot like "No cheating!!! ...if it's not in our favour. " (I'm not saying this is the case... just that it gives off that appearance.)

I, too, wouldn't mind infraction = perma-ban, especially from big competitions like the Olympics.

 

[flyushka]

Yeah. I mean, how many panels has this guy sat on since his infraction? Were you guys protesting all of these results too?

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

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.

Agreed. You mess up, get the hell out. There are plenty of other more qualified judges with greater integrity.

If an employee stole from you, would you hire them again 5 years later? This is sport too... this isn't Balkov's livelihood... and if it is, he should consider conducting himself with more class and integrity.

There should be a zero tolerance policy for cheating. One infraction = banned. Done.

 

[Ven]

Cinquanta considers cheating only a minor violation though, probably because they are guilty of it.

It's kind of macabre in way to think of all the results we've seen in the past, how many of them were illegitimate or not.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Cinquanta considers cheating only a minor violation though, probably because they are guilty of it.

It's kind of macabre in way to think of all the results we've seen in the past, how many of them were illegitimate or not.

Of course. Why would they be so twisted to actually say anonymous judging PREVENTS cheating. It's as stupid as saying we need more guns to help mitigate gun violence.

 

[Ven]

Well that's what I've been trying to tell Mathman (and anyone really). IJS and anonymous judging were intentionally created to better facilitate cheating, without getting caught. The Federations run figure skating, and as a whole they are more interested in their fiefdoms and deals and bribes than they are in fair play and resuscitating the popularity of the sport. Anonymous judging and a crap scoring system are driving figure skating into the ditch. But who cares? Apparently not most people in the figure skating community.

 

[Mathman]

Well that's what I've been trying to tell Mathman (and anyone really). IJS and anonymous judging were intentionally created to better facilitate cheating, without getting caught.

You're preaching to the choir, Ven. I have been saying this since before .. well, OK, not since before you were born, but for a long time.

 

[karne]

Yeah. I mean, how many panels has this guy sat on since his infraction? Were you guys protesting all of these results too?

No, because Precious Yuna still won competitions! Don't you get it? Any cheating doesn't matter until Precious Yuna is "robbed!". :sarcasm:

 

[sk8in]

You're preaching to the choir, Ven. I have been saying this since before .. well, OK, not since before you were born, but for a long time.

Well and perhaps the more precise way of saying it, is the isu designed ijs to make the sport less vulnerable to scrutiny---the appearance of fairness being more important than the reality of it.

 

[Ophelia]

No, because Precious Yuna still won competitions! Don't you get it? Any cheating doesn't matter until Precious Yuna is "robbed!". :sarcasm:

It's difficult to go up against a powerful organization and I can understand why federations (esp. weak ones) would hesitate to file a prior complaint and stir the hornet's nest. I remember that I was expressing misgivings and doubts about the judging panel prior to the events, and many posters shared the same concerns but everyone was adopting the "wait and see, hope for the best" mentality or being all like "it's not a problem! it's totally fine! nothing fishy will happen!".

The KSU has always been an incompetent, passive agent in skating issues (I feel sorry for Kim that she's had to deal with them so long). Why would anyone expect them to want to willingly create trouble? From the asinine complaint they filed, it looks like they were pressured into filing a complaint and went about it half-heartedly. It would be too much to expect them to have the guts, or care enough to complain beforehand.

Also, wasn't it Western media who first started screeching about the judging panel makeup?

 

[Mathman]

Well and perhaps the more precise way of saying it, is the isu designed ijs to make the sport less vulnerable to scrutiny---the appearance of fairness being more important than the reality of it.

I think that is true (and well said) about the CoP. By trying to quantify those aspects of figure skating that best lend themselves to quantification, the ISU hoped that people would view the new system as more "objective" than the old. And maybe it is.

However, with respect to anonymous judging per se, I have an even more cynical view. After the Salt Lake City pairs thing blew up in the North American media, the IOC took Cinquanta to the woodshed and told him, "You are making the Olympic movement look bad. Make sure this never happens again."

Cinquanta's response was not the CoP but the "Interim System," which was in force for the 2002-03 season. This was 6.0 with anonymous judging. The purpose of anonymous judging was so that in the future no one could ever actually prove that any of the judges were cheating. It worked -- as this thread, among many, attests.

 

[cooper]

once and for all if ISU dismissed this case because they said that there was no bias then reveal the scores!!!! russia (and the US) advocates to get rid of anonymous judging.. so why not show the judges' scores in sochi?? there's nothing to hide.. right??

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.

what the heck??!! you're joking right? so in short it's OK for you that someone who cheats already is in the judging panel.. just say it already..

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Well that's what I've been trying to tell Mathman (and anyone really). IJS and anonymous judging were intentionally created to better facilitate cheating, without getting caught. The Federations run figure skating, and as a whole they are more interested in their fiefdoms and deals and bribes than they are in fair play and resuscitating the popularity of the sport. Anonymous judging and a crap scoring system are driving figure skating into the ditch. But who cares? Apparently not most people in the figure skating community.

I don't think IJS facilitates cheating inherently... but with anonymous judging, it totally does. If judges weren't anonymous, I think IJS would be scored effectively and much more fairly than 6.0.

 

[Ven]

I don't think IJS facilitates cheating inherently... but with anonymous judging, it totally does. If judges weren't anonymous, I think IJS would be scored effectively and much more fairly than 6.0.

I agree that a large part of the problem is anonymous judging ... but what's the purpose of connecting the judges to their scores? Accountability, right? It's hard to hold people accountable when most people don't understand the scoring system because it's too complicated. Even if the experts cry foul, if most common fans shrug their shoulders and say "huh?" then consequences for cheating are doubtful. How do most people know if the step sequence levels are judged correctly? Well, the experts on tv and in the media didn't even question the levels. What about the jumps? Again, they weren't even questioned. What about the PCS scores? They were either ignored or only mentioned tangentially.

In that way, I think a simplified scoring system would also hold the judges and technical callers more accountable. In order to prevent cheating, a large part of the audience should be able to immediately spot when the judges and tech panel are out of line.

 

[Sandpiper]

^While I agree with the sentiment (IJS is too complicated and viewer-unfriendly), I don't know how a simpler judging system could facilitate understanding. Casual viewers simply can't identify jumps or judge spins/steps very well. Even if we have a simple technical mark out of 10 + artistic mark out of 10 (which I wouldn't be against), it's still going to be difficult to know how the judges arrived at those marks.

(Btw, I think the old 6.0 was very unforgiving about falls for this exact reason--when someone falls and wins, it confuses the heck out of the viewers.)

 

[Mathman]

I don't know. I think both systems are easy for the average viewer to understand.

In ordinal judging, when the Lithuanian judge gave skater X a first place ordinal, it meant that the Lithuanian judge thought that skater X gave the best performance. I, the viewer, might have thought that skater Y gave a better performance. OK. But the Lithuanian judge thought that skater X did.

As for the new scoring system, you get points for all the little tricks that you do. When the points are added up, skater X got 154.82 and wins, skater Y got 147.56 and takes second. I, the viewer, might have liked skater Y's performance better, but skater X ended up with more points.

 

[Ven]

But do you know Skater Y earned more points or simply received more points?

If you watch a basketball game and a foul is called when one didn't happen, it's probably just a bad call. But if the referee continues to call fouls against one team when none actually happen, the other team argues, the tv crew shows the replays, and the audience can see that something is not right. The same in soccer with a bad handball call ... one might be a bad call, but if it happens over and over again, obviously the referee is corrupt.

At Sochi, all of the suspicious tech calls, GOEs, and PCS scores happened in much the same way. Except nobody complains until a month later, the tv crew does not show the replays and examine the calls, etc. All they did was trot out red herring arguments to defend the results, regardless of what happened on the ice. The end result was most people feeling that what took place was not right, but they could not put their finger on why it was not right. And when that happens, they get frustrated and tune out.

 

[AliceInWonderland]

I don't understand why no one seems to remember that there was plenty of cheating in 6.0 when the judging was NOT ANONYMOUS.

 

[AliceInWonderland]

once and for all if ISU dismissed this case because they said that there was no bias then reveal the scores!!!! russia (and the US) advocates to get rid of anonymous judging.. so why not show the judges' scores in sochi?? there's nothing to hide.. right??



what the heck??!! you're joking right? so in short it's OK for you that someone who cheats already is in the judging panel.. just say it already..

No. That's not what I meant. What I meant was that Balkov alone could not have done much so getting angry at him alone is wrong. He may have cheated, he may not have, we don't know. All I'm saying is that, had Balkov not been on the panel, Adelina would have still won.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

The KSU has always been an incompetent, passive agent in skating issues (I feel sorry for Kim that she's had to deal with them so long)

So why isn't she speaking out now? For the sake of So-Youn Park and company? She's done and will have zero repercussions. So all I take from the whole debate is this. Yuna is silent. KSU put forward a hypocritical and easily dismissible complaint. Most importantly the world rankings are pretty accurate. The only anamoly here is Sochi and those involved aren't doing anything for whatever reasons they have. If the rest of the figure skating world ie rankings are intact....then why should I care about this specific situation? I think Sochi was an outlier scenario in the big scope of things. So why should I or anyone else make a stink of it if the people involved don't seem to care??

**crickets**