After the team games scoring, after the SP scroing, and finally the FS scoring - I don't think anyone is under such delusion. Even those who defend the standings bring out "exigent" factors for inflated scores. (Adelina had the audience! She gave it all! She went for it! Putin spent 50 billions!)
Yulia received higher scores in individuals with 2 very flawed programs (generously speaking), more than what she got for her clean-ish programs in team games. She broke 200+ totals with 3 falls. Her PCS is higher than Mao's. Only the most deluded can NOT see the fix.
Two falls and a step-out are not huge are not huge flaws when her BV is among the highest and her GOE is satisfactory on most elements and she gets great GOE for her spins. Also her combined scored was over 14 points lower than in the team event. All of that was from losing points on the elements she fell on combined with the GOE she lost on the step-out and the other elements she faltered on such as the final two spins in the SP where she was still reeling from the fall. All on technical aspects.
PCS is never supposed to be affected by a single fall or two, otherwise you would have to go back to Carolina's Euro's program, for example, and drop her PCS. She had two falls and a step-out, as well as doubling a couple of jumps nevertheless her PCS was 71 points, rightly so. If her falls/mistakes on technical elements do not result in lower PCS, then no one else's should either. The ISU regulations say straight out that technical mistakes are not to impact the component scores because those mistakes are penalized by the loss of BV when the elements aren't completed, and by loss in GOE when they're completed but not done properly.
Having said that though I thought the PCS wasn't judged properly. I've never completely understood it but if Adelina's max PCS was 33/69 at Europeans which is the highest possible she should get, then there's not way she should have ever gotten 36/74 especially when Carolina and Yuna Kim only received 74 as well. It would be a different story if there was still the appropriate relative distance such as if they had received 77-78. That relative distance was still present at Euros, though it would have been better if Yulia was at 67, Adelina at 68, and Carolina at 71. Still even with those changes it was the TES gap that would have kept the medal placements the same. You could have dropped Yulia's and Adelina's PCS to 59 and the results would have been identical. The Olympics were different though because there is absolutely no way for someone to suddenly perform so good that in less than a month they go up 22 points for two skates where the only difference was a second jump of a combination landed especially with a stumble on another jump negating the fact that the other was landed.
(I round all points) Regarding Yulia's PCS I think 33 (compared to 33.5 in the team event when Carolina had 35) is perfectly fair when Carolina was at 37, Yuna at 36, and Mao at 34. You could argue about Mao's PCS but the mistakes she made were critical ones that affected the whole program. The problem is Adelina's PCS should never have been at 36. It should have been at 33-34 which is her maximum. If Carolina cannot break 69 with a flawlessly 3Toe-3Toe SP at Euro's, then there's no possible way for Adelina to deserve 74.5 for the short program. Carolina and Yuna both had more difficult content in the SP. So the reason for saying that Adelina suddenly "deserved" to win with less difficult technical content is plain ridiculous. Same thing with the long program, 74.5 PCS is just ridiculous. Also I think they went a little crazy with Yulia too. Mao was at 70, so Yulia should have been between 67 and 67.50 regardless she still would have been ahead of Mao, but the judging would have been fairer. If Adelina had been fairly marked (well, generously marked instead of insanely marked) she should have been at 34.5 at the most in the short and 70.5 in the long. That would have resulted in a score 5.5 points lower. And that's not even getting into the ridiculous GOE points.
I've always liked Yulia's skating but I knew the only way she would have fairly won the gold medal is if she skated lights out in both programs, perfect jumps and spins and good overall skating and if the other three medal contenders all faltered in major ways, such as a fall on a critical element like the opening jump of a combination or two. So to see Adelina win the gold medal when two of the contenders skated lights out, with a personal best score that jumped over 22 points, well that's just too much to take. If Adelina's competing at Worlds I bet that her score for two clean performance won't crack 210. Then people will really wonder what on earth happened at the Olympics.
I think I'll hop in again!
