The Judging Controversy Thread | Page 68 | Golden Skate

The Judging Controversy Thread

lol even her Les Mis would have lost. Even Gershwin (minus the spiral) would have lost.

Maybe you have been living under a rock, but the headlines are everywhere. To say "a judging scandal shaking the entire figure skating world" is quite accurate.

Scott, Tara, Johnny, etc. have not presented a points based reason why they think the results were justified. They presented total red herring arguments, the equivalent of saying a team with the most rebounds or happiest faces deserves to win a basketball game. Preposterous. They have been put to shame by excellent, fact based reporting coming out of USA Today, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and especially The Wire.

Well said. That is the sad truth. Sandra said Yuna's Gershwin performance was one of the greatest Olympic performances of all time, and yet it would have lost to Adelina's performance without that spiral sequence. lol. What a joke...
 
^ I still don't get it. The marks in the Yuna column are ordered from lowest to highest. The marks in the Adelina column are independently listed from lowest to highest, too. Every mark in the Yuna column is lower than the corresponding mark in the Adelina column. Which four judges should we be looking at and what do we conclude by looking at them?
 
^ I still don't get it. The marks in the Yuna column are ordered from lowest to highest. The marks in the Adelina column are independently listed from lowest to highest, too. Every mark in the Yuna column is lower than the corresponding mark in the Adelina column. Which four judges should we be looking at and what do we conclude by looking at them?

No conclusions can be made. It is just a list of scores from lowest to highest.
 
^ I still don't get it. The marks in the Yuna column are ordered from lowest to highest. The marks in the Adelina column are independently listed from lowest to highest, too. Every mark in the Yuna column is lower than the corresponding mark in the Adelina column. Which four judges should we be looking at and what do we conclude by looking at them?

Take a look at this.

http://blog.daum.net/sadprince57

I do not know how to bring that data in this reply. So I just wrote some of it.
 
I wish the focus would be on the marks rather than about whom she hugged after the event.

That's what we're trying to do, focus on the scoring. The disingenuous pseudo-analysis repeated on NBC did NOT look at the scoring. Instead, they went on a propaganda campaign:

* "Adelina won because she created a 'moment' out there"
* "Yuna didn't show any guts"
* "Adelina won because she did 7 triples and Yuna did 6" (in 1 out of 2 programs, completely disregarding the jump content in the SP)
* "Adelina checked off all the boxes and racked up the points" ... ok, please show us how she racked up the points, Scott Hamilton
* "Yuna was more artistic, but it's all about the jumping" ... ok, please explain why the two virtually tied on PCS then, with the non-artistic Adelina virtually tying for the highest PCS of all time
etc. etc.

So yes, let's look at the points. A lot of other things are irrelevant, but NOT conflicts of interest. Those are clearly important issues to address. Having a Russian judge on the panel is not a problem. Having a judge on the panel who was convicted of trying to rig the Olympics before is a serious problem. Should be automatic lifetime ban, as would happen in any other sport in the world. Having a judge who is married to the president of the Russian skating federation also cannot be acceptable. Russia has what, 13 ISU certified judges? Why is the federation president's wife working 3 of 6 grand prix events, and all other major competitions besides those this year? And also egregious was having Sotnikova's former coach on the tech panel. Unbelievable. I'm not an expert on the by-laws, so I will leave it to others to comment on the actual ISU rules (a few have already posted ISU rules were completely disregarded).

-----

As for the actual scores, The Wire has done an excellent job. I've read a couple of their articles. These are the following problems that many have addressed (off the top of my head):

1. PCS
Adelina scored 0.09 behind Yuna in PCS. That's it, essentially a tie for the highest PCS of all-time. The "analysts" claimed Yuna was the better, more refined skater, while Adelina won with her jumps ... so please explain how the less polished skater essentially scored the same on PCS as the clearly more refined skater. Look at the protocols and see how some of the judges grossly scored Adelina and Yuna compared to each other. In some instances, the marks were has high as four degrees off from the nearest judge.

How did Adelina's PCS go from low 60s, low 60s, low 60s her entire career ... to 69 and near world record almost 75 ... in two competitions?

2. Technical calls
Lakernik and the Russian controlled tech panel did not call an "e" on Adelina for flutz, and did not downgrade the back end of her 3-3. I could be wrong here, but from what I've seen, the "e" call was questionable with no clear review for casual internet audiences. Pretty much everyone agrees the 3T should have been downgraded. I forget whether it was the flutz or 3T, but chuckm discovered that Adelina had been dinged on one of these jumps 16 of 19 times this year. Every time the tech caller was not Russian she was dinged, and every time the tech caller was Russian it was not.

3. Grades of Execution
The Wire article I just posted did a better job than I can of explaining this. But in summary, Adelina and Julia received over 60% +3s given in the free skate. If you don't believe the competition was rigged, you'll be inclined to think Adelina won, and therefore it's no surprise she had the most +3s. But what about Julia? Her FS was 6th, but she received more +3s than Yuna (2nd) and Caro (3rd) combined. This certainly points towards a bias in favor of the Russian skaters.

4. The Step Sequences
The mode levels for step sequences in the last year ... Yuna level 4, Adelina level 3. It's true, the steps have to be judged on that particular day, and Yuna admitted to a mistake on the step sequence in her SP. But Adelina's Level 4s invite scrutiny, seeing as she's not known for this high level of performance and she was the only skater to score level 4 in both programs. Yuna earning 3 and Adelina earning 4 in both programs is contrary to their usual levels and -- at the very least -- invites further scrutiny. I will leave it to better informed posters to clarify which level each skater should have earned, but the consensus seems to be:

SP:
Yuna Level 3
Adelina Level 3

LP:
Yuna Level 4
Adelina Level 3

But again, I'll leave to the footwork experts to go into detail here.

5. The Short Program
Everyone seems to forget the competition is about two programs, not one. Should Yuna and Adelina have been nearly tied after the short program? Why do some in the media continue to emphasize Adelina's jump content in the long program, but fail to mention she "had no guts" (as Tara said of Yuna) to do anything other than 3T-3T in the short? Yuna's jumps were harder in the short program than Adelina's.
 
i've been a figure skating fan since 1993. years of crap judging has certainly taken its toll. but this year's ladies events def. topped it! i don't think i will ever watch anything or follow it so closely. what's the point? :(
 
Yuna Total(PCS)

J1 144.09(73.20)
J2 134.09(67.20)
J3 151.79(78.00)
J4 140.39(72.40)
J5 144.69(75.20)
J6 149.49(76.40)
J7 144.79(74.80)
J8 143.09(73.60)
J9 145.79(76.80)

Adelina Sotnikova (PCS)

J1 151.13 (76.80)
J2 153.93(76.40)
J3 143.13(72.80)
J4 145.63(70.80)
J5 154.03(76.40)
J6 151.53(74.40)
J7 155.73(77.20)
J8 141.83(70.80)
J9 145.33(72.00)
 
These are summary of how judges marked Yuna and Sotnikova's LP(B.V+GOE+PCS)

Judges / Yuna /Adelina Sotnikova
1 /134.09 / 141.83

2 /140.39 / 143.13

3 /143.09 / 145.33

4 /144.09 / 145.63

5 /144.69 / 151.13

6 /144.79 / 151.53

7 /145.79 / 153.93

8 /149.49 / 154.03

9 /151.79 / 155.73

Exclusion of “biased” 4 /147.31 /145.41



That person does not understand that the columns are not in the same order for every skater. His analysis is completely useless.


Well, can't you see the above list is the very combination that is as farily arranged for Adelina as it could get?

Please try other combinations; four judges stand out even more stunningly.
 
Here's the thing. I look at the protocols (http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2014/owg14_Ladies_FS_Scores.pdf) and what I see is:
1) One judge REALLY loved Adelina (judge in her column 7), but ALL the rest scored her very high. Even her two lowest scoring judges in columns 3 and 8 gave her mostly +2 GOE for her technical elements. In fact, only one judge, column 8, gave her more than 3 marks below +2.
2) Two judges (columns 3 and 6) REALLY loved Yuna but the rest gave her plenty of marks <+2 GOE on the elements.

Why I'm not convinced that anything fishy was going on is because it appears 7 of the judges did not mark Yuna generously, while 7 marked Adelina very generously. I cannot list 7 judges on that panel all of whom I would believe have a bias towards Adelina for any reason other than she skated better. At most 2 or 3 but not 7.

I wish the focus would be on the marks rather than about whom she hugged after the event.
To find a pattern in scoring, the simplest way for me at least is to look at the marks given for 'skating skills', as this sets apart Yuna and Adelina the most, and I see 6 of the judges giving +9 to Adelina with 4 of them giving even +9.5, while Yuna got 9.5 from only 2 of the judges. I cannot take seriously any judges who think Adelina's skating skills worth 9 or 9.5, and accordingly I will take GOEs given by these same judges with a grain of salt. So in my mind, the panel was 66% (6 out of 9) drunk or rotten.
*I want to add that the same 4 judges also gave 9.75 to Adelina for 'interpretation.'
 
daisy,

the fact of the matter is, you're at best implying there were no 2 judges that got together to make the score what it was (could imply more, but likelihood decreases with many judges), which is most likely true. what you're skimming over is that the score is still hopelessly inflated, regardless of it were 2, 3, 4 judges or 7 or all of the judges. you're focusing on the conspiracy bit only - not the overall problem that adelina's scores are too high and things were not called that should have been, esp for tech.

like i said, it may not indicate a pure conspiracy, but it does indicate a strong lean - not illegal, but not right/doesn't provide correct scoring either.
 
Yuna Total(PCS)

J1 144.09(73.20)
J2 134.09(67.20)
J3 151.79(78.00)
J4 140.39(72.40)
J5 144.69(75.20)
J6 149.49(76.40)
J7 144.79(74.80)
J8 143.09(73.60)
J9 145.79(76.80)

Adelina Sotnikova (PCS)

J1 151.13 (76.80)
J2 153.93(76.40)
J3 143.13(72.80)
J4 145.63(70.80)
J5 154.03(76.40)
J6 151.53(74.40)
J7 155.73(77.20)
J8 141.83(70.80)
J9 145.33(72.00)

It took some to write this one.

What I am trying to do with this data is,

There has been some controversy in Judging. Specifically, many of us agree with that Yuna is superior to Adelina Sotnikova in terms of PCs.

But if you look at this statistics, there were some judges who tried to hold up Sotnikova 's PCS and some judges held down Yuna's.

p.s Judge number are random. So it was not the same judge numbe for Yuna and Sotnikova
 
1. PCS
Adelina scored 0.09 behind Yuna in PCS. That's it, essentially a tie for the highest PCS of all-time. The "analysts" claimed Yuna was the better, more refined skater, while Adelina won with her jumps ... so please explain how the less polished skater essentially scored the same on PCS as the clearly more refined skater. Look at the protocols and see how some of the judges grossly scored Adelina and Yuna compared to each other. In some instances, the marks were has high as four degrees off from the nearest judge.

How did Adelina's PCS go from low 60s, low 60s, low 60s her entire career ... to 69 and near world record almost 75 ... in two competitions?

2. Technical calls
Lakernik and the Russian controlled tech panel did not call an "e" on Adelina for flutz, and did not downgrade the back end of her 3-3. I could be wrong here, but from what I've seen, the "e" call was questionable with no clear review for casual internet audiences. Pretty much everyone agrees the 3T should have been downgraded. I forget whether it was the flutz or 3T, but chuckm discovered that Adelina had been dinged on one of these jumps 16 of 19 times this year. Every time the tech caller was not Russian she was dinged, and every time the tech caller was Russian it was not.

3. Grades of Execution
The Wire article I just posted did a better job than I can of explaining this. But in summary, Adelina and Julia received over 60% +3s given in the free skate. If you don't believe the competition was rigged, you'll be inclined to think Adelina won, and therefore it's no surprise she had the most +3s. But what about Julia? Her FS was 6th, but she received more +3s than Yuna (2nd) and Caro (3rd) combined. This certainly points towards a bias in favor of the Russian skaters.

4. The Step Sequences
The mode levels for step sequences in the last year ... Yuna level 4, Adelina level 3. It's true, the steps have to be judged on that particular day, and Yuna admitted to a mistake on the step sequence in her SP. But Adelina's Level 4s invite scrutiny, seeing as she's not known for this high level of performance and she was the only skater to score level 4 in both programs. Yuna earning 3 and Adelina earning 4 in both programs is contrary to their usual levels and -- at the very least -- invites further scrutiny. I will leave it to better informed posters to clarify which level each skater should have earned, but the consensus seems to be:
.

1. Every judge. Every. Single. Judge. Scored Adelina > 70 on PCS. If you think she deserves 60's for PCS you are in disagreement with every judge on the panel.
2. Like you, I haven't seen a clear video or image to indicate whether the edge was wrong on the take-off. However, it's wrong to assume it was, particularly when she was clearly on an outside edge before the take-off (her skate is leaning outward) but may or may not have rolled over. The < was close, like Yuna's SP 3-3 or her LP 2nd 3Lz.
3. Only 4 of Julia's +3 were for jumps. She always gets a ton of those for her spins. +3 is common for great spins.
4. I cannot speak to the step sequences, but I haven't heard of any of the athletes disagreeing with their levels.
 
What I am trying to do with this data is,

There has been some controversy in Judging. Specifically, many of us agree with that Yuna is superior to Adelina Sotnikova in terms of PCs.

But if you look at this statistics, there were some judges who tried to hold up Sotnikova 's PCS and some judges held down Yuna's

No no no. J1 Yuna is NOT J1 Adelina, J2 Yuna is not J2 Adelina, etc. The conspiracy theorists won't bother to correct you if it helps them make their argument, but the judges are not in the same order for each skater.
 
No no no. J1 Yuna is NOT J1 Adelina, J2 Yuna is not J2 Adelina, etc. The conspiracy theorists won't bother to correct you if it helps them make their argument, but the judges are not in the same order for each skater.

Sorry. I edited. I already knew that it was not the same judge number or order. I am trying to find how come Sotnikova's PCS was so high and there were 4 judges who gave over PCS 76 to Sotnikova, which also was consistent with giving generous GOE.

Just look at PCS and Total.
 
daisy,

the fact of the matter is, you're at best implying there were no 2 judges that got together to make the score what it was (could imply more, but likelihood decreases with many judges), which is most likely true. what you're skimming over is that the score is still hopelessly inflated, regardless of it were 2, 3, 4 judges or 7 or all of the judges. you're focusing on the conspiracy bit only - not the overall problem that adelina's scores are too high and things were not called that should have been, esp for tech.

like i said, it may not indicate a pure conspiracy, but it does indicate a strong lean - not illegal, but not right/doesn't provide correct scoring either.

But this is a judged sport in which we ask humans to evaluate skaters based on their opinion. Can a judge who isn't biased have an "incorrect opinion"? You're basically saying if a judge doesn't agree with what you think is the "correct" outcome then he/she is "wrong". Do you see why that has to be acceptable in the absence of cheating?
 
But this is a judged sport in which we ask humans to evaluate skaters based on their opinion. Can a judge who isn't biased have an "incorrect opinion"? You're basically saying if a judge doesn't agree with what you think is the "correct" outcome then he/she is "wrong". Do you see why that has to be acceptable in the absence of cheating?

i'm not saying if a judge doesn't agree with me - I'm saying if they don't agree with millions watching, professionals, long time people in the industry, etc., who are all shocked with the result, then I'm saying yes - there was at the very least a lean. Further evidence hints at more than just a lean.

If you don't agree that there was at least a lean in the numbers, it seems to me you're either taking the stance that the numbers are correct, or the judges have made errors in judgment. Which is it?


Overall, like I said - your arguments are basically refuting the idea of a conspiracy - as in like a pre determined plot, which is fine and your opinion. That doesn't mean there wasn't a lean, or that the numbers are "correct".
 
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