The Judging Controversy Thread

[leafygreens]

Stojko also thought Adelina was the right winner.

Stojko also thought Plushy was the rightful winner in 2010. Stojko is a disgruntled silver medalist who was known for his jumps. He seems to appear whenever there is a controversy, to pull for the least complete skater on the basis of their jumps. Stojko doesn't have much of a leg to stand on here, considering there wasn't much difference in the jump content of Yuna/Adelina. The difference was the GOE, which no Adelina shill can explain.

Just looking at jumps, here is the number of 3+ each skater received:

SP
Yuna 4
Adelina 4

LP
Yuna 7
Adelina 17

 

[vegarin]

Stojko also thought Adelina was the right winner.

And Kurt Browning thought Yuna was. So did Dick Button. And Jamie Sale. We can pretty much go on forever.

 

[aa456]

So did Paul Wylie.

and Boitano went back on his earlier comments and later thought Yuna should've won and so did Browning. point is, some would agree with the result and some won't,

 

[pangtongfan]

i think the point was that for every skater who agrees, there is one who disagrees.

In this case it is more that for every 1 who is fine with Sotnikova's win there are atleast 30 who disagree. You could extend that to the number who agree with a single Russian score (I am not even talking result anymore, but the scores) at these Games. The Russians didnt get a single legit non corrupted skater in any program for any skater at these Games. It doesnt take a genius to see what was going on. They are lucky they escaped these Games with only one horrific controversy.

 

[SkateToronto]

and Boitano went back on his earlier comments and later thought Yuna should've won and so did Browning. point is, some would agree with the result and some won't,

I think the point is that many people here who believe Kim should have won deny contrary views exist, ignore the contrary views, or simply write them off as being a "joke" or "lacking credibility"...I don't see the same arrogance amongst the people who believe Sotnikova should have won.

Personally, I think it should have been Kim...however, I'm also in the very small minority of people who believe that and who don't also believe anyone who feels differently is completely wrong.

 

[leafygreens]

I don't see the same arrogance amongst the people who believe Sotnikova should have won.

See Yahoo article "Deal with it, South Korea"

 

[kslr0816]

I think the point is that many people here who believe Kim should have won deny contrary views exist, ignore the contrary views, or simply write them off as being a "joke" or "lacking credibility"...I don't see the same arrogance amongst the people who believe Sotnikova should have won.

Personally, I think it should have been Kim...however, I'm also in the very small minority of people who believe that and who don't also believe anyone who feels differently is completely wrong.

i think many are dismissing them as, not enough detail. i would love to read a detailed analysis of why adelina should have won - with break downs, why she deserved the scores she got in both SP and LP. Not just, she had it in the bag from the start, because she had more technical elements - essentially what the economist article said:

In fact, she essentially had first place locked up long before her skates hit the ice.

it's the same argument we've seen a hundred times over, which is not even the point of the argument most are making here. it's not a discussion of the technical elements - i dont think anyone disagrees with that. we're talking about PCS and GOE.

 

[pangtongfan]

See Yahoo article "Deal with it, South Korea"

and that but a so called football expert with a 0.2 IQ who believed Rex Grossman was going to be a superstar quarterback back in 2005.

 

[pangtongfan]

Maybe having skating in Russia should be eliminated and having Russian tech callers, judges, wives, husbands, mistresses, etc

I would ban Russian from figure skating for 30 years. That is a better solution. However if corrupt Russia must remain in the sport there should be a ban on all Russian tech. callers, judges, or anyone having any official position in the sport. It they dont like that they can just leave, nobody would miss them and their corrupt scores and cheated victories which have gone on since the 60s now. We can go back to real skating rather than Russian teams getting +3s for missed throws, Russian dance teams improving their PBs by over 10 points, Russian ladies getting +1s and +2s even for flutzes and stumbling badly out of jumps. Russia can hole their own little farce competitions in Russia and skating can be free of Russia corruption.

 

[SkateToronto]

See Yahoo article "Deal with it, South Korea"

I don't understand your point. That article specifically acknowledges that there are differing views on who should have won. It does not state that Adelina was the obvious winner and anyone with a contrary view is "stupid" or a "joke".

Incidentally, many of the so called "detailed" analyses of why Sotnikova should not have won do not point to any fault in Kim's skating at all. A typical example would be the lengthy blog someone from here posted containing .gifs of Kim's perfect jumping technique using examples from mainly previous performances...then going on to provide a .gif of Sotnikova's stumble in her long program while "forgetting" to mention that not all of Kim's landings were perfectly clean. I think people sometimes don't understand that taking a "brick wall" approach to analysis, highlighting solely the strengths of one side and the weaknesses of the other does not make the analysis more credible...in fact it's quite the opposite.

 

[Manitou]

I would ban Russian from figure skating for 30 years. That is a better solution. However if corrupt Russia must remain in the sport there should be a ban on all Russian tech. callers, judges, or anyone having any official position in the sport. I they dont like that they can just leave, nobody would miss them and their corrupt scores and cheated victories which have gone on since the 60s now.

Guys, get used to this! Figure skating is coming back to Russia where it truly belongs! The beauty is back! And it will be Russia from now on who will be setting standards. Figure skating was shaped by Russia, they lost it for a while, but now it is back to normal. It is their sport and it will stay this way. Your frustration will not change anything.

 

[kslr0816]

I don't understand your point. That article specifically acknowledges that there are differing views on who should have won. It does not state that Adelina was the obvious winner and anyone with a contrary view is "stupid" or a "joke".

Incidentally, many of the so called "detailed" analyses of why Sotnikova should not have won do not point to any fault in Kim's skating at all. A typical example would be the lengthy blog someone from here posted containing .gifs of Kim's perfect jumping technique using examples from mainly previous performances...then going on to provide a .gif of Sotnikova's stumble in her long program while "forgetting" to mention that not all of Kim's landings were perfectly clean. I think people sometimes don't understand that taking a "brick wall" approach to analysis, highlighting solely the strengths of one side and the weaknesses of the other does not make the analysis more credible...in fact it's quite the opposite.

read the title of the article...

again, yuna's scores are not at question - adelina's are, hence the in depth analysis. if this a different skater had crazy high scores, to the point people where people were questioning the judges, you can bet whatever skater it was would be scrutinized.

 

[leafygreens]

I don't understand your point. That article specifically acknowledges that there are differing views on who should have won. It does not state that Adelina was the obvious winner and anyone with a contrary view as "stupid" or a "joke".

So the condescending title of the article does not reflect the tone of the article. How silly of me.

There is enough proof posted by multiple people, not just in this forum but by journalists, that something is fishy with the scores. Someone saying the words "stupid" or "joke" doesn't negate the proof that Adelina's scores were inflated.

 

[pangtongfan]

Guys, get used to this! Figure skating is coming back to Russia with corrupt bought wins in every event which they only deserve 25% of, where it truly belongs!

Yes it seems so. Hopefully the rest of the world will just say bye, form their own union, get approval of the IOC and let the ISU just be a Russian thing where they relish in their corruption and cheated wins as they have for decades but with nobody else around anymore.

 

[leafygreens]

not all of Kim's landings were perfectly clean.

Where? Even a suspect judging panel didn't give her -GOEs on anything.

 

[SkateToronto]

read the title of the article...

again, yuna's scores are not at question - adelina's are, hence the in depth analysis. if this a different skater had crazy high scores, to the point people where people were questioning the judges, you can bet whatever skater it was would be scrutinized.

why don't you actually read the article and see what it says.

So the condescending title of the article does not reflect the tone of the article. How silly of me.

There is enough proof posted by multiple people, not just in this forum but by journalists, that something is fishy with the scores. Someone saying the words "stupid" or "joke" doesn't negate the proof that Adelina's scores were inflated.

are you saying you didn't read the article?

 

[vegarin]

Guys, get used to this! Figure skating is coming back to Russia where it truly belongs! The beauty is back! And it will be Russia from now on who will be setting standards. Figure skating was shaped by Russia, they lost it for a while, but now it is back to normal. It is their sport and it will stay this way. Your frustration will not change anything.

If that's the case, then FS needs to educate its people, and fast, and get its story straight, because all these disagreements between figure skating insiders are not helping the matters, nor is it helping the public perception that something's off with judging. It is really problematic that some countries' commentators called Yuna's win before the scores came up. They didn't even wait for the scores - they were confident that she won, so when the score came up, people from their countries had to listen to them scratching their heads and trying to scramble for the reasons why Adelina won by that large margin. After seeing that, people have little reason to have faith in judging or in integrity in figure skating. Why would they, when even the insiders can't get their stories straight? I know that was the case for me (Canada), but I'm sure a lot of Germans would think so, given how much public fuming that Witt has done in the air, as well as Italians and French.

 

[mskater93]

Here is the full list of SS:
Balance, rhythmic knee action and precision of foot placement
Flow and effortless glide
Cleanness and sureness of deep edges, steps, turns
Power/energy and acceleration
Mastery of multi-directional skating
Mastery of one-foot skating

As a skater, would you agree that, of the top women, Adelina would probably rank 4th in SS after Yuna, Mao, and Caro? And if so, how far back would score Adelina relative to those three yet still keep Adelina ahead of inferior skaters?

4th or 5th best in SS, depending on the day. At the Olympics in the FS, she was 4th best. Kim, Kostner, and Asada are 8.75-9.5 skaters. Sotnikova is a at least 0.5 behind these three in SS. Next best are 0.25-0.5 behind her. She definitely is NOT 0.04 BETTER than Kostner and only 0.04 behind Kim in this area, even on their "worst" nights. She's still forcing much of her glide and the sureness and deepness of edge are not there yet nor is the "mastery" of one-foot skating. The flow and effortless glide isn't there.

Specifically, in the mastery of one foot skating department, review the actual quality of her step sequence (this is always a good place to check that): she isn't as fast/flowing and she's forcing the turns and using her free leg to generate them instead of the edge, core, and rhythmic rise and fall of the knee.

 

[kslr0816]

why don't you actually read the article and see what it says.



are you saying you didn't read the article?

lol i did... i'm just replying to your comment that nowhere was it said that adelina was the obvious winner lol

 

[starrynight]

Guys, get used to this! Figure skating is coming back to Russia where it truly belongs! The beauty is back! And it will be Russia from now on who will be setting standards. Figure skating was shaped by Russia, they lost it for a while, but now it is back to normal. It is their sport and it will stay this way. Your frustration will not change anything.

Oh yeah? Please come to Japan if you want to eat normal sushi.