i can't seriosly debate an article that starts with some hilarious sotnikova rant.
and goes on like this
"Zitzewitz started studying figure skating after a scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics rocked the sport. The Russian mafia was accused of fixing a gold medal victory for Russian pairs skaters, beating out a Canadian team despite the Canadians' superior performance."
this guy must be really credible and non biased "professor" of figure skating sciences
Because this is an NBC story it might seem like his loyalties are to them if you do not live in this country. However, let me assure you that they're not and we should not conflate his academic work with the NBC story.
Zitzewitz wrote this non-funded paper for academic purposes. He knew his data would be checked by academics and if he was biased he was putting his credibility on the line. Now there might be issues with his methodology or corrections that should be made to his numbers, but those are different critiques than writing off his work for bias.