Last group of the Olympic judges at PyeongChang. These are the judges from Ukraine, United States and Uzbekistan. The way in which I calculated the national bias is explained here.

Anastassia Makarova (UKR)

Anastassia Makarova has judged 10 competitions. In 9 her bias was too high, in one is suspect. Shall we look at her marks?

At the World Junior Championship 2017 we can see her bias only in the Short Program not because she hasn’t judged the Free Skate, but because the Ukrainian skater, Anastasia Gozhva, with her 26° place, didn’t earn a spot in the Free Skate. For Makarova, Gozhva deserved the 20° place. Only her and the Polish judge had placed Gozhva among the best 24.

For comparison, this is Alexandra Feigin, who has placed 25°.

With her, Makarova was a little stricter than the other judges in the GOE’s (only the Swedish judge was equally strict), and in the PCS, when with Gozhva was always, by large, above the average, with Feigin she was always under. And we can do the same comparison with other skater besides Feigin.

Even at the Riga Cup 2017, competition of the Junior Grand Prix, her marks was really imaginative.

Judge 4, the only who has given the same marks in SS, TR and PE, was the Russian Igor Dolgushin, but for Dolgushin (and for judge 2, the Belarusian Yulia Levshunova) Golubtsova/Belobrov were the 5° in the PCS, for Makarova they were the 3°. For the others, they deserved among the 6° and the 8° place. The Free Dance:

These aren’t marks that stand out, are they? The final standing:

No change among the first two positions, but the Ukrainian ice dancers go up from 6° to 3° position. Why Makarova wasn’t suspended after this competition? No, she has judged several other competitions.

For her at the Lombardia Trophy 2017 the ice dancers Nazarova/Nikitin deserved the silver medal, not the bronze, above the Russian Lobova/Drozd, but in all the competitions the bias is high, and almost in all the competitions the Ukraininan skaters would have placed better.

At the Warsaw Cup 2017 her marks were even more imaginative. The Short Dance:

The Free Dance. With the British McNamara/Carpenter she wasn’t strict in the PCS, but the GOEs are really strange. With Nazarova/Nikitin the generosity was mostly in the PCS. With the Russian Popova/Mozgov no words is needed.

The final rank:

For her the Ukrainian couple would have won the gold, not the bronze, and Popova/Mozgov would have dropped from the first to the sixth place. Why ISU didn’t do anything?

I don’t even watch the other competitions, it’s not necessary for knowing the way in which she gave her marks. I only note that at the European Championships 2018 the Ukrainian ice dancers, 22° in the Short Dance, for her should deserved the 20° place, so they should have go to the Free Dance.

At the Olympic Games she has judged only the Short Dance. With a high bias, the Ukrainian dancer would have earned a place. Not a big difference in the result, but the normal way of judging of Makarova is enough to say that she should be suspended. Instead, she has continued to judge all of the time, even at European or World Championships, often with bias too high. Why?

Tamie Campbell (USA)

The bias of Tamie Campbell was too high in the Free Skate of the Men’s competition at the 2016 Ondrej Nepela Trophy. I’m a bit perplexed, she was really strict with Sergei Voronov, and I can’t imagine why. Speaking of the US skater, Alexander Johnson would have earned only one position in the Free Skate, from 6° to 5°. Born in 1990, Johnson wasn’t a young promising skater. He didn’t partecipate in any Grand Prix event (only in the 2018 he will go to NHK Trophy) and at the US Championships his bests finish were two sixth places. For the US it wasn’t so important to aid Johnson.

Among the Ladies, with a bias lower, her aid to Mariah Bell was more important. For Campbell Bell deserved the second place, not the third. She has placed Bell above Yulia Lipnitskaya, especially penalized in the PCS.

In the other competitions Campbell’s bias was low or negative. She didn’t seem really biased before the Olympic Games. At PyeongChang for her Shimeka/Knierim has skated the 12° Free Skate, not the 15°. This was the last competition judge by her. There are a lot of judges that deserves more attention than her, so for now I go on.

Deveny Deck (USA)

Six competition judged by Deveny Deck, one with a bias too high. But even when the bias isn’t too high, sometimes if we watch closely the competition, we can see something strange. These are the rankings in the Men’s competition at NHK Trophy 2017 according to Deck:

For him Alexei Bychenko hasn’t done the second Short Program, has done the fourth, surpassed by Jason Brown and Adam Rippon. In the Free Skate the better skater wasn’t Sergei Voronov but Adam Rippon, Brown was the third and not the fourth. Result? Gold to Rippon and not to Voronov, bronze to Brown and not to Bychenko. The bias was low thanks to the high marks to the Canadian Nam Nguyen and to the Japanese Hiroaki Sato, both of them not important for the ranking of the American skaters.

The only competition in which the bias of Deck was too high was the Men’s competition at the Junior Grand Prix Final 2017. Let’s look at the Short Program of the Americans Camden Pulkinen and Andrew Torgashev.

Deck was the only one who thought that Pulkinen deserves the fourth position. Both in GOEs and PCS his marks are high. A note in the components. For Deck and also for the German Kersten Bellman, the Canadian Leanna Caron and the Swedish Emilie Billow, Pulkinen was the best. For the Chinese Weiguang Chen he was the second behind the Russian Alexey Erokhov. For four judges he was the fifth. Which judges? The Russian Olga Kozhemyakina (for her the best was Erokhov, the second the Russian Makar Ignatov), the Japanese Sakae Yamamoto (for her the best was the American Alexei Krasnozhon, the second the Japanese Mitsuki Sumoto). So surprising… The other two who have placed Pulkinen fifth in the components were the Uzbekian Saodat Numanova and the French Anthony Leroy.

The competition was won by Krasnozhon ahead of Pulkinen, with Torgashew sixth. Deck wouldn’t have changed the final results, but his marks deserves a careful look.

Also the senior competition was interesting. It’s important to remember that this was the last important competition before the Olympic Games. True, there were the European Championship, but at the last World Championship Javer Fernandez, fourth, was the only European among the first seven, so at the Olympic Games was expected a competition among Fernandez and several non-European skaters. There were also the Four Continents Championship, but often this competition was deserted by the strongest skaters in the Olympic years. Nathan Chen didn’t go to the competition (there wasn’t neither Yuzuru Hanyu, but Hanyu was injured and didn’t competed also at the Grand Prix Final). So this was the last important competition.

I’ve already watched this protocol for Olga Kozhemyakina. Now I’ll watch it for Deck. It seems that is needed also a look on the Japanese judge Sakae Yamamoto, but for now I don’t do it. For everything that I watch I need time, and I don’t have the time for all.

In the Short Program Deck was above the average of 2.01 points for Nathan Chen, under the average for 3.55 points for Shoma Uno. A difference of 5.56 points. Remember that in the real rank Chen has won the SP for only 1.81 points. As for the Free Skate…

For Deck (and for the French and the Canadian judge) Uno was only the fourth in the technical elements. Chen was the first, and if four other judges have the same opinion, Deck was almost the most generous (only the Swedish judge has given 0.10 points more). In the components also Deck has placed Uno first, but he has placed Chen second, when for six judges he didn’t deserved better than a fourth place. He was always above the average.
Making the sums, in the Free Skate he has given to Uno 0,26 points under the average, to Chen 5.08 points over the average. The competition was won by Chen by 0,50 points, but for Deck the difference should be of 10.90 points. I might be wrong, but to me it seems that the American judges were pushing to Chen, hoping that he would win the Olympic Games.

For me, Deck didn’t deserves to be at PyeongChang. He was sent there, where has judged the Ladies’ competitions. His bias wasn’t high, but none of the American Ladies were in the fight for medals.

Lorrie Parker (USA)

I’ve already watched Lorrie Parker. I’ve talked about her (in Italian) here.

In that post I’ve published a screenshot with all her marks, but that was one of my first posts in which I’ve watched the bias. After, I’ve discovered that if the screenshot is too large, it’s difficult to read the numbers, so now I post the screenshot in two times.

I’ve highlighted in bold the American skaters. In the first columns there are the real points, in the second the points given by Parker. I took into account the subjectivity of judgment, that is, I admitted that a judge may have more rigid (or less rigid) evaluation criteria than another. This is correct, as long as the judge is equally severe or generous with everyone. So I’ve calculated her average difference. In the GPF 2016, watching all the skaters, her marks were 2.88 points under the average. Watching every single skater…

A bias of 9.00 points can be divided in 4.50 points more to the compatriots and 4.50 points less for the rivals. So, starting to -2.88, her average bias, I’ve highlighted in yellow the bias too high, when she has given more than 1.62 points over the average, in red the bias too low, when she has given less than 7.38 points under the average. The values change for every competition, my way to calculate them no so, if you want, you can check every calculation. Every time that a mark is in yellow, is too high, every time that is in red, is too low.

For her the difference at the Grand Prix Final among Hanyu and Chen was almost nonexistent. Why her marks weren’t investigated? At the following Four Continents Championship a little difference has become big. Again, why there wasn’t an investigation?

Not always her bias can change the positions, sometimes the differences among two skaters is too high, but her bias is blatant. Why Parker has judged at the Olympic Games? I’ve written about her marks here. My table:

But Lorrie Parker doesn’t limit herself to give strange marks. She is capable to influence the other judges. A book that I’ve read recently, and on whom I need to write more, is On Edge, written by Jon Jackson. Jackson is scandalized when the Russian judges manipulate the results of a competition, he isn’t so scandalized when an American judge do the same, or use different ways to accomplish a result equally dishonest. Read here to understand what I mean. I’ve commented in Italian, but the quotes are in English.

After the Olympic Games Lorrie Parker hasn’t judged any international competition… until Skate America 2020.

I might be wrong, but I don’t feel like he’s lost the habit of pumping up Nathan Chen’s marks. She is on the list of the ISU judge, but she is exactly one of the judges that I don’t want to see again in an international competition.

Sharon Rogers (USA)

Sharon Rogers has judged eight competition, always the Ice Dance competition. Four time her bias was too high, four times was really suspicious. The first time, in the Nebelhorn Trophy 2016, she was stricter with almost all the couples, reserving her generosity only for the Americans Chock/Bates and the Belarusian Kavaliova/Bieliaiev in the Short Dance and with them and the second American couple, Pobgrebinski/Benoit in the Free Dance. Her marks has aroused my curiosity.

With Cappellini/Lanotte she was really strict.

These marks were more than enough for an inquiry. But there is other.

In the Short Dance three judges, the Canadian Leslie Keen, the French Solene Bjornson Langen and the Russian Lolita Labunskaiya has judged that the better were the Canadian Gilles/Poirier, but for now I don’t watch them.

The Free Dance:

Which was the real result, and which results we will have with only the American judge or the Belarusian judge?

The Belarusian judge is Alexandre Gorojdanov. Gorojdanov will be suspended in 2017 for having violated his duties as a Judge at the 2017 Golden Spin. Unfortunately I don’t have the whole document.

I wrote about this competition here, when I commented Maira Abasova’s scores. Now Gorojdanov isn’t more a judge, for his decision, not for a disqualification by ISU.

The marks suggest that he was used to this kind of arrangement and that he had done one over a year earlier, with the American judge. Open an investigation and check their behavior, or Roger’s behavior even now no?

An aside: In 1987 the Italian jumper Giovanni Evangelisti was awarded of the bronze medal at the World Championship in Rome. Only after a lot of time was proved that a judge has manipulated the measurement of one of his jumps. The bronze medal was rightly given to the American Larry Myricks. Even after a competition is ended, if there is an evidence of a cheat, to correct the result is dutiful. And the incorrect judges must be always investigated.

At the Rostelecom Cup 2017 Rogers would have given to Madison Chock/Evan Bates the golden medal, not the silver.

At the Four Continents Championship 2017 she would have given the gold to Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani, the silver to Madison Chock/Evan Bates, and dropped Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir to the bronze medal. But this wasn’t blatant bias, nooo, indeed she was also at the World Championship a month later. There, notwithstanding a high bias, she wouldn’t be able to change the results.

With a long history of bad judging, Rogers was at the Olympic Games. In the Team Event for some time it seems possible that Italy can surpass US. She was in the Ice Dance panel of judges.

No bias detected.

In the Ice Dance competition Rogers was the only one, besides the French judge, to prefer Papadakis/Cizeron over Virtue/Moir in the Short Dance. In the whole competition the bronze medal was won by Shibutani/Shibutani, Hubbell Donohue were in the fourth place, the high bias of Rogers didn’t change the results for the two best american pair. Only, Chock Bates for her didn’t done the 12° Free Dance but the 7°.

Rogers is still a judge. Why?

Saodat Numanova (UZB)

Saodat Numanova has judged seven competition, one with a bias really high, four really suspicious. In most of the competition the results wouldn’t change in an important way, so I go on. The last competition, the Four Continents Championship 2018, is interesting.

For her Misha Ge was fifth instead than eighth in the Short Program, third instead than seventh in the Free Skate, and in the final rank…

Bronze medal, but Numanova didn’t deserved a suspension, she deserved to go to PyeongChang, where with her marks Ge would have done the 9° Short Program instead of the 14°, and the 13° Free Skate instead of the 17°.

Now I’m a little tired of all the sums and I dont’ want to do other calculations, but Numanova deserves the same severity (for me only a year of suspension is too little, we can say that it’s a start) with which was judged Feng Huang, a severity deserved also by Lorrie Parker, Sharon Rogers and too many judges. If there are no disqualification, no ban for the biased judges, all the competition will be useless, because will win not the better skater but the skater with the better combination between his judge and the judges of the other skaters.