The ISU Judging System was created after the Pairs scandal in the 2002 Olympic Games, to prevent any other scandal. It’s better than the 6.0 system? Probably yes, with this system the skaters has started to take care of every elements as step sequence and spins. And the base value is a fact, something understandable by everyone. Before in the second mark the judges can give to the skaters the mark they wanted. They could choose the winner simply by giving a mark high or low, without having to justify the reason for that vote. Now…
Really the things are different now? This is the protocol of the free skate in the Men’s competition at the last Olympic Games. I watched only one judge, the judge two (I could do the same control for other judges, I already did some controls, but for now I watch only judge 2 for the two best free skate of the day).
I highlighted in green when judge 2 was the sole judge to give the higher mark to Chen, in light blue when his marks was the highest together with the mark of only another judge. Judge 2 was never the most strict with Chen. I highlighted in red when judge 2 was the sole judge to give the lowest mark to Hanyu, in orange when his marks was the lowest together with the mark of only another judge. Judge 2 was never the most generous with Hanyu.
The components are become the second mark, where the judges give the marks they want. For Chen judge 2’s marks were always very high, for Hanyu were almost always very strict, and he was always under the average. And also in the GOE there were some… interesting marks.
The problem isn’t the system used to draw up the rankings, but the people who give the marks. If judges are biased, they can find a way to aid the skater for who they cheer. In this case judge 2 was the American Lorrie Parker (and, if someone is interested in the other marks that I highlighted, judge 4 is the Japanese Sakae Yamamoto, judge 5 is the Israeli Albert Zaydman, judge 6 is the Russian Olga Kozhemyakina and judge 9 is the Latvian Agita Abele). I written about Lorrie Parker’s marks (in Italian) here, here (with a confrontation with the way a Chinese judge, who was suspended, has given his marks), here and (in English) here.
Biased judges are a sore that afflicted the competitions in the past and that afflict the competitions even now, they have only changed the way in which they operate. These are a series of articles that I’ve found on internet. If I’ll find others articles I’ll add them on the list.
This is an interview done by Evgeni Plushenko after 2010 European Championship (20-21 January, he won ahead of Stéphane Lambiel and Brian Joubert) and before Olympic Games (16-18 February): http://www.absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2010evgenyplushenko. For me a passage is very interesting:
Could you compare the new generation with the old one?
It’s hard because the scoring system has changed since then and the Code of Points still has its flaws. If the judges want someone to place high, they can arrange it. Like in Tallinn, Brian Joubert got more points for his transitions than me, although we did exactly the same transitions on the ice. In fact, we don’t have any transitions because we focus on our jumps. So there are lobbies in the new scoring system as well, and the judges can influence the result.
According to Plushenko, the ISU Scoring System has its flaw (and he has reason), so if a judge want to place a skater higher than another skater, he can do it. Someone could say that these are only Plushenko’s words, that they can prove nothing. Ok, but if a skater say something like this, perhaps it’s better to investigate, to find if he has reason. Instead, his words were used in another way, against him.
The one who exploited Plushenko’s words for his own interests was Joe Inman. I’ve find a lot of articles about this event. This is Scott Reid in The Orange Country Register: https://www.ocregister.com/2010/02/10/skating-judges-again-scrutinized/. Reid explained that
Inman is not judging in Vancouver but was a judge at the 2002 Olympic Games and regularly conducts judging seminars for the International Skating Union
Inman send a mail to 60 judges quoting only part of the Plushenko’s words that I’ve quoted above, the lack of transitions in his program. This is Reid Cherner’s article in USA Today: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/02/olympic-judges-remarks-touch-off-figure-skating-controversy/1#.YDV__-hKiUm.
Before Inman’s mail, the components of Plushenko were criticized in an official DVD create to train the judges. Someone in the ISU (Inman among them) to better explain to the judges what is of poor quality in a skating program, used Plushenko’s images.
The interpretation video highlighted the first 1 minute, 37 seconds of Plushenko’s long program from Torino and said that while he “was a technical skater of the highest level and had many good qualities,” he was disconnected from any kind of interpretation of his music for 1:04 and connected to it for just 33 seconds.
And we should believe that there wasn’t bad intentions? The story narrated by Christine Brennan for USA Today: https://www.pressreader.com/usa/usa-today-us-edition/20100211/283515087060586. In this pressreader the article isn’t signed, I found Brennan’s name here: https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2010-02-10-evgeni-plushenko-videos_N.htm. Among other things, Brennan says who has made the DVD:
Judges and experts from five countries worked on the DVDs: Germany’s Sissy Krick; Finland’s Hely Abbondati and Mika Saarelainen; the USA’s Charlie Cyr, Joe Inman and Gale Tanger; Italy’s Paolo Pizzocari; and Canada’s Ted Barton, Louis Stong and Anne Shelter.
the USFSA, though its president, Morry Stillwell, and its executive director, Jerry Lace, notified the post that Brennan would no longer be afforded “media services normally offered” to reporters at USFSA events. “It is our opinion that Ms. Brennan no longer is reporting figure skating on an impartial basis and has interjected her personal opinions into her coverage of the sport, whether it be for additional sales of her book or her notion that she is the protector of the sport of figure skating,” they wrote. (Pagg. 215-216)
Probably, with all that we’re reading, figure skating and figure skaters needs to be protected, not only from wrong marks given by the judges but, sometimes, also from their coaches. Two examples of the last days are an article written by her on Peter Oppergard and one written by Merris Badcock on Andrei Berekhovski. Both are accused of abuse on their students.
She and Phil Hersh have become the unofficial leaders of the U.S. skating press corps.
Oh. Milton published his book in 1997, and Hersh was already one of the two leader of U.S. skating press. If he write something, he has the power to influence the opinion of figure skating’s fans. Unfortunately I’m not sure that he’s always impartial.
The ban to cover the U.S. figure skating competition for Brennan wasn’t long, only few months. It was the time of the biggest interest for figure skating in the United States. In Milton’s book Brennan recall something of her ban and conclude with a statement that, for me, is really worrying (and, remember, the book was published in 1997):
I think over the years that the figure skating establishment has come to believe that a commentator saying, “Oh, what a lovely jump!” is journalism. As we know, that’s not journalism. Real journalists, like the bunch who are now around the sport, start asking question and raising serious issues. While we talk about the lovely jumps, we also talk about AIDS. And while we talk about the beautiful performances, we also talk about the fact they’re very young girls… being tutored–they’re not in school. Raising questions, not answering them, just bringing up issues. I don’t think they like that.
I think the establishment of the sport would rather that those issues not be raised. Well, when you have the second most popular television sport in the United States, only behind the National Football League, those questions not only should be raised, they have to be raised. (Pag. 218)
Now figure skating isn’t so important in the U.S. television, but on this I’ll write another time.
Brennan continue to raise questions, as in the article that I linked above. Another article from 2010: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/vancouver/figureskating/2010-02-12-plushenko-judges_N.htm.
Video of three figure skaters who are competing in the Winter Olympics was allowed to remain on controversial judges’ educational DVDs, contradicting comments from an International Skating Union official who said Russian Evgeni Plushenko was removed because the ISU didn’t want to include current skaters.
I suggest to click on all the links and to read the whole articles, there are some interesting tidbit that I don’t quote here. The three skaters are Carolina Kostner (who competed until the 2018 World Championship), Johnny Weir (who competed until the 2010 Olympic Games, in the 2012-2013 season he tried to return to the competitions but an injury stopped him) and Tomas Verner (who competed until the 2014 World Championship).
The Associated Press asked ISU event director Peter Krick about the USA TODAY report, and he said ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta took an interest in the case.
“Our president was very concerned that the video is properly done, and that we must be very careful not to have a current skater,” Krick is quoted as saying. “We discussed with him Plushenko’s involvement.
“Our policy is to not use current skaters for examples … it is not fair.”
So they know that it isn’t fair, they have only forgotten to don’t use, or to delete, some skaters…
Beverley Smith for The Globe and Mail, again on Inman’s mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/judges-accused-of-bias-against-european-figure-skaters/article1208505/.
We remember how the competition ended? Speaking of the quality of the skating, the two short program done by Plushenko at the European Championship and at the Olympic Games were similar. The level of the second spin was higher in Vancouver, so the BV was higher. Surprisingly, the TES, and also the PCS, were a bit lower.
These are the two free skate:
At the European Championship the first spin was better, but at the Olympic Games Plushenko did a Lutz triple, not double, and the step sequence was better. His BV was higher, his TES not so much, because his GOE was lower. And also the PCS was lower with three judges that had given marks very low. As a results, the TSS was higher only by 1.49 points, despite a BV higher of 4.70 points. How ended the competition?
A difference of 1.31 points. Are we sure that Inman’s interference didn’t robbed Plushenko of an Olympic gold, that was won by an Inman’s compatriote?
After briefly mentioning the scandals of the past (including that of 2002), Piety write that, despite the new scoring system,
the perception of bias and favoritism in the judging of skating persists, and it persists because, well, there is bias and favoritism in the judging. Actual point trading such as that which happened in Salt Lake City is rare; but what is sometimes referred to as “boosting” a skater’s score is common, and is even defended by skating insiders.
If you want to know what she mean, read her article. And… she has completely reason.
judges will often — and one could argue even inevitably — come to have favorites among the competitors. This wouldn’t matter if the standards for evaluating performances were entirely objective. But the evaluation of a performance that has any sort of aesthetic component, as figure skating programs do, is to a certain extent subjective, and this leaves room for personal bias to both influence the evaluation of individual performances and to be very difficult to detect. The influence of such biases on judges is usually unconscious. This was very likely the reason for what some fans viewed as the unexpectedly high scores Evan Lysacek received for his lackluster short program in the Skate America competition that was held just last month in Reading, Pennsylvania. “The Lysacek effect,” one fan called it. He’s a former world bronze medalist, the reigning U.S. men’s champion, and the 2007 Four Continents champion, so he’s going to skate well, right? And the fact that he has proven his competitive mettle means he deserves to place well, right?
The Lysacek effect. Pretty as a definition. We’re in 2007, the Olympic Games are still two and a half years away, and Lysacek’s marks were strangely boosted in the US… Someone could think bad, then and now.
The second problem explained by Piety is to give to a skater marks higher than he deserves for a bad performance because he usually skate better.
No matter how well intentioned, however, the practice is inherently dishonest. Once judges feel they are not constrained to award marks based on the quality of the performance in question, the floodgates open to the influence of myriad inappropriate factors such as sexual orientation, political views, skaters’ personal lives, the ability of their parents or others close to them to make large financial contributions to the sport, and even who coaches them or who choreographs their programs.
Just under these phrases Piety mention Jon Jackson’s book On Edge. Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed. I’ve read On Edge because Piety (even if she don’t know it) suggested to me to do it.
After Piety commented on a Kimberly Navarro/Brent Bommentre Original Dance, which, according to her, received strangely low marks in PCS. The video isn’t on You Tube, so we can’t see what they did, but for Piety their dance was the most difficult technically and the most beautiful artistically. The TES was rightly high, the PCS incredibly low.
Navarro/Bommentre were sixth. Belbin/Agosto were the silver Olympic medallist of 2006, and they’ve already won a silver and a bronze at the World Championship. Their marks was significantly the highest. With the other ice dance teams is different.
In the TES three couples scored higher than Navarro/Bommentre by less than one point, one scored a lower TES than theirs. But in the PCS all the couples were better scored than Navarro/Bommentre, for a difference that goes from 1.01 points to 4.97. Even the seventh couple, who earned a lower TES, earned a PCS higher than Navarro/Bommentre.
It was as if the judges had decided where they wanted this team to place, and, since they had to award them high technical marks, they just deducted those points from the ones they had set aside for presentation, independent of the fact that their presentation was outstanding.
It was 2007. Now the judges have learned how to lower also the technical marks. They don’t explain why they give a +2 instead to a +5, so they do it freely, sure that they don’t have to answer for it. If the judges must write on the protocol which bullet and/or deduction they has given to every element, they will think with more attention to the bullets, and so they will give marks more correct, if they are honest, and for the dishonest it’s more difficult to hide their dirt work. I’ll write about it another day, for now I just write that transparency (and, I suspect, fairness) isn’t really important for the ISU. Until 2016-2017 season, we didn’t knew which marks were given by a specific judge. So we have strangeness as this:
Beside a combination ended on two feet and the choreo sequence, only +3? Really? And also the PCS marks are very high.
But, beside the names of the judges, there’s another detail that the ISU has hidden. This is a protocol from 2003 Skate America, the first time that the ISU Judging System was used.
The ISU published the total of the marks done by every judge. It’s was easy for all to see if there were high difference among judges. In this case, among the lower and the higher marks there were 22.40 points. After this competition, it’s more difficult to see these differences, is needed more attention and a better understanding of the rules. For example, in this competition judge 1 was strict, on the average, or generous?
When I posted this screenshot in an international group of figure skating, someone answer to my question that he was a little strict but not too much, in his PCS there are two 10.00. So now I post the same protocol from Skating Scores. Skating Scores give us all the sums and, from 2016-2017 season, it also indicates the ranking position assigned by each judge to each skater. And he says also the nationality of all the judges. In short, it provides us with the information that the ISU gave only once, and some more information really interesting.
Remember the situation? In the Short Program Hanyu made a mistake in the combination. He was fifth. Third, with an advantage of 3.74 points, was the Canadian Patrick Chan. First, with an advantage of 10.66 points, was the Spanish Javier Fernandez, World champion in 2015 and 2016. Hanyu was the first to skate in the last group, so none can knew if the others will skate well or not.
The lowest scores came from the Canadian judge, Jeff Lukasik, the second lowest from the Spanish judge, Daniel Delfa. With all the information it’s easy to see it, and to see that for them Hanyu, who has just done a perfect performance, at the end of the competition was third in PCS. Also the marks of the Ukrainian Igor Fedchenko were strange, he need some investigation. His GOE for Hanyu were of 22.10 points, his GOE for Boyang Jin were 22.30 points. How can Jin deserves, especially in the +3/-3 system, GOE higher than the GOE of a perfect Hanyu? It seems almost as if the Ukrainian judge has given low marks to aid someone other. Probably I’m too suspicious, but if I were in the place of the ISU I would ask myself some questions, even watching the other disciplines.
I’m too suspicious, I know it, but if the ISU want fair competitions, if want that there isn’t suspect, then the ISU must give to us all the information and investigate every time that something seems strange.
Sometimes my detours are very long. I return to Piety’s article and took a note:
Every undergraduate who has read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions knows that one sees what one expects to see, and there are mountains of psychological studies that confirm this.
Ok, note for me: in Italian the book is La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche, and I don’t know when I’ll find enough time to read all the books that I want to read. Anyway, about prejudices I’m reading a really interesting book, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I wrote something about Kahneman book in Italian and in my bad English. There are some things that I say two times, but there are also a lot of differences.
Piety wrote that ISU didn’t respond to her questions (what questions? Read her article, it’s really interesting), ISU is very good at ignoring criticism.
I would go so far as to say that ignorance on the part of those governing the sport is perhaps figure skating’s main problem.
Again, for ignorance in what I send you to her article (and for my posts on Kahneman’s book). She wrote also on the fact that judges aren’t paid, explaining why this isn’t an excuse for not judging in a fair way, but I skip the rest of her article.
In 2010 the Olympic Games competitions were held from 14-15 (Pairs), 16-18 (Men), 19-23 (Ice Dance) and 23-25 (Ladies). Before the Games, in February, 11, Ray Fishman published an interesting article in Slate. His title is Is Figure Skating Fixed?.
In the article Fishman linked a study done by the economist Eric Zitzewitz. In case Fishman’s article will be delete, I put the link here (and I’ve done a download of the study, even if for my English is a bit difficult): http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ericz/transparency.pdf.
I quote only two passages of Fishman’s article (as with the others, go and read it where it’s published):
Zitzewitz found that countries could be separated into “voting blocs” whose judges favored one another’s skaters: Russians scratched French backs, and the favor was returned, benefitting both countries’ skaters at the expense of the competition. As a result, having a countryman on the panel helped a skater not just through the direct effect of that one judge’s scoring—the home-country judge also convinced others on the panel to inflate their scores.
The most famous case came from 2002, the exchange vote among French and Russian (but according to the ISU, only the French, for who know what reason, were culpable and aided the Russians, that knew nothing), another famous case involved Sviatoslav Babenko and Alfred Koritek. Natalia Kruglova was suspended because she tried to make an agreement with another judge. In my blog you can find some other cases. Probably there are a lot more, perhaps I’ve find a way to detect at least a part of them, but I need time. If I’ll find something interesting, I’ll write here. And if you know something interesting, I would like to know it. I’ll write a new post, or I’ll update the old posts, every time I’ll find something interesting.
In his earlier work, Zitzewitz also analyzed the scoring of ski jumping judges and found almost no home-country favoritism. By contrast to figure skating judges, who are chosen by the various national skating federations, ski jumping appointments are made by a subcommittee of the Federation International du Ski, an international group devoted to the integrity of the sport. To be a skating judge, you need a sense of nationalism; for skiing, a sense of integrity.
In 2010 Fishman wrote of two studies made by Zitzweits. I can’t find the first, I’ve put the link only for the second. For him the problem of the nationality of the judges was clear. If a nation chooses the judges, this nation chooses the judges that like best. And who does the nation like best? The judges who are more likely to to give the results the nation want. But even now, some judge think that this isn’t true, or that it’s impossible to say if (by average) the judges of a nation are more biased than the judges of another nation: https://sportrbc.ru/news/5fca44e29a79477fc1a2691d?ruid=NaN.
The article, published on 5 December 2020, is in Russian. I’ve used an automatic translator. Vladislav Zhukov interviewed an important judge, Jeroen Prins.
– Another big problem of refereeing is the national factor. You yourself have noted this more than once. What can you do about it? And in which countries, in your opinion, is this problem most acute?
– Oh, it’s too difficult to single out specific countries.
Ok, Mr. Prins, if it’s difficult, I’ve done the work for you and for all of the ISU. And you know what? I’ll give it to you freely. We can know which are the most biased nations, and also the most biased judges. My introduction of National Bias is here.
In the post there’s the explanation on as I calculated the National Bias, I’ll put the summary table also here:
I also calculated the bias for every judge in the last four season. You can read the names, ordered by alphabetical order on the left, and from the higher bias to the lower on the right, at the end of this post: https://sportlandiamartina.link/2020/12/10/national-bias-6/.
After published the summary table, I published all the data from whom I wrote the summary. If you want, you can check everything that I wrote. Perhaps you’ll find some mistakes, with so much data a mistake it’s always possibile. If you find one, and you say it to me, I’ll correct the mistake. These are all the data:
https://sportlandiamartina.link/2021/01/19/national-bias-all-the-bias-5-from-joern-lucas-to/;
https://sportlandiamartina.link/2021/01/21/national-bias-all-the-bias-6-from-sharon-togers-to/;
Prins also said
I think cases of deliberate biased refereeing are extremely rare, at the same time it is quite natural that everyone treats their skaters better.
What? Quite natural? I’m understand well? Ok, we must go on another Piety’s article. This one isn’t about figure skating, but is really interesting: https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/19/the-war-on-fairness/. I quote only few words.
To want someone you care about to succeed because you care about them is perfectly natural. To ENSURE that they succeed over other, and possibly better qualified, people simply because you care about them is wrong.
[…]
The upshot of Asma’s rambling argument is that the tendency toward favoritism is part of human nature. This is regrettably true. It makes us feel good when we promote the interests of those we love. Just because something makes us feel good though, doesn’t mean that this is ethical.
In the first Piety’s article that I’ve linked, she talk about judges, their formation and the necessity for a fair judging. Perhaps Prins, too busy in judging competitions, has forgotten something in ethic.
We can know from which nations came the most biased judges, and we can know who are the most biased judges. The ISU must stop the bad habits of judges and national federations. And, if ISU do nothing, the IOC must forbid to the most biased judges to judge at the Olympic Games. It wasn’t enough to suspend Weiguang Chen after the 2018 Olympic Games, considering how he judged the competitions before PyeongChang, I don’t understand why he could have gone to PyeongChang. This (sorry, it’s Italian) are the data: https://sportlandiamartina.link/2020/12/20/giudici-olimpici-e-national-bias-giudici-allopera-a-pyeongchang-1/.
It’s important that IOC is firm, because we can’t count on ISU. In 2014 the president of ISU was Ottavio Cinquanta, now is Jan Dijkema. Both came from speed skating, I don’t know how much they know figure skating, and how much figure skating is important for them. But Cinquanta said to Meri-Jo Borzilleri something really worrying:
“I can’t suspend a person for life for a minor violation. (Balkov) is a matter for the Ukraine federation, because they chose to send him.”
Balkov was discovered to manipulate a competition, and for Cinquanta this is a minor violation? Perhaps he hasn’t clear ideas. And… a problem for the Ukrainian federation? No, the competition was held by the ISU, and it’s a problem for the ISU. If the Ukrainian federation see an advantage to send to a competition an unfair judge, why should send someone else? Only the ISU can stop the bad habits of the federations, and if ISU do nothing, is the IOC that must intervene, even if he can intervene only in the Olympic Games. IOC must ban the most biased judges from the next Olympic Games, and, if a judge give marks too strange, must forbid to go at the 2026 Olympic Games all the judges from that nation. This can’t prevent agreement among several nations, but it’s a first step for fairer competitions.
I like a lot Piety. This is another of her articles, this time about the 2014 Olympic Winter Games: Yet Another Olympic Figure Skating Judging Scandal.
The article was published on 13 February. On 9 February the Team Event ended, the other dates were 11-12 for Pairs, already ended, 13-14 for Men, 16-17 for Ice Dance and 19-20 for Ladies. Remember that at Sochi among Ladies were present the gold (Yuna Kim) and the silver (Mao Asada) medallist from Vancouver, and that none can see in advance that Asada will do a mess of her short program. Piety write of an agreement among Russian (gold in the Team Event) and Americans (gold in Ice Dance). Unfortunately the article from L’Equipe isn’t on internet anymore.
The truly interesting question, however, is how Davis and White have been able to beat the clearly superior team of Virtue and Moir so consistently. As other critics have pointed out, what Davis and White really have going for them is speed. They are very fast. But speed isn’t everything.
I suggest to read Piety’s article, is really interesting. I know, I’m writing it a lot of times, but it’s true. She also explain in a easy way something about technique and the differences among Meryl Davis/Charlie White and Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir. Another of her articles is Can Olympic Ice Skating Sink Any Lower? And while reading the story of the past, think of the present. For the 2022 Olympic Games think not about speed but about the quality of the jumps, the GOEs and the PCS.
Davis and White didn’t need any help to win the gold was the constant refrain of most members of the group. They’ve been winning everything in the last few years. That is sadly true, but it begs the question of whether Davis and White needed help by tacitly assuming that they had not had help with these other wins.
Speaking of the free dance of Davis/White, Piety write that
They skated well, and in an effort to make certain that there would be no controversy around their win, the judges awarded them wildly inflated marks, marks designed to give the impression that Virtue and Moir had never even been close.
But, of course, numbers can lie. And these numbers do.
We can say the same about the Men’s competition at Saitama 2019 and at Turin 2019. These numbers lie.
And, for the Ladies competition… Again Christine Brennan, writing on Adelina Sotnikova’s gold medal in Sochi and on the composition of the panel of judges. An analysis of the protocol made by Alexander Abad-Santos. The Korean federation complaint about the results, but his complaint was rejected.
As usual, I wrote too much, and I want to write more. For now I’ll stop, but another day I’ll go on.
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