The World Championship 2021, the most useless World Championship, as I’ve heard someone define it, is started. Who are the judges? The Referee is Mr. Fabio Bianchetti, the man at the head of the Technical Committee. Yes, exactly the man for whom the technique of a flip or a Lutz is the same.

Question: which jump is this?

I know, it’s a difficult question. If the technique is the same, how can the technical panel say which jump is? Perhaps they flip a coin, and decide which jump is based on how the coin falls. Bradie Tennell was lucky, this is a Lutz. Kaori Sakamoto was unlucky, a jump done in the same way was a Lze. I agree on the call for Sakamoto, I’m more than a bit perplexed on the no-call for Tennell.

We have also the wonderful rule of the q. Remember what Mr. Bianchetti said? The step before the solo jump in the short program is not requested anymore because his call is controversial. So according to him, the judge can’t see a step before a jump, but can distinguish a lack of rotation from 85° to 90° to 95°. So Rika Kihira received the call of a q on two jumps, but the 3T of Karen Chen’s combination was judged fully rotated:

Probably the coin was throw for the full team, if the coin fell on the right side, all the call are in favour of the skater of the team, otherwise all the call are really strict. The US (and not only them) were lucky, the Japanese were unlucky. A pity, it will be better next time.

These are the national bias of the judges of the Ladies competition. Emilie Billow is the Technical Controller, the others are the Judges.