I don’t have time for a real analysis of the marks given by the French Philippe Meriguet, so I point only to some strangeness. If you want to know all the competitions that he judged, you can use SkatingScores.

Rostelecom Cup 2016, Men.

The wonderful people in SkatingScores highlight in green when a score is too high, so it’s easy to see the French Chafik Besseghier in the short program. Meriguet’s marks comprend a +2 for the 4T+3T combination (the others give four +1, four 0) and a +2 for the 3A (for the others again four +1 and four 0), and another +2 for the step sequence. Among all the other judges, for all the elements, there are only two +2.

In the free skate Meriguet was less friendly with Besseghier (but two +2 from him, one on the 4T, only one from all the other judges), but really strict with the Japanese Keiji Tanaka and the Swedish Alexander Majorov.

What can have done poor Tanaka to deserves these marks? Did he kill his cat?

Probably yes, Tanaka killed his cat, and Majorov aided him. The ISU has ever asked to Meriguet to explain his marks? I’m really curious to know it.

Skate Canada 2017, Pairs.

If the scores for Tanaka and Majorov are inexplicable, here we can talk of national bias.

This time I use also the protocol from SkatingScore because the sums are interesting. If I write that only one judge among nine give to the French Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres the first place in the short program, are you able to guess who did it?

Nothing so resounding in the free skate, but look at the result. On the right of the official result, I wrote in red what the result would have been if Meriguet has been the only judge.

Second place, really close to the first, instead of third. And for the score, before this competition James/Cipres earned 222.59 points to the 2017 WTT, 220.02 points to the 2017 EC, 210.48 points at the Autumn Classic International a month before, and 204.68 points at the 2017 WC, so for them 214.37 points was one of the higher score, but for Meriguet they deserved much more. I know that there are many judges in the jury panels just to contain the damage that a single judge can do, but does Meriguet not deserved an investigation?

Skate Canada 2017, Men.

I don’t check closely what happened in the Men’s competition, but it’s clear that Meriguet see things that no other can see, because a lot of his marks are really different from the marks of the other judgs.

Olympic Games 2018, Men.

Here I post again something that I wrote in July.

With 23rd place in the short program, Matteo Rizzo qualified for the free skate. The marks fluctuate a bit, for some judge he was a little better, for someone a little less good, but for eight out of nine judges Rizzo deserved the qualification for the free skate. An exception is the French judge Philippe Meriguet, who placed him in twenty-fifth place, behind the French Chafik Besseghier. Note that for eight judges Besseghier, who overall placed 26th, was not one of the best 24 skaters. I guess it’s just a coincidence, right?

Internationaux de France 2018, Men.

It’s official: Tanaka killed his cat. For Meriguet the French Kevin Aymoz would have ended fourth (246.14 points) and not fifth, ahead of the Russian Dmitri Aliev (237.63 points).

World Championship 2019, Men.

And after killing his cat, probably Tanaka never apologized. Truly, I can’t find any other reason for Meriguet’s marks.

In the short program Meriguet give to Nathan Chen higher PCS than to Yuzuru Hanyu, for me this only thing is enough for an inquiry (even today, all the judges that has given to Chen higher PCS marks – Karen Butcher, Sakae Yamamoto, Walter Toigo and Jung Sue Lee – must explain their marks). But more interesting are the scores for Kevin Aymoz.

Tenth place for Aymoz instead of eleventh, a rank that means two French skaters at the following World Championship.

Junior Grand Prix Croatia Cup 2019, Men.

I’m a little tired to do all the sums, but the scores for the French Adam Siao Him Fa don’t deserves more attention?

These aren’t all the competition judged by Meriguet, only the ones in which, even without a serious control, I can see that there is something strange. But, even with a superficial glance, another detail struck me, so I did a more serious check. These are all the +5 awarded by Meriguet:

Nathan Chen, Internationaux de France 2018, SP, StSq2 (from the other judges there are seven +4, one +5);

Jason Brown, Internationaux de France 2018, FS, ChS1 (three +4, five +5);

Nathan Chen, World Championship 2019, SP, StS4 (one +3, two +2, five +5);

Jason Brown, World Championship 2019, SP, CCSp4 (one +3, four +4, three +5);

Shoma Uno, World Championship 2019, SP, CCoSp4 (one +2, one +3, four +4, two +5);

Jason Brown, World Championship 2019, FS, StSq3 (three +3, three +4, two +5);

Nathan Chen, Internationaux de France 2019, SP, StSq4 (one +3, four +4, three +5);

Kevin Aymoz, Internationaux de France 2019, SP, StSq4 (three +3, four +4, one +5);

Nathan Chen, Internationaux de France 2019, FS, ChSq1 (eight +5).

A +5 for a French (I could write not surprisingly), a +5 for a Japanese (curious), and seven +5 for two different American, one could almost think that he like the American skaters a lot.

Five +5 for a step sequence, two +5 for a spin, two +5 for a choreo sequence. None for a jump. Why? Meriguet lives in the +4/-5 system? When he was in the +3/-3 system, he has given several +3. For example in the short program of the 2016 Grand Prix Final he give a +3 to the 4S+3T combination and to the 3A of Hanyu, to the 3A of Patrick Chan, to the 4T+3T combination of Javier Fernandez and to the 3A of Shoma Uno. Why in the past he sometimes saw perfection and now he don’t see it anymore?

If he can’t give proper marks, it’s a problem. We must not forget that if the combination, the triple Axel and the components in the short program of the last World Championship were given respecting the rules, Yuzuru Hanyu would have won the silver, not the bronze. Hanyu was robbed of a medal because the judges gave to him marks lower than he deserved. So if Meriguet can’t recognize a perfect jump when he sees one – and today Hanyu’s 4S and 4T+3T were perfect – he must do again some seminar and learn again how to judge, because the skaters deserves to be judged in the right way.