The final score of a figure skating program is composed by the base value of the elements executed by the skater, their grade of execution, the components and, sometimes, the deductions. What means grade of execution? A well done element deserves a higher marks of the same element done poorly. The ISU has established a series of bullets that a skater can try to achieve in order to obtain a better score, and a series of deduction that it’s better for him to avoid.

Among other things, the ISU codified six type of jumps. Two of them are toe jump that land on the opposite foot of the take off. This doesn’t mean that the two jumps are the same. According to the ISU, flip is taken-off from a backward inside edge, Lutz is taken-off from backward outside edge. These words are written in the rules.

I did two screenshot. In the first line I put part of them one beside the other, so it’s easier to compare the take off, under I’ve put the two whole screenshot, so you can see also the minutes in which I’ve done them. So, which jumps are these?

I’m not so good in judging figure skating, but to me they seems the same jumps. In the video we can see two different preparation, but what count isn’t the preparation, is the take off, and for me both are clear inside edge. According to the protocol, the first jump is a Lutz, the second a flip. They can’t be two flip, later in the program Evgenia Medvedeva did another flip, and to do the same jump three times would have broken the Zayak rule, so if she had performed three flips, the third flip would have dropped from the score.

I did a series of screenshots from the preparation to the take off of the first jump and of the rules.

At first Medvedeva was on the outside edge. Unfortunately, she change inclination and in the last line she is clearly on the inside edge. The technical panel should have call an “e”, even a “!” would have been wrong in this case. In this competition, the 2019 World Championship, the Technical Controller was Mami Maeda, the Technical Specialist Vanessa Gusmeroli, and as long as both of them are experienced, this is not the only time that I’ve seen them do serious mistakes. For the Assistant Technical Specialist Katerina Kamberska I say nothing, for now I had not noticed her anywhere. At least two of them judged the jump in the wrong way.

Even without the call, the judges should have noticed the wrong edge. With a wrong edge, the jump can’t accomplish bullet 2, good take off, so the maximum possibile GOE is +3. From here, there should be a deduction of -1 for unclear edge without the sign “!”. The higher possible GOE for this jump is +2, all the judges has given to Medvedeva a mark that she didn’t deserved. The difference from the GOE she earned, 2.11 points, and the maximum GOE that she should have earned, 1.18 points, is 0.93 points, more than enough to give the bronze medal to Rika Kihira instead than to Evgenia Medvedeva. Kihira lost a World medal for a judges’ mistake. And this isn’t probably the only mistake in Medvedeva’s score. I watched only another jump, the double Axel. The first two screenshot are the take off, the others the landing. In the third screenshot she has just landed.

This jump was called <, base value (in the second half of the program) 2.73 point, but it deserved to be called <<, base value 1,21, and the deduction in the GOE for the mistake should have grown from -1/-2 to -3/-4.

Even with the mistake done by all the judges on the Lutz, if the Axel was called in the right way, Kihira would have won the bronze. And these aren’t the only mistakes in the competition, I didn’t checked all the programs. For a serious check it takes more time than I have. But it isn’t my job, these checks must (must, not should) be done by the ISU.

After I wrote these words, I searched a video on youtube, because I remembered seeing a strange thing, and I found an interesting video on six skaters:

I was searching another skater, one that finished only eighth, Sofia Samodurova. The mistakes (of the skaters, of the judges) must be checked for all the skaters, not only for the skaters that could go on the podium. Unfortunately the video that I find isn’t of good quality. This is her second jump.

According to the technical panel, her jump had an inside edge, so was a flip. This was the call. We can see also a GOE of 1.06 points. The GOE can change slightly before the score is announced, but this number is a landmark for the final score. What happened after?

Samodurova opened her program with a 3F+3T combination, followed by a jump called 3F. When she jumped another 3F, her eighth element, sixth element of jump, the jump was invalidated. Save little changes, her final TES was 64.01 points. It was after she ended her program that the technical panel decided that her second jump wasn’t a flip but a Lutz. The rule say that in all the dubious case the judges must go in favour of the skaters. This rule isn’t always applied, but this time it was applied so much that the rule was broken in another way.

When a technical panel can do a mistake and call a flip instead of a Lutz? When they see an inside edge. If they decided that the skater wanted to jump a Lutz, and she didn’t broke the rule on the repetition of the jumps but only does the jump from the wrong edge, in her score the base value of the jump must be added, but the wrong edge must be marked in the protocol. How was the edge of the jump did by Samodurova? The television aided us with a nice replay:

As Medvedeva, she start her preparation from an outside edge, but at the take off she is on an inside edge. The technical panel goes so much in favour of the skater that it forgot to mark the jump with an “e”. And Maeda, Gusmeroli and Kamberska weren’t the only one to forgot a little detail. This is the protocol:

A GOE of 1.35 points. The 1.06 awarded to Samodurova for a triple flip during her program means all +2 (or one +1, seven +2 and one +3, or something similar, with the number of +1 that balances the number of +3). But in the protocol there are six +2 and three +3, for a final GOE that, for a triple flip, would be of 1.21 points. So the judges give their marks on a flip, the technical panel changed the call and the jump become a Lutz, and none of the judges watched the edge and lowered his mark? Instead three of them heightened their marks. For what I know, a wrong or flat edge deserves a deduction, but maybe the judges and I know different rules.

If the technical panel did his work, the base value were lowered from 5.90 (3Lz) to 4.43 (3Lze), the higher possibile GOE was 0, so Samodorova should have earned at best 4.43 points and not 7.25. This means that the final score for Samodurova should be 205,76 points, she deserved the ninth place, not the eighth. The eighth place was deserved by Mariah Bell. And with a possible deduction of -4 and not -3, also Eunsoo Lim would have ended before Samodurova.

The mistake of the technical panel changed the result, the mistake done by the judges not, but at least three judges, the Slovenian Teri Sedej, the Kazakh Yuriy Guskov and the German Kersten Bellman give to her a mark too high, a +3. Fortunately this mistake didn’t change the number of spots for the nations for the following World Championship, but there’s also this risk. If the technical panel or the judges do some mistakes, they can really change the lives of the skaters, And if their work is difficult – I know that it’s difficult – better technology will aid them to judge better.

Before I’ve written that this isn’t the first time that I’ve noticed a technical panel in which there was Vanessa Gusmeroli. I’ve started to read the names of the judges only by less than a year, so I noticed them in casual order. I watch a competition, live or thanks to a video on youtube, I see something strange, I check the protocol and read the names of the judges. So I skip ahead and behind in the time. I watched live the 2019 Internationaux de France (I also watched the 2019 World Championship live, but I didn’t check the protocols at that time). I’m not very good to see if a jump is underrotated during the competition. I’m always too worried for the landing to remember to watch the blade (I could never do a live commentary, I do always strange verses of pain when someone fall), but remember a jump in which I clearly thinked “I want to see the protocol!” The jump was this:

This is Shoma Uno’s triple Axel in the short program. He jumps going forward… and lands going forward. This isn’t a jump underrotated, the only right call is for a downgraded. For me it was clear from that moment, but for the American Wendy Enzmann, the French Vanessa Gusmeroli and the Slovak Monika Kustarova the jump was fully rotated, they didn’t call even a <. By the way, for them this wasn’t a fall:

A fall, according to the ISU’s rules, is a “loss of control by a skater with the result that the majority of his/her own body weight is on the ice supported by any other part od the body than the blades e.g. hand(s), knee(s), buttock(s) or any part of the arm“. In the first screenshot Nathan Chen has already landed on the ice, but he doesn’t control the landing and bounces, so much so that in the second screenshot he is back in the air. He then falls and is forced to unload the weight of his body on both hands. If he didn’t do it he would go face down and risk getting hurt as well. I’ve aready written about Uno’s triple Axel, Chen’s triple Axel and also Kevin Aymoz edge on the triple flip here.

Sometimes when I notice a name I check some other competition. I want to see if it was only a bad day or if this person need a new pair of glasses. So I watched the 2012 Grand Prix Final, where Vanessa Gusmeroli was Assistant Technical Specialist, the Australian Susan Lynch was the Technical Controller and the Canadian Jayson Peace was the Technical Specialist.

In his first element, a 4T, Daisuke Takahashi fell. In the replay we see clearly his take off and, from the third screenshot, his landing. In the third his blade has just hit the ice, we can see that only the toe pick is landed. But in the fourth screenshot the blade is horizontal, he is full landed… going forward. The jump should be called underrotated (and he is really close to a downgraded), his base value lowered from 10.30 to 7.20, and the GOE should be -3.00 and not -2.71.

The last combination was 3Lz+2T+2Lo. The take off of the Lutz is difficult to see, both during the program than during the replay. In the replay the television overlaided the exit from the combination 3A+2T (on the right) with the take off of the Lutz (on the left). What we can see is the direction in which an almost transparent Takahashi is going. Watching the landing, we can see that the Lutz is underrotated.

The second jump is a double toe loop. The first screenshot is the take off, in the second the blade has just hit the ice, in the third he is fully on the ice, and again he is rotating on the ice. The jump is underrotated.

The third is an edge jump, so the take off is less clear and a certain prerotation is normal. We can say that in the first two screenshot is visible the diregtion of the jump. In the fourt his blade is itting the ice, and he is moving forward. Almost surely the jump deserved to be downgraded, but even going in favour of the athlete the jump deserved to be called underrotated.

None of these call was done. There was any difference in the final ranking due to this four mistakes of the technical panel? Let’s see… For the combination, considering that all the three jumps are underrotated, I give to Takahashi a GOE of -2 (for an underrotated the deduction was from -1 to -2 so, excluding the higher and the lower marks really given by the judges, the average marks with the littlest possible deduction is -2).

Hanyu deserved the gold, given instead to Takahashi thanks to four mistakes done by the technical panel. So when a technical panel do the wrong call, in fact he can stole from a skater a placement that he deserved for what all did on the ice. It happend to Rika Kihira in the 2019 with a bronze medal at a World Championship, it happened to Yuzuru Hanyu with the gold at the 2012 Grand Prix Final.

Yuzuru Hanyu just graduated with a thesis dealing with the way it is possible had objective and accurate assessments of jumps, something that figure skating really needs. Technology is used in a lot of sports, and sensors are a natural thing in fencing. They are different types of sensors, simpler because they just say if there has been a touch and in what area, but technology can play a fundamental role and make sure that the competitions are fair.

It will take time for the system he devised to be used, both to do more tests and to collect enough data, but there are things that can be done even now. You can use more cameras, and it is not true that having more cameras would lengthen the time. If a single camera image may be unclear and require multiple views, another camera can provide the correct answer in a snap.

I read a really intersting article written by George S. Rossano, Current Replay Systems Not Up To Task of Insuring Accurate Calls. He is a mathematician and physicist, member of the Remote Sensing Department of The Aerospace Corporation at El Segundo, CA, where he developed and built a new slit-less mid-Infrared spectrograph MIRIS, therefore probably something he understands about technology. Rossano explained the difficulties in correctly evaluating a skating competition and provided a solution which, if it would not solve everything, would still improve the judging system. And his solution is applicable immediately, from the season that will start shortly.

Only one thing is needed: the willingness of the ISU to work towards fairer competitions. And there is really a need, because the errors are many and often have enormous consequences. Another example involving two people, a skater and a judge, that I just talked about? The Technical panel of the Men’s competition at the 2013 NHK Trophy was composed by Susan Lynch (Technical Controller, as for the 2012 Grand Prix Final), Pirjo Uimonen (Technical Specialist) and Olga Markova (Assistant Technical Specialist).

The quadruple toe loop with which Daisuke Takahashi opened his short program was judged to be fully rotated. This is the shot of the live broadcast. The two screenshots above are the take off, the other two the landing.

For me the jump was underrotated. But the replay is much clear and makes us understand how the use of a second camera different from the first can make it easier to judge the competitions correctly. If you watch the video, you see clearly the instant in which he land.

In the first screenshot of the second line, his blade is already horizontal. Takahashi has already landed, even though he is facing forward. Only after he completes the rotation, when he is on the ice, in fact he raises a lot of snow. If with the first shot there could be doubts, and I had to make several attempts to take the right screenshots, here I had no problems. This image is very clear.

While I’m on this competition, I look at a couple more details. I became suspicious of Takahashi’s quads. I may decide to watch a few more in the future. This is that of the free skate.

Again he landed forward, the blade is horizontal and there’s a lot of snow. The jump deserved to be called underrotated. The jump received an undeserved BV of 10.30 points and 2.00 points of GOE. In the short program the GOE was 1.43 points.

The second is Lutz’s edge, which has not received any call from the technical panel, a sign that according to them it was done on the outside edge.

During the preparation he was on the outside edge, but before the take off he moves his weight slightly toward the inside. At best his edge was flat and deserved a !. Without a call, he received a 0, five +1 and three +2, for a final 0.90 points of GOE.

In the competition he established an undeserved personal best in the short program. The total score became for a month the Japanese record. What happened after? At the end of November he injured his tibia and withdrew from the Grand Prix Final. There his substitute, Nobunari Oda, won the bronze medal. Japan had five skaters who aspired to three Olympic spot.

After the Grand Prix Final, won by Hanyu with the new World record in the short program and the Japanese record in the short program, the free skate and the total score, there was the Japan Championship. There are the last competitions of Yuzuru Hanyu, Tatsuki Machida. Takahiko Kozuka, Nobunari Oda and Daisuke Takahashi. I listed them in the final order of the Japan Championship.

I highlighted the National Championship in red, and circled the season best of each skater in blue. Not for all of them it was the personal best, Kozuka established his in 2011, when he won the silver medal at the World Championship, and Takahashi established his own at the 2012 World Team Trophy, when he set what were two world records at the time. The personal bests of Kozuka and Takahashi were distant in time, nothing guaranteed that after years the skaters were still so competitive. The season record is much more precise in saying what that skater is worth at the moment. At the National Championship the Japanese federation decided which skaters to send to the Four Continents Championship, the Olympic Games and the World Championship. If we look not at the ranking of the National Championship, but that of the season best, we notice an interesting detail.

	Season best	JPN Ch.
Hanyu	293.25	1
Takahashi	268.31	5
Machida	265.38	2
Oda	262.98	4
Kozuka	230.95	3

Takahashi’s score was the second highest, only surpassed (and at the last competition, before the Grand Prix Final Hanyu’s season best was just higher than Machida’s) from Hanyu’s. I don’t know if this was the official motivation, if the Japanese federation ever explained why at the Olympic Games was sent the fifth classified to the National Championship, leaving the third and fourth at home. But, had the NHK Trophy been judged correctly, Takahashi’s season best would have been lower than Machida and Oda’s.

Both Oda and Kozuka had participated in an edition of the Olympic Games, in 2010, but a decision probably also based on an undeserved score deprived one of the two of the joy of participating in a second edition. And if Kozuka still competed for two seasons, stopping due to physical problems, for Oda the National Championship was the last competition. He was nominated for the Four Continents Championship, he decided to stop and make room for the youngsters. Perhaps he would have retired at the end of the season as well, but it is possible that the missed calls on Takahashi’s quads have had a huge impact on his career. Oda is one year younger than Takahashi.

When a competition is judged incorrectly the impact can be devastating for the skaters. They can lose important medals, they can had their career prematurely interrupted because they are overtaken by someone who has been awarded a score too high compared to what he did on the ice.