The 2020-2021 season is over. With no more competitions, shows, degree theses and anything else to distract me, I go back to look at some numbers. I will do some closer checks in the near future, in the meantime I begin to take a general look. For those who still do not know how I do my stats, I have explained everything here.

In the past I have only watched international competitions, from the Challenger Series upwards. This year were disputed only four competitions of this level (more or less, in the first two competitions there were fewer skaters than usual, and coming from fewer nations): two Challenger Series (Nebelhorn Trophy and Budapest Trophy), the World Championship and the World Team Trophy. The data are few, however I integrate my tables with the national bias by season and by discipline.

This year’s numbers are less significant than those of previous years, the competitions have been too few. I note, however, that compared to the two previous seasons the bias has risen. Are the judges preparing for the Olympic season? I fear so.

In the table by discipline I have replaced the new numbers with the old ones, if you want to compare them you can find the old table in the post of which I put the link above. The variations are small, the most important being the slight increase in the national bias in the Men’s competitions, especially thanks to Salome Chigogidze. I read the names of the judges of the men’s competition at the World Championship maybe half an hour before the start of the short program. This was my reaction:

I am very wary of judges who have been suspended once, but I would not allow anyone to go back to judging after the second suspension, and I still don’t understand why Babenko was able to judge the last World Championship. As for Chigogidze, the behavior of certain judges is absolutely predictable in its unfairness. Why hasn’t the ISU taken action? These are the national bias graphs made by SkatingScores after the Men’s competition:

22.39 points of bias is not Chigogidze’s personal best, she managed to reach 24.07 at the Lombardia Trophy 2019, and 22.69 at the Minsk Arena-Ice Star 2017, therefore with the old scoring code. But if this for her this is only the third highest bias score, it is still a very high bias. I remember that after the PyeongChang Olympic Games Feng Huang, who judged the Pairs competition, was suspended by the ISU for national bias. His bias was 8.83 points. Less than half of Chigogidze’s bias in this competition.

They are not suspicious votes, no, not at all. Sooner or later, however, I will have to check judges and skaters from the countries of the former Soviet Union. If we did not make nationality distinctions between Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Azerbaijani (judges and skaters) and so on, and compared them only with those coming from Western Europe, America, Asia or Oceania, I suspect that the values of biases would rise significantly. It’s just a suspicion born of some strange marks I’ve noticed, but I haven’t done any serious checks yet.

Of course I have also updated the bias table for countries. Not all nations have had judges in international competitions, not all judges have judged their compatriots. The changes are few and not particularly significant, but there have been some changes. The biggest one concerns the Italian judges, with the average bias going down a bit. Next to the table with the average bias per country in the short program (column DH), in the free skate (column DK) and in the sum of the two programs (column DL), I have added two columns. In the DN column I reported the old average calculated on four seasons. If there are any differences, with the bias increasing or decreasing, I have indicated them in the DO column.

I have also updated the bias values of every judge. There are 69 different judges, for a total of 163 new values that have entered my tables. I will publish a full update at some time in the future, now I limit myself to the summary with the new bias values for these judges.

For each judge I indicated the name, nationality and bias of the short program (column HF), the free skate (HG) and the sum (HH). For the short frogram and the free skate I have indicated, in the three lines, the total bias points, the number of programs judged by that judge, and the average. The sum is given by the average of the short program with the average of the free program. Outside the black rectangle (HJ) I have reported the sum of the average bias of the two programs up to the 2019-2020 season.

One of the most notable judges is the American Sharon Rogers. I bolded the judges with the highest bias. She was in this category in the past and this season has increased her values. The World Team Trophy was her last competition as an international judge. In greeting her, Jason Brown wrote that “was such a great honor to celebrate all her accomplishments over the years“. What accomplishments, having turned out to be one of the most partisan judges of the circuit? I only regret that she didn’t retire a few years ago, even if retiring from a role doesn’t mean she will quit figure skating. We will see what happens.

The World Championship was the first competition in which I commented on the judges in advance. Some time later the World Team Trophy took place. Lys, who has seen the names of the judges before me, pointed out Lorrie Parker’s presence on the Men’s competition panel. A brief exchange followed.

No, Balkov wasn’t there, but Rogers was, and she judged as usual. I wanted to do a more thorough analysis, but it takes time, so I just go back to the SkatingScore charts for the national bias of Ice Dance and Ladies’ competitions, with only the names of the judges added.

Parker deserves a long speech. He no longer judged an international competition after PyeongChang. I don’t know if it was a choice of the US Federation to prevent anyone from noticing the way she judges. She judged at Skate America last fall, I was afraid it would be back in circulation and in fact here she is. In theory, her marks don’t stand out, but when all the judges give absurd marks it’s hard to stand out. An example of the absurd marks I did was looking at how Hanyu’s short program at the World Team Trophy was scored. Despite the mistake on the Axel, he was the best that day, only the judges – all judges – didn’t recognize him. That Axel, if someone does not have clear ideas, deserved a 0, not a -1 as Sakae Yamamoto, Walter Toigo, Lorrie Parker, Jung Sue Lee and Olga Kozhemyakyna said. I talked about it at the end of this post. They are a few lines in Italian after the four screenshots, even with an automatic translator it is not difficult to read them.

I had thought of writing so many things, and I still plan to do so, but the ISU has just published its SUMMARY OF PROPOSALS FOR A MAIL VOTE IN REPLACEMENT OF THE 58th ORDINARY CONGRESS 2021. I will have to read it calmly, assuming I can remain calm by reading this document. However, someone pointed out to me a passage that I could define as interesting. A more correct term could get me banned from the internet.

In the post about how Hanyu’s short program was evaluated, I also posted the IOC Athletes Rights and Responsibilities Declaration, recently adopted by the ISU. I remember what it is.

I remember the rights 2 and 3:

2. Be part of a transparent, fair and clean sporting environment, particularly one that fights against doping and competition manipulation, and provides for transparent judging/refereeing, selection and qualification processes, and appropriate competition schedules, including training schedules at such competitions.
3. Access general information on athlete and competition-related matters in a timely and clear manner.

Are we sure that transparent judging/refereeing and Access general information on athlete and competition-related matters in a timely and clear manner get along with the Judges names and their respective scores will be published at the conclusion of the event?

A few months ago an international judge (who is also a lawyer) read one of my posts, kindly let me know what she thought of it and told me she would talk to other international judges about them all. Just as kindly, I let her know through my lawyer what I thought of her interest. Our direct communications have been interrupted, I just can’t imagine why, but I can’t exclude that in the ISU there are people who know what I’m writing. In case they are really interested in what I write, I decided to go and look at some protocols. That’s all. For now.