I warn you that my post is long and, at some point, also full of calculations. I started from a lot of years ago, because sometimes a historical picture can be useful, to get to what is happening now. I hope that my words are interesting.

Even without going back to antiquity, ice skating has a very long history, with the first World Championships held at the end of the 19th century. At the beginning the discipline had a limited diffusion, the rinks were lakes and rivers frozen in winter, so it’s obvious that in many places it was not possible to skate. And even when there started to be artificial rinks, as long as the journeys were long and expensive, and people who had the time and the opportunity to indulge in a futile thing like sport few, even a World Championship was little more than a local competition among a few close friends. In fact, the association that would become the ISU was born in Europe and for a long time almost only European skaters participated in the competitions. I checked the winners of the Olympic and world medals, dividing the nations into four groups.

Being interested in the results of American and Russian skaters, I have divided the skaters into European (excluding Russians) + Canadian, US, Russian and Asian. With the Russians there are also the Soviets, I ignored the political changes. I don’t care that Viktor Petrenko is Ukrainian, he won his medals by competing for the Soviet Union or the Commonwealth of Independent States, and I calculated him in that group. His compatriot Okana Baiul, who only won a year later, competed under the flag of Ukraine, so I calculated her in Europe. Obviously I ignored the other continents because at the moment no skater from Africa or Oceania or South America has ever won a medal in a senior World Championship or at the Olympic Games.

I break down my long list into several screenshots. The first is dedicated to the years from the birth of sport to the First World War.

The gray boxes indicate the years in which one or more competitions have not been played, the other colors have the sole purpose of easily distinguishing the various disciplines. At the beginning there was only one competitions, in the minds of the ISU managers it was a men’s competitions, but they forgot to specify it in the rules. This is why in 1902 a woman, Madge Syers, signed up to the World Championship and while she was there she won silver. Her medal is indicated in light blue and not in blue. The rules were promptly amended with the exclusion of women, even if in 1906 the Ladies’ competition was born and in 1908 the one reserved for Pairs. In 1900 and 1901 the Men’s competition had only two participants, so I indicated only two medals. When I wrote competitions among a few close friends it was only a joke up to a certain point. A similar situation also occurred in Ladies’ and Pairs’ competitions.

All medals went to European but not Russian skaters, with only two exceptions. The first year, with the competition held in St. Petersburg, the bronze went to the Russian Georg Sanders, in his only participation. In 1903 silver went to Russian Nikolai Panin, in his only participation, again at St. Petersburg. Nikolai Panin also won an Olympic gold in special figures, a competition not in my screenshot which was part of the Olympic program only in 1908. Behind him there were two British skaters, then two Europeans.

Why did only Europeans win? Because they were the only participants. There were also one or two Russian participant only in 1896, 1903, 1909, 1913 and 1914, 5 years in 19 editions. Not so much. Then there was the war, but also the Russian Revolution, and the skaters from that part of the world disappeared. Canadian, American or Asian skaters, not on the podium but at least among the participants? Zero. Only one Argentine (who had moved to London when he was still a child) at the 1902 World Championship and the 1908 Olympics. So, almost only European can win.

The next screenshot is about the interwar years.

The first competition to restart after the war was the Olympic Games, with skating becoming a regular presence in the event, first in the Summer Games and then, from 1924, in the Winter Games. The first North American skaters began to participate in competitions. It should be noted that in 1930 for the first time the World Championship was held outside Europe, in New York, then in the United States, while the first Canadian edition was held in 1932. All the other editions of this period were held in Great Britain, in the Scandinavian peninsula or in the Alps, therefore in very specific areas of Europe (those where there was ice). A few Japanese skaters participated in competitions in 1932 and 1936, and they were the only Asians.

The Americans (and the Canadians, whom we can’t distinguish in my table because I put them in the same group as the Europeans) have started to win some medals, not many and none gold. Then World War II broke out, the competitions were suspended throughout Europe (but in the United States and Canada the national championship was held almost every year), the European rinks were destroyed, making training impossible even after the return of peace, and many coaches moved to the United States.

The next period is short, from the resumption of competitions in 1947 to the crash of Sabena Flight 548. For those who do not know, I remember that on that plane there was the entire American skating team, skaters, coaches, and even some relatives, who were on their way to the 1961 World Championships. This is the greatest tragedy that has ever hit the skating world. There were other dramatic deaths, the British Freddie Tomlins, world silver in 1939, officer of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, shot down in 1943, the Kazakh Denis Ten, Olympic bronze in 2014 and also winner of a world silver and bronze, assassinated by two thieves in 2018, but the biggest tragedy is this.

In 1952 Ice Dance was added to the other disciplines. If Europeans continue to be the strongest in the couple disciplines, North America dominates in the individual disciplines. You can’t see it here, but in 1947 and 1947 the world and Olympic gold medals were won by the Canadian Barbara Ann Scott. The balance has begun to shift, from this moment the few important European nations will have to share the medals with the North Americans. The identity of the nations also changes, for example the importance of Sweden and Norway ends, France arrives and, to a lesser extent, Italy, now the world of skating is wider. In the competitions there are the first skaters from Australia.

The next screenshot is the longest, spanning from 1962 to the turn of the millennium. Traveling is now relatively simple, and with the television broadcasting the competitions (especially at the beginning not in all countries, and not entire competitions, but better than nothing) skating becomes more and more known, and above all it is easier to know how the skaters of the other nations skate.

For three years, American skaters have not won anything, and that’s normal. The strongest skaters were all dead, the kids needed some time to grow. The European nations (+ Canada) in theory are the ones that have won the most, but we are talking about several nations, in addition to Canada there are the two Germany, and then Czechoslovakia, France, England, Hungary, Italy, Netherland, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine. If I had done a real division by nations it would have been evident that the Americans have won more medals than any of the European nations or Canada. Each, except the Soviet Union, to which I have dedicated a group of columns.

The most striking phenomenon is the arrival of Soviet skaters. For a few years the Soviet Union sent observers to the World Championship to study the skaters, when it sent athletes it did so in a big way. They are the ones who dominate. In the couple disciplines they did it absolutely, leaving the others almost only the crumbs, but also among the Men the medals were a lot, including several golds. Only in the Ladies’ competition the medals were few, and with only one gold.

In 1972 for the first time the Olympics are held in Asia, in Japan, in 1977 the same thing happens with the World Championship, and the first Asians skaters win some medals among Men, Women and Pairs, mostly Japanese, but also a Chinese Lady and Pairs. However, the medals are not many and the golds are only three.

At the 1964 Olympics I marked the silver of the Pairs differently. Here is the Wikipedia explanation:

Kilius/Bäumler, Wilkes/Revell, and Joseph/Joseph placed second, third, and fourth respectively. In 1966, Kilius/Bäumler’s results were invalidated after it was discovered that they had signed professional contracts before the Olympics. At the time, only amateurs were allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. The silver medals were transferred to Wilkes/Revell and the bronze medals to Joseph/Joseph. The Germans were re-awarded the silvers in 1987, after appealing that other pairs had signed similar contracts but had not been exposed and disqualified. The placements of Wilkes/Revell and Joseph/Joseph remained unclear for many years. In December 2013, the IOC clarified that the Canadian pair had not been stripped of their silver after the Germans regained their medals. In November 2014, the IOC stated that both the German and Canadian pairs are the silver medalists and the Americans are the bronze medalists.

So for that edition there are a gold, two silvers and a bronze.

What happened after? Two explanations are necessary. After the 2002 Olympic scandal, gold in Pairs was awarded to both Russians and Canadians, while silver was not awarded. A month later the world bronze in dance was won by the Israeli Galit Chait/Sergei Sakhnovski. I know where Israel is, but because figure skating consider European the Israeli skaters – they participate at the European Championship and not at the Four Continents Championship – I put their medal among those of the Europeans. This is the table:

The highest number of medals was won by skaters from Europa + Canada, but we are talking of Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine, 11 nations.

Russia and especially the United States, however, have won much less than in the past. Because? Because Asian skaters have arrived, especially in individual disciplines. Japanese – several Ladies first and then several Men – a Korean lady, a Chinese man, a Kazakh for discipline, and several Chinese Pairs, with a solitary medal for a Japanese pair. Only Ice Dancing is missing.

After the graphs I made a summary table. I counted how many medals (how many golds, how many silvers, how many bronzes and how many in total) have been won by the skaters of each geographical area. But, as always, numbers without a context make little sense. In the World Championships held between 1920 and 1939, European skaters won 54 gold medals, between 1962 and 1999 they won 62. Did they dominate skating more in this second period? No, the second period is longer, there have been more competitions, including the Ice Dance competitions, which did not exist before. In the first period the Europeans won 100% of the gold medals up for grabs (also because almost only they competed, but let’s overlook the detail), in the second only 41%, while 27 (18%) were won by the Americans , 60 (30%) from Russians and 3 (2%) from Asians. If the total number allows comparison between different geographic areas in the same period, the percentage allows us to see if over time the skaters of a given geographic area have won more or less than before.

In the number of Olympic medals I have also included the three of the special figures in 1908, I have not included the team medals. They are always Olympic medals, but there are too many nations that have a champion in one discipline, maybe even two, but at the team level they have no hope because in the other disciplines they are not strong enough.

The constant presence of strong Asian skaters in three of the four disciplines allowed to the skaters of the nations with a long tradition to win considerably less. The arrival of skaters from another continent (albeit from a very limited number of nations) changed the balance which, with minimal variations, had lasted for 35 years. Probably someone wasn’t happy. As I have already explained, medals are important, because the largest part of the public watches the competitions when their compatriots are the ones who can win. Public means audience. If the audience is high, the sponsors arrive. Sponsors bring money. It follows that wins = money.

In a difficult situation, one usually works to find a solution. The best thing is to train coaches and facilitate young athletes who will devote themselves to the discipline, and someone is doing it. But sometimes someone looks also for not quite legitimate solutions. In the past it has been done, in 2002 the Russians and the French agreed to give to the first the gold in Pairs, to the second the gold in Ice Dance.

Has it been done other times? In October 2020, I published a series of posts dedicated to competitions – throughout the history of skating – in which something unpleasant happened. Many are old episodes, and it would be nice to be able to say with serenity that they are bad episodes of the past and that nothing like this happens now, but the truth is that we cannot do it. We cannot be sure that there are no agreements even now, and this is because we know with certainty that there have been agreements in recent years as well.

In this list of suspended judges (complete with official documents, I am not inventing anything) there is Natalia Kruglova, who has tried to convince other judges to help her get a certain position for her compatriots. Kruglova has failed, but the fact that she has tried tells us that someone is trying, even if we may not know. A little further down in my post are Sviatoslav Babenko, already suspended because he exchanged signals with Alfred Koritek and later reinstated, and Laimute Krauziene, who chatted happily as they give the marks. They were so shameless as to talk when they are judging (which is expressly forbidden by the rules) and to do so loudly as to be noticed by everyone, but how many judges have agreed in a more discreet way and no one has ever know nothing? This is a beautiful question, for which unfortunately we don’t have an answer.

An example of a competition on which there are strong suspicions? The 2014 Olympics. In three of the five competition the result is at least doubtful. I ignore the Ladies’ competition, which had a very particular panel of judges and in which there were no really strong American skaters, and I focus on the Team Event and the Ice Dance competition. Although the Team Event does not tell us that a skater is really strong, because the result can be linked to the fact that his teammates are strong and not him, in the calculation of the Olympic medal table a gold is a gold, regardless of the discipline in which it was conquered or the way in which it was conquered.

The American W.G. Piety has written several interesting articles. In one of them she refers to a French article unfortunately no longer available on the internet with a worrying suspicion:

The deal was that the American judges would support the Russian skaters in the newly instituted “team competition” in exchange for support from the Russian (and possibly other Eastern European) judges for the American Dance team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White in the individual dance competition. Sadly, that rumor sounds all too plausible.

Who were the favorites of the Team Event? Russia and Canada. Barring sensational surprises, the United States could aim for third place. Who were the favorites in the Ice Dance competition? The Canadians Virtue/Moir and the Americans Davis/White. Barring serious mistakes by the favorites, the Russians Bobrova/Soloviev and Ilynik/Katsalapov were aiming for bronze. Americans and Russians risked being left with a silver and a bronze each, and seeing the Canadians leave with two golds. Was there an agreement? Unless something sensational like a confession or a wiretap we will never know. Suspicion is inevitable, if only because agreements of this kind were certainly made in the past and in this competition the two nations had interests compatible with an agreement.

Were Davis/White strong and they didn’t need help to win that gold that they actually won? Perhaps, but as Piety noted in another article commenting on a discussion that arose in a Yahoo group, perhaps the preparations for Davis/White’s victory started long before the Sochi competition.

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.

This is just a guess, but it is possible that a powerful and well-organized federation, tired from the absence of wins, will prepare the way for the success of its champion years in advance. Athletes train for years knowing that success will come (hopefully) only after a lot of efforts, why shouldn’t a federation do the same? As long as it comes to financial support for athletes and qualified technical assistance, the federation’s job is just that. But we cannot forget that in the past some competitions have been manipulated, that there have been agreements between judges, so we cannot exclude that there have been others for which we do not have evidence, nor can we say that there will not be any in the future.

And that the result of one competition can affect the result of another was clearly stated by Alexander Zhulin a few months ago, at the World Championship in Stockholm. Chen fell on the initial quadruple lutz, and at the end of the short program he occupied the third place. For Zhulin this was troubling:

What does it means

“I hope we don’t have to fear that the Americans will be pulled if they don’t get gold in men’s skating.” ?

Why would the Russians have to worry if Chen didn’t win gold? Was Zhulin afraid that the Americans, dissatisfied with the result, would vote differently than they would have voted otherwise? Is it possible to interpret Zhulin’s words in another way? Perhaps the ISU should ask Zhulin a few questions. With precedents, and statements, as this, the doubt that someone may decide to make some illicit agreement is inevitable. We can only hope that the ISU will monitor the fairness of the competitions, reduce the subjectivity of judgment, improve the technologies available to the judges, make a better formation and suspend all those who vote incorrectly. Even reaching the point of suspending entire federations, in the most serious cases.

The Beijing Olympics are close. What will happen? Competitions are competitions, a bad performance or an injury are an ever-present risk for everyone, but who are the favorites in the various disciplines? I checked on the ISU site the Highest Total Scores obtained in international competitions by skaters in the four disciplines from the 2018/2019 season onward. I ignored the skaters who will not be in Beijing because they retired, because they are too young or because they have suffered such a serious injury that I am sure they will not start competing again in time to be able to go.

I have created a table in which I have entered only their Personal Best Score, to understand how many points they can get if they skate to the best of their ability. Someone actually scored higher in competitions which, according to the ISU, do not count for the Best Score. I ignored those scores. The tables must be taken with caution, everyone can improve at any moment, which is more likely for the youngest because they have few competitions behind them, while someone scored high scores three seasons ago and then dropped, but this gives us an idea of the level that everyone has already reached. The scores decrease going from left to right: in the first column I placed the scores higher than 330.00 points, in the second those higher than 320.00 and so on, in order to easily see if the difference between the skaters is big or small.For each category I stopped at the 20 best skaters, after I highlighted the American skaters in blue and the Russian ones in red. The Men:

Which nations will fight for medals? United States and Japan, he other nations are very far away therefore, unless a disaster of the best skaters, or a truly remarkable growth of some of the others, at most other nations will be able to fight for the bronze. Unless a second American or Japanese skater will win a second (or third) medal for his nation.

In Russia there are so many strong skaters amonf Women that we don’t know who will go to Beijing. Of course they will be the skaters to beat. The only possible rival come from Japan, because the others seem too far away. Of course, in the United States there is also Alysa Liu, who in this list is in a low position because she has skated only in few competitions since she has just moved into the senior category. Considering her age she could grow a lot (but it’s not that her opponents, Tuktamysheva aside, are so much older), but the fight for gold seems to be a challenge between Russia, which could even monopolize the podium, and Japan.

The challenge in Pairs seems to be between China and Russia, unless the favorites make mistakes the Americans seem really distant.

The Ice Dance competition seems the most uncertain, but it is also the one in which the prediction is reversed less often, and if we exclude the 2013-2014 season, in which the very young Papadakis/Cizeron made their debut among the seniors, the only dancers still competing able to surpass them were Sinitsina/Katsalapov. The struggle is between France and Russia, even if the United States is not so far away that they can automatically be excluded from the struggle for gold.

Ultimately, in the Men’s competition the United States is among the favorites and Russia is not, in the Women’s in the Pairs’ competitions Russia is among the favorites and the United States is not, the Ice Dance competition is the most open, but the favorite are France and Russia, the American probably will struggle for the bronze. The Team Event seems to me the most closed competition, Russia is the only nation that have strong skaters in all disciplines, with the United States in second place and three nations (CAN-ITA-JPN) fighting for the bronze.

Both the United States and Russia are fighting for at least one gold medal that could come or not, their rivals are strong. There is no direct rivalry between them, but generally they are not two friendly nations, they are not like, for example, Kazakhstan and Russia, or Georgia and Russia. I only checked the Men’s competitions. The Kazakh judge was more present in the first two seasons, when Denis Ten competed, the Georgian judge is more present now, because Morisi Kvitelashvili has become stronger. If you go and see you can see how quite often, so often that someone could think that it is not a coincidence, the Kazakh or Georgian judge assigns very high marks to Russian skaters, and the Russian judge, reciprocates the courtesy.

There are two Georgian judges, Salome Chigogidze and Yulia Levshunova. Both should be disqualified for national bias, with Levshunova managing to get ridiculously high marks for Belarusian skaters in the time she was a Belarussian judge, and for Georgian skaters when she started judging for Georgia. Often Chigogidze seeme to like Russian skaters a lot. Not always, at the 2020 European Championship, with a fight between Russians and a Georgian, she was on the side of the Georgian, but if there are no conflicts and the Russian is not called Sergei Voronov or Dmitri Aliev, the sympathy is clear. I don’t know if I’ll ever have time for a thorough check, but also a quick glance at 12 of the 38 competitions she judged (WC 21, M – GPF 19, M – GPF 19, D – JGP 19, M – IdF 19, M – GPF 18, L – GPF 18, D – CoR 18, M – SA 18, P – IdF 17, M – IdF 17, P – JGP AUT 17, M) a certain constancy of judgment is evident.

I looked at Levshunova’s marks very little. Certainly she likes her compatriotes, but looking at the scores of the free skate at Skate Canada I noticed a curious detail.

Russian judge Tatiana Sharkina and Georgian judge Yulia Levshunova, who were sitting next to each other, had similar views on skaters. To eight of them have given exactly the same rank, and in four of these cases the rank according to them him is different from the rank of most of the judges. With the only four skaters for whom they had different opinions, the skaters can still be grouped into two pairs in which there has been a reversal of only one place. A singular coincidence, almost perfectly matched by that of the Spanish judge Daniel Delfa and the Canadian judge Karen Howard, even if they found themselves in harmony only on seven skaters, and in the positions between the ninth and the eleventh the re-shuffling is a bit more complex. If I were in the ISU I would ask myself a few questions, also because when Javier Fernandez competed, Delfa was a great supporter of him. But I’m digressing. I hope to be able, sooner or later, to return to look better at the marks of Delfa and Howard, but I don’t know if I will have the time to do so.

Now that Chigogidze is suspended for some (too few) months, all the duties of the Georgian judges have fallen on her. She has also just been promoted to ISU judge, luckily the promotion came after the draw of the nations designated to judge the Olympic Games, otherwise we could have found her there. No thank you, considering the way he give her marks I prefer that she watch the competitions from home.

Russia and Georgia are one thing, but Russia and the United States are two nations so distant from each other that to assume an agreement between them is ridiculous. And no one has the slightest doubt about the correctness of the two Sochi competitions. Right? Right.

So. Now Sochi is the past, few skaters present at those Olympics are still skating, does it really make sense to watch the old friendships? In my opinion, yes, it makes us understand what can happen, but we cannot limit ourselves to a relative distant past. Wondering what is happening now is more important. So what is happening?

When I disappear and don’t post anything for a while, it may be due to work commitments, family issues, or even the fact that I’m collecting data. I have been thinking about these particular data for months, even making some failed attempts to collect and process them, before finding an acceptable solution. I have explained all the steps of what I have done, with also a series of screenshots, here. The text is in Italian, I struggle a lot to write in English, and doing it with certain texts is really a huge commitment. However, below I will provide some explanations.

I checked, for all the senior Men’s competitions from the Challenger Series to the Olympic Games, whether the judges of a particular nation had been strict or generous with all the skaters they judged. I was interested in seeing any friendships between nations, such as the one I mentioned between Russia and Georgia. How do Georgian judges treat Austrian skaters? Are they strict or generous? And with the Australian ones? And with the Canadian ones? And with the Chinese ones? I looked at the judges of all the nations with the skaters of all the nations. As you can imagine, it took a long time.

My analysis is divided into two parts. In the first post, of which I have already inserted the link, I looked at the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 seasons. In the second, this one, I looked at the seasons from 2018-2019 to 2020-2021.

Seeing that in the Men’s competition the favorite for the gold are Japan and United States, I wondered if the Russian judges are strict or generous with the skaters of these countries. Unfortunately, the explanation of the way I worked is long. I hope at least it is clear, because I realize that it requires you to enter a certain way of reasoning. If you are not interested in most of the explanations but only in the conclusions, you can skip the next 7 screenshots. First I publish the data.

In column A I indicated the competitions, in columns B and C I indicated how severe or generous the Russian judges were with all the skaters in the short program and in the free skate. That value is an average for all skaters and in all competitions. What data I used and how I calculated the average are explained in the old post. Since by pure chance the Russian judge’s average difference for the Finland Trophy 2016 is on the same line in which I entered the data of that competition related to Rjuyu Hino, I use him for my example.

In the short program the Russian judge Olga Kozhemiakina awarded to the Russian Maxim Kovtun 2.59 points more than the score he actually obtained, to the American Nathan Chen 1.75 more, to the Canadian Patrick Chan 4.06 less… on average at the Finlad Trophy she was severe, -1.08 points below the average of the other judges. With Hino she was more severe than with most of the other skaters, because with him she was 0.67 points below her own average of -1.08. In columns E-H I indicated how the Russian judges behaved with Japanese skaters, in columns J-M I indicated how they behaved with US skaters.

This is the bottom part of the listings from the previous screenshot:

Below the lists I made the calculations by adding the difference of the Russian judges from the average for each column, then I counted the number of competitions judged by them and calculated the average variation. The Russian judges, at least in the two-year period considered, tend to be generous with most of the skaters, 0.37 points more in the short program, 0.93 points more in the free skate. These are average, we need to look competition by competition and skater by skater, but at least in this way we can try to understand if there is a common trend. And, apparently, Russian judges don’t particularly like Japanese skaters. The judges awarded to them an average of 0.32 points less in the short program, 0.76 points less in the free skate. I didn’t do the total, not here, but it’s 1.08 points less per competition. To the Americans, you will see it in the next screenshot, they assign 1.14 points less in the short program, but 2.20 points more in the free program, for a total of 1.06 points more per competition. I will use this data again later.

Below the yellow line I have extrapolated some data. What I was interested in is how Russian judges judge Yuzuru Hanyu and Nathan Chen. It is important to remember that averages are more reliable if we use a higher number of data, so restricting the stats to a single skater is a risky operation. In addition, each competition is a story in itself. In some competitions we already know who will win (barring injuries) even just by looking at the entry list. On a theoretical level, a judge accustomed to helping a specific skater could decide to vote correctly, so as not to be noticed, in a competition in which the result seems obvious. The data must be taken with caution, but they still seem interesting to me.

From the first list I extrapolated the variations of the Russian judges for all the competitions in which Hanyu (A-C columns) participated, from the second I extrapolated first the data of Hanyu and of all the Japanese skaters who participated in a competition in which also participated Hanyu (E-H columns), and then the Hanyu data only (J-M columns). I did the same thing with the American skaters and Chen. In the screenshot you can see only the beginning of the section I have dedicated to him, but if you are interested in the data you can find them in the three screenshots I have already posted, even if they are mixed with other data that I have set aside.

What do we see? In the competitions where Hanyu competed, the Russian judges were slightly less generous with all the skaters, 0.19 points more in the short program instead of 0.37, 0.25 points more in the free skate instead of 0.93. Their attitude towards the Japanese has not changed, 0.90 points less in the short program and 0.17 less in the free skate as a total gives 1.07 points less against 1.08 less when I had considered all the competitions. A really insignificant difference. As for Hanyu, they treat him better than they treat his countrymen. We are still on a higher severity than that reserved for other skaters, but the total is only 0.59 points less, not 1.07.

In the next screenshot, I only entered the averages for the data I just posted, divided into three groups. The first group is dedicated to the evaluations of all skaters by the Russian judges in all competitions (white background), only for Japanese skaters in all competitions (light red) or only for American skaters (light blue background).

The second group is dedicated to Hanyu’s competitions: first all the skaters (white background), then only the Japanese skaters (light red background), then only Hanyu (red background – more or less, I don’t know how to define this color, especially I don’t know the right English word). I did the same with US skaters and Chen (third group).

With Hanyu the Russian judges are – they were, these data refer to the two-year period 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 – more severe than with most skaters, but these are contained oscillations for which it cannot be said that the judges deliberately helped or damaged someone. With US skaters the situation is more curious. In general, Russians do not treat Americans badly, they give them higher marks than the real score of 1.06 points. But Chen must be rather unfortunate: in the competitions in which he participated, the most severe Russian judges had to be present. In general they were slightly below the average, -0.19 points, a small and therefore not very significant variation. But with the US skaters they were strict, -3.06 starts to be a big variation, and the fact that Chen has an even bigger variation, -3.26, may suggest that the Russian judges didn’t particularly love him.

I repeated the same type of check for the 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons. I start with the data.

Having already explained how I did the calculations I do not repeat myself, I pass directly to the three-color scheme. After this I will post a further screenshot in which I will place the average variation of the two periods alongside.

In general, the Russian judges have become more generous to everyone. I know, it is difficult to confront the numbers of two different images. Below I will post them side by side. In each of the white boxes, no matter which one we look at, the figure is higher than the corresponding white box from the previous period, so the judges are most generous. However, they have gotten a little tougher with Japanese skaters and are passed from being generous to being strict with American skaters. Chen damaged then? So it would seem… until you go and look at the detail, second and third table in the screenshot. In the competitions in which Hanyu was present, the Russian judges were very generous with almost everyone, certainly not with the Japanese, even if they were less strict with him than with his compatriots. I think it’s due to the fact that Hanyu is clearly stronger than any Russian skater, so he’s not an opponent for them. Other Japanese skaters fight for a medal with Russian skaters, and when there is a personal interest involved, often the judges assign the marks in a very specific way. In the competitions where Chen was present, Russian judges were less generous with all the skaters, but if they were harsh with other Americans, they weren’t with Chen.

I put here the last two screenshots, then I’m done with the calculations. The first includes the two tables I have already published, side by side, so that if you feel like it, you can easily compare all the numbers. The second is a summary table that I will explain shortly.

I used colors for the sole purpose of simplifying the controls. In white I left the behavior of the Russian judges with all the skaters, in the two shades of red with the Japanese skaters and with Hanyu, in the two shades of blue with the American skaters and with Chen. This time the reading of the tables is horizontally. In the left block there are the data relating to the first two seasons, in the right block the data relating to the last period. I kept the three tables from before: all competitions, competitions with Hanyu, competitions with Chen.

My explanation is linked to the first table at the top left. My question was: if a judge is generous to all skaters (+1.30 points each on average compared to the final score), how did he behave with individual skaters? The answer is that if he awarded everyone 1.30 points more, but to the Japanese skaters awarded 1.08 points less, with the Japanese skaters he was strict by 2.30 points.

I have bolded the final numbers for Hanyu and Chen. If you have read the previous tables, these numbers will not come as a surprise, but they will certainly give you thought. The Russian judges treat the American skaters with considerable severity, – 3.58 points, but make an exception with Chen, with whom they remain almost perfectly in line with the final mark, only -0.17. The rivalry between the two nations, present before PyeongChang, and accentuated towards all Americans, disappears in Chen’s case, not quite as if they had adopted him but enough to push us to ask ourselves a few questions. With the Japanese skaters, however, the Russian judges have become very bad, they treat the Japanese skaters so badly that one might think it is a personal hatred. 6.06 points less than the average, or 5.45 for Hanyu (he is not treated so differently than his fellow countrymen are treated), is such a big difference that it raises serious doubts about the impartiality of the Russian judges.

And this season the sympathy of the Russian judges towards Chen continues to be present. I have already taken a look at Skate America 2021 talking about the marks of the Japanese judge Ritsuko Horiuchi. From this table that I have already published it is evident that, if Horiuchi was the most generous to Chen, the Russian judge Lolita Labunskaya was the second. And, not surprisingly, Labunskaya was generous with only Chen, she ignored Jimmy Ma, who despite an excellent short program is not an internationally important skater, and very strict with Vincent Zhou.

I explained in the previous post how to read these lists. If you don’t feel like reading that post, I’ll summarize the essentials here. The upper block is dedicated to the short program, the central block to the free skate, the lower one to the sum of the programs. For each judge, I looked at the difference between their marks and each skater’s final mark, and did the rankings of likes and dislikes. Labunskaia particularly appreciated the Russian Artur Danielian, she gave him marks higher than the final ones by 4.90 points, and Chen, 4.79 points higher than the final marks.

I just look at a detail of the short program using SkatingScores once again.

Three judges, the Russian Labunskaya, the Japanese Horiuchi and the French Helene Cucuphat, thought that Chen’s was the third free skate and not the fourth. We have seen how Horiuchi give her marks, even if at the recent Skate Canada she was more correct, sooner or later I hope to find some time to dedicate to the French judges. Maybe interesting details don’t come up, maybe yes. It is something that I discover only at the end of the calculations. The US judge Wendy Enzmann was not particularly generous with Chen this time, partly because were present judges more generous than her, partly because I believe that the United States is now aiming for two medals in Beijing, and Zhou needs a little of attention (and lots of q).

Three judges, the Italian Pinuccia Ferrario, the Russian Labunskaya and the Japanese Horiuchi give to a really imprecise Chen the highest marks in PCS. How it was possibile? I remember that with serious mistakes the highest marks can’t be awarded.

Let’s pretend Chen made only one serious mistake. As I have already stated in the other post, at the level of Interpretation of the Music the mistake made by Chen on the combination is much more serious than the mistake made on the flip by Uno, but when in doubt I go in favor of the athlete. Only one serious mistake, the fall. Maximum possible marks for Chen 9.75 in Skating Skills, Transitions and Composition, 9.50 in Performance and Interpretation of the Music. I recalculated the PCS taking into account the limit first for Labunskaia and then for all the judges, to understand how absurdly high the marks assigned to Chen are.

I have already published these lists too, obtained from SkatingScores a few days ago. Obviously Skate Canada is missing, I made the list before the competition. In Canada Chen received 46.43 points for an error-free program, Jason Brown received 46.61, the third score was those of Keegan Messing, 43.60. Pay no attention to the red lines, I had used them to highlight where the Horiuchi marks were placed. 46.75 is higher than the 46.61 obtained by Hanyu in the short program of the 2014 Olympic Games, and 45.90 is also higher than what Patrick Chan received in some perfect programs.

All judges give Chen too generous marks, but some do it more than others.

Now there has just been Skate Canada. I don’t do a complete analysis, it would take time and this post is already very long. The Russian judge was Tatiana Sharkina. Sharkina treated Chen better than Brown, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise by now. And, as I have already noted, her judgments were very much in line with those of the Georgian judge Levshunova. An even more curious detail, in the short program four of the five components of the components are identical, in the fifth the difference is limited to one digit.

Isn’t that comforting? The Cold War is over, peace reigns in the world and the Russians and their allies love the Americans, at least if they are called Chen. If they are called Zhou or Brown they don’t love them too much, but one small step is better than nothing, right?

And this love is seen in all aspects, in the judges’ marks as well as in the opinions of influential people. As Russian international judge Alexander Vedenin explained,

It is important to create an atmosphere for the judges to accept the possibility of a leadership change.

On the occasion Vedenin was talking about rhythmic gymnastics, not about figure skating, and about the poor Russian gymnasts defeated by international propaganda more than by their opponents. I will not enter into the merits of that competition, which I have not seen and which in any case I would not be able to judge, what interests me is that a judge is aware of the power of propaganda.

He is so aware of this that he himself, to help Sinitsina/Katsalapov, started propaganda against Papadakis/Cizeron, which obviously annoyed Cizeron:

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Beyond the fact that this episode makes even more ridiculous the comments of those poor heterosexual skaters who would be discriminated in a world of homosexuals, and that Guillaume’s preferences are his own business, his private life, which does not affect his abilities as a skater, does it mean that a homosexual actor cannot play the part of a man in love? Because the skaters also play a role, like the actors. It’s needed a king to play a sovereign? To play a crazy criminal, do we have to look for a crazy actor? And in skating can only love stories be interpreted? So what happens to the Shibutans, the Duchesnays and all the other brother and sister couples who give to us memorable interpretations?

Vedenin doesn’t just propaganda in Ice Dance. In that article that I had already quoted in September, I dwelt on the fact that there are maneuvers behind the scenes, the importance of federations in supporting their athletes and a worrying comment on former Canadian federation president David Dore. Vedenin remember Dore when he talks about the 1988 Olympics and the Brian’s battle, the Canadian Brian Orser versus American Brian Boitano.

The International Federation in those years welcomed the expressiveness and plasticity on the ice. The judging panel was made clear that with the ideal skates of both leaders, Brian Orser should win – as a symbol of the development of the artistic direction in figure skating. Nobody said this directly, but remember my words about psychological work!

According to him, the ISU would have wanted an Orser victory. After the short program

suddenly the American judge was on the verge of fainting. I run up to her, and she says: “What I have done, they will disqualify me! I was the only one who put Boitano in first place.” And then the placement of athletes played a greater role than the number of points. The winner was the one whom more judges put on the first place. Boitano skated perfectly. Maybe not as expressive as Orser, but better. I say: “Don’t faint, I also gave him first place. And in general, I’m sure he should win, because he skates better.” To a colleague, this position was fraught with punishment for “national addiction.” After all, she could be the only one who put her compatriot in the first place. As it turned out on the same day, many judges already realized that Boitano looked better, but were afraid to express this in scores because of the anger of the ISU leaders.

So the poor American judge went to seek comfort from the only one who had the courage to be honest, the Russian judge.

In the free program, the skaters, in fact, decided everything for themselves: Boitano skated perfectly clean, and Orser made two obvious mistakes. But only 5 judges put Boitano ahead. The other 4 people did not dare to go against the wishes of the management. I am happy that I acted honestly and professionally.

Orser made only one obvious mistake, a step out on the triple flip, not two. Vedenin probably remembers badly, but saying two is more effective than saying one. So not so long before a competition in which an American and a Japanese trained by Orser will compete one against the other, Vedenin recalls an episode in which, according to him, the only honest ones were he and the American judge, and only by chance the bad Canadians have been defeated. But there isn’t any reason to think that now there is a love really strong among Russia and US, neither this is propaganda, right?

Vedenin aside, there is also Tatiana Tarasova. She isn’t a judge, but how much she is influential? I had to use the automatic translator, but the meaning of what she are saying is clear. The first screenshot is from spring 2019, the second refers to Chen’s not-so-perfect free skate at Skate America 2021. Notice any difference?

The Olympic season has definitely begun. Now I stop, my stomach has started sending strange signals…