Again on figure skating and judges with the ISU Judging System

At the end of the last post I was a little tired, so I’ve posted the links to some interesting articles, but I haven’t written anything. The articles were about the Ladies’ competition at the Olympic Games in Sochi. Now I look a little at them. The first article is Official says judges slanted toward Adelina Sotnikova, written by Christine Brennan. She looked at the judges in the short program and in the free skate.

Five judges has judged both programs, four has judge only one of them. I’ve aligned the names, so it’s easy to see the changes. I’ve highlighted in green Kim’s compatriote, in light blue Sotnikova’s compatriots.

In order to understand better the changes, I took the short program result and I added an information in the form of two columns. I’ve colored in yellow the boxes of the skaters that have a judge of their nation in the short program, in orange the boxes of the skaters that have a judge of their nation in the free skate.

In the short program the European Champion Yulia Lipnitskaya, who has just skated wonderfully in the Team Event, fell on the triple flip (also “<<“), so was only fifth. Another favourite for a medal, Mao Asada, made mistakes in all three jump passes, so was only 16°. After the short program Asada was out of the medal’s competition, but Lipnitskaya can still win a medal. So, what changes were made? No difference for Carolina Kostner of Italy and for the Japanese skaters (with the strongest Japanese too low in the rank to be a threat for the best skaters). But the Korean judge (Yuna Kim was first), and the American judge (Gracie Gold was fourth, Ashley Wagner sixth and Polina Edmuns seventh) didn’t judged the free skate. Two other judges, presumably neutral, exit from the panel of judges, the English and the Swedish.

Koh Sung-Hee and Robert Rosenbluth would have aided their compatriote? Perhaps, we can’t say for sure. Perhaps in the short program the skaters were aided by a compatriote. But those skaters had only one judge that perhaps was biased and aided them, and in the short program, that give half the points given by the free skate. It’s impossible to have a panel in which none judge is judging a compatriote, but only a judge can be a problem not so big.

Who entered with their exit? The Ukrainian Yuri Balkov, and with him we have two problems. The first is that Balkov is an Ukrainian judge, and the judge of the ex Soviet Union too often aid their ex compatriote. The second is that Balkov… is Balkov. I wouldn’t let Balkov judge even an inter-social competition. Do you remember who is Balkov?

Balkov knew the Ice Dance results at the Olympic Games 1998 before the competition was held. How he can knew the result before? He was in the panel that give the gold at the 1999 World Championship in Ice Dance to the Russian Kylova/Ovsyannikov ahead of the French Anissina/Peizerat. The Russian won by 5 first place to 4, so the difference was very little, the Referee was a Russian and a judge mysteriously changed his preference… Balkov was in the panel that give the gold in Ice Dance at the French Anissina/Peizerat at the 2002 Olympic Games. I know, I’ve written French. Indeed Marina Anissina was a Russian who skated for France, but the question is another. It was 2002. The exchange vote, with the French judge that aided the Russian skaters in Pairs, and the Russian judge that aided the French skaters in Ice Dance. I know also that Balkov is Ukrainian, but in figure skating the difference isn’t so big, and the Russian judge was an old friend of Balkov, Alla Shekhovtseva. She was in the panel with him at the already mentioned 1999 World Championship, she was in the same panel with him here. Balkov was also in the panel that give the bronze in Ice Dance at the Israelis (or so, Sergei Sakhnovski is Russian, even if he skated for Israel) Chait/Sakhnovski at the 2002 World Championship.

The way in which Balkov judges the competitions isn’t changed, he has a bias high, even if these competition were held after the 2014 Olympic Games, so at that time none can use this numbers in order to ban Balkov from any panel of judges. Now it can be done, and I hope that Balkov will be banned from every competition.

The second judges added was the Estonian Zanna Kulik. I haven’t found her name in competitions with dubious results, and in the last four years her national bias was low. Probably the Estonian federation has still some links with the Russian federation, but if I don’t find some information I can’t say more about Kulik. But a phrase in an article written by Alexander Abad-Santos, A Whole New Set of Questions About Adelina Sotnikova’s Allegedly Rigged Gold Medal Win, is worrying:

“This is what they can do,” the official told USA Today over the weekend, insinuating that Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, and Slovakia may have been working together to inflate Sotnikova’s scores.

He names explicitly by nationality the Ukrainian judge (Balkov), the Estonian judge (Kulik), the Slovakian judge (Adriana Domanska, who has judged both programs and that after has judged only two competition in which I can check her marks, with a very high bias) and the Russian judge, Alla Shekhovtseva (or Shekhovtsova).

Just before the phrase that I’ve quoted, Abad-Santos has written

it’d be hard for one judge to shift the scores. He or she would almost always see her scores thrown out. But, two judges in on it together could affect that trimmed mean.

I’ve proved that even only one judge can lower a bit the score of a skater, if he really want to do it. In my analysis the result of the competition didn’t change because the difference among Hanyu and the other skaters was really big, but if the difference is little even one judge can change the result. As John Templon and Rosalind Adams has written in Top-Level Figure Skating Judges Consistently Favor Skaters From Their Home Countries. Now Many Of Those Judges Are At The Olympics

At the men’s competition at the Progressive Skate America in October 2016, Russian judge Maira Abasova scored her compatriot Sergei Voronov higher than any judge except for one. Abasova’s score helped boost Voronov into fourth place overall, just 0.20 points ahead of Boyang Jin, a Chinese skater, in the final standings. It’s impossible to know why Abasova gave the scores she did, but replacing her marks with the average of the other judges would have dropped Voronov into fifth — behind Jin.

Templon and Adams have highlighted the final difference of 0.20 points. Sure, even if the Chinese judge tried to aid is compatriote, the Russian judge was only a little more effective. I’ve calculated the hypotetic final scores without the Russian judge and only eight judges in the panel.

Without the Russian judge, Voronov’s score would be 0.57 points lower, and he would ended the competition 0.37 points behind Jin.

Even only one judge can do an important difference, but for Sochi the journalist has named four judges. The most interesting are Balkov and Shekhovtseva.

I was sure of the response before asking, but I’ve asked to a lawyer some questions about conflict of interest. I’ve explained to him that it’s normal for a judge to judge a compatriote. So my question was “when there is a conflict of interest?” If a judge is a relative of a skater, he can’t judge he or she in a competition, we agree. So I’ve started with some specific questions. “What if the judge is the coach of a skater?” Obviously he can’t judge. “And if the judge is the president of the federation for which the skater skate?” No, he can’t. “And if the judge is the wife of the president of the federation?” No, she can’t.

When I stopped my questions and explained to him that the wife of the president of a national federation has judged an Olympic competition in which one of his compatriots was competing for the gold medal, he was upset. Alla Shekhovtseva, one of the judges added in the panel of the free skate, was the wife of Valentin Piseev, former president of the Russian federation and and at that time general director of the federation. What it means? on Wikipedia (that isn’t a serious source, but often has the links to the source) I’ve find this:

FFKR was headed by Valentin Piseev, who also had been a president of Soviet skating federation since 1989.[2] However, he refused to nominate himself at the 2010 presidential election.[3] On June 4, 2010 Aleksandr Gorshkov, formerly a vice president, was elected a new president, with Piseev becoming a general director.[4] Anton Sikharulidze, who also registered as a presidential candidate, withdrew due to the changes in federation’s constitution. Sikharulidze commented that “presidential powers are limited to representative functions” and the whole post turned nominal, so the real leadership belongs to general director, including the ability to sign financial documents and making sole decisions. Sikharulidze added he does not “want to become a president just to carry the general director’s briefcase”.[5]

The only link that work now is the 5: http://www.allsportinfo.ru/archive.php?id=40996&s_s=&s_d=4&s_m=6&s_y=2010&b=0&l=40.

And, for Piseev,
https://web.archive.org/web/20101122213514/http://fsrussia.ru/news/56_v_sochi_s_novimi_silami/.

Both of them, the powerful husband and the wife that judged at Sochi, have an interesting past. Shekhovtseva has judged the 1998 Ice Dance competition at the Olympic Games, a competition that I’ve already mentioned writing of Yuri Balkov. Balkov and Shekhovtseva work very well together, they are often together in panel of judges contested, and always their votes are in favour of the winner, usually winner for 5 judges to 4. Another example? The Ice Dance competition at the 1999 World Championship. They both were in the panel of Ice Dance at the 2002 Olympic Games. True, the scandal was in the Pairs competition, but it didn’t include the Ice Dance competition only because there wasn’t any investigation on this competition. And in 2002 the president of the Russian federation, the man for whom Didier Gailhaguet lobbied Marie-Reine Le Gougne to falsify the Pair competition, was Valentin Piseev.

The first time I’ve found Piseev’s name is in the 1973 World Championship. Steve Milton in Figure Skating’s Greatest Stars, has written

Sergei Chetverukhin’s silver medal in the 1973 Worlds was long thought to be a trade-off with the East Germans in exchange for Soviet support of East Germans Manuela Gross and Uwe Kagelmann for the pairs bronze (pag. 65).

The two final standings and the judges:

In 1974 Piseev was suspended. Sonia Bianchetti Garbato has published a long list of judges suspended in the ’70s. She remembered that his suspension lasted little, only until he was elected, by one vote, as member of the Technical Committee for Figure Skating. At that point, his suspension was forcibly turned into a cautionary letter.

Oh. Interesting. So for entering in the Technical Committee isn’t required to be honest. You can be suspended and also be chosen, preferred to someone other. Probably I’m too suspicious, but to me don’t seem that honesty is the most important thing for a federation that do choices as this. And, always to me, it seem that the will of some federations, in this case of the Russian, is more important that fairness. However of one thing I’m sure: Piseev know what he want, and he is ready to fight for his interests. For example, when the Russian Sviatoslav Babenko and the Ukrainian Alfred Koritek (same nationality than Shekhovtseva and Balkov, what a coincidence!) were suspended because they were caught agreeing on the marks in the Pairs competition at the 1999 World Championship, Piseev was able to reduce their suspension.

I’ve mentioned Piseev in some other posts, but it would be a detour too long, so I come back to Shekhovtseva, a judge that knew well Sotnikova. She has judged her at the 2013 Cup of China. At that time we knew the marks given by the judges, but we didn’t knew which judge has given a specific mark. The official explanation is that if the federations don’t know the marks given by the judges, the federations can’t lobby the judges to give specific marks. For me this explanation don’t solve the problem, but highlight it. The ISU know that the federations lobby the judges. But the solution, instead of a suspension of the federations that violate the rules, is the impossibility to check the marks given by judges. Great job!

Considering that now the results of the competitions until 2015-2016 seasons are past, and that there can’t be anymore a pressure on the judges for manipulate those competitions, it could be interesting if the ISU would publish all the information now. It could prove that the ISU has nothing to conceal, that all the competitions of the past were fair. But I’m dreaming. You know, I’m a dreamer.

I’m also very curious. For example, I’ve seen this protocol. Remember that it was mandatory for the short program to do an Axel double or triple.

The Spanish judge, Daniel Delfa, has judged only the free skate, not the short program, so this wasn’t national bias (but we can’t esclude an agreement). The eighth mark didn’t influenced the final scores because rightly all the other marks were a -3. So I would like to ask to that judge why he has given a +1 on a really big mistake. It’s a pity that none can do this question because none (beside very few people on the ISU) can know who has given that +1.

We can’t know which judge has given a mark, but we can check some other things. For example, we can check the competitions judged by every judge.

In the 2013-2014 season Adelina Sotnikova has participated in six international competitions. I’ve written down the names of all the judges who have judged her programs.

Most of the judges, 43 on 50, has judges her only in one competition. Four has judged her in two competitions (Gale Tanger was the Referee the first time, a judge the second). Two has judged her in three competitions, with Robert Rosembluth that was the Referee in the second competition, and judged only the short program in the third. Only the Russian Alla Shekhovtseva was present in all the competitions. What a coincidence! It seems almost that Shekhovtseva has followed her career.

I’ve watched which Russian judge has judged at least a competition in the Grand Prix series, at the European Championship and in the Olympic Games, the most important competitions of the season. I haven’t watched the World Championship because the culmination of every Olympic season is at the Olympic Games, too often the skaters who go on the podio at the Olympic Games don’t participate to the World Championship. Maira Abasova, Julia Andreeva, Elena Fomina, Alexander Kogan, Lolita Labunskaya, Olga Kozhemyakhina, Igor Obraztsov and Alla Shekhovtseva in that season were the eight most inportant Russian judges.

Seven of this judges has judged at least two competitions, so I’ve watched at which competitions they were present in the whole season. In these lists I’ve highlighted in red the competitions in which has participated Sotnikova.

This proves nothing, I know, but it’s at least curious that the only Russian judge who has judged Sotnikova in the season was Shekhovtseva, it almost seems af she followed her career, caring for what she did. She was present in Sotnikova’s Grand Prix competitions, in the final and in the European Championship. She was the most important Russian Judge so it was normal that she was there? Perhaps, but it’s interesting that she has always judged the Ladies’ competition, and only two times the Men’s competition and one the Pairs’ competition. Never, at least in the most important competitions, she has judged the Ice Dance, even if she is also an Ice Dance judge. Even more interesting was that she has judged only one international competition outside the Grand Prix series (senior and junior), the European Championship and the Olympic Games. Which competition? The one in which there was Sotnikova.

The fourth judge added for the free skate was the French Hélène Cucuphat. For her I can’t say anything, beside the fact that she was the sole judge (beside Shekhovtseva, that really stand apart, and Rosenbluth, that one time was the Referee and not the judge, so he can hold different roles, therefore is more likely to evaluate the performance of a single skater) who has judged Sotnikova three times. And for me it’s curious that Cucuphat was one of the judges that was added. Also, to my mind came a phrase written by Ray Fishman:

countries could be separated into “voting blocs” whose judges favored one another’s skaters: Russians scratched French backs, and the favor was returned, benefitting both countries’ skaters at the expense of the competition.

The article is Is Figure Skating Fixed?. I really would like to see the protocol with the names of the judges clearly linked to their marks.

If four judges were changed, the referee and the Technical panel were the same. It’s normal, I don’t remember any change in a Technical panel from short program to free skate. So I watch who is in the Technical panel.

The Technical controller was the Russian Alexander Lakernik. I say it in another way. Sotnikova had a compatriote in the technical panel for the whole competition, but surely it’s by chance. He can’t influence the judges, true? For reference, look at what happened at the Ice Dance competition in the 1999 World Championship. And this isn’t the sole way in which a referee is important, otherwise the competition didn’t need a referee.

But who is Lakernik? The first time that I’ve read his name is for the Pair’s competition at Salt Lake City, the competition of the scandal. Lakernik was assistant referee, so he was one of the people that should control that the competition was fair. Shortly after the competition he was elected as president of the Technical committee. So I must suppose that to be the assistant referee for the most scandalous competition is a good presentation.

His first proposal? An admonition to Ron Pfenning. True, Pfenning was the referee at the 2002 competition, the responsability of the correct behavior of all the judges was his, but after the scandal Pfenning was for throwing out all of Le Gougne’s marks and for a severe punishment of Le Gougne and Gailhaguet. Lakernik prefer to punish Pfenning, whose fault (as, I hope, his) was do don’t notice the wrong judging, than Le Gougne, who confessed to having cheated, and Gailhaguet, who lobbied her. If you’re interested in the political consequences of the Salt lake City’s scandal, I’ve written about it (in Italian) here. And at the time of Sochi’s competition Lakernik was the vice president of the Russian federation.

In 2003, I’ve just discovered, Ron Pfenning was personally fired by Ottavio Cinquanta, the father of the ISU judging system and the secrecy, and the man who promised that there will be no more scandals. Not that the competitions will be judged fairly or that the corrupted judges will be fired, but that there will be no more scandals. For him the appearance was the most important thing. In 2003 Barry Wilner as written ISU Removes Referee From Women’s Event. He confirm a thing that I already knew, the role of

Ron Pfenning, an American whose candor during the controversial Olympics pairs competition helped lead to the suspension of French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne

and explain that

Pfenning formally protested how the ISU conducted judging at its events this season. Pfenning believes the ISU Council abused the judging process by eliminating post-event discussion of marks.

In December, the ISU unilaterally issued a communique prohibiting the release of individual judges’ marks at the post-event meeting. Pfenning believes the role of the referee has been compromised.

In brief, Pfenning was against the secrecy of the judges and was convinced that every judge must explain his marks, and Cinquanta has removed him as referee at the 2003 World Championship, even whithout give to Pfenning a copy of the new ISU’s rule that, according to Cinquanta, Pfenning had violated. The more I read about Cinquanta, the more I understand why ISU is as it is.

This is a mail written by Pfenning before he was fired in which we can see that he was worried. What happened after, is history.

Returning to Sochi, the Technical specialist was the French Vanessa Gusmeroli, and about the friendship among Russian and French I’ve already written.  But, besides friendship, I’m sure that Gusmeroli needs a new pair of glasses. A day I need to find the time to watch all the competitions judged by her, for now I write only about the competition that made me suspect that he has serious vision problems, the 2019 Internationaux de France.

There she was the Technical specialist. The Technical controller was the American Wendy Enzmann, the Assistant technical specialist the Slovakian Monika Kustarova. All of them must have some little problem to the eyes. For them this wasn’t a fall.

I’ve written about this jump here.

For them this is a fully rotated triple Axel. Shoma Uno land forward, and in the protocol, even if he deserved a “<<” there wasn’t even a “<“.

For them Kevin Aymoz’s triple flip take off was done on the inside edge.

Beside Lakernik and Gusmeroli there was the Assistant technical specialist. Olga Baranova is registered for Finland, technically she is Finnish, in fact she is Russian. In the first article that I’ve linked, Cristine Brennan has written

Another member of the technical panel, Finland’s Olga Baranova, was seen hugging members of Russia’s skating delegation beside the ice immediately after the skaters’ flower ceremony.

And for this technical panel the triple Lutz jumped by Sotnikova was on the outside edge. In the table in which I’ve listed the judges that has judged Sotnikova in the 2013-2014 season, I’ve listed also all her triple Lutz. In six of seven she has received the call “e”. Only one time, in a jump that was underrotated and that was concluded with a step out, her edge was judged correct. The call was so frequent that from the Grand Prix Final Sotnikova put the jump out of her short program. Also the lack of rotation in the second jump of the combination was frequent, there was two “<” and on “<<” among the calls. This is the combination with which Sotnikova opened her free skate.

The first line is the take off of the Lutz. She made the preparation on the outside edge, but at the take off she is on the inside edge.

The second line is the landing of the Lutz and the take off of the toe loop. Her prerotation was way above 180°, her jump should been downgraded.

The third line is the landing of the toe loop. On the first screenshot she is already on the ice. The jump should be called “<<“.

A really interesting article, A Whole New Set of Questions About Adelina Sotnikova’s Allegedly Rigged Gold Medal Win, was written by Alexander Abad-Santos. At first he look to the judges, and after he watch the protocol. There are some surprising number.

The Korean federation protested, the protest was rejected.

I would like to remember all the controversy that there was during the years but I can’t do it. I can’t because surely I don’t know anything about most of them. Remember, I’m only a fan, not an ISU judge, or a coach, or an athlete, or a journalist. A fan, and even if I watch figure skating from 1989, it’s less than a year that I’ve started digging in search of the truth for the sake of a sport that I love and of all the skaters that dedicate their life to this sport and deserves to be treated fairly. So sometimes I skip important episodes because I don’t know them, or I go forward and backward in the time, because I’ve just found something on a year that I’ve already surpassed. Or I change subject in a abrupt way, as now.

Sometimes I don’t like what Philip Hersh write because to me it seems propaganda, but if he saw an incorrect judge, he write about it. And he has written a lot about about Alexandre Gorojdanov. Go to read his article Suspended once, international figure skate judge under investigation again, it’s really interesting, starting to the video that open the article. The judge to his right, as Hersh explain, was Maira Abasova. It’s interesting to see that now, behind the judges, there is a dark panel, so it’s impossible to do any video as the video published by Hersh. I can only suppose that judges’ privacy is more important than judges’ honesty.

The competition is the 2016 Golden Spin. When Hersh is writing, several things needed to be cleared. But now I’ve find the official documents published by the ISU, I’ve put the most important things here.

Two people familiar with the scoring screens and the way they are used said the video indicated Gorojdanov changed his marks after looking at another judge’s screen and then changed what he previously had entered by hand on the paper scoring sheet he retrieved from the basket.  Another judge who watched the video at Globetrotting’s request said he found “most disturbing” the retrieval of the paper from the basket and the shots of Gorojdanov talking to another judge.

Similar amateur video showing judge Walter Toigo of Italy looking at other judges’ screens at a 2010 Junior Grand Prix event was accepted by the ISU as evidence that helped lead to Toigo’s two-year suspension in 2011.

Most of Hersh’s links don’t work anymore, the ISU is very good on concealing old documents. Then days later, Hersh has written Skate judge under investigation resigns; status of inquiry uncertain. Was Spanish Olympic dance selection affected?
In it he explaines why a Belarusian judge and a Russian judge can be interested in the results of a Spanish Ice dance couple (a couple I like, I write even when who has an advantage is someone that I like). He also explain why their marks are strange.

Just now the Russian skater Maria Sotskova was suspended for ten years for doping. That she was already retired isn’t important. Ten years is a long period, for an active skater this almost surely means the end of the career. It’s an important signal, doping is a serious violation and can’t be permitted. Why a skater can be suspended for ten years and a judge not? A judge can be much more effective in distorting competitions results than a single skater.

After the 2014 Olympic scandal, the judges’ behavior isn’t improved. In the post in which I’ve written about Gorojdanov I’ve signaled several judges that were suspended. The honest remained honest, the incompetents… I hope that someone improved his knowledge of the rules… and the dishonests remained dishonests. Just before PyeongChang the situaton was worrying, as several journalists has written. Of them I will write soon. Writing in 2018, February, is to late to change the judges. Writing now, I hope that the IOC will ban the most biased judges from Bejing.