Junior Grand Prix Final Judging Scandal Under Investigation???

[carolinesasha]

From Goldenskate...

http://forum.hdldemo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18399


Tthere seems to be some controversy over the ice dance competition at the Junior Grand Prix Final which has just concluded...
http://forums.isu.org/viewtopic.php?t=1016&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

edge17:


Heard a rumour that the dance judges are now under review for the judging at the grand prix finals, its about time that they try to clean this up, and hopefully they could retire some of the oldies that still think its within their powers to control the outcome and leave it to the more honest younger judges that have had enough of the corruption. Get rid of all those judges over 50 in my opinion, get some fresh, smarter new blood!

edge17:

I've just chatted with my contact at the ISU and here is his take on what happened this week in the dance portion of the JGP final.

The fix was in from the start, block judging from the eastern block countries and the results were suppose to finish like this. M/T were to win followed by G/B, S/B, C/Z, C/P , P/C, and the other 2, regarless of the skating, and there were enough influence on the judging panel to do so. The funny story was the C/Z's coach, having a Russian background wanted to make sure C/Z finished ahead of C/P, and if not for the mistakes, they would have. The coach of C/Z was so upset that the deal was broken when S/B pulled ahead, she threw a fit and started thorwing things.

The ISU is now investigating the whole incident of block judging and who knew what, but all involved including the Russian coach should be ashamed of themselves including C/Z's coach. If the fix is already in, why not give the medals before and save on all travelling costs for the federations !!

chuckiem:

I just did an analysis of the protocols, particularly the GOEs and the PCS scores.
It's amazing what I found. The judges (with the exception of USA, CAN and JPN) all seemed to know exactly how to place the teams via PCS scores to make them come out in the desired order.

The GOEs were almost completely lockstep for 3 of the judges. Those 3 consistently gave the two Russian teams HUGE GOE, and held back the GOE for the teams most closely ranked to them. This was especially true for Gorshkova/Butikov in the FD, because they had the lowest TES of the top 5 teams and would have been even lower if they didn't get some help with high GOE.

The Canadian team got clobbered the worst because they were the team most likely to challenge G/B for bronze. But the Canadian judge tried to even the playing field by using the PCS scores to place C/P first in both OD and FD


Mathman:
What a farcical "sport."

Let's check out the total GOEs given to Samuelson and Bates in the Free Dance.

U.S. judge: 15.0

Russia/Ukraine/Georgia average: 6.3

Rest of the panel average: 10.6

Why skate? Why not just look at the nationalities of the judges and give out the medals?

BTW, the U.S. judge did not understand the game. In judging Monko and Tkachenko, the U.S. judge gave a total of 10 GOE points, compared to a panel average of 10.2. No, no, that's all wrong. You must inflate your own skaters' scores AND lowball the opposition.

[rosepetal]

It's not really any shocking news that there could be fixes. It's the same in almost every aspect of the media, not just sport: Were the votes rigged? Do public votes mean nothing and are all a scam to steal your money? Do judges save their favourites? We'll never know.
In my opinion, (this would be very controversial, though) there should be a random person selected from the audience (or off the street, for that matter) to watch videos of every person who skated and then they decide who should win bronze, silver and gold. I mean, random people can be the best judges - at least they tell the truth as it doesn't affect them. It's more obvious to them who skated better and there's no bias. I'm fed-up with favouritism affecting sports - it's quite hypocritical really that the judges preach sportsmanship and favouritism is the exact opposite of that.
The last thing I want is an argument on this thread so let's post non-offensively, everyone.

[attyfan]

Apparently (according to a poster on FSU who I believe is fairly knowledgeable), the risk of this kind of manipulation is greater in a junior competition than in a senior competition:

http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54971

To the extent that manipulation is possible under CoP, though, skating will be in bigger trouble than it is now -- no one will give it any credibility.

I'm not sure that having random people pick the winners will help any -- they are as likely to have the same kind of "nationalistic" biases the judges have.

[loveskating]

Quoting: "What a farcical "sport."
Let's check out the total GOEs given to Samuelson and Bates in the Free Dance.

U.S. judge: 15.0
Russia/Ukraine/Georgia average: 6.3
Rest of the panel average: 10.6"

Well, I'd have to see the skates, but in the past, these cries of foul regarding ice dance have mostly been wrong, IMHO.

Why is it always the "eastern bloc" judges who are corrupt? Please. Year after year they are corrupt, and only in ice dance; when they give gold to US skaters they are NEVER corrupt, the very same judges!

I could care less, but it really insults one's intelligence.

In any case, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia are hardly a bloc...Ukraine and Georgia are independent, and Georgia has hostile relations with Russia and is not even in the CIS.

So please, there is not likely any conspiracy there, if anything, there is mutual hostility.

[sonador16]

Why is it always the "eastern bloc" judges who are corrupt? Please. Year after year they are corrupt, and only in ice dance; when they give gold to US skaters they are NEVER corrupt, the very same judges!

I could care less, but it really insults one's intelligence.

In any case, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia are hardly a bloc...Ukraine and Georgia are independent, and Georgia has hostile relations with Russia and is not even in the CIS.

So please, there is not likely any conspiracy there, if anything, there is mutual hostility.

I agree that it is stupid and prejudicial to say that all "Eastern bloc" judges are corrupt, but the fact is, in all the past judging scandals (and by past, I mean the last 20 years or so), it has been an Eastern bloc judge who was involved. For example, one year at world, Shen/Zhao were cheated out of a gold by the Russian and Ukrainian judges, who colluded with each other. (A TV camera caught footage of the Russian judge signalling the UKR judge to place S/Z second). The infamous Skategate event was between the Russian judge/fed and the French fed. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the entire Soviet judging corps got suspended for a year for obvious national bias.

So, yeah.

And just as a general thing, things like how Oksana or Viktor Petrenko won Olys split a 5-4 vote under 6.0. The votes were split exactly along East-West lines. BUT that wasn't because they were cheating, it's a matter of taste. Generally, Russia and Ukraine will stick together, and the US and Canada, but not because of the country, just because the Europeans, esp. former Soviets, stress the artistry/edging/balletic movement, and the rest of the world stresses power and jumps.