The ISU Congress - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[Dragonlady]

The decisions coming out of the ISU Congress have been a mixed bag. The ISU certainly lucked out in that this is the most jam-packed sports week in memory - the Belmont Stakes with the Triple Crown on the line, the World Cup, the Lennox/Tyson fight, the Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals, the French Open Finals, auto racing with Formula 1, CART, and Winston Cup all running races this week. Sports fans' are living on caffeine and will need treatment for carpel tunnel syndrome by the end of the weekend.

In all of this, the ISU almost managed to fly below the media radar and may have caught a bit of a break with the media's attention focused elsewhere, but the Washington Post and the Globe and Mail are still following events and reporting on the outcomes.

Here's my comments on what has occurred:

The Good:

1. Assignments for judges to international competitions has been taken out of the hands of the federations and taken over by the ISU. Federations can no longer "punish" judges who don't hold up their nations interests in their judging decisions, or make plum assignments on the basis of who is most likely to do as they're told. The ISU will decide which judges retain their "international status" and who should be demoted.

2. Changes to the judging proposed by Canada were approved. This will see 14 judges with random selection of 9 judges. Marks will be shown randomly, meaning that we will not know which judge gave which marks, purportedly to prevent federations from knowing which judges followed orders and which didn't.

(I'm listing this as a "good" thing with reservations. SOMEBODY has to know who assigned which marks to whom, otherwise how can the ISU critique judges performances and know who's doing a good job. I have difficulty in believing that the federations won't have some way of finding out who did what to whom.)

3. David Dore was elected as 2nd Vice-President of the ISU. Watching Speedy and an autocrat like Dore working "together" at the top of the ISU ought to be interesting to say the least. Love him or hate him, David Dore has developed the Canadian program into a powerhouse which (women's program aside) consistently produces top international competitors. Skate Canada became the most fiscally sound and well-run sports organization in Canada under his stewardship.

The Bad:
1. Speedy's proposal for judging reform was referred for further study. This dog's breakfast of an idea ought to have been scrapped altogether and would have been if the figure skating federations had voted on it. Speedy did an end-around this obvious outcome by having the whole council - speed skating federations included, vote on the proposal. Nice play OC.

2. Sally Stapleford was bounced as head of the Figure Skating Technical Committee has resigned from the ISU. Once again, the honest whistleblower is punished. First Jean Senft, now Sally Stapleford. If this continues, no one will come forward with information on cheating.

3. There will only be one CD in ice-dancing. It will break my heart if ice-dancing drops the CD's.

4. The meetings were chaotic and there seemed to be no procedural rules or order to the event. The whole thing procedually came off like it was being run by the Keystone Cops, i.e. Speedy's end-around to prevent his judging plan from being defeated. This is no way for a major sports federation to run itself. Time for some procedural by-laws.

The Ugly
1. Both technical committees are now headed by Russians. In the past Goshov, as Ice-dance Technical Committee Chairman (IDTCC), has apppointed himself as head referee to top competitions. When there have been protests of the judging at competitions he has referreed, he has donned his IDTCC hat and denied the protests.

The other aspect of this is that one can assume that the the TCC's will be the ones evaluating the judges for future assignments and making those assignments. Given the penchant for the Russian federation to collude in block judging, only they will know which judges are giving votes to the "right skaters". This is scary indeed. This effectively negates the "good" value in adopting the Canadian proposal.

3. The US proposal to ban cheaters for "ethics violations" was withdrawn. Apparently the US didn't even bother to draw up a list of what ethics violations would result in a lifetime ban. This was sloppy on their part but the fact that they totally caved on the concept is ugly. The appearance to the media is that the ISU isn't interested in getting rid of cheaters.

4. Last but not least, Speedy was unanimously re-elected. No one even ran against him. Do I even need to explain this one?

[Ice_On_Winnipeg]

Oh brother...I can't believe Sally was let go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :roll: You are right Lee...nobody will come forward now. There is a lot of info here to digest and I wonder too how this will all work out for the coming season.

[purplecat]

[quote:f43ff1c5eb="Dragonlady"]2. Changes to the judging proposed by Canada were approved. This will see 14 judges with random selection of 9 judges. Marks will be shown randomly, meaning that we will not know which judge gave which marks, purportedly to prevent federations from knowing which judges followed orders and which didn't.[/quote:f43ff1c5eb]

Will this proposal be enacted immediately? In other words, will we be seeing this done next season?

[essence_of_soy]

Sounds like the ISU has just given themselves one last shot in the foot. They really don't get it, do they. The media thinks that they're a joke; the public at large as well. Since most of their income is garnered through TV rights, they should have taken the judging debacle a bit more seriously.


*getting back in my box now*

Nick

[Dragonlady]

Yes, the Canadian proposal is adopted effective immediately. It involves fewer changes to the judging system and computer operations than either the US or Aussie proposals and therefore was relatively simple to implement immediately.

[donnamarie]

DL thanks for the analysis of what transpired. Very interesting. I agree with most of your assessments. Very discouraging about Stapleford.

[sk8ingfans]

Dragonlady,
where can I find the complete idea about the judging system from the ISU, for example how reachable points are calculated ?

[Aaron W]

I wouldn't label the acceptance of the Canadian scoring proposal to be "good" at all. All fourteen scores will be shown and if a large portion of the panel gives their top ordinals to one skater, yet the skater with less top ordinals wins just because of the computer's decision to go with a certain 9 judges - there is going to be a huge controversy.

This is just an example, but if Michelle were to receive 9 first place ordinals and Irina only 5, yet Irina wins - there is going to be a major uproar. How can you justify someone winning when a majority of the panel's marks/ordinals clearly stated that Michelle was the best? A 9/5 split is pretty clear, but it's certainly possible that the person with less votes from the panel will end up winning anyway, just because of luck with the computer.

Yeah it's always lucky for certain skaters to get certain judges on a panel, so in all actuallity, it's still basically a lotto system. However, with just 9 judges, they all count. With 14 judges, we're discrediting 5 judges who may actually be judging the competition more honestly than the 9 judges picked by the computer system.

And as you said, this system makes it next to impossible to check on judges and make sure they're judging correctly.

This system will come under fire sometime within the next 2 years because of a crazy result like I mentioned above and as a result, Cinquanta will have the opportunity to try to institute his horrid new scoring proposal. :(

[Dragonlady]

As said by sk8ingfans:

"Dragonlady, where can I find the complete idea about the judging system from the ISU, for example how reachable points are calculated ?"

This hasn't been decided and is just one of the items in the proposal that has to be fleshed out iin the committee discussions. The committee has to assign point values to the various elements and the variables relating to them. For example, we all know that a jump can be technically "clean" but not necessarily textbook "pretty". I pitch forward on the landing and held but "tight" would not merit a deduction as "incomplete", but it should score lower than a jump with a secure landing a good run-out.

The devil is in the details and there are a lot of details to devil the committee.[/b]

[sk8ingfans]

Which persons wanted to be elected by the congress and didn´t get the votes ?

[loveskating]

Clarifications: I thought I read that

1. The ethics proposal of the USFSA was tabled, and a list of ethics is to be drawn up for submittal at a later date...this seems right, since any "code" of ethics which relies solely on the willfulness of the USFSA or ANY federation is going to be totally unfair. Even new laws are not retroactive in the USA...I find it really obnoxious in the extreme that the USFSA did not prepare a code of ethics to submit...this is another example of really arrogant, in-groupy behavior to me...you have all this power, and money and networks and think you can bestride the world like some kind of God, sending lightening bolts after individuals who "dare" to oppose you in any way...read about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire if you think this stuff works. [b:598e4c51a9]To me, it shows the strength of the ISU that they merely tabled the proposal...and assigned the drawing up of a code of ethics...and one would hope, with a list of appropriate "punishments" as well. [/b:598e4c51a9]

2. I thought I read that the new marking system (as opposed to the way of choosing judges) was to be TESTED side by side with the current marking system for 2-4years? That seems very reasonable to me...to determine if it is more accurate. If it is, that would be great, if not, it will be scrapped.

Comment: I don't think there is anything in the world that can stop the U.S. networks from playing anything any way they like...this is up to our elite to stop...please, someone, stop it. What the British elite told you at Nagano via the London Times article on Tracy Wilson's "expose" was true...it is playing out before our very eyes, and it will destroy figure skating if you don't stop it.

[Xiaoxue]

[quote:59b384b585="Dragonlady"] ...Here's my comments on what has occurred:

The Good:

...2. Changes to the judging proposed by Canada were approved. This will see 14 judges with random selection of 9 judges. Marks will be shown randomly, meaning that we will not know which judge gave which marks, purportedly to prevent federations from knowing which judges followed orders and which didn't.

(I'm listing this as a "good" thing with reservations. SOMEBODY has to know who assigned which marks to whom, otherwise how can the ISU critique judges performances and know who's doing a good job. I have difficulty in believing that the federations won't have some way of finding out who did what to whom.)...[/quote:59b384b585]

I remember reading that the identity of the judges would not be exposed until the end of the season, and only within the ISU ?technical committee? They will then try to identify any judging anomalies that have occurred over the season.

That sounds problematic, because the judging could be poorly done at several competitions before anyone will recognize them, and even later before they will be resolved, if at all.

If this does work as according to plan, a judge who inflates or deflates the marks to attempt to manipulate the outcome will get in trouble, maybe 5 months after the fact!

But how will they detect these marking anomalies? Will the marks be gauged against the panel? It is doubtful that this will solve the problem of protocol judging.

[hydro]

[quote:999e8bf740]The ISU will decide which judges retain their "international status" and who should be demoted.

[/quote:999e8bf740]

i just don't see how this could possibly be a good idea. now there will be more backroom management, and less public scrutiny. why have the judges be so secretive?

and the fact that the ISU now controls who gets to have international assignments will make judging panels even more suspicious. i see the Eastern Bloc finding their ways into the minds of even western judges, when the ISU is controlling who gets to keep international status. now, it could be if a judge doesn't vote a certain way, they could face censure not from their federation, but from the ISU itself, which by large, is corrupt from the ground level up. at least some federations held to ethical standarads (from time to time, i doubt any of them are really all that innocent).

these changes seem to only make the problems hidden from face value, but the problems still exist.

[habanero]

[quote:c985f77d04="Dragonlady"]

2. Changes to the judging proposed by Canada were approved. This will see 14 judges with random selection of 9 judges. Marks will be shown randomly, meaning that we will not know which judge gave which marks, purportedly to prevent federations from knowing which judges followed orders and which didn't.

(I'm listing this as a "good" thing with reservations. SOMEBODY has to know who assigned which marks to whom, otherwise how can the ISU critique judges performances and know who's doing a good job. I have difficulty in believing that the federations won't have some way of finding out who did what to whom.)
[/quote:c985f77d04]

Not in the good category at all. The Canadian proposal is a lottery, not a result system. The outcome has nothing to do with majority winner. It has to do with random chance -- like in Las Vegas slots.

For example, here is a case where the winner is determined by a computerized coin toss:

Skater a: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Skater b: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

The panel declares a tie. The result system declares either skater A or skater B the winner with 50/50 odds -- the same as a coin toss.

One will become (say) the Olympic Champion, the other becomes a footnote and does the smurf shows.

Where is the goodness in this?

It's the Canadian Lottery System.

Were I a skater and had a chance to win, I'd get together with the other top skaters and REFUSE to compete under this system. It's fundamentally flawed.

[lilwish]

As much as I love skating and want to watch it, I would love to see all of the skaters from every country boycott all ISU events until something fair and reasonable is instituted. Speedys plan only allows for MORE problems, not less. I wish the international pro skaters along with past reps and judges and heads of different countries' past international institutions form a new FIGURE SKATING organization that represents a fair system for all skaters. If Speedy has this much power among the speed skaters and will be in charge for 4 more years then I see things only getting worse.

The idea that the USFSA will only approve or find a way to make a new judging program more fair for North American skaters is so cynical. I find it hard to imagine. US judges have not been involved in scandal to my knowledge.

I am very sad and worried that this is the beginning of a very long in coming end to any fairness at all. If I were skaters with a reputation and long standing placements in the current/maybe soon to be over system and I was contemplating leaving the sport before these new rules were being considered (Yags - Irina - Michelle - Plushy and more I can not think of at this point) and had made money and a name for myself, I would seriously consider going pro and not dealing with this new and even more seemingly corrupt system. I worry for the up and coming skaters that presentation will become a way of the past.

[Scott]

Aaron and Habanero you are sooo right. To have a system of selecting winners that is really a lottery is insulting and even takes responsibility away from the judges. I am sorry but this whole idea "sucks pond water."
What the ISU should be addressing is how to deal with the real problem of judges who violate the rules and trade votes. Changing the marking system is not going to stop that, only discipline will. Get rid of corrupt judges! permanently!

[Lee]

IF people take the time to thoroughly read the Canadian proposal, you will find that it's a compromise between what existed and what Cinquanta wanted.

If you'll recall, Speedy wanted 14 judges and only [i:eb1d52b13d]7[/i:eb1d52b13d] of those scores included -- he also wanted the points system in place ASAP.

The Canadian proposal extends the pool of judges whose results will count to 9 of 14. All 14 marks are to be posted; the nine whose marks count for that phase of the event will be randomly chosen by the computer at the start of the event. The rationale behind this is to give judges the freedom to mark as they see fit -- those who would try to put undue pressure to mark a certain way will not know (possibly ever) if their pressure worked or not. The 14 marks are to be posted in random order for each skater -- I don't believe you'll see a different order for tech and then pres marks, but you may see a different order for each skater (I haven't done enough research yet to clarify that point).

In some respects, the 9/14 is no different than what we have now -- the panel of judges is drawn from the judges attending the event. The potential for different results existed before; what would have happened in SLC had LaGougne drawn as the substitute judge instead?

If anything, the extra 5 judges who actually mark the performances are like 5 extra referees -- a gauge, if you will, of what the concensus of the panel is.

Don't believe for a minute that at the end of the event, the referee and technical committees are NOT going to know which judges' marks were used and whether or not any judge was 'out of line' with the rest of the panel.

The Canadian proposal offers caution and compromise while the details of a points system is worked out. Most critics of Speedy's proposal are concerned about skating becoming nothing but a jumping contest -- SC wants to make sure presentation and the 'in-betweens' remain as vital a part of skating as they have been in the past.

Making the ISU responsible for the assignment and promotion of judges is something many skating fans have been calling for for a long time. No longer will the federations be able to hold the stick of promotion over a judge's head. Assignments by country, I understand, will be the same as it is now; ie., certain countries' judges will be given assignments, but instead of the federations naming those judges from their countries, the ISU will.

Two things that still need to be addressed are the sanctions for unethical behaviour of officials and geographical representation. Somebody really dropped the ball on the 'lifetime ban' proposal by not being ready with a list of 'offences' which would result in such a ban. And nowhere has anything been said about [i:eb1d52b13d]why[/i:eb1d52b13d] the geographical representation proposal never even made it to the floor. I suspect that was largely a result of the laughable way in which the ISU meetings are run.

Perhaps one of the things David Dore *will* be able to do is find a way to institute some sort of procedural rules that resemble what many of us know as parliamentary procedure or "Robert's Rules of Order." It's obvious (most blatantly by Speedy's endrun around things in having the entire Congress -- speedskaters included -- vote on his scoring proposal) that change in this area is sorely needed.

I think we need to see some actual 'tests' of what will happen -- remember, part of the SC proposal was a 2-year [i:eb1d52b13d]study[/i:eb1d52b13d]. Change cannot occur overnight; this proposal looks to help judges fend off pressures -- as a start. Whatever else will come remains to be seen.

[olivia]

If the Canadian Proposal (no longer proposal, but current scoring system) is a "compromise," then my question is: Why the heck is the ISU and why are the fs federations compromising on a scoring system? They should be absolutely uncompromising with this aspect of the sport and when it comes to judging ethics. It's like ending up with a result that is neither very good nor very bad (but has the potential to be very bad indeed!). Why aren't they working on formulating and trying to institute a REALLY GOOD system that doesn't rely on random chance? Even if it takes some time? This mad rush to redeem figure skating has backfired, IMO. I *have* thought about it, and I just can't see the logic in this new scoring system.

O-

[Dragonlady]

After Nagano, Speedy's solution to block judging was to change the scoring for ice-dance. It made things worse. It appears that Cinquanta hasn't a clue as to how to deal with corruption in the federations and deal-making, but he HAS to do something because the IOC is all over his case about this. His solution is to fiddle with the scoring saying it will make it more difficult for the judges to cheat.

What we have is an ISU President who lacks either the skill or the will to deal with the real issue of corruption, and the federations know it. The deal making at this Olympics was far more open and blatant than at Nagano.

Until the honest federations grow a spine and insist "No more", it will ever be thus.

[lBrokenAnkle]

I think whether this system will work or not is moot. It, like the previous system, will give the appearance of NOT working the first time a skater wins in a scenario where he/she/they have a majority of the randomly selected judges, but a minority of the entire 14 judge panel.
Fine points like oh, if you look at the non-selected judges as referees, it's ok will really be lost in general outrage.

The ISU, as represented by Speedy, seems to be disgracefully clueless about what a crisis the SLC pairs competition created. Up until Mme. Le Gougne flapped her gums, they could always rest on their usual defence, "We are the experts, not the public nor the media and you all can just shut up." They could back this up with oftentimes correct murmerings about quality of stroking, difficulty of in-betweens, and the all-important speed. Sure people grumbled, but no one's medal was taken away and no second medal was ever awarded.

What the ISU apparently fails to realize is their defense won't fly anymore. Because one judge said she was pressured to vote a certain way, the public and the media, who have been suspicous all along, now have "proof" that judging is rigged. The house of cards has collapsed. When one lie is revealed, the liar must work overtime to regain trust.

I almost have to laugh that the brilliant solutions each fed. came up with is, no matter what system they proposed, came down to, "See, now it's MUCH HARDER to cheat, isn't that great?"

And more pathetically "And look, now we're using.... A COMPUTER! Oooo. Totally space age technology!"

The problem they are refusing to address is the burgeoning lack of trust. To be blunt, I do not trust the ISU, I think if they don't downright foster dealmaking and biased judging, they wink an eye at it. And I consider myself a knowledgeable fan who does understand the nuances that make push one performance over another of nearly equal quality. I would be more than happy to be proved wrong in that perception.

So the problem is how to regain the trust of casual and knowledgable fans alike?

1. Code of Ethics. Duh. What a PR disaster that this was shelved and as stupid as the USFSA was in coming unprepared, the ISU should have accepted the concept with loud cries of approval. Not that the judges' oath taken at the Olympics seemed to have any meaning for a few judges.

2. Inpedendant investigations and regular audits. There will be plenty of people who don't even trust the computer operators (I have seen this suggested at more than one board) much less the judges.

3. Encourage whistle blowers. Please, let's not start the Jean-Senft-is-evil/angelic here, that is also moot, if not a smokescreen. What came about from that fiasco is a message to shut up if you are approached for a deal. The same message comes from Mme. Le Gougne's situation. The time for hiding the dirty secrets is past. Even if the ISU has to expose the corruption behind the scenes in order to clean it up, it has to be done. Or no one will watch. There will be a point, I guarantee it, where the networks just stop wanting to broadcast it, people do not want to watch a "sporting event" in which some skaters are perceived of having no chance.

Well, that was long and probably incoherant, but at least I got it off my chest.

Laura

[Emilieanne]

Maybe the ISU was simply given the chance to get this done right at their Congress, but obviously they did not. Perhaps the IOC sensed this might happen but out of fairness, decided to give them this chance so they could legitimately jump all over the ISU and impose ethical standards on all international federations, including the ISU. The ISU has absolutely no clue what "unpleasant" really is, but they sure will find out the hard way because they did not get the job done in Kyoto the way it needed to get done. Since the 114th Session of the IOC meets this November in Mexico City, I am sure this will be on the agenda and that it will be a very hot meeting.

Also, the IOC was badly embarrassed and humiliated by the shennanigans in Salt Lake, and they are taking an extreme amount of heat from their commercial sponsors and the public. The IOC is extremely angry with the ISU and its management; all the ISU did by not getting the job done is stir up a virtual hornet's nest. The stupidity on the part of the ISU is beyond comprehension :roll: :roll:

[LTM]

Personally I always thought it was asking a bit much for skating judges (all volunteers, I assume some of these people also have jobs)
worldwide to learn a new scoring system and then turn
around and learn another one two years later. Not every judge
is like the "french judge" and alot of them never judge anything outside their own countries or even their own regions. So with all due respect to
the USFSA, I'm not sorry the ISU didn't go with their scoring system right
now. After all, there is nothing stopping anyone from taking the idea
working on it some more, then re-presenting it.
On the other hand, even if the USFSA hadn't prepared their ethics proposals very well, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to come up with a basic code of ethics in sport. If nothing else, take the olympic oaths
for both atheles and judges, put them on a piece of paper with "Code of
Ethics" written at the top. Not perfect but at least a start.
Personally I thought the ISU not even dealing with the ethics issue
was the worst thing coming out of Japan. It really came across as the
ISU not giving a flying Wallenda about ethics or perhaps just being
obtuse and hoping the ethics issue will just "go away"

[Eighteen]

Thanks dragonlady for your insights. It will be very interesting to see how things work out next season!

[habanero]

[quote:361401da2e="Lee"]

The Canadian proposal extends the pool of judges whose results will count to 9 of 14. All 14 marks are to be posted; the nine whose marks count for that phase of the event will be randomly chosen by the computer at the start of the event. The rationale behind this is to give judges the freedom to mark as they see fit -- those who would try to put undue pressure to mark a certain way will not know (possibly ever) if their pressure worked or not. The 14 marks are to be posted in random order for each skater -- I don't believe you'll see a different order for tech and then pres marks, but you may see a different order for each skater (I haven't done enough research yet to clarify that point).
[/quote:361401da2e]

Nice theory. Unfortunately, if they post all 14 sets of marks, the first time a minority win occurs, the mess in Salt Lake City will look tiny in comparison.

And if they post the 9 sets of marks actually used, the accountability is immediately gone. In addition, it will take Judges at most 2 or 3 skaters to know whether they are the chosen Judges. They can then proceed to cover up their biases by pretending not to know and marking against their normal bias. Thus defeating any simplistic analysis which might have been used to control the Judges.

This system is a bad joke. It's a lottery system. Personally, I think I'd prefer to see the Judges trim it down to the top 5 skaters and have an audience member draw names out of a hat to see who got what. The Canadian Lottery System is just about that predictable.

The skaters are the ones who lose under this system.

[Scott]

Habanero, I hadn't thought that the judges would quickly discover whether or not their marks were being used under the canadian system. You have correctly identified a major flaw! I didn't like the system sither and think that it takes away from putting responsibility on the judges for their actions.