Judging Bias at CSF - facts
Roy Lee
I think we can agree that the most obvious way that national bias is
shown is if a certain judge places a skater from his/her own country
higher than the rest of the panel. So I went through all the CSF results
I found on ISU's results page and matched each time a judge gave marks
out for a skater from his/her own country. Here's what I found:
This scenario occurred in 50 different instances. (I counted short
programs separately from long programs, etc.)
Judges gave skaters from their own country an ordinal that matched
the skaters' eventual result in that part of the competition 28 times
out of 50.
In 18 instances, judges bumped up their own skaters by one ordinal
(i.e. skater eventually finished 2nd but judge gave him 1st).
In 3 instances, judges bumped up their own skaters by two or three
placings - all three instances involved American judges and skaters:
Eldredge got 1st place ordinal but finished 3rd (Men's Long);
Punsalan/Swallow got 3rd place ordinal but finished 5th (Compulsory
Dance); P/S got 3rd place ordinal but finished 6th (Original Dance).
That leaves one (1) instance, when a judge gave her own skater a
LOWER ranking than he eventually placed: Canadian judge Susan Heffernan
placed Stojko 3rd in the Men's Long but Stojko finished 2nd.
Other observations:
There was only one entry from France - A&P in dance. In each of the
three parts, the French judge gave them 2nd place ordinals even though
A&P finished 3rd in each part.
Russian judges gave marks to skaters from their own country a total
of 24 times. They were right on the mark 16 times. The other 8 times,
they bumped up their own skaters by one placing.
Caveat:
I realize this is only one competition. When I find time, I'll do
this analysis again with another competition, perhaps Olympics coming up
or last year's Worlds. I truly believe that we have to look at "the big
picture". One or two instances here and there does not mean a judge or a
national association is biased. However, if this happens over and over
again, then something needs to be said.
Roy
Suzanne Valentine-French
Now if I could only teach my students such sound methodology.
Do you do guest spots?
However, I do wonder (after having read many threads) whether even an
exhaustive survey of judging would put to rest the question of bias, or
conspiracy (as the new watchword seems to be). Frankly, I wonder
whether the conspiracy theorists are giving these officials more
intellectual credit than they deserve <g>
SVF