Judges' Favorites

[Leticia]

It seems every season, there are certain skaters, who mysteriously are held up by the judges, and the rules are manipulated to justify their wins.

How is this "Favorites" created?

Federation? Sponsers?

[gkelly]

quality of blades moving across ice? Judges love that

[winterone]

There is no doubt Jason Brown is a judges favorite. He is very talented and has a bright future in skating. He most definately got the benefit of the doubt at nationals and they made up for his mistakes in the pcs. They couldn't let him slide too far at nationals as JW was around the corner.

[skatingfan5]

It seems every season, there are certain skaters, who mysteriously are held up by the judges, and the rules are manipulated to justify their wins.

How is this "Favorites" created?

Federation? Sponsers?

I believe they use the results of the many FSU polls to determine who will be their "Favorites" each season. (FSU really stands for Favorite Skaters Unveiled.)

[Vash01]

Interesting question, but I think this may belong in the trash can. We are just trying to guess or speculate here.

IMO judges do have their favorites (they are only human, and this is a subjective sport), but they do have to follow rules so they can go only this far. I do believe the federations influence the marks too.

[love_skate2011]

Judges Favorites:

- Patrick Chan
- Kim Yuna
- Carolina Kostner
- Jason Brown
- Adelina Sotnikova
- Julia Lipnitskaya
- Michelle Kwan

[AJ Skatefan]

quality of blades moving across ice? Judges love that

I know, right? Isn't that weird?

[VALuvsMKwan]

Judges Favorites:

- Patrick Chan
- Kim Yuna
- Carolina Kostner
- Jason Brown
- Adelina Sotnikova
- Julia Lipnitskaya
- Michelle Kwan

Irina Slutskaya
Oksana Bauil (eligible days)
Navka and Kostomarov
Grishuk and Platov
Kiira Korpi
Evgeny Plushenko
Miki Ando

This should be fun.

[skatingfan5]

quality of blades moving across ice? Judges love that

I know, right? Isn't that weird?

It must be some sort of conspiracy!

[Vagabond]

You would think that it was important stuff like the choice of a costume or whose coach was sleeping with which judge, but apparently it's blades moving across the ice!!!

Who knew?

[5Ali3]

How is this "Favorites" created?

Darts.

The judging panel gathers, simultaneously with the skaters' draw for the initial starting order, at a secret non-disclosed location. They take turns drawing numbered darts from a small velvet bag and aiming them at a dartboard in the shape of Sonia Bianchetti's face. The dart that lands closest to her right nostril represents the starting order of the skater who the judging panel will place first. If a dart lands on her right ear, the skater with that starting order will receive questionable < calls; if a dart lands on her left ear, the skater with that starting order will receive benefit-of-the-doubt calls. Because this "judging dart draw" occurs at the same time as the skaters' draw, the judges are unaware of which skater is represented by which dart; therefore, this is considered an unbiased selection procedure untainted by national bias.

The procedures for pairs and dance are a little different: for pairs, the judge must throw two darts concurrently and the distance between the darts is measured and combined with the distance from Bianchetti's right nostril to determine final placements. For dance, two darts are thrown concurrently and the technical panel assigns a level of difficulty to the toss based on the spiral of the darts in the air, and the rest of the judging panel gives a GOE to the beauty of the toss and a PCS to the timing and rhythm of the toss. This information is fed into a computer program written by some computer company based in Michigan, which in turn spits out the final placement for that event.

For Synchro... well, let's just say that it can get bloody.

[pinky166]

There is no doubt Jason Brown is a judges favorite. He is very talented and has a bright future in skating. He most definately got the benefit of the doubt at nationals and they made up for his mistakes in the pcs. They couldn't let him slide too far at nationals as JW was around the corner.

Well, they could have. Farris got chalked in PCS at nationals then went on to beat Brown and win silver at JW, nearly taking the title with a huge score. Now granted, his SP at Nationals was a bit of a meltdown, but his FS was not actually that bad, the 65 in PCS just hurt him, as he had been getting higher than that all season in his junior internationals. If he had gotten the PCS that he had been getting internationally at nationals, he would have finished ahead of Jason, Brandon, Max, and Keegan in the FS. Another example is Rippon who got 5 points more in PCS than Miner in the FS at nationals but finished behind Miner, who medaled, at 4CC where they both skated similarly.

Nationals inflation seems to be conveniently applied to skaters who "need it" because something important is missing from their skating. For Jason, it's the 3a, for Rippon, it's a solid 3a and quad/not being the strongest jumper in general, for Alissa, it's not being a strong jumper, for Rachael in her heyday, it was not being a great spinner or not doing anything with particularly high quality. Skaters like Farris or Miner don't really receive much nationals inflation, they have solid jumps including solid 3as, so they don't need the USFS promoting them a lot to do well internationally because their skills will speak for themselves and if they do well, they will score well on the basis of the strength of their skating.

[Braulio]

Plushenko
Patrick Chan
Carolina Kostner
Navka-Kostomarov
Totmianina-Marinin
Laura Lepisto
Amodio

[martyross]

My speculation: it can depend on the nationality of the ISU sponsors. This year, they should be Japan, France, Finland, China and Italy.
edit, no China

[taf2002]

A lot of the skaters mentioned above are judges' favorites because they actually skate well. Imagine that!

Think about this - if they weren't better than the norm, why would they have become the judges' favorites? Unless 5Ai3 is right & there is a dartboard in some back room.

[gingercat]

An interesting fact. ISU has video's for judges to watch showing the ideal and not so ideal to look for and to reward. Sad to say they use current skaters for these demonstrations. Does this sway the eyes of some of the judes? If you know who they use and you see the results never changing - I say absolutley YES!

[VALuvsMKwan]

A lot of the skaters mentioned above are judges' favorites because they actually skate well. Imagine that!

Think about this - if they weren't better than the norm, why would they have become the judges' favorites? Unless 5Ai3 is right & there is a dartboard in some back room.

Have we forgotten KONSPIRACY and POLITIK so soon?

[jettasian]

Judges have their favourties, that's for sure. But does that equate to judging bias?

[mia joy]

People, please. Some of you sound like you actually believe the judging is always fair and never subjective

Yes, those skaters mentioned do skate well. But so do some others and yet sometimes we feel it's the wrong one on top of the podium. This is when judges play favourites.

[briancoogaert]

People, please. Some of you sound like you actually believe the judging is always fair and never subjective

Yes, those skaters mentioned do skate well. But so do some others and yet sometimes we feel it's the wrong one on top of the podium. This is when judges play favourites.

I agree with you.
But for some skaters, there are objective facts that they are overscored on some PCS.