National Biases and Other Judging Infractions

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On My Own

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Not sure there's a prior thread for this, but maybe this can be the new, main one anyway.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1738519795228627211
Comm 2610

Doug Williams 🇺🇸 was found guilty of a violation of the duties of judges and the ISU Code of Ethics at Worlds 2023.

He has been issued a warning regarding the finding of national bias. He judged the women’s event.
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Williams has always been outwardly political, both within the US and internationally. He has a long track record of propping up Pacific (and LA-area) skaters domestically and is the reason Caroline Zhang kept getting assignments ahead of many skaters who outplaced her. He's not shy about putting his finger on the scale and can be surprisingly open about doing so. I'm not surprised he was caught.

This finding seems like a good start, but is hardly the only case of national bias we've seen. Does the ISU believe all other judges at 2023 Worlds were free of national bias? :lol: :lol: I have some oceanfront property in Switzerland to sell them.
 
On My Own said:
Not sure there's a prior thread for this, but maybe this can be the new, main one anyway.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1738519795228627211
Click to expand...

Doug Williams helped Isabeau (4th overall)? Amber and Bradie were the other two US women, 12th and 15th, respectively.

Go, Ava Marie Ziegler! 🇺🇸 (Yes, she’s American but not affected by Doug Williams’ 2023 Worlds judging.)
 
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Private Citizen said:
Williams has always been outwardly political, both within the US and internationally. He has a long track record of propping up Pacific (and LA-area) skaters domestically and is the reason Caroline Zhang kept getting assignments ahead of many skaters who outplaced her. He's not shy about putting his finger on the scale and can be surprisingly open about doing so. I'm not surprised he was caught.
Click to expand...

Oh my gosh, for this reason alone I'm happy he's been caught.

Is his vision bad? Was she the only skater slow enough for him to see? Of all the skaters to prop up...

Private Citizen said:
This finding seems like a good start, but is hardly the only case of national bias we've seen. Does the ISU believe all other judges at 2023 Worlds were free of national bias? :lol: :lol: I have some oceanfront property in Switzerland to sell them.
Click to expand...

I guess it's like the mafia - it's not that what he did was wrong this time, but his time was up or he finally crossed the wrong person. But it would be nice if there was a clear idea of where that biased judging line is for the ISU to act. I can't think of any major federation that wouldn't be crossing that regularly. (Yes, such as/especially Canadian judges)
 
Previous cases of disciplinary actions due to national bias

ISU vs Mr. Akos Pethes for the scoring of Chtchetinina/Magyar and Pavlova/Nagy at 2022 European Championships.
Decision: hidden preference for the Hungarian pairs only at the level of suspicion, lacks evidence of intentional national bias. Case dismissed

ISU vs Ms. Salome Chigogidze for the scoring of Morisi Kvitelashvili at the 2021 World Championships.
Decision: 1 year suspension

ISU vs Ms. Michela Cesaro for the scoring of Portesi Peroni/Chrastecky and the underscoring of Terreaux/Perron at the 2020 Junior World Championships
Decision: hidden preference for the Italian couple only at the level of suspicion, lacks evidence of intentional national bias. Case dismissed
(ISU also brought forwards a complaint about her judging at 2020 European Championships, but they filled it after their own deadline and so the case wasn't even discussed)

ISU vs Ms. Weiguang Chen for the scoring of Jin Boyang at 2018 Olympic Games
Decision: 2 years suspension

ISU vs Mr. Feng Huang for the scoring of Sui/Han at 2018 Olympic Games
Decision: 1 year suspension


Other disciplinary matters in the last decade

ISU vs Mr. Nikolai Salnikov for having served on the judging panel of Egna Junior Grand Prix in 2019 under the effect of (post?-)drunkenness
Decision: 2 years suspension

ISU vs Ms. Ece Esen for having being found with papers of supposed pre-marked PCS during the Free Dance of 2017 Golden Spin
Decision: 6 months suspension
(In the document, there are some quite over the top descriptions of the event. Almost straight out of a bad Lifetime movie of the week)

ISU vs Mr. Alexandre Gorojdanov for looking at the screen of the judge sitting next to him during the Rhythm Dance of 2017 Golden Spin.
Decision: Gorojdanov resigns from all his functions. Case not discussed

ISU vs Mr. Sviatoslav Babenko for having talked to the judge next to him during the Free Skating of Pair event at 2016 Nepala Trophy
Decision: 6 months suspension

ISU vs Ms. Laimute Krauziene for having talked to the judge next to her during the Free Skating of Pair event at 2016 Nepala Trophy
Decision: warning
(I still wonder what they were talking about. Maybe the weather)

ISU vs Mr. Alexandre Gorojdanov for having joined the conversation between judges during the Free Skating of Pair event at 2016 Nepala Trophy and for having ignored complaints about it during the round-table discussion
Decision: 6 months suspension
(the description about the final roundtable are priceless)

ISU vs Mr. Vladislav Petukhov for having missed the draw at 2015 Riga JGP (he was serving as referee) and for not having properly taken part to the initial judges meeting (he spent the night before in a hospital and ambulance was called when he went back to the hotel after the IJM)
Decision: 1 year suspension

ISU vs Ms. Natalia Kruglova for having asked another judge to raise the marks of Julia Lavrentieva/Yuri Rudik at 2012 Cup of Nice.
Decision: 2 years suspension
(please, don't laugh at the soup scene)
 
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In every other case but the last, no matter how long the suspension, parties had to cover their costs, but in the case against Kuglova, where the hearing was held in an airport hotel in Frankfurt, the Ukrainian Fed was charged for travel expenses and the cost of the hotel meeting room.

The !’s in the complaint by the ISU against Chen for overmarking Jin in 2018 looked like it was written by a Fanyu, but there were also !’s in the complaint against Huang for over marking Sui/Han after the same Olympics in comparison to Savchenko/Massot.
 
My problem (...?) with this sort of stuff is that the judge in question could indeed have been the most objective, and the rest could have sucked ass and based it off politics/reputation and not the actual skate. I'm not exactly sure how to exactly determine the 'offender' in figure skating's case.

This sort of thing's pointless to me anyway. I don't think anything's going to be fixed unless they find a way to draw more neutral judges, like ski jumping does. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...dging-right-and-figure-skating-gets-it-wrong/

Ski jumping has its international federation select the judges for competitions like the Olympics, and I find that they select the least biased judges. Figure skating lets its national federations select the judges, and my research showed that they select the most biased judges.
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This creates different incentives for judges. Ski jumping judges display less nationalism in lower-level competitions — it appears they keep their nationalism under wraps in less important contests to avoid missing their chance at judging the Olympics. Figure skating judges are actually more biased in the lesser contests; they may actually be more biased than they would like to be due to pressure from their federations.
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(please correct me if it's different now, I don't keep up with all the judge selection procedures)
 
kwanfan1818 said:
But if the ISU had to pay for judges, they wouldn’t have the money to pay for first class travel and says in five-star hotels.
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I mean you read the analyses. They're juvenile.

It frankly explains a lot about the ISU, if this is how their proceedings work.
 
On My Own said:
I mean you read the analyses. They're juvenile.

It frankly explains a lot about the ISU, if this is how their proceedings work.
Click to expand...
Haven't you ever seen some minutes of the livestreaming of last two ISU Congresses?

On the top of my mind, it included
  • proposals of rules changes wrongly written being projected on the screen. But people were asked to vote thinking about the correctly worded one
  • 10+ minutes spent trying to do the test of the electronic voting*
  • voting in block on different amendments with some delegates not understanding they have voted in block for all the amendments and so asking to discuss something they have just passed through
  • delegates fanning themselves
  • delegates not understanding the rule changes on the Olympic qualification and so spending time and time trying to make it clearer (and giving how USFSA was briefing Jackie Wong after 2021 Worlds, I guess USFSA delegates haven't really understood it).
  • New Zealand delegate trying to correct grammar mistakes in the rules changes' proposals
  • ISU not knowing the voting system they use to elect technical committee members. So one vote needed to be repeated twice, once they got around their own rules

Edit:
*From 9m30 and then 18m20, ISU at their top

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
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Cachoo said:
Are there judges who have a reputation for both knowing what they are looking at and judging fairly? Use them for the model.
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Generally, how do you determine "knowing what they are looking for and judging fairly" in this sport? Further, there's enough analyses out there suggesting the judging as a whole makes no sense because of the various biases and lack of (proper) incentives and the poor culture of the organizations (as stated in the article I linked).

Not only does a figure skater with a compatriot judge get a higher score from that judge, but they also get higher scores on average from the other judges, too (compared with events when they are not represented on the panel). This is evidence of vote trading, of the kind that occurred at the Olympics in 1998, 2002, and (allegedly) is occurring in 2014. Most of the benefit of having a compatriot judge actually comes through the vote trading. Skaters even benefit from having compatriot judges on the panels of other events, which is consistent with the fact that the vote trading we know about is often across events.
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And it'd be far too little data to boot, if we did somehow end up only with 'fair' judges.

AI should be considered a long way away for this sport (and in general I don't wish to see lack of the subjective element to judging, which would be a big problem with AI).

Specifically, we are talking about national biases, which can be eliminated or at least reduced by other means anyway, like the one ski-jumping adopted.
 
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Andrea82 said:
Haven't you ever seen some minutes of the livestreaming of last two ISU Congresses?

On the top of my mind, it included
  • proposals of rules changes wrongly written being projected on the screen. But people were asked to vote thinking about the correctly worded one
  • 10+ minutes spent trying to do the test of the electronic voting
  • voting in block on different amendments with some delegates not understanding they have voted in block for all the amendments and so asking to discuss something they have just passed through
  • delegates fanning themselves
  • delegates not understanding the rule changes on the Olympic qualification and so spending time and time trying to make it clearer (and giving how USFSA was briefing Jackie Wong after 2021 Worlds, I guess USFSA delegates haven't really understood it).
  • New Zealand delegate trying to correct grammar mistakes in the rules changes' proposals
  • ISU not knowing the voting system they use to elect technical committee members. So one vote needed to be repeated twice, once they got around their own rules
Click to expand...
😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😡😡😡
 
Frau Muller said:
Doug Williams helped Isabeau (4th overall)? Amber and Bradie were the other two US women, 12th and 15th, respectively.

Go, Ava Marie Ziegler! 🇺🇸 (Yes, she’s American but not affected by Doug Williams’ 2023 Worlds judging.)
Click to expand...
So he showed National bias by what rules? Other judges gave similar marks in both segments with all of his marks. https://skatingscores.com/2223/wc/sr/women/i/panel/

You can review the marks of both the short and long and he was not some single outlier.
 
Jarrett said:
So he showed National bias by what rules? Other judges gave similar marks in both segments with all of his marks. https://skatingscores.com/2223/wc/sr/women/i/panel/

You can review the marks of both the short and long and he was not some single outlier.
Click to expand...
His scores for the Americans in the free skate were considerably higher than the panel average. It appears to be a pattern of trying to help the American women in the free skate when they needed some help to try maintain 3 entries.

Free Skate
Levito 143.33 vs 134.62 (+9)
Tennell 123.28 vs 117.69 (+5.5)
Glenn 131.63 vs 122.81 (+9)
 
skatingguy said:
His scores for the Americans in the free skate were considerably higher than the panel average. It appears to be a pattern of trying to help the American women in the free skate when they needed some help to try maintain 3 entries.

Free Skate
Levito 143.33 vs 134.62 (+9)
Tennell 123.28 vs 117.69 (+5.5)
Glenn 131.63 vs 122.81 (+9)
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that they weren't above the average what I'm saying is there are other judges that gave similar marks he was not an outlier meaning he was the only one giving the Americans those scores.
 
Jarrett said:
I'm not saying that they weren't above the average what I'm saying is there are other judges that gave similar marks he was not an outlier meaning he was the only one giving the Americans those scores.
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His scores for Levito are the most out of line, but for the other two there were a couple other judges who were close.
 
skatingguy said:
His scores for Levito are the most out of line, but for the other two there were a couple other judges who were close.
Click to expand...
I mean he gave her the third highest pcs but his goe only higher on one element (a spin he rated 5) than other judges I still don't get it. It wasn't like he gave her all fives and fours on her elements. He also didn't give her tens of the second I know it doesn't have to be so cut and dry but I don't know. Even if the judging went by his marks the US still wouldn't have gotten three spots for the next worlds they would have been at 14 one shy of getting three spots or am I adding wrong? 😆
 
Jarrett said:
I mean he gave her the third highest pcs but his goe only higher on one element (a spin he rated 5) than other judges I still don't get it. It wasn't like he gave her all fives and fours on her elements. He also didn't give her tens of the second I know it doesn't have to be so cut and dry but I don't know. Even if the judging went by his marks the US still wouldn't have gotten three spots for the next worlds they would have been at 14 one shy of getting three spots or am I adding wrong? 😆
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You're not wrong. It's clear that he was boosting the American skaters, but it's not like he was the only judge who boosted their own skaters. It's just his boosting stood out a little too much, and we know how much the ISU likes hammer nails that stand out too much. Really this is about making the ISU look better because they can point to these proceedings - Doug Williams got a warning - and say 'Hey, we're doing something about national bias.' but until they revamp the way judges are selected for events the issue isn't going away.
 
Skating scores bias-o-meter'd this event. He actually wasn't far off at all in the SP - he was actually #4 there. But in the FS the only person even close was the Bulgarian judge - which isn't a good look. If you look at the ranking chart of where judges placed skaters, his bias for Isabeau is a little crazy - he put her 2-3 places and 8-10 points higher than any other skater. His score for Amber was similarly inflated, but his scoring of Bradie was good.

Side note: Interestingly, the US judge on the men's side (Kevin Rosenstein) was hard on everyone including the US skaters, rating them as low as Williams rated them high on the ladies side.

Now that's not to say the other countries don't do it to - we know they do - but other countries just don't do it as stupid. For instance, the Japanese judge placed Japanese skaters higher than skaters from other countries, but the margins were smaller. She placed Kaori above Haein in the FS by 0.62 (with two other judges agreeing), Mai one spot higher (but within the shockingly wide point spread), and Rinka in 7th but with a higher score than all but two other judges gave her. And if you look across both women's and men's, the Korean judge for men's was the most biased judge at the event by the measure of the bias checker - his score for Junhwan was a good 10-15 points higher than what the rest of the panel gave - but that was only one skater in one segment; not enough to prove bias by the ISU.
 
Andrea82 said:
Haven't you ever seen some minutes of the livestreaming of last two ISU Congresses?

On the top of my mind, it included
  • proposals of rules changes wrongly written being projected on the screen. But people were asked to vote thinking about the correctly worded one
  • 10+ minutes spent trying to do the test of the electronic voting*
  • voting in block on different amendments with some delegates not understanding they have voted in block for all the amendments and so asking to discuss something they have just passed through
  • delegates fanning themselves
  • delegates not understanding the rule changes on the Olympic qualification and so spending time and time trying to make it clearer (and giving how USFSA was briefing Jackie Wong after 2021 Worlds, I guess USFSA delegates haven't really understood it).
  • New Zealand delegate trying to correct grammar mistakes in the rules changes' proposals
  • ISU not knowing the voting system they use to elect technical committee members. So one vote needed to be repeated twice, once they got around their own rules

Edit:
*From 9m30 and then 18m20, ISU at their top

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
Click to expand...

It´s almost like all these people are- humans :eek:
Using technical issues to degrade somebody and as a"proof" that somebody shouldn´t be taken seriously (or whatever the narrative here is) is immature tbh. We all experience these issues in daily life, i even had some issues writing this post here :lol:
For some reason it´s so difficult these days to accept that humans are flawed, but so easy to hate on people for their flaws...
 
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