2026 Olys Free Dance PBP - Whale, Are We Ready For Some Bull Sheet Scores?

rfisher said:
I am certain if any team except an US team were 2nd, nobody would care
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Not so sure.

FB&C are intensely disliked -- some for various personal reasons, some for skating reasons. If another team, for example Gilles and Poirier placed very close to FB&C in the rhythm dance but then lost to them in a similar fashion to Chock and Bates, I think there'd be media and fan outcry.

TBH I've never liked Gilles and Poirier, but they skated fabulously here and deserved to beat FB&C in both the rhythm and free dances in my book. The only reason they didn't do so is that they were taken out early in the season by politics. One by one -- first L&B, then G&F, then G&P, then F&G -- were dumped to shift the overton window.

L&B went from potentially challenging FB&C to looking like they wouldn't even make the French team. Once it was clear the bomb had created enough damage, only then did their scores start to creep back up.

G&F didn't help themselves with their program, but they were taken out early on to shift the window from potentially contending for gold to looking like the podium was impossible. 4th place was a victory here only because of the A-bomb on their career delivered in France.

G&P were nipping on the heels of Chock and Bates the last two seasons, but were held down in their GP and then pushed off the podium at GPF. Again, shifting the narrative from contending for gold to being lucky to get the scraps. TBH they probably should have been in the mix for gold (I say this as someone who really doesn't like them) if it weren't for the firing squad they faced in the autumn.

Chock and Bates were a useful distraction. Propping them up in the early season and even at the GPF was an intentional fake-out. It would always be easy to create an argument on superior basic skating against them. Their only purpose was to take out the rest of the competition, create an alternative enemy, and make the Canadians, Brits, Italians, and L&B grateful for scraps. It worked.

allezfred said:
In addition, if the French judge massively overscores her scores are getting thrown out by the system. They won’t count.
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Not good enough IMO when other teams are having a legitimate score thrown out.

There are many ways to normalize scores and treat outliers. I hope the ISU looks at them. A score this outrageously out of line should be thrown out and replaced with the median, IMO. Then trim.

allezfred said:
That’s before we get into the fact that North American judges have been doing the exact same thing for their skaters as long as this sport has existed.
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This part is absolutely true, Canada especially. Also in this competition.
 
I'd be ashamed of myself if I didn't say: Laurence is a very talented skater. We've all seen it thru the last few years. Her life and career choices are hers alone. Her road. But I would be remiss as a Cdn if I didn't say, proud of you, congrats on your gold medal. I wish it was for Canada, but dreams sometimes don't take a straight line. I wish you well. Do well, be healthy and happy. :40beers:

Sometimes it's easy to forget the person in the drama.
 
So the French judge scoring FB/C 8 points higher than C/B is a travesty but the America judge scoring C/B 5 points higher than FB/C is just fine?

Is that what you want all of us to believe?

I mean I can totally get behind the judging being suspect but be consistent. :lol:
 
marbri said:
Oh but I wasn't. We were talking about unjustified GOE afterall....
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No the thread and replies were talking about the twizzle issue and you were paraphrasing twizzle smizzle oh Z&K did so great! It seemed like you were trying to change the subject so I made that joke. What does that have to do with GOE? Are you saying Z&K have unjustified GOE now? And if that joke offended you, I didn't mean it to and I apologize.
 
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skategal said:
So the French judge scoring FB/C 8 points higher than C/B is a travesty but the America judge scoring C/B 5 points higher than FB/C is just fine?

Is that what you want all of us to believe?

I mean I can totally get behind the judging being suspect but be consistent. :lol:
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Yes, actually.

The US judge gave F-B&C their third-lowest scores overall, 2.63 points above their lowest score. The US judge did not give them the lowest score on any given element; on three elements, the US judge was tied for the lowest score (+4), with the majority agreeing in one case, two other judges agreeing in the second, and one other judge in the third. PCS were tied for the lowest, but were actually the median with four other judges agreeing. The overall score for C&B was 4.1 points higher, 3.1 of which was on technical elements, the majority of which was related to the difference in twizzle GOE. It's an entirely reasonable score. F-B&C did not suffer at all from having an American judge on the panel.

In contrast, the French judge gave Chock and Bates their lowest scores, 1.23 below the next lowest judge (who just marked low and had C&B first) and 3.01 points below the third lowest. She tied for the lowest score on seven elements. She gave the lowest presentation mark and the lowest PCS, tied only with the low-scoring Finnish judge who had Chock and Bates first. This judge had a very clear pattern of supporting her own team, while trying to take out their closest competitors. She did the same thing in the rhythm dance, scoring them 6.34 points above Chock and Bates. It's egregiously biased judging, and should be an "open and shut" case for a long suspension.

There is an enormous difference between how the US judge marked and how the French judge marked.
 
Skaterbob said:
No the thread and replies were talking about the twizzle issue and you were paraphrasing twizzle smizzle oh Z&K did so great! What does that have to do with GOE? Are you saying Z&K have unjustified GOE now? And if that joke offended you, I didn't mean it to and I apologize.
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You totally misread my comment if you thought I was cheering how great Z/K did.

I wrote: "People are so busy fretting over a twizzle that was penalised they are missing the fact that Z/K had the lowest base value of the top eleven teams and received the score they did."

If people were so worried about politics and GOE being handed out like candy then they should go look at those protocols. Same panel that was apparently anti-american 🤷

And yeah, I think it's highly offensive to be called Karoline Leavitt :P ;)
 
Private Citizen said:
Yes, actually.

The US judge gave F-B&C their third-lowest scores overall, 2.63 points above their lowest score. The US judge did not give them the lowest score on any given element; on three elements, the US judge was tied for the lowest score (+4), with the majority agreeing in one case, two other judges agreeing in the second, and one other judge in the third. PCS were tied for the lowest, but were actually the median with four other judges agreeing. The overall score for C&B was 4.1 points higher, 3.1 of which was on technical elements, the majority of which was related to the difference in twizzle GOE. It's an entirely reasonable score. F-B&C did not suffer at all from having an American judge on the panel.

In contrast, the French judge gave Chock and Bates their lowest scores, 1.23 below the next lowest judge (who just marked low and had C&B first) and 3.01 points below the third lowest. She tied for the lowest score on seven elements. She gave the lowest presentation mark and the lowest PCS, tied only with the low-scoring Finnish judge who had Chock and Bates first. This judge had a very clear pattern of supporting her own team, while trying to take out their closest competitors. She did the same thing in the rhythm dance, scoring them 6.34 points above Chock and Bates. It's egregiously biased judging, and should be an "open and shut" case for a long suspension.

There is an enormous difference between how the US judge marked and how the French judge marked.
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Since there are rankings should judges from countries of top ranked teams not be in the draw for certain contests?
 
marbri said:
You totally misread my comment if you thought I was cheering how great Z/K did.

I wrote: "People are so busy fretting over a twizzle that was penalised they are missing the fact that Z/K had the lowest base value of the top eleven teams and received the score they did."

If people were so worried about politics and GOE being handed out like candy then they should go look at those protocols. Same panel that was apparently anti-american 🤷

And yeah, I think it's highly offensive to be called Karoline Leavitt :P ;)
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I misunderstood what you were trying to say then. Thanks for further explaining to me. You had laughed at emojied at the post so I thought we were on the same page as the joke. 🫠
 
Cachoo said:
Since there are rankings should judges from countries of top ranked teams not be in the draw for certain contests?
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I think that would be unfair to judges' career prospects, but one solution I wonder about is not allowing judges to judge their own country's skaters at the World Championships or Olympics. It's an absolute system, so it's far less of a problem than in a ranking system. Mean replace their scores for their own skater/team. Or have 10 judges, automatically throw out the home country judge's scores, and throw out one randomly for skaters without a home country judge.
 
Skaterbob said:
I misunderstood what you were trying to say then. Thanks for further explaining to me. You had laughed at emojied at the post so I thought we were on the same page as the joke. 🫠
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I was laughing in shock at your audacity in calling me Karoline Leavitt ;)

But I am now at peace knowing we have cleared up this misunderstanding. But don't you ever insult me like that again!!! ;)
 
Private Citizen said:
Not good enough IMO when other teams are having a legitimate score thrown out.

There are many ways to normalize scores and treat outliers. I hope the ISU looks at them. A score this outrageously out of line should be thrown out and replaced with the median, IMO. Then trim.
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Definitely.

Plus an over-scored highest mark can allow another over-scored mark to stand when it would have been dropped; similarly, an underscored lowest mark allows the next lowest mark to stand when it would have been dropped.
 
Private Citizen said:
I think that would be unfair to judges' career prospects, but one solution I wonder about is not allowing judges to judge their own country's skaters at the World Championships or Olympics. It's an absolute system, so it's far less of a problem than in a ranking system. Mean replace their scores for their own skater/team. Or have 10 judges, automatically throw out the home country judge's scores, and throw out one randomly for skaters without a home country judge.
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That still doesn't correct for the issue you've identified with the French judge low-balling Chock/Bates in both the RD & FD. Yes, it deals with her overscoring FBCiz, but how do you correct for the opposite side of the equation?
 
Kaz7714 said:
But it was John Kerr, in a hot kilt ! I mean he was hot and in a kilt 😜.Shallow me just loves that program more than F/G's ...
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That's why Fear and Gibson dropped like a stone. He wasn't wearing a kilt.

Yazmeen said:
A petition has been started on Change.org to investigate the French judge involved in the free dance. Per Newsweek:
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I'm sorry but fan petitions about judging are cringe.

allezfred said:
“They are such class and finesse and truly the best ice dance team the world has ever seen.”
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Um no. I hope that quote was taken out of context.

pat c said:
This. I remember when Josee Pichee and Pascal Denis did ice dance and the announcers saying they'll never get anywhere because of their height difference. Leg lines wouldn't match etc.
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Except leg matching is not controlled 100% by height. I have mentioned this before but my dance coach was 1 foot and 7 inches taller than me but we had amazing unison. (To the point where people commented on it.)

rfisher said:
I am certain if any team except an US team were 2nd, nobody would care
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As was mentioned, plenty of people didn't want FBCiz to win so I think a lot of people would care.

Yazmeen said:
Well, it's not just fading away here - from SB Nation:
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It's been one day. There are no legs to this "controversy," so I doubt it will last past the Olympics except for a few crackpots. Like the people who keep saying the ISU banned the backflip because Bonaly did it. :lol:
 
Private Citizen said:
I think that would be unfair to judges' career prospects, but one solution I wonder about is not allowing judges to judge their own country's skaters at the World Championships or Olympics. It's an absolute system, so it's far less of a problem than in a ranking system. Mean replace their scores for their own skater/team. Or have 10 judges, automatically throw out the home country judge's scores, and throw out one randomly for skaters without a home country judge.
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Looking at the enhanced protocols on Skating Scores that's pretty much what happened. The marks for the skaters where the judge's nationality, and the skater's nationality matched were mostly thrown out. The one exception seems to be the Georgian judge.
 
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