Yuri Balkov excluded for life from all ISU activities and events

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Andrea82

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On November 12th, 2024, the ISU Disciplinary Commission (DC) accepted a Statement of Complaint filed by the ISU, against Mr. Yuri Balkov (UKR), Ms. Olena Lisova (UKR), Ms. Ece Esen (TUR) and Mr. Roland Mäder (SUI) together with 20 Exhibits, for Violations of the Duties of Judges and the ISU Code of Ethics.

The Alleged Offenders are accused of manipulation and disciplinary/ethical offences committed in relation to the judging of the Ice Dance Event at the ISU Junior Grand Prix Ljubljana Cup 2024 in Ljubljana (Slovenia), between October 2nd–5th, 2024.

Mr. Yuri Balkov (UKR) is excluded for life from all ISU activities and events.

The complaint against Ms. Olena Lisova (UKR), Ms. Ece Esen (TUR) and Mr. Roland Mäder (SUI) is dismissed.

Balkov sent various text messages to other judges asking for support for the Ukrainian couple in the event. One judge receiving it informed the technical controller of JGP Ljubljana.

Full decision and account of the events:
 
barbk said:
The meat of the complaint/decsion begins at the bottom of page 4. It is very interesting: https://isu-d8g8b4b7ece7aphs.a03.az...ova-Mader--FINAL-DECISION-1743599479-1183.pdf

I suspect increased scrutiny on Ms. Olena Lisova (UKR), Ms. Ece Esen (TUR) and Mr. Roland Mäder (SUI) moving forward.
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Ece Esen is not new to controversies:
 
Karen-W said:
They won the event handily,
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Part of the allegations - and part of the evidence - seems to be that they should not have. Balkov was not judging the event (and was not eligible to judge above novice level due to his age). He is alleged to have left a message for a judge (who reported the message) to ask him to support the Ukrainian dancers and said that other judges would support him. The ruling here gives the three suspected judges the benefit of the doubt under the rules, but the decision does not exactly exonerate them from poor or unethical judging.

I think the saddest part of the decision may be the evidence presented indicating that this was not an isolated incident or limited to these judges and that some judges might be masking their biased decisions or acting in favor of skaters not from their own current countries but from the countries of their birth or prior residency.
 
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Since Balkov is a retired judge this would seem to have accomplished very little other than to make everybody question all figure skating results even more than they may have before.

Well at least this time it makes it appear that the ISU DC will at least take such allegations seriously - but since Balkov is retired it was perhaps a very easy decision for them to make with very little actual "boat rocking". Call me cynical.
 
Inman did the same thing in 2010 and didn’t get any punishment! I have no idea why isu being so harsh.
 
Skate Talker said:
Since Balkov is a retired judge this would seem to have accomplished very little other than to make everybody question all figure skating results even more than they may have before.

Well at least this time it makes it appear that the ISU DC will at least take such allegations seriously - but since Balkov is retired it was perhaps a very easy decision for them to make with very little actual "boat rocking". Call me cynical.
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He wasn't retired completely. He was still allowed to judge Novice level international competitions. Make no mistake, these teams start earning reputations at that level - remember how everyone was so excited for Ilin/Cain and Mouaden/Bigot to make their JUNIOR international debuts based on how good they were at the novice level?
 
Skate Talker said:
Since Balkov is a retired judge this would seem to have accomplished very little other than to make everybody question all figure skating results even more than they may have before.

Well at least this time it makes it appear that the ISU DC will at least take such allegations seriously - but since Balkov is retired it was perhaps a very easy decision for them to make with very little actual "boat rocking". Call me cynical.
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My thoughts exactly. Banning a serial cheater, who is basically retired, 30 years after his cheating was well documented, and pointing to it like they took a hard line. There aren’t enough :rolleyes: for this. How much harm has been done from inaction over the past 30 years?
 
In the reported statement of the technical controller (Hilary Selby) there is a mention that "CS in Budapest had problems".


Another bit by an ISU IDTC Member:
"....As the application seemed to grow, only this season by several coincidences allowed us to realize the full system. There is a core group of four countries which work together. The approach mainly targets the top five placements. In this group they put slightly lower marks for those couples who should be in the top three places and slightly higher marks for the couples of their group – the higher the placement of the couple the smaller the difference – as well as trying to place other couples between the direct competitors for the desired placement who are directly below the top five. To be effective, they determine to which event all of them will go. They send, if possible, the same judge. As has been done in the old marking system and tried before in the present one, the manipulative scheme is ruled and run by coaches...."

So can we guess which is the 4th country the Ice Dance Technical Committee Member thinks it was part of the scheme?
 
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Andrea82 said:
In the reported statement of the technical controller (Hilary Selby) there is a mention that "CS in Budapest had problems".


Another bit by an ISU IDTC Member:
"....As the application seemed to grow, only this season by several coincidences allowed us to realize the full system. There is a core group of four countries which work together. The approach mainly targets the top five placements. In this group they put slightly lower marks for those couples who should be in the top three places and slightly higher marks for the couples of their group – the higher the placement of the couple the smaller the difference – as well as trying to place other couples between the direct competitors for the desired placement who are directly below the top five. To be effective, they determine to which event all of them will go. They send, if possible, the same judge. As has been done in the old marking system and tried before in the present one, the manipulative scheme is ruled and run by coaches...."

So can we guess which is the 4th country the Ice Dance Technical Committee Member thinks it was part of the scheme?
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Besides Ukraine, Turkey and Switzerland? At the senior level? Sorry, this is all very intricate. Two US and two Finnish teams took 1-4 at CS Budapest. Hungary was next in line and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a corrupt judge, everything else there seems fcucked.
 
It can't be fun to be a judge with integrity and competence:

"A result manipulated in this way, leads to the honest judges being in
the focus of the OAC as their higher marks for the couples who should be correctly higher
placed now seem to be overmarked. It also leads to these judges coming away completely
frustrated from a competition because they cannot understand the result and know/feel it to
be wrong and feel themselves to be helpless without the possibility to get to the correct
result."
 
PRlady said:
Besides Ukraine, Turkey and Switzerland? At the senior level? Sorry, this is all very intricate. Two US and two. Finnish teams took 1-4 at CS Budapest. Hungary was next in line and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a corrupt judge, everything else there seems fcucked.
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We can't assume that the other country even had a team in this event since the agreements apparently sometimes involve multiple events. "You help my country's skaters in dance this week, and we'll help you in pairs or at next month's competition."
 
Andrea82 said:
In the reported statement of the technical controller (Hilary Selby) there is a mention that "CS in Budapest had problems".
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PRlady said:
Besides Ukraine, Turkey and Switzerland? At the senior level? Sorry, this is all very intricate. Two US and two. Finnish teams took 1-4 at CS Budapest. Hungary was next in line and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a corrupt judge, everything else there seems fcucked.
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Also JGP Ankara was mentioned.

I don't think it was the senior ice dance event in Budapest that was questionable, rather it was the junior ice dance competition.

JGP Ankara - Pidgaina/Koval UKR placed 2nd above USA's Aboian/Veselukhin, but the scores were close. Grimm/Savitskiy won, Perrier Gianesini/Blanc Klaperman FRA finished 4th, while Zehnder/Sieber finished 5th.

There was a tightly-placed bunch from 8th-11th there as well - within 3 points of each other - which included Yucel/Pak TUR in 9th, just behind Beznosikova/Leleu BEL, and Petracchi/Basile ITA & Briere/Levesque CAN in 10th & 11th.

CS Budapest Jr results were pretty spread out with clear 1st-3rd and AUT's Straub/Straub (who train with Pidgaina/Koval) finishing just over 2 pts ahead of ITA's Finelli/Bucciarelli for 4th; and Yucel/Pak edging out FRA's Koch/Chataignoux by .32 for 9th.

Interestingly, the Straubs were also at JGP Ljubljana and edged out ITA's Bianchi/Rota for 13th by .12; they weren't at JGP Ankara.
Allskate said:
We can't assume that the other country even had a team in this event since the agreements apparently sometimes involve multiple events. "You help my country's skaters in dance this week, and we'll help you in pairs or at next month's competition."
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Maybe, but it's interesting to note that Pidgaina/Koval, Zehnder/Sieber and Yucel/Pak were entered in all three of the competitions mentioned, and Lisova was a judge at all three...
Andrea82 said:
So can we guess which is the 4th country the Ice Dance Technical Committee Member thinks it was part of the scheme?
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Clearly not the French or US judges as their teams were the ones directly impacted by the potential shenanigans - Fradji/Forneaux were 2nd, the Mullens 3rd and Bordet/Chardain 4th.

Other judges on the RD Panel at JGP Ljubljana - ITA - Valerie Rosa, GBR - Liam Meanwell, CAN - Ethan Swinburnson, USA - John Cole, FRA - Christine Hurth, GER - Luise Tarja Boehlke

JGP Ankara RD judges included Lisova, Maeder, as well as a different TUR judge - Tanay Ozkan Silaoglu; CZE, HUN - Szilard Toth, Claudia Stahnke GER, CAN, USA, & Massimo Orlandini ITA
JGP Ankara FD judges - GER, USA, Maeder, CZE, FRA, TUR, HUN, CAN, ITA

CS Budapest Jr judges included Lisova, Ozkan Silaoglu, and Szilard Toth, as well as AUT, CAN, EST, & Isabella Micheli ITA

CS Budapest Sr judges included Lisova & Micheli, as well as FIN, Dominique Dieck GER, LTU, HUN (not Toth), and USA (not Cole).

So... Lisova served with a different TUR judge on both JGP Ankara & CS Budapest Jr panels; Lisova served with SUI Maeder at JGP Ankara; Lisova served with HUN Toth at JGP Ankara & CS Budapest Jr, and a different HUN judge at CS Budapest Sr; and Lisova served with Micheli ITA on both CS Budapest panels, but there were Italian judges on the panels at all three competitions; and there were three different GER judges at all three competitions also.

Make of that what you will, knowing that the Balkov text was reported by one of the 6 other judges on the JGP Ljubljana panel, and the implication was there would be "support" for the suggested judging.
 
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Free Dance- Judges from TUR and [ ] gave noticeably higher GOE and PC scores to 1st placed (UKR)over 2nd placed (USA). While the majority of the rest of the panel also gave higher scores to the 1st place couple, the difference was not so significant.- Both the TUR and [ ] judges gave higher GOE and PC scores to the SUI couple that would place them ahead of 2nd placed (USA). Judge from TUR ranked the SUI couple 2nd, while judge from [] ranked the SUI couple 3rd (behind FRA, ahead of USA). Note that the SUI couple was ranked 5th overall. While we can hypothesize that the support for the SUI couple was as part of an initial agreement prior to the event, or a “Thank You” for the SUI judge’s actions in the RD, there is no hard evidence.
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This has to be about EST judge Ms. Larissa SHULJATEVA. Only she fits the scenarios given.

In Ankara it looks like CZE ( Zuzanna PLESNIKOVA ) , TUR (Tanya OZKAN) , UKR (Oleana LISOVA )and SUI (Roland MADER) vote as a pack in similar fashion to Ljubljana.

As a side topic there was some very interesting judging in Boston last week in ice dance.
In the RD, for instance, Korean and Estonia judge place Lajoie/Lagha in 9th and 8th place. They placed, in order, Lim/Quan in 8th and 7th place. Ahead of Lajoie/Lagha. Now I get ice dance is subjective but :lol: But I guess convenient for those who investigate tht Korean just isn't guilty of "bias" because someone else judged the same way, with almost the exact same number :eek:
The EST judge is none other than Ms. Larissa SHULJATEVA who I believe is clearly the (she who shall not be named) in the case that spawned this thread.

In the FD:

AZE, EST, UKR and SVK put Lajoie/Lagha in 10, 10, 12 and 12th positions with scores roughly 10 points lower than the rest of the panel ( who place them 4-7). It is more obvious the four work together when you look at their scores for Lajoie/Lagha, Davis/Smolkin and Mrazkova/Mrazek but you can see their cleverness at play when you look at some other key placements where they seem to take turns voting in pairs. Who is the Estonian judge, why none other than Ms. Larissa SHULJATEVA.

All that is just a long winded way to say they should look closer at dear old Larissa and who she eats lunch with :D
 
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