Decisions of the ISU Disciplinary Commission

Sylvia

Sylvia

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nimi

nimi

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(I didn't think this case should merit its own thread, but a general thread for miscellaneous Disciplinary Commission stuff is a very good idea. Thanks @Sylvia!)

So here we go...

An Estonian judge called Nikolai Salnikov got embarrassingly and disruptively drunk at JGP Egna in early October and has now received a 2 year ban from all ISU activities; see the Decision of ISU Disciplinary Commission

I noticed there's a former Estonian ice dancer – national champion in ice dance from 1971 to 1978, according to Wikipedia – with the same name. Anybody here who knows whether it's the same guy or his namesake?

Below are some select bits from the Disciplinary Commission's Final Decision, abridged & edited by me:

On Wednesday, Salnikov showed up on time to The Judges' draw and the Initial Judges Meeting but was completely drunk and not even able to confirm his presence during the roll call. At the very beginning of the Initial Judges Meeting, he fell asleep, almost laying on the judge sitting next to him who therefore had to move her chair away from him. At the end of the meeting, the was still so drunk that he was hardly able to get up from his chair, then fell and needed support to get to the bus bringing back the judges to the hotel.

On Thursday, he judged the Men's Short Program.

On Friday, he was at the restaurant at the ice rink and got so drunk that the owner of the restaurant contacted the Organizing Committee which in turn approached the appointed ISU Event Coordinator. Again, Salnikov was not able to go to the Shuttle Bus and the Organizing Committee had to organize a special car for getting him back to the hotel.

On Saturday, he judged the Men's Free Skating.
 
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Sylvia

Sylvia

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The full decision re. the most recent violation of the ISU Anti-Doping Rules (involving the diuretic Torasemide) was published on October 8, 2019: https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/legal/disciplinary-decisions/22355-case-2019-03-isu-vs-koshevaia/file
Pair skater Alexandra KOSHEVAIA has been ruled ineligible to compete for two years, beginning on March 7, 2019 and ending on March 6, 2021. As a result, she and her partner, Dimitry Bushlanov, have been disqualified from the 2019 Winter Universiade and forfeited the bronze medal they won there (it's the only international listed in their ISU bio which has not yet been updated with this ruling): http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00105628.htm
There were only 4 pairs in the competition, which means the KAZ pair should be retroactively awarded the bronze medal: http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00105966.htm

Ice dancer Anastasia Shakun's case was previously noted and discussed earlier this year in the Russian news thread here: https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...ng-to-summer-2019.105365/page-21#post-5572062
 
nimi

nimi

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overedge said:
Well, at least we now know one thing that the ISU will suspend a judge for :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
The 2017 Golden Spin ice dance judging mess got some attention around here. It involved a BLR official called Gorojdanov, who had earlier gotten suspended for 6 months for a violation of the duties of a referee (2016 Nepela). During the GS investigation he resigned and is no longer an ISU official. In the end, a Turkish judge called Ece Esen was given a 6 month suspension: https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/isu-...or-publication-isu-id-vs-esen-05-02-2018/file

For further reading, Hersh article about the Golden Spin investigation:
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

EXCLUSIVE: Suspended once, international figure skate judge under investigation again — Globetrotting by Philip Hersh

A Belarusian figure skating judge who recently served a suspension for violation of the International Skating Union’s code of ethics is under investigation again, Globetrotting has learned. Alexander Lakernik of Russia, the International Skating Union’s highest ranking figure skating official, said
www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com www.globetrottingbyphiliphersh.com

Handy recap about the whole saga:
ani-izzy.com

ISU Suspends Judge for Further Golden Spin Misbehavior

Turkish judge suspended for conduct that puts the legitimacy of her scoring in doubt, but receives only six months. Normally the Golden Spin of Zagreb isn’t...
ani-izzy.com ani-izzy.com

Jackie's tweet about the short suspension:
twitter.com

Jackie Wong on Twitter

“Six months suspension for the Turkish judge at Golden Spin for bringing "pre-prepared marks and rankings" to the event. You gotta to better than that, ISU https://t.co/2sT8Cgf5AF”
twitter.com twitter.com

A couple of old FSU threads I found:

https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/th...reportedly-under-investigation-by-isu.102690/

https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/threads/golden-spin-judge-gets-6-month-suspension.103402/
 
overedge

overedge

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@nimi that's sort of what I was snarking at. Two years suspension for being drunk (and presumably judging while drunk, or at least while being severely hung over), but only six months suspension for cheating by entering pre-determined marks.

They both should have been suspended, but IMO pre-planned cheating is a much more serious offense than being drunk and judging at a competition.
 
Tinami Amori

Tinami Amori

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nimi said:
Handy recap about the whole saga:
ani-izzy.com

ISU Suspends Judge for Further Golden Spin Misbehavior

Turkish judge suspended for conduct that puts the legitimacy of her scoring in doubt, but receives only six months. Normally the Golden Spin of Zagreb isn’t...
ani-izzy.com ani-izzy.com
Click to expand...

“During the first warm-up group, I observed that Judge #7, Ms. Ece Esen (TUR), had a folder underneath her personal judging papers on the stand….. The contents of her folder included her personal judging papers and the Judges Details per Skater from the Senior Short Dance as well as a print out of the Senior Dance event competitors 3 (including substitutes). On this list of event competitors, there is what appears to be preprepared PC marks as well as placements for teams from 1 to 10, with a 3rd place listed for the team from Turkey."

:D

I wish they invited those observers to the upcoming Russian Nationals... At the last Russian Cup Finals people did not even bother to clean out the garbage baskets under the judges' desks....
 
A

Andrea82

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VGThuy

VGThuy

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Andrea82 said:
ISU Judge Ms. Salome Chigogidze (Georgia) suspended for one year for national bias in her marks for Morisi Kvitelashvili at 2020 World Championships. She already got letter of warning for her marks at 2020 European Figure Skating Championships and 2020 Youth Olympic Games.

Click to expand...
Reading it now. I know this could be a case of a judge facing very selective enforcement of the national bias rule, but I am sure this judges' marks had to be supremely egregious since figure skating is rife with judges being biased in their scoring. Look at ice dance! Sharon Rogers anyone? I don't even blame Rogers that much because all the judges play games with ice dance judging.
 
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Andrea82

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VGThuy said:
Reading it now. I know this could be a case of a judge facing very selective enforcement of the national bias rule, but I am sure this judges' marks had to be supremely egregious since figure skating is rife with judges being biased in their scoring. Look at ice dance! Sharon Rogers anyone? I don't even blame Rogers that much because all the judges play games with ice dance judging.
Click to expand...
Ice Dance Technical Committee attempted to bring forward a national bias case last year (Michela Cesaro for marks to Portesi Peroni/Chrasteck at 2020 Junior World Championships) but they lost the case. That was an interesting reading because the judgment included the marks of the referee (Hilary Selby) and the marks the Technical Committee would have given to the couples involved (Portesi Peroni/Chrasteck and Terreaux /Perron). IIRC almost the whole panel was off the PCS range of the TC.
 
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S

skatingguy

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Sylvia

Sylvia

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Bumping up and re-posting in this thread:
clairecloutier said:
A Hungarian judge, Akos Pethes, was investigated for his scoring of the Hungarian pairs Chtchetinina/Magyar and Pavlova/Nagy at the 2022 European Championships. His scores for them were considered questionable (as in, too high), and he was investigated for national bias. He admitted his marks for the Hungarians were outside the other judges' perception and may have been in error, for which he blames his lack of experience in judging pairs skating. The investigation finds that his actions, while questionable, "lack evidence of intentional 'national bias', hence is absent proof of bias, malice or bad faith." So, apparently he will go on as a judge.

I find it interesting that this relatively minor judging breach was investigated, whereas so many larger ones are not.
Click to expand...
Link to read the full decision (May 30, 2022): https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/isu-...cations/28500-case-2022-01-isu-vs-pethes/file
 
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Andrea82

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So his justification was that he is not good at judging pair elements ("The Alleged Offender admits the anomalies and provides a consistent explanation, citing a lack of experience in judging Pair skating). It doesn't bode much confidence.
 
clairecloutier

clairecloutier

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Andrea82 said:
So his justification was that he is not good at judging pair elements ("The Alleged Offender admits the anomalies and provides a consistent explanation, citing a lack of experience in judging Pair skating). It doesn't bode much confidence.
Click to expand...

The automatic question would then seem to be: Why was someone who is inexperienced in judging pairs skating given responsibiliity to judge pairs at a major ISU championship? :rolleyes: (ETA: I am guessing the answer here is something like, well, HUN was drawn to judge that event, and he was the best judge that HUN had available? And I suppose that HUN wouldn't just decline to judge if they didn't have a decent judge ....)
 
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Andrea82

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New rules for officials' assessments published by ISU:

It looks like PCSs "corridor" won't be used this season for assessments, it will be only calculated as an exercise.
Furthermore, the new proposed corridor for PCSs will be based on total deviations summing together the 3 components (with positive and negative deficits cancelling each other) rather than working component by component as in the past.
I guess it is done not to discourage judges for giving significantly different marks on different components for the same skater. So if instead of three 8s, I give 6.5 in skating skills and 9.5 in interpretation, it won't be a problem even if all other judges give 8 in every component.

The example they give in the document is a bit extreme.
 
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