Time to Restore the Perfect 6.0?

Vancouver, British Columbia -- Six years ago, an uproar over vote-swapping between judges at the Olympics led to a wholesale change in the way figure skaters are scored.

 

Olympic Medalists on figure skating's New Judging

3:06

Former Olympic medal winners Sasha Cohen, Katarina Witt, Michelle Kwan and Peggy Fleming comment on the judging rules for figure skating and the impact on skaters.

The rules may be different now, but the controversy continues to whirl and spin.

Some current and former skaters say the new merit-based rules, which have been used in the Vancouver Games, sacrifice artistry to arithmetic. Others think the system is just as subjective as the old one.

The loudest complaints are coming from members of the Russian skating federation who think silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko was short-changed out of a gold medal in last week's men's competition.

 

Olympics: Arithmetic or Artistry in Skating Scores

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WSJ's Geoffrey Fowler tells Kelsey Hubbard why the Russian skating federation believes there's a problem with the new judging system.

Mr. Plushenko has been suggesting publicly he was robbed because judges didn't award him enough points for completing skating's hardest jump, the quadruple toe loop. After his performance, Mr. Plushenko said "now it is not men's figure skating—no, it is dancing."

In an interview Wednesday with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, Valentin Piseev, said that the new rules system "distorts the meaning of sport. Who does not understand that jumps are the basic element in figure skating?"

Reached in Vancouver on Wednesday, Mr. Piseev said the new system doesn't reward athletes who try difficult and risky moves and thus puts countries with the best-trained skaters at a disadvantage. "This system was adopted to even out all countries," he said. Mr. Piseev said he's planning to send a letter to the International Skating Union expressing his concerns.

Many experts believe skating's international judging system, or IJS, has brought more stability to one of the most subjective competitions in sports—and one long-known for expressions of nationalist bias and other antics. The debates that have emerged in Vancouver revolve, for the most part, around rivalries on the ice—between individual competitors—rather than off the ice, between countries.

Sipa Press

Evgeni Plushenko of Russia performs in the men's free skating program.

The ISU didn't respond to queries about Mr. Piseev's latest complaints. But in an interview on Monday, ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said that while the new system was "not perfect," its "structure is good and satisfactory" because it quantifies a subjective concept.

"How many people can understand if a piano player is perfect? Figure skating is the same," Mr. Cinquanta said, adding that the ISU will continue to adjust the values assigned to specific figure skating moves.

Mr. Cinquanta said skating needs well-rounded competitors and shouldn't be boiled down to simply who does the most jumps. "If you want to jump, go do track and field or pole vault," he said. "This is not the circus."

Under the old system, judges compared one skater to the next. A rating of 6.0 would be assigned for a perfect performance, but specific moves weren't graded. Under the scoring system instituted in 2004, each skater is judged on his or her own performance, by a combination of judges and technical experts. There's no perfect score—instead, points are assigned for completing certain moves as well as for the artistry of the overall performance.

For instance, a triple axel jump earns 8.2 points in the men's competition, with points added or subtracted based on how well the jump is executed.

Figuring out how to win a competition involves a lot of math. Italian ice dancer Massimo Scali felt the bite of the new system during a performance last week. Mr. Scali said he lost two points because he only touched the back of his skate blade during a complicated move, instead of grabbing it. The next night, Mr. Scali said he paid closer attention to the move and earned full marks.

Many skaters think the new system gives them more useful feedback. Canadian Scott Moir, who won a gold medal here for ice dancing, said under the new system "you get rewarded for exactly what you do." If the marks are unsatisfactory, "you can see it there on a piece of paper and go home and improve."

Vancouver organizers introduced a live radio broadcast called Axel Radio that offers audiences live commentary on how skaters are accumulating or losing points. When audiences boo a low score for a performance that wowed the crowd, Axel announcers take pains to explain the judges' rationale.

Katarina Witt, who won two Olympic gold medals in women's figure skating under the old scoring system, said the new one is "more accountable" but "makes the sport about [simply] collecting those points." She adds: "Sometimes it is difficult then to really be emotionally involved."

Sasha Cohen, the U.S. skater who won silver at the 2006 Games, said the new system also forces competitors to focus on counting even while they're on the ice. "It takes away the individuality and a little bit of the freedom of the sport," Ms. Cohen said. "If you hold something one second less, your whole spiral sequence doesn't count and that's eight points less."

Critics also have dinged the IJS for making judging more anonymous. Under the old system, judges' scores were presented along with the countries they represented. Now, judges' names are revealed but scores are randomized. In theory, that keeps the focus on the skaters rather than the judges, and it also relieves pressure on judges.

Yet Dartmouth Economics Professor Eric Zitzewitz argues the anonymity has possibly made things worse. His analysis found that under the new system, skaters have benefited even more from having a fellow countryman on the judging panel. On average, the home-judge advantage of the part of the score that judges influence is 20% higher than under the old rules, Mr. Zitzewitz said.

Ted Barton, a consultant to the ISU who helped develop the new system, said it has "hugely reduced the ability of any one individual to make a difference in a final score."

The judges are chosen randomly, he noted, and the highest and lowest of their scores are dropped. The ISU also reviews judges' performances. Judges found wanting can have their judging privileges revoked, as happened to one judge before the 2006 Games.

—Richard Boudreaux in Moscow and Anton Troianovski in New York contributed to this article

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com and Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com

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