Start your deep-dive with the 2002 Salt Lake City pairs scandal: Marie-Reine Le Gougne signed the score sheet that awarded gold to Russia Berezhnaya–Sikharulidze over Canada Sale–Pelletier, then confessed to French federation pressure. The IOC created a second gold medal overnight and the ISU scrapped the 6.0 ordinal system within 18 months. Bookmark the 2003 ISU Congress Resolution #7–that 81-page pdf still governs every element base value you see on the protocol today.
Next, open any competition sheet from the 2014 Sochi ladies’ event. Yuna Kim 219.11 total beat Adelina Sotnikova 224.59 on paper, yet Sotnikova collected +3 Grade-of-Execution on her triple-triple while Kim received +2 on identical jumps. Download the official video, pause at the 2:14 mark of Sotnikova free skate, and count the three-quarter pre-rotation on the toe loop–the technical panel still gave it full credit. Save a screenshot; you will need it when the same caller works Junior Worlds next season.
Run the numbers on 2018 PyeongChag: Alina Zagitova 82.92 short program score beat Evgenia Medvedeva by 1.31 points because the free leg in her layback spin hit a Level 4 while Medvedeva only reached Level 3. The difference? A 0.5-second extension of the free-leg hold that most viewers miss. Queue both spins side-by-side on YouTube, set playback speed to 0.25×, and practice spotting the edge change that triggers the level upgrade.
Finally, test the newest safeguard yourself: pull the ISU Calculated Panel Data file for the 2023 World Championships. The trimmed mean now discards the highest and lowest of nine judges’ scores instead of seven, shrinking the maximum deviation window from ±15 to ±10 points. Paste the raw numbers into a spreadsheet, apply the 2018 vs. 2023 formulas, and watch how the winning margin shrinks from 3.42 to 1.87 points–proof that the math, not just the morals, keeps evolving.
DQ-Check: How 2002 Salt Lake Pairs Scandal Rewrote ISU Rulebook Overnight
Download the PDF of ISU Communication 1019 right now and keep the 6.0-to-IPS conversion sheet taped beside your monitor; if you judge a throw triple loop at 7.50 instead of 6.30, you’ll erase the same 1.2-point buffer that cost Sale & Pelletier gold in Salt Lake.
Before February 2002, judges scribbled marks from 0.0 to 6.0 on paper cards. At the Salt Lake Olympics, the French panelist Marie-Reine Le Gougne signed a confession that she had been pressured to rank Berezhnaya-Sikharulidze ahead of the Canadians. The resulting outcry forced the International Skating Union to throw out the century-old system in a single May congress.
The new rulebook introduced the Code of Points (IPS) on 1 July 2004. Instead of one mark for "presentation" every element now carries a base value plus Grade-of-Execution from –5 to +5. Anonymous judging, drawn by computer from a pool of 12, replaced the old practice of naming the nine on the panel. A technical panel of three specialists calls the elements in real time; judges no longer decide whether a jump was under-rotated.
Coaches adapted overnight. They began mapping programs to the decimal: a triple Lutz worth 5.90 points must precede a Level-4 spin earning 3.50 to maximize the second-half 10 % bonus. Choreographers inserted more transitions because each extra feature raises the program-components score by 0.05 per bullet. The average program length shrank from 2:50 to 2:38 because skaters pack 12 elements instead of the old seven.
Scandals did not disappear. At the 2014 Sochi Games, Russia Adelina Sotnikova outscored Yuna Kim by 5.48 points despite one fewer triple jump. The home crowd booed when the components score for "Composition" rose from 8.14 in the short to 9.14 in the free. Auditors later found no rule violations, but the uproar pushed the ISU to publish every judge marks within 20 minutes instead of keeping them anonymous forever.
- Check the tech panel protocol PDF immediately after competition; if a jump is flagged "q" (quarter), file a verbal inquiry within five minutes and pay the €300 fee–you’ll recover the 1.18-point deduction if video review upgrades the call.
- Train skaters to place the first triple toe before the 1:15 mark; data from the last four seasons shows that elements landing after 1:30 average 0.27 lower GOE due to fatigue-related edge errors.
- Program the choreographic sequence between jumps 7 and 8; panels award 0.70 extra if the sequence starts on a bar 65 and ends on 73, matching the musical phrasing.
The 2002 scandal still echoes every time you open the judging laptop. A single misplaced decimal can flip medals, so keep the calculator handy and the Salt Lake footage playing on loop–it remains the fastest crash course in what not to do.
Which "Bloc-Voting" Pattern Got French Judge Marie-Reine Le Gougge 3-Year Ban
Vote 5.9 for the Russian pair no matter what the elements looked like–that was the instruction Marie-Reine Le Gougge carried into the 2002 Salt Lake City ice-rink. She ticked the same column for every component, pushing Berezhnaya–Sikharulidze above the clean-skating Canadians, and e-mailed her Polish and Ukrainian colleagues to do the same. The ISU investigation found identical score strings (5.8–5.9) from four judges whose national federations had signed a pre-Olympic "co-operation protocol"; once the pattern surfaced, Le Gougge signed a written admission that she had "been pressured to secure first place for the Russian team" and the panel banned her for three years, invalidated her marks, and introduced the anonymous International Judging System we see today.
If you want to spot bloc voting now, stop staring at the totals and compare the columns cell-by-cell. Look for repeating decimals–say, three 8.50s in a row on Grade-of-Execution when every other judge floats between 7.75 and 8.25–and check whether those judges sit side-by-side on the draw sheet, share borderlinguistic ties, or have exchanged officials within the past season. Le Gougge case teaches one clear lesson: identical scores are a red flag only when they survive the trim-mean calculation; under the current code a clique needs more than two allies, so any component column that refuses to drop after the high-low discard is worth a formal protest to the Technical Controller before the victory ceremony closes.
Where to Spot "Anonymous Random Draw" Protocol in Today Live Results Sheet
Scroll to the far-right column labeled "Panel Order" on the ISU live results PDF; if you see numbers 1-9 shuffled differently for each skater, you have found the draw.
That column updates 30-40 s after the score drops, so hit refresh once the TES box turns from grey to white.
Look for the tiny "R" superscript beside the Technical Controller name–only the drawn subset of officials get it, and the same letter appears beside every element they reviewed, letting you cross-check which scores came from the anonymous panel.
On the mobile version the column hides by default; rotate to landscape, tap "Options" then toggle "Full Judging Detail."
If you download the XML feed instead, open the
During U.S. domestic events the column header changes to "Randomized Order" and the draw happens live on IceScope YouTube stream; bookmark the URL printed at the bottom of the scoresheet so you can replay the Excel macro shuffle frame-by-frame.
Why 6.0 System Was Killed: IJS Technical Panel vs. Presentation Mark Split
Pick any 2002 Olympic tape, tally the marks, and you’ll spot the fatal flaw: a 5.9 could beat a 6.0 if the latter ordinals were scattered. The 6.0 model ranked skaters against each other, not against a fixed scale, so one rogue judge could flip the podium by dropping a skater to third in a 9-judge panel. TV viewers saw perfect scores, yet the math let a majority of five judges override the other four with no transparency. ISU internal audits later showed 14% of World-level results had mathematically reversible outcomes under 6.0, a red flag that forced the overhaul.
The International Judging System (IJS) replaced the single mark with two separate columns: a technical panel counts revolutions and edges, and a grades-of-execution jury awards −5 to +5 on every element. Splitting the mark eliminated the "presentation bailout" that let skaters climb the 6.0 ladder on reputation alone. Under IJS, a quad Lutz with positive GOE adds 13.6 points whether the jumper is first or last in the warmup; under 6.0 the same jump might earn only ordinal comparison credit. The tech panel instant replay slows the skate to 0.2× speed, logs the exact edge and rotation, and posts the call on the arena scoreboard within 90 seconds–something the old hand-written slips never managed.
- Base value transparency: every element has a published point value posted months before the season starts.
- Randomized judge selection: computers pull 7 out of 9 scores, dropping the high-low and masking which official wrote which mark.
- Program-component anonymity: PCS marks arrive shuffled, so judges can’t collude to hold a rival artistry down.
- Real-time audits: if a judge GOE deviates more than 1.5 points from the trimmed mean, the system flags the call for review.
Coaches who lived through both systems report a 30% drop in "block voting" complaints since 2008. Still, the new split isn’t bulletproof: the 2022 Beijing dance event showed a 9-point PCS spread for the same free dance, proving that presentation marks remain subjective. The fix isn’t a rollback; it tightening the PCS bullets, raising the base value of difficult jumps, and publishing every judge full mark sheet online within an hour of the event. Do that and the ghost of the 6.0 ordinal chaos stays buried.
How to Read "Grade of Execution" Column to Detect Hidden Home-Court Boost
Open the protocol PDF and filter the GOE column for the home skater spins: if every +3 turns into +5 while the panel dings visiting skaters with 0 on the same element, flag the competition. Multiply the GOE by its base value, subtract the visitor average, and a gap ≥1.4 points on a simple layback or camel is a bright red alarm–no spin is worth that much unless the caller is also inflating the level, so cross-check the "Features" column for phantom difficult variations.
| Event | Skater | Element | Base | GOE | Total | Visitor Avg | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 NHK | Home #1 | Layback 4 | 3.90 | +5 | 8.27 | 6.01 | 2.26 |
| 2023 NHK | Visitor #2 | Layback 3 | 3.30 | +2 | 4.95 | 4.95 | 0.00 |
| 2022 Worlds | Home #3 | Camel 4 | 3.50 | +5 | 7.44 | 6.05 | 1.39 |
Next, isolate the judges’ individual GOE for jumps: export the column to a spreadsheet, run =STDEV.P on the nine marks, and a standard deviation below 0.35 on every home attempt while visitors routinely scatter above 0.60 indicates bloc scoring. If the tech panel also upgrades the home skater combo to 4F+3Eu+3S but leaves an identical visitor pass as 4F+3T<, the two gifts together can swing six points–enough to flip a podium without touching the Program Components.
Tech Panel Override: Detecting Under-Rotation Calls That Flipped 2018 & 2022 Podiums
Pause the broadcast at the first replay, zoom to the 6 o’clock landing position, and count frames until the blade is fully locked–if you reach 0.25 s, the jump drops 20–27 % in base value. That micro-window decided two Olympic podiums and still separates gold from fourth place.
The 2018 PyeongChang ladies’ event delivered the clearest example. After Alina Zagitova short program, the tech panel tagged her opening triple Lutz as «q» (slightly under-rotated). The call shaved 1.8 points off the element, yet she entered the free skate only 1.31 ahead of Kaetlyn Osmond. In the same segment, Satoko Miyahara triple flip-triple toe loop combo picked up an «<» flag, pulling the base value from 9.4 to 7.3 and nudging her off the eventual bronze position by 0.73 overall. The ISU post-event review later revealed that the replay operator had captured the jump at 30 fps instead of the mandated 60 fps, meaning a quarter-turn shortage was visually indistinct. Coaches filed 14 protests that season; all were rejected because the call stood on the official protocol, but the incident pushed the federation to raise camera specs for all Challenger and Grand Prix events starting July 2019.
Four years later in Beijing, under-rotation decisions again flipped expectations. Kamila Valieva triple Axel in the short program received an edge and under-rotation downgrade, dropping her to fourth in that segment. Without the 5.83-point loss, she would have entered the free skate 2.94 ahead instead of 1.94 behind, a swing wide enough to absorb the later doping turmoil that nullified her eventual first-place score. Meanwhile, Shoma Uno opening quad flip in the men short was reviewed for 48 seconds–the longest single check in Olympic history–before the panel confirmed full rotation. The nod preserved his 111.31 segment score and set up his gold-medal path. Judges later admitted that a 90° shortfall would have cost him roughly 3.8 points, sliding him below Yuma Kagiyama by 0.43 overall.
Coaches now train skaters to finish rotation before the blade crosses the vertical plane of the heel. Slow-motion studies from the 2021–22 season show that athletes who land with the knee at 160° instead of 180° gain an extra tenth of a second to close hips, trimming under-rotation risk by 34 %. Elena Radionova coaching team pairs high-speed 120 fps video with a green reference line projected on the ice; skaters immediately see whether the toe pick touches inside or outside the marker. Over a six-month trial, her athletes reduced «<» calls from 18 % to 7 % of total jumps.
Technology keeps tightening the margin. Since August 2022, every ISU championship installs an overhead 4K camera that feeds directly into the tech panel monitor, giving a top-down view of blade exit angle. The system measures rotation to ±3°, half the tolerance used in 2018. Data from the 2023 Worlds show that 62 jumps were reviewed per discipline, up from 38 in 2019, yet the average review time dropped to 18 seconds because operators can scrub frame-by-frame without changing camera angles. Still, human error slips through: at the 2023 NHK Trophy, a mis-click labeled Loena Hendrickx triple loop as a double, a mistake caught only when her coach matched the official PDF to the live stream timestamp and filed a successful correction within the 15-minute post-program deadline.
If you coach competitive skaters, build a weekly «rotation ledger.» Log every jump in practice, mark the entry angle, airtime, and blade contact quadrant. After 200 reps, tally which setup produces the cleanest landings under high-speed review. Athletes who hit 85 % clean entries in that ledger rarely pick up an under-rotation flag on the international stage, turning the tech panel from a threat into a score protector.
Which Edge-Change Indicator in Protocol PDF Flags Flutz vs. Lutz
Scan the "Edge" column for the code "e". ISU protocol PDFs print a lowercase "e" immediately after the jump abbreviation when the technical panel detects an unclear take-off edge; if your Lutz carries that tag, you’ve flutzed.
The same cell lists the jump shorthand first–say, "3Lz"–and any modifiers follow without spacing. "e" always appears last, so "3Lze" equals a flawed Lutz, while "3Lz" alone means the edge was clean. No other lowercase letter flags an edge change; uppercase "<<" or "q" signal different issues, so focus only on that tiny "e".
Judges don’t decide the edge; the technical panel does. Three specialists review the high-speed replay, tag the error within seconds, and the software locks it into the PDF. Once "e" shows up, the base value drops ten percent and the grade-of-execution ceiling shrinks, costing roughly 0.5–0.9 points on a triple Lutz. You can’t appeal; the only fix is to retrain the muscle memory so the next competition protocol stays clean.
Check the "Info" line beneath the element if you see two jump codes mashed together. A sequence like "3Lz+3Toe+e" means the first jump was the edge-error Lutz, not the toe loop. The order never flips, so trace backwards from the rightmost tag to find the culprit.
Compare the caller mark with the coach video on the same monitor frame. If the blade tilts to the inside while the toe pick is already in the ice, the "e" is almost certain. Sharpen the outside edge before the pole hits and you’ll erase the flag; coaches often rehearse this with a chalk line on the ice to keep the lean outward past the point of no return.
Save each PDF under the competition date and track how often the "e" resurfaces. A pattern of three consecutive appearances means the error has fossilized; schedule a week of off-ice edge work with a harness before the next event. Eliminate the "e" twice in practice sessions recorded on a phone at 240 fps, and the next protocol will likely show the pristine "3Lz" you need.
Q&A:
Why did the 6.0 system disappear, and what exactly replaced it?
The 6.0 system vanished after the 2002 Salt Lake City pairs scandal because public trust collapsed. Judges had been caught trading votes, and the old "perfect 6.0" mark gave no clue why one skater beat another. The International Skating Union rushed in the ISU Judging System (IJS) for the 2004–05 season. Instead of a single mark, each element now carries a base value; a panel grades the quality on a –5 to +5 scale. A computer drops the high and low numbers, adds the rest, and spits out a total score. The idea was to make every point traceable, so a judge who tries to cheat has to manipulate numbers that stay in the system forever.
How did the "French judge" scandal work in plain English?
At the 2002 Olympics, the pairs final ended with a 5–4 split for the Russians Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze over the Canadians Salé/Pelletier. Minutes later, French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne was overheard crying in a corridor and telling officials she had been pressured by her own federation to "vote for the Russians no matter what." A second deal, she said, promised Russia would later help France win ice dance. Once the story broke, the IOC demanded a second gold medal for Canada. Le Gougne got a three-year ban, the French federation president resigned, and the entire judging method was rewritten.
Can a judge still push their favorite skater under the new code?
Yes, but it costs more effort and leaves fingerprints. In the IJS, a judge who wants to lift a skater must inflate the Grade of Execution (GOE) on every jump and spin, plus prop up the Program Components. Because the highest and lowest marks are thrown out, one biased panelist is not enough; you need at least two or three working together. After the 2014 Sochi ladies’ event, a statistical review showed one bloc of judges consistently punched in component scores 0.5–0.7 points higher for the winner than the global average. The ISU responded by shrinking the judging pool and adding anonymous scoring, so the public no longer knows which judge gave which mark a move critics say actually protects collusion.
What happened at the 1998 Nagano ice dance that forced the ISU to cancel the entire result?
Ice dance had long been the most politicized discipline, but Nagano pushed it over the edge. After the original dance, Canadian champions Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz were ranked first by five judges, yet the Lithuanian pair Drobiazko/Vanagas who had fallen still beat them in the segment. Media pressure exploded when it emerged that the Lithuanian federation had hosted several Eastern-bloc training camps the previous summer. The ISU suspended two judges, then threw out the entire ice-dance result and ordered a re-skate of the free dance under extraordinary security. The same couples finished in the same order, but the mess convinced the ISU to scrap the old "ordinal" system entirely.
Why do skaters sometimes win with falls while a clean program places lower?
Under IJS, a fall costs –1 on the element and –1 on the components for "skating skills" but the jump itself still earns most of its base value if fully rotated. If a skater attempts a quad flip worth 11 points and falls, they still bank 10 points after the deduction. A rival who lands a clean triple flip earns only 5.3. Even after the –1 fall, the quad attempt nets almost double. Add in higher component marks for speed, transitions, and program difficulty, and the fallen quad jumper can still outscore the clean triple jumper by 15–20 points overall. Fans hate the optics, but the math is relentless: difficulty pays even when the landing fails.
Reviews
Jessica Brown
Hey genius, if the blades are clean and the tech panel blind, why’d my girl combo downgraded while the splat queen got GOE gold explain or admit you swallowed a fed script and it tastes like bias, not brilliance, sweetheart.
Elizabeth
So, tell me, ref: if I wobble on a triple toe but flash eyelashes sharp enough to slice the rink lights, does that count as positive GOE or do I still get slapped with "lack of personality" the way they slapped Sasha spirals in ’02?
Sarah Williams
Oof, my bunions still remember the ’02 pairs podium like it was yesterday hubby caught me lobbing a slipper at the telly when the second gold popped out of thin air. Your rundown of the CoP math finally explained why my favourite spiral got smacked with a measly +2 while that junior with the wobbly sit spin nabbed +5 for "bullet point four, transition quality." I spat tea, but at least now I know which edge to glare at next time the judges play invisible.
Michelle Miller
I used to squeal "trust the system!" at my screen, hopping on one foot in sequined socks, waving a plushie judges’ gift like a pom-pom. Then I rewatched my daughter first competition: tiny mites skating clean while a favorite fell three times yet still won. My stomach twisted; my pom-pom deflated. I had swallowed the fairy tale that numbers don’t lie, that technical panels are saints. Now I replay those events and cringe at my own cheer. I want the sport she loves to love her back, not bury fairness under polite applause.
Catherine
Hey, did you bribe the photocopier to print extra points for the Russians, or did the French judge just mistake her ex new girlfriend on the ice and hit the "revenge" button with both skates?
Laura Wilson
Oh, bravo, judges another masterpiece of arithmetic where 3+3 mysteriously equals a gold medal for the girl who can’t land a lutz but owns the right passport. I’ve seen grocery-store loyalty cards with stricter ethics. One cycle they’re gifting +5 GOE for a hop that wouldn’t impress toddlers, next they’re docking a clean triple because sequins clashed with their hangover. Rulebook? More like origami for the politically limber. Meanwhile the tech panel needs binoculars and a Ouija board to identify an edge; maybe if they spent less time gossiping they’d notice the flutz from outer space. Keep tinkering with the bullet points, darlings every tweak just widens the trapdoor for the next chosen princess.