Scandal, Fraud, and Death of Figure Skating

The 2014 Sochi Olympics will be remembered as the day when the ladies figure skating finally met its demise.

It was the Russian mob politics that robbed Yuna Kim of South Korea of her rightful gold medal in front of the global TV audience. It was the ISU's premeditated device, since they began promoting the 15 year old Julia Lipnitskaia, that turned upside down the COP system as well as the integrity of figure skating.
Scandals and fraud are nothing new to this over a hundred year old sport. But never before was it displayed in so outrageous a manner as in Sochi.
It had been set up already long before the game began. Last year throughout the Grand Prix, Julia Lipnitskaia caused a storm winning every competition with her consistency but questionable qualities and super inflated scores.
As I indicated in the earlier articles, that presaged this storm.
This is not an anomaly in which those pro Russian judges and the mad Russian mob raped and butchered the sport in live TV. It was the ISU that conceived it all several months ago.
And their devious plot finally reared its ugly head.
Lavishing the unthinkable GOE on the then 15 year old's juniorish jump, the ISU judges had been building up the momentum for the grand Sochi fraud.
In the 2013 World championships everything seemed clear that there was no way for any young skater to get even close to the top skaters such as Yuna Kim, Carolina Kostner or Mao Asada as the podium was stonewalled by them.
The mastery of the veteran skaters are far ahead of the youngsters unless the gap should be closed artificially.
That's why the ISU judges began to award a pile of GOE on the young skaters' poor quality jump in the Grand Prix as long as they managed to land them.
You don't have to be an expert. Adelina Sotnikova or Julia Lipnitskaia for that matter didn't change much or only improve mildly from their junior performances.
In the 2013 Worlds Adelina Sotnikova's perfect short program which is an almost exact replica of hers in Sochi earned barely 60. Now nearly 75? Are you kidding?
It can't possibly fall within the range of standard deviation.
Both Julia Lipnitskaia and Adelina Sotnikova were, and still are skaters who categorically belong to the second group; their scores at their best range only between 200- 195.
The truth is that a skater like Adelina Sotnikova or Julia Lipnitskaia needs at least five years of hard training and a bit of luck to reach the kind of level of skating of these trio veterans. Only some errors in competitive context may open a chance for lesser skaters to catch up.
But in Sochi, in all far-fetched fantasy, the case is closed, solid and indisputable.
If judged correctly, Sotnikova should have scored 65 or less in short and 135 in free, which gives her less than 200.
In other words if judged unbiasedly, Sotnikova or even Lipnitskaia cannot, will not and shall not beat those veterans unless the veterans make serious mistakes or multiple flaws in performance. But in Sochi, the trio delivered nearly best performances except Mao Asada who imploded in short, yet came back brilliantly in free.
The incredible Kim did give wonderful performances, given the situation in which she had to wait a long break before she started the free program. Nothing came near to her statuesque presentation except her own monumental performances in Vancouver four years ago.
Only skaters who could ever be compared to Kim were Kostner or Asada. Even with ludicrous placement of Sotnikova after short, Kim still won the game by mile.
But the result showed Adelina Sotnikova earned five points ahead of Kim.
There is no way of justifying this other than an outright fraud.
USA Today's Christine Brennan identifies two judges, Yuri Balkov, involved in the judging scandal in the 1998 Nagano Olympics, and Alla Shekhovtseva, a wife to the Russian Skating Federation general director Valentin Pissev.
But this scandal goes deeper than that.
The ISU since the 2013 Worlds prepared this coup against the figure standard upheld since the Cop introduction.
In order to make it plausible in the eyes of public who have no knowledge of figure skating, the ISU judges rewarded indiscriminately the jump of poor quality this season.
But what they overlooked was that it didn't cut.
No matter how North Korea tries to convince the world that their people live in paradise, millions are still starving to death. Putin and his chauvinistic crowd cheer for Adelina's skating and her scores, but it cannot make her skating worthy of gold, not even surpass Kostner.
Russian's logics and the ISU's denial shall continue but it's out there for everybody to see. North Korea's mythic leader may be a god riding the cloud to those dying North Korean, but to the world they are simply brainwashed people in a pathetic condition.
Facts remain facts. Frauds are frauds.
Who wants to invest their time and sweat and life to this fraudulent work of travesty? Who will tell those young dreamers to become a figure skater if your glory depends on politics not sportmanship?Who will compete in that sport where corruption is your crown and fraud is the name of your medal?
This recalls the president of the ISU for corruption and mishandling of the judging system.
All the ISU needs to do is not an investigation of whether the president of the ISU and higher ranking officials are involved in the scheme; it's exposed and self-evident. Issue an official apology, take a disciplinary measure against the judges, and reverse the decision. That is the only way of remedying this heinous crime.