The 2020 European champion made her debut in pair skating and immediately harshly criticized the judging. Director General of the Russian Figure Skating Federation Alexander Kogan retorted, saying that the athlete received fair assessments. Sports is looking into why the authorities of one of the most popular sports do not reveal their real problems.
The situation with Alena Kostornaya and her powerful criticism of our judging is interesting, no matter how the federation leaders try to say the opposite. Perhaps 192 points on the sum of two programs for debutants can be considered a result that is clearly above average, to say the least. Alena and her partner Georgy Kunitsa looked great, but they still made mistakes — especially in the short program, which the guys themselves openly admitted. In this regard, fourth place with good points is an excellent starting point, which risks turning into something more by the end of the season.
And yet Alena’s performance was important. If only because no one has ever spoken about errors in refereeing so clearly and catchily. In the short program, for their support, Alena and Georgy received bonuses for execution (GOE) from the referees in the range from “+3”, which corresponds to a high-quality, albeit not ideal, element, to the diametrically opposite “-3”. At first glance, this seems like a small thing, especially since the highest and lowest scores among all judges are always discarded to obtain a more adequate average on the scoresheet. And yet, such a contrast suggests that one of the judges in this situation was very mistaken, and this is at least.
Why is this important? Firstly, as a fact, there are some problems in refereeing. For several years now, there have been discussions of varying degrees of objectivity about whether our figure skating judges are bad or good. Most often, the reason for conversation is a little far-fetched, or at least each of them separately does not seem critical. But when this happens once, twice, thirdly, tenthly… >And then everyone wonders why there is dissatisfaction? Yes, perhaps Alena went too far. It would be useful to emphasize this again. And yet we need such news feeds, even though they cause such strong irritation to the leadership of the federation. At a press conference before the Grand Prix stage in Krasnoyarsk, Kogan spoke about the situation in the following way: “We do not believe that there were any real violations (in judging), we believe that the result is fair, we hope that in pair skating Alena something will work out. As for the judges, that’s why there are 7 or 9 judges sitting there, because everyone has their own opinion. Our fan base is such that we are always trying to find the culprits — either one judge, or all of them together. There is a difference in how different judges see the elements — judge number one or judge number seven, hence there may also be a difference in assessments. I ask you to treat our athletes kindly, in foreign fan clubs they often write more warmly about Russian figure skaters. For some reason we- then we see a lot of negativity, criticism from all sides. If figure skating ends, you will have nothing to write about. Look deeper, write analytics. We need feedback not in the form of hype, likes or clicks, but in the form of real analysis. We are interested in discuss this with you.»
The head coach of our team, Elena Chaikovskaya, echoed him in her unique style: “Nothing unique happened in Omsk, there’s nothing to write about, all the media are on their hind legs and discussing it. At the World Championships there is a scatter of 10 points, no one is discussing , and here two-page articles are based on nothing. There is something to write about in figure skating, but everyone is determined to write about Kostornaya, who just came out in pairs, and there is nothing to talk about. We'll see in a year or two, we'll examine her from all sides sides, then it will be possible to talk about something. For now, this is an ordinary case. It seems that she is a three-time Olympic champion, and you keep writing about her. This is a student of my school, I love her very much, but you pay so much attention to her, that I was simply stunned.»
Here, first, I would like to talk about a painful issue — the leadership of the federation is almost never “accessible”. Alexander Ilyich communicates expansively and respectfully at press conferences, and this is wonderful, but the vast majority of my colleagues, when trying to clarify or find out any information, and not necessarily the most hype, most often run into a wall. Messages are ignored, calls are dropped, no answers are given.
The case with Elena Anatolyevna is similar. Probably all fans remember the master’s legendary answers about Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin, into which words like “garbage” and “nonsense” were delicately woven, but here is the latest case from the “in access” category — when rumors began to circulate about the breakup of the Elizabeth couple Pasechnik/Maxim Nekrasov, I decided to give official information on the topic. Of course, the coaches and the guys themselves closed themselves off from the press (and one can understand them — they don’t have to, after all). That's why I turned to Elena Anatolyevna. Still, then there was only a week left before the test skates, and the fate of the country's third couple hung in the balance. Who, if not her, should hold the answer?
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Elena Anatolyevna picked up the phone and was, I must say, very polite. But she immediately warned that she would not comment on absolutely anything. “You see, I’m here to coach, not to comment,” that’s all. So if at that moment I was interested in the world record of Mishina and Gallyamov. In general, you understand.
By the way, about records. I remember that at the 2019 European Championships in Graz, Alexandra Boykova/Dmitry Kozlovsky scored record points at that time in the short program — and you would know with what difficulty my colleagues and I asked Tamara Nikolaevna Moskvina for a comment on this matter. Because: “Well, what kind of records are you talking about? It’s all nonsense, no one in figure skating takes these records seriously.” The rhetoric of the federation leadership, by the way, was similar.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the topic of judging is so painful for the bosses of our figure skating — since even about records there are often meager speeches or nothing at all. But even God bless them, let’s take the record as a basis. This is an achievement for an athlete and a coach, right? And we write about them in large quantities. Perhaps this will be something surprising for some, but, probably, nowhere in the world has so much attention been focused on figure skating — and complimentary notes in the general voice still prevail over negativity. Our athletes are the best in the world, and not a single Russian media will argue with this, because it is true.
But what about the federation's achievements? Journalists cannot evaluate the leadership’s work globally precisely because of the lack of access to it. We see the result — but we have the best athletes in the world. We see coaches — this is how the Russian figure skating school has always been the best. Outstanding personnel, who, it turns out, need only not be harmed, and then they will do everything themselves. What else?
But, for example, the judges are the same ones that Kostornaya spoke about. And it’s strange to be surprised that in the absence of other clear information sources “from within” the federation, THIS becomes public knowledge. Because no one deals with THIS from a purely superficial point of view (“everything is fine, there’s nothing to see here”), THIS is regularly criticized not only and not so much by the press, but by the participants in the process themselves — coaches and athletes. Finally, THIS is the same face of our sport as the figure skaters — the ISU Frankfurt seminar a year and a half ago will not let you lie.
The leadership of the FFKKR likes to repeat that we have the most qualified judges, and at the world championships the judges are just anyone. But this is the honest truth — international referees most often combine judging with their main job and do not devote all their time to figure skating. I personally know some referees who work as accountants, stylists, and managers. Someone is busy with business or something like that. Yes, many of them went through figure skating school, but they are not busy with it from morning to night.
And yes, they can afford to make mistakes, if only because no one calls them the best in the world. But when we are given from “+3” to “-3” for the same element, the rules for placing components with technical errors are regularly violated, and “input errors” pop up in systems every now and then, isn’t it worth asking the question: Are we deceiving ourselves? And isn’t it perhaps worth reacting to this somehow?
By the way, there is confidence that there is still a reaction — just inside, on the sidelines. But in public — everything is perfect, look at the USA (in this case, almost a literal quote) and you’re writing about the wrong thing at all. But if you suddenly want to write “about that”, you will still be faced with misunderstanding — why did you actually come out here? Without you, they say, we’ll figure it out.
Of course, this is repulsive. No, not even the press, but the fans, who, because of such minor flaws, understand less and less what the outcome of the competition depends on, and are gradually losing interest in them. And no one is in a hurry to explain all this to them, because look at the records and rejoice.
But the funny thing is that this will not interrupt the flow of statements like Kostornaya’s. It’s just that every year these voices will become quieter and quieter. And not because everything has changed. But because there will be no one left willing to listen about all this.
The position of the editors may not coincide with the opinion of the author