Don't get too giddy yet about the display of honest judging at the Grand Prix Final in Kitchener, Ont., last week.
There is a concern among officials that ice dancing hasn't shed its dealmaking habits after all and that the Olympic Games, with a different panel of judges, will be a different story.
Those brave warriors on the judging panel in Kitchener are now on the hot seat. And the Russian referee of the Grand Prix event, Alexander Gorshkov, is on the warpath.
Five of the seven dance judges in Kitchener upset the applecart, dropping reigning world champions Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy to fourth place, while elevating Shae-Lynn Bourne of Chatham, Ont., and Victor Kraatz of Vancouver into first place. The Canadians had finished fourth at the world championships in Vancouver last March.
One veteran European skating official, watching from the stands, described the result of the Grand Prix final as correct, and that the Italians were "god-awful."
Yet, immediately after the final free dance in Kitchener, Ottavio Cinquanta, president of the International Skating Union and also an Italian, rushed from his seat to have a chat with Gorshkov just before the routine judges' meeting, in which the referee does a postmortem of the event.
At that meeting, most judges were shocked to hear Gorshkov say that the results had set ice dancing back 15 years -- and all five were asked to write multiple letters to explain their placements.
These five judges -- who are now being called The Famous Five by skating insiders -- were also astonished to hear Gorshkov tell them that the Italians and the Israelis, Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky, who finished fifth, were the only two teams whose programs were "judgeable." In other words, they were the only ones who really danced.
Gorshkov went on to say that the Canadians and the 2000 world champions from France, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, who finished a close second, were weak, and that Lithuanians Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas, who finished third, were not good at all.
Sources say some judges were "hopping mad" after the meeting. They felt they were being told that the scoring was wrong by the ISU president himself, and that he hadn't taken the dumping of his Italian team in very good humour.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going when the ordinals given by the seven judges at the Grand Prix Final are examined. And that the absence of a Russian judge on the panel made it easier for the others to vote the way they felt was correct, without any interference or pressuring.
The closest that the Russians got to having a judge on the panel was Igor Dolgushin, who was a substitute judge in Kitchener, and his vote didn't count. The substitute judge's ordinals are never revealed to the media, but The Globe and Mail obtained a list of his ordinals for the first free dance on Friday night: 1. Italy (Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio) 2. France. (Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat) 3. Canada. (Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz) 4. Israel (Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovsky) 5. Lithuania. (Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas) 6. Canada (Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon)
In contrast, for that event the panel as a whole ranked the skaters this way: 1. France 2. Canada 3. Lithuania 4. Italy 5. Israel 6. Canada
In actual fact, Dolgushin ranked the Italians first in all three segments of the competition, even though Margaglio stumbled on a required footwork sequence in the original dance. This strongly suggests that the Russians are out to help the Italians.
The ordinals from the first free dance tell a fascinating story. Israeli judge Katalin Alpern and Italian judge Walter Zuccaro were the only two on the seven-member panel that ranked the reigning world champions, the Italians, second and the Lithuanians as low as fourth.
Everyone else put the Italians fourth. The Lithuanians even got a couple of second-place ordinals from others.
At the second free dance, Zuccaro was on his own. He alone ranked the Italians first, with the Israeli judge slotting them in third place and everybody else putting them fourth.
Alpern and Zuccaro were the only two to rank the Lithuanians fifth in the second free dance, while everybody else placed them third. The differences aren't subtle.
Of all the members on the panel, the Israeli and Italian judges have the most need to push their skaters. The Italian and Israeli skaters are the ones who need this sort of help because they didn't show the skill level of the others at the Grand Prix Final.
Cinquanta watched the event with a stern glance, arms folded. After the controversies in ice dancing at the world championships in Vancouver, where the Italians won and the audience almost revolted, Cinquanta said at the closing banquet that everybody should accept the results because they were correct, and they must not complain.
The results at the Olympics are bound to be very different than those at Kitchener. The Olympic dance panel was drawn three months before the Olympic Games, and its members include Russia, Italy, Israel and many of their friendly nations, such as Ukraine, who have all been walking in step this season.
Canada, France, and United States have no judges on the panel.
Other members of the Olympic panel are Switzerland, Lithuania, Germany, Azerbaijan, Poland and Bulgaria. And guess who Cinquanta has picked as the referee of the Olympic dance event? Gorshkov.
At the Grand Prix Final, Gorshkov also created an interesting set of ordinals. His ordinals don't count in the final score and are not made public, but The Globe and Mail has also obtained this list.
Sources say Gorshkov was clever, not allowing the Italians to finish first in any portion of the event, but juggling the placement of others to engineer a final result of the Italians finishing first, France second, Canada third, Israel fourth, and Lithuania fifth. Yet his ordinals don't necessarily match what he said at the judges' meeting.
Although he said Bourne and Kraatz were weak, he placed them first in the final free dance. Although he said the Israelis were one of only two teams to really dance, he placed them no higher than fourth in any portion of the event.
Still, the judging of the dance at the Grand Prix Final marked a singular time in figure skating history. Back home in Vancouver, Canadian judge Jean Senft, suspended for six months for producing a tape revealing Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov's listing the order of finish before the event was over at the Nagano Olympics, said she was "over the moon" with the way judges had worked at the Grand Prix Final.
"I am ecstatic that the event was finally judged," she said. "I was overcome. I burst into tears, I was so relieved."
David Dore, director-general of Skate Canada, said the results were "healthy" for the sport. "I thought the marks were a reflection of what happened on the ice," he said. "It gives a positive message."
But the positive message may be short-lived. The judges used the only chance they had in Kitchener to prove that dance can be judged properly. They may not get a chance at the Olympics.
How the ref skated around the figures
The places awarded The numbers below show the places (first to sixth) awarded to the skaters by a panel of seven judges at the Grand Prix Final in Kitchener, Ont. In the eighth column you can see the referee's placings. (The replacement points for each dance are different to reflect their different values, so a first place in one will not count as highly as a first place in another.)
Original dance
(worth 20% of the total)
France U.S Israel Italy
Skating couples Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 1 1 1
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 2 3 3
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 3 3 2 2
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 4 4 5 5
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 5 6 4 4
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 6 5 6 6
Original dance
(worth 20% of the total)
Lithuania Canada Germany Ref
Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 1 1 1
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 2 3 3
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 4 4 2 2
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 3 3 4 5
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 5 6 5 4
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 6 5 6 6
First free dance
(worth 30% of the total)
France U.S Israel Italy
Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 1 1 1
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 3 3 3
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 4 4 2 2
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 3 2 4 4
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 5 5 5 5
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 6 6 6 6
Lithuania Canada Germany Ref
Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 1 1 1
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 2 3 4
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 4 4 4 2
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 3 3 2 3
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 6 6 5 5
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 5 5 6 6
Second free dance
(worth 50% of the total)
France U.S Israel Italy
Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 2 2 3
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 1 1 2
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 4 4 3 1
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 3 3 5 5
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 5 5 4 4
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 6 6 6 6
Lithuania Canada Germany Ref
Marina Anissian/
Gwendal Peizerat (FRA.) 1 1 2 3
Shae-Lynn Bourne/
Victor Kraatz (CAN.) 2 2 1 1
Barbara Fusar-Poll/
Maurizio Margaglio (ITA.) 4 4 4 2
Margarita Drobiazko/
Povilas Vanagas (LITH.) 3 3 3 5
Galit Chait/
Sergei Sakhnovski (ISR.) 6 6 6 4
Marie-France Dubreuil/
Patrice Lauzon (CAN.) 5 5 5 6
The referee's angle
The referee did not actually award Italy a first place in any of the dances, he placed them second in each. By juggling places between the other countries the referee created a tie-situation. A tie would be broken by awarding the win to the highest placed couple in the second free dance event, which carried the greatest value.
The referee's tally
1 Italy .8+1.2+2.0=4.0 2 France .4+.6+3.0=4.0 3 Canada 1.2+2.4+1.0=4.6 4 Israel 1.6+3.0+4.0=8.6 5 Lithuania 2.0+1.8+3.0=8.8 6 Canada 2.4+3.6+6.0=12.0