What Happened at Sochi Olympics?

Was Yuna Kim's defeat by Adelina Sotnikova at the 2014 Sochi Olympics an complete surprise? Well, in terms of magnitude, yes, but it's a sure thing to occur if you looked at what had been happening during the period between Kim's first retirement and her comeback in 2013 and how the ISU had been engineering its devious plot in female figure skating. Who would win the game might not be determined, but which country skater would be the winner must have been predetermined before the game started. In Sochi it wasn't an accident, but it was a grand plot in which the then reigning champion, Yuna Kim, who had been leading after short program was finally succumbed to an upset defeat by Adelina Sotnikova.

One of the most popular sports at the winter games, figure skating has long been plagued with judging frauds. Due to its subjective judging system, it is virtually impossible to prevent intentional wrongdoing by judges. Especially in international competitions, each judge tends to show his or her national bias. Having similar judging issues in the past, this time also, the ISU swiftly came up with something called solution, as always whenever facing a judging scandal: a new set of judging rules or modification of the rules and so forth. The repertoire sounds the same old story, so predictable. They know it. And we all know too that it ain't scratch its tail. No matter how the ISU changes the rules, they, if they are really willing, will find out how to manipulate because they are the one who's made it.

The current problem with the ISU is that its high ranking officials are connected with Russia, and that's the bottom of all the problems, and that's not a secret. The ISU's plan to produce Russian Champions in major international competitions had been a long term solution. After Yuna Kim went to a long hiatus, the ISU judges created bogus points for those Russian skaters by equaling their junior level skating to senior levels. In other words, they began to lie openly with fake GOEs on protocols, that is, fabricating fake merits. The due penalties for Russian skaters were largely pardoned or ignored, their merits were inflated, and their PCSs were also exaggerated. This resulted in horrific performances with high scores; numbers do not represent the quality of the performances. This caused in fact a mayhem in figure skating world; it virtually left figure skating in ruin. It doesn't really matter even if the ISU was hijacked by pro-Russian judges or the president of the ISU believed in revival of European hegemony of female figure skating. What is at stake here is the integrity of a sport by which athletes should be respected for their human endeavors to excel, honest sweats and pains that deserve honors, and fair spirits free of cheating or any wrongdoing. The biggest problem is that it has regressed the sport. Disqualified skaters were proclaimed as winners. The whole world was turned upside down. This time it was not individual judges that plotted a dark deal among them. It was an instituted device within the ISU that worked behind. The point is not about who got the benefit of that device. This time Russians, maybe next Germans or Chinese. Who knows? It's arbitrariness you get away with that puts anyone on top at will by means of undue bogus points, inflated points. If you have a means to reward skaters bogus points anyway you like, you will virtually control the game. With a pool of like-minded judges, it couldn't be easier. So, if there is a will, there shall be a way to be found. What happened in Sochi is an instituted fraud executed by a pool of judges, supported and directed by the leadership of the ISU, and it's willfully engineered a crime rather than a scandal.

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