When the Judges Have the Wrong You

[AgnesNitt]

Let's say you're in a  big class at a comp, or it's a huge test session.

You do your program, and when you are going over your results you see something 'odd'. Maybe it marks you as having a fall when you didn't fall, or doing a spin that you didn't do, and you think, "This isn't my score. It's somebody else's."

I know there are lots of steps to keep this from happening, but has it ever happened? How did it get straightened out--or not?

[axelwylie]

Yes. I tested my silver MITF at a different rink. Two of us were on the ice testing at opposite ends of each other.  One judge scored me one full point below the others. A full point spread like that is pretty much unheard of. Judges usually score within 0.1 or 0.2 within each other.

I was fine with the Retry but really think the one judge was watching the wrong test.

The other person skating at the same time as me passed by all 3 judges.

[nicklaszlo]

There is a procedure in the rulebook, at least for competitions.  I vaguely recall a case in a major competition where a skater claimed they did a flip but they received credit for a lutz.  They got to keep the slightly higher score.

[sarahspins]

I've judged at several (low level) competitions - I think it it would be very difficult to give the wrong scores to a skater at a competition unless they got on the ice at the wrong time... the judging format pretty much prevents that, however in the case of something like IJS, I could see the tech specialist calling something wrong, or making a mistake on an element entry, but that's really a different problem than mixing up skaters (which is essentially impossible under IJS).

I could see judges getting mixed up at a test session more easily - mostly because for the most part the judges don't know the skaters, and if you have several on the ice at once (which is not uncommon) especially if they are all dressed similarly (aka all in black) and of similar size/build it might be difficult to keep track if which one "you" are supposed to be watching if you take your eye off them for a second to make notes.  We've never had a large enough judging panel at an of our test sessions to double panel higher level tests (if we double or triple panel, those tests are judged by just one judge per skater) but I could see some potential for confusion there.

[fsk8r]

They've stopped double panel testing in the UK, not that I ever heard of there being a mixup. I just think they decided it wasn't fair that skaters were having to stop and start because of the speed of the other tester and some elements demanded centre ice which you just can't have two people doing at the same time.

But the judge at my last test session did turn around and say to me as I was starting the test that she hadn't seen me on the warm up. She knows me, so she was meaning that she'd not noticed me. That was probably more to do with my coach having 3 of us on the same warmup and the other two were requiring more correction/nerve calming.

[Query]

I helped judge a USFS basic skills competition, where the standards on who can judge are sometimes very lax. You don't have to be trained to judge, for low level BS comps and tests.

For many of the skills, all the skaters at a given level skated at the same time, and there were no identifying names or numbers on the skaters. I think it might be possible for an untrained inexperienced judge to get confused under those circumstances.

I've also seen all the skaters to skate at the same time in a low level ISI competition too, which could potentially be confusing - but at least there, the judges were all trained coaches.

[jjane45]

I could see judges getting mixed up at a test session more easily - mostly because for the most part the judges don't know the skaters, and if you have several on the ice at once (which is not uncommon) especially if they are all dressed similarly (aka all in black) and of similar size/build it might be difficult to keep track if which one "you" are supposed to be watching if you take your eye off them for a second to make notes. 

What about a leon orange vest   I think it's hard to mix up the adult testers, but can totally see kids looking lot more alike lol!!

[LT]

I could see it would be easy to get confused at the lower level test sessions when they double panel (or more). At DD's moves test there were 3 skaters on the ice (one skater per judge). They all wore black jackets, black dresses and OTB tights. All the same height/size, all with dark hair, all with buns but different accessories. The judge wrote a note on DD's test sheet: "Hair in bun, flower not ribbon."