ITALY: Former Olympic champion Robin Cousins analyses how new scoring system allowed Chinese couple to win silver despite falling.

Record ID: 332081

  • Title: ITALY: Former Olympic champion Robin Cousins analyses how new scoring system allowed Chinese couple to win silver despite falling.
  • Date: 14th February 2006
  • Summary: TURIN, ITALY (FEBRUARY 14, 2006)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ROBIN COUSINS SPEAKING "There's another point which makes the new system work for me in as much as the people in charge of calling the events, not the judges sitting there who are doing the grade of execution, but the people who are required to spot the elements and decide whether they were a double, triple, good, bad, indifferent, have to be figure skaters. These are people I grew up with, I trained with, I competed with, so I know if I was sitting there, I would go - that triple's on two feet, that's off the wrong edge, and I'm hoping and assuming they are doing the same thing. So that makes me feel better knowing that the people in charge of deciding what level of footwork a sequences is graded at, or a lift, or a spin, are people who have had to do it themselves."
  • Embargoed: 1st March 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA36IMIPZXTKMJ0STAR02Q6TPAO
  • Story Text: Robin Cousins, Olympic figure skating gold medallist in 1980, said on Tuesday (February 14) that the new scoring system used to judge the Olympic pairs competition "does work."
    On Monday Chinese pair Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao attempted to land the first throw quadruple Salchow in competition but ended with Zhang Dan crashing onto the ice and being unable to resume immediately.
    However after a break for medical attention the pair continued and were rewarded with the silver medal, behind Russia's Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin who won the gold medal by 15 points.
    Cousins said that the fall only incurred a one point deduction according to the new rules, and the referee had been able to extend the two minute gap using discretionary powers.
    "Obviously in the old system the second mark would have suffered quite severely by the gap. How that has played out yet I actually haven't seen the print out, which is obviously something else that is very new with the new system is that there is a print out that will give you all the information on the elements that they did, how they were judged on it where the deductions were and where the plus points where made. And the one thing about this pairs team is that many of the tricks they had were the hardest in the competition, harder than even Totmianina and Marinin, so their grade of execution points they were going for something which was a high accumulator," Cousins added.
    The scoring system was introduced in 2003, first tested at the Nebelhorn Trophy event in Oberstdorf in Germany. Judges use computer screens to record their scores and the computer decides at random to take only nine of the 12 judges scores. Experts assign every technique a base value and decide if that jump or lift has been executed correctly. The judges are then free to score "programme components" such as skating skills and choreography. These have replaced artistic interpretation in the new scheme.
    The new system was brought in after the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002 in which a judging scandal resulted in a second set of gold medals being assigned.
    Cousins said the new system should be able to stop such a scandal being repeated. "I think the new system is going to do whatever it needs to do to stop something like Salt Lake happening again. Wherever you have people judging people there is going to be an element of, and there will be room for, human error. But I'm hoping, and assuming, that in the future it will not be on purpose."
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