Blind Justice

Every time I looked at the judges, they metamorphosed into grimacing Tolkienesque characters. I did not wish to be judged by them. I did not wish to have my destiny determined by such silly and superficial people.
—TOLLER CRANSTON
Six-time Canadian national champion figure skater, in his autobiography, Zero Tollerance

Figure Skating judges have an image problem. Silly, superficial and Tolkienesque isn't the half of it. Frustrated, incompetent, out-of-touch and out-to-lunch are a few of the other zingers routinely thrown their way by skaters and coaches—always out of earshot, for fear of retribution. These descriptions often are condescendingly preceded by "They're well-meaning, but...." Spectators boo them, the media lampoon them, and almost nobody bothers to thank them for volunteering to spend 10 to 15 weekends a year sitting around frigid rinks judging competitions that can be dreadful. Trips to Olympic competitions and world championships are glamorous, but the men and women who arbitrate those high-profile events hone their skills for at least 10 years in figure skating's bush leagues—club competitions, regionals, sectionals—where tomorrow's Michelle Kwans and Tara Lipinskis get their starts. Even at those levels, judges are viewed askance by parents, coaches and skaters. "When I tell people what I do, their reaction is, Oh, you're one of those evil men," says Volker Waldeck, an international judge from Germany and a tax lawyer by profession. "They think of you as some mean little person. That's how we're always portrayed."

Unless, that is, they're portrayed as petulant, tyrannical despots, irrationally subjective and capable of beheading an innocent skater for wearing the wrong color costume. "They're so sensitive and insecure," says one coach, requesting the usual anonymity. "That's the whole problem with judges. And they have all the power."

Power? Is that what this collection of doctors, dentists, stylishly dressed grandmothers, chemical engineers, financial consultants, teachers and paleontologists is after? Those are just a few of the professions one encounters at a gathering of judges, most of whom were skaters of middling talent who retain a passionate love of the sport. As if in one voice, they will tell you they judge not for power but out of a desire to give something back. Skaters and coaches who hear that old chestnut roll their eyes as if to say: Love the spoil a little less; judge it a little better. It's an understandable reaction when the difference between Olympic gold and silver can mean millions of dollars.

Some of the more controversial decisions from recent Games include the five-to-four margin by which Oksana Baiul was awarded the gold medal over Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 at Lillehammer, despite Kerrigan's clear technical superiority in both the short and the free-skating programs. "It was the old question of the presentation mark being the tiebreaker," says Ben Wright of Belmont, Mass., a recent inductee into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, who served as a referee or judge at 22 world championships and six Olympics. "Nancy's mechanical, and Oksana had such a great sense of the music. It's subjective."

Judging isn't a science. Much of it is interpretive, an exercise in comparing apples to oranges. That was certainly the case in the hotly debated 1994 Olympic pairs competition, which Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov won despite making two noticeable errors during an otherwise sublime free skate. Those mistakes were seemingly ignored by a panel that voted eight to one to give G&G the gold over Artur Dmitriev and Natalia Mishkutienok, who had skated cleanly in the performance of their lives.

"If, if, if...." shrugs Tamara Moskvina, coach of Dmitriev and Mishkutienok. "If my pair had practiced better that week. If G&G had made mistakes in practice that week. If my pair had had a better season until then. I understand all this."

The audience didn't. What should practice have to do with it? The competition is all that matters, right? Not in figure skating, where judges are not only allowed to attend practice sessions but are also encouraged to do so to evaluate skaters. "It's absolutely essential that you go to the training sessions," says Ron Pfenning of Hyannis, Mass., one of five members of the technical committee of the International Skating Union (ISU), the committee that is responsible for the training of ISU judges and that decides, among other things, which elements go into a short program. "This is not prejudging," Pfenning says. "It's providing judges a comfort level so they'll know how wide a range they have to work with. You need to know the quality of the skating you'll judge."

Is it fair for judges to screen the field before a competition, mentally separating skaters into groups: excellent, good, mediocre or poor? Well, yes and no. The more familiar a judge is with a skater's style—his or her body line, carriage, spins, musicality and speed—the better those attributes can be factored into an overall performance. They're traits that don't fundamentally change from one day to the next, and in a single sitting it's virtually impossible to take them all in.

Problems arise when skaters with established reputations—good or bad—perform out of character on the day of reckoning. Ask Paul Wylie, who had never stood up to competitive pressure until the 1992 Albertville Olympics, where he received the silver medal. Had the judging been based solely on what happened the day of that final, many observers felt he would have won gold over Viktor Petrenko of Ukraine. Similarly, in '88 at the Calgary Games, the judges were so focused on the much-hyped duel between former world champions Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas, neither of whom skated well, that they undermarked the brilliant free skate of Canada's Elizabeth Manley, who might have won but was consigned to silver.