Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Friday 21 February 2014 10.45 EST
Yuna Kim fans demand inquiry into "corrupt" Sochi figure skating scores
• South Koreans angered by decision in favour of Russian
• Adelina Sotnikova won surprise gold ahead of Yuna Kim
South Korean figure skater Yuna Kim missed out on gold, but more than 1.5m people want the judging to be reviewed. Photograph: Yonhap/EPA
At the end of a flawless performance, it seemed that nothing could come between Yuna Kim and her bid to become only the third woman to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in figure skating.
But Kim, the undisputed darling of South Korean sport, and the millions of her compatriots who had stayed up into to the early hours to watch her decisive long programme at the Sochi Olympics on Thursday, had not reckoned with the sport's opaque, and controversial, scoring system.
When the scores had been tallied, the 23-year old overwhelming favourite had to settle for a silver medal, losing out by 5.48 points to the unfancied Russia skater Adeline Sotnikova, who won her country's first women's Olympic figure skating gold.
South Korean skating fans immediately cried foul play. "Queen Yuna," they said, had been denied the gold that was rightfully hers by questionable judging and the looming presence of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.
As of Friday, more than 1.5 million of them had signed an online petition demanding an inquiry into Kim's shock defeat. The petition could end up breaking change.org records – previous most-signed campaigns have included Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin's successful attempt bring the man who shot their son, Trayvon Martin, to court (2.3m signatures) and a protest against YouTube and Google (4.3m).
The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said Kim had been denied the chance to join Germany's Katarina Witt and Norway's Sonja Henie as the only women to win successive Olympic figure skating golds by partisan judging and an "extra judge" in the form of Putin. Kim had been up against "the home turf score plus Putin's score", the South Korean newspaper said.
While delirious Russian fans celebrated Sotnikova's surprise victory inside the Iceberg Skating Palace, doubts were quickly raised about the impartiality of at least two of the nine judges that had sent her into first place.
Russia's Adelina Sotnikova celebrates winning gold. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters
The Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov was suspended for a year when he was caught on tape trying to fix the 1998 Olympic ice dancing competition in Nagano, Japan, while others pointed out that judge Alla Shekhovtseva is the wife of Valentin Piseev, the general director of the Russian skating federation.
Kostner, who won bronze, had cause to feel more aggrieved than Kim, who attempted only six triple jumps compared to Sotnikova's seven. The Italian, however, received 7.34 points fewer than the Russian, despite pulling off every one of her 11 jumps, including seven triples, to the evocative musical backdrop of Ravel's Bolero.
Skaters-turned-TV pundits poring over the judging details struggled to comprehend how Sotnikova had pulled off the upset and generated the first major sporting scandal of the Sochi Games.
"I am stunned by this result, I don't understand the scoring," Witt, who won gold in the 1984 and 1988 Games, said during her commentary for German TV.
As it was, Sotnikova racked up 149.95 points in the free skate, a dramatic improvement on her previous best of 131.63, recorded just last month.
South Korean journalists dispensed with any pretence of objectivity. "Why did you invite all of us if you were going to have Putin's little sports meeting?" Bae Sung-jae, a commentator for broadcaster SBS, said on Twitter.
Much of the criticism surrounds the scoring system, which replaced the familiar 6.0 tallies after a vote-trading scandal at the Salt Lake City games in 2002. It is meant to be more rigorous: each jump or spin has a base value, and the judges assign further grades for executions and other elements such as choreography. That may undermine the calls for an inquiry by Kim's fans - some commentators said that while her routine was smoother Sotnikova's was technically more demanding.
But it is also more opaque; the scoring is anonymous and it is harder to discern national bias. One of Kim's competitors said the time had come to ditch the current scoring system by which individual judges give their scores anonymously, a measure introduced in response to a vote-trading scandal at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.
"People don't want to watch a sport where you see people fall down and somehow score above someone who goes clean," said the US skater Ashley Wagner, who finished seventh. "It's confusing, and we need to make it clear for people.
"People need to be held accountable. They need to get rid of the anonymous judging. There are many changes that need to come to this sport if we want a fan base, because you can't depend on this sport to always be there when you need it."
In the South Korean capital Seoul, skating fans expressed a mixture of anger at the result and praise for Kim, whose performance in Sochi marked her retirement from competitive skating.
"Yuna was still so beautiful," 32-year-old Young-min told Reuters, while fellow fan Kim Byoung-in said: "She is and will be our gold medallist forever, and we will be rooting for her next phase of life."
South Korean TV attempted to ease Kim's pain, playing endless reruns of her valedictory performance in Sochi and footage from her 17-year career, beginning with her first tentative slides across the ice as a six-year-old. By Friday, "Thank you, Yuna," was the most popular search term on the country' biggest internet portals, Naver and Daum.
Kim attempted to rise above the controversy. "The scores are given by the judges so I'm not in the right position to comment and there is nothing that will change with my words," she said. "The most important thing for me was to take part in these Games."
Online rage among South Korean skating fans may not be enough to force an official inquiry, though. The International Olympic Committee said on Friday that it would not investigate Sotnikova's win unless a formal complaint was lodged.
"I am unaware, in fact I am certain, there hasn't been any complaint," said IOC communications director Mark Adams. "If it does, the first step for it would be to go through [the International Skating Union]. If there isn't a credible complaint then we wouldn't take it any further."
Check out the full petition to have the results reviewed by the International Skating Union over at Change.org. At the time of this post, it has over 1.7 million signatures. Also, here are some of the enraged netizen comments that have been left on it so far. Full names appear on the petition and have not been altered.
Kelly Chung TORONTO, CANADA
IT IS JUST UNBELIEVABLE. I just can not believe the Russian girl, who never got over 180 overall, got 220? dafaq just happened? I can't even believe that she was even close to Yuna Kim. It is known that it is amazingly difficult to get over 200, with that crappy steps and jumps, getting over 200 is just don't make any sense. Russian girl was purely overscored, and it should be checked again unless they want figure skating to be kicked out from Olympics. Honestly, Yuna Kim was robbed, and the medalist should have been changed.
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Young Sun Choi MONTREAL, CANADA
judges in women's single figure skating.
Adelina Sotnikova, .. who had a score of 131 at her best, won the olympic gold. This is the most disgusting history of Women's figure skating. You betrayed all the figure skating fans in the world, as well as skaters. Skaters do not prepare for olympics for 4 years to get misjudged.
I do not know how much money Russia give to ISU or IOC in order to have highest medal numbers in this Sochi olympics, but this is not the russian's home event. This is an international event. Every sports players, skaters, people who prepared for olympics for years have rights to have what they deserve.
There are many articles out to blame how this free skating score is a piece of shit. Not only Kim Yu-na, but also other skaters.
This is unbelievable. Russian skaters earned over 30 points more in this olympic than scores from any other competition. This is total ridiculousness.
■ Judge No. 2: Yuri Balkov of Ukraine. At the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, Balkov was taped by the Canadian judge Jean Senft explaining what order the competitors would finish in the ice-dancing competition before it took place. He was suspended for one year. He returned to judging and is certified by the international federation.
■ Judge No. 6: Alla Shekhovtsova of Russia. She is the wife of Valentin Piseev, general director of the Russian figure skating federation.
■ Technical controller: Alexander Lakernik of Russia, who has been the vice president of the Russian figure skating federation. He was voted chairman of the international federation’s technical committee in the wake of the 2002 Salt Lake scandal.
■ Replay operator: Alexander Kuznetsov of Russia. In the aftermath of the judging scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake Games, Russian officials, including Kuznetsov, expressed frustration that the Canadians pushed to have the pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier elevated to a gold medal. “The Russians would never have brought up this issue,” said Kuznetsov, identified as a “figure skating coach.” “The Russians would have proven their right to victory at the next competition.”
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LEE DA HTE 경기도포천시, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
Hi I'm one of the person of Koreans. I really hope you to reconsider 2014 Sochi Women's figure skating judgement. I think both Yuna Kim and the russian player must get gold medal together just like Salt lake city 2002. In salt lake city game, the russian and canadian player got gold medals together. I think most of you guys know that. So please reconsider your judgement. If you don't, 2014 Sochi Olympic game will be the worst game ever first and last in the world and IOC's credibility must fall down. Many people and I believe IOC will make a correct and objective judgement.
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kim yonggung 파주시, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
I'm a figure skating fan in korea. I feel Sochi olympic's women figure skating jugdment is bisased judgment for Yu-Na Kim.
Yuna's performance is really awesome and perfect. Yuna only got 1.60 GOE for her 3Lz+3T when she always got nearly 2 for other competitions. Even worse, she only got 1 GOE for her 3Lz when she got 1.8 last year. The rule states that the skater gets 10% extra GOE 2 minutes after the program, she got less than 1GOE for all her jumps after 2minutes.
On the other hand, Sotnikova has mistake in landing and also has wrong edge. But she got a higer score than Yuna..Sotnikova got 1.50 GOE for her 3F while Yuna only got 1.2. Can you really say her 3F was better than Yuna's? or even the performance as a whole? Sotnikova got a overscore.This judgment is unfair. Yuna actually made an impeccable performance whereas Sotnikova was slightly unstable in two of her jumps performed.
In no way the judges can justify nearly 5 points difference in their scores tonight. Corruption definitely took place. It's so ironic how all viewers clearly notice such abnormality while the judges came up with ridiculous scores. Yuna didn't get enough score comparing Sotnikova. All the players effort a lot for the olympic game. Please don't be in vain thier effort. This runs contrary to the spirit of the Olympic....I want to see a real Spirit of the Olympic.
Sources: The Guardian, Change.org