There has always been favouritism in sports, especially figure skating. With judges controlling the results it can end up any way they want it to, not necessarily the way it should. Throughout the years there have been many scandals, but very little of them have been made right. The flawed judging is taking this beautiful sport and ruining it for everyone.
The old judging system, called the 6.0 system used the criteria of technical merit or artistic impression to compare skaters. The judges would watch the skaters’ performance and give them a mark between 5.0 and 6.0. The judges gave the mark on how well the skater did compared to the others. The problem with this system was that it was so easy for judges to give a high or low score without much reason.
The system was changed after the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City where there was a huge scandal with a French judge. The French judge was pressured to give higher marks to the Russian pairs team over the Canadians. The Russians ended up winning over the Canadian’s flawless skate. After the French judge admitted to faking her scores the Canadian team were awarded gold medals along with the Russian team.
The new system, called the code of points system, is completely opposite from the old one. There are no longer comparisons between skaters, but instead judges mark what they see in front of them. Marks are given for each element depending on difficulty and level of execution. There is also a section where marks are given for presentation. Every judge gives a mark between 1 and 10 for the artistic element of the performance. Skaters benefit from this new system because they now see where they went wrong and how they can improve.