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FIG clears Vera Kiryashova of judging impropriety

   Coach and judge Vera Kiryashova with one of her world champion gymnasts, Tatiana Nabiyeva




TASS (Albert Starodubtsev) reports that Russian WAG judge Vera Kiryashova has been cleared of biased judging at last year's World Championships.  The well known judge, also coach to champions Tatiana Nabiyeva and Elena Eremina, stood accused by the Women's Technical Committee of overscoring the beam routines of Maria Kharenkova, Seda Tutkhalyan and Viktoria Komova.   All expenses were reimbursed in respect of the disciplinary hearing (1,000 Swiss Francs).

Olympic licenses have already been handed out to judges, and Mrs Kiryashova was denied hers in favour of her compatriot Maria Ulyankina (personal coach to Maria Paseka and Seda Tutkhalyan) pending the result of the disciplinary hearing.  She says that she will not pursue its reinstatement as that would involve denying her colleague the opportunity to judge at the Games.  'I was banned from the Olympics before any investigations had taken place', said Kiryashova, 'even though my work to date had been rated as excellent by the FIG'.

Vera Kiryashova was assigned to work as an execution judge in team qualifications at Glasgow Worlds.  Details of the WTC's allegations were made available to Kiryashova in a letter of 25th March.  The disciplinary hearing took place in Lausanne on 11th May.  

Source - http://tass.ru/sport/3339206

Comments

  1. Sad that Russia might be getting a bad reputation over this

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  2. and what did the Women's Technical Committee do with the genius judges in UB final and their festival "Gold-for-all"??? in my opinion it has been turned to a political thing in AG for a while now and I stopped trusting their judges' scores...
    John

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    Replies
    1. I thought that the Code had been designed to be impartial, transparent and 'objective'. Instead of which it simply demands uniformity, it seems. Poor Kiryashova.
      I cannot find the details of this hearing on the FIG site - I wish they would publish them - it would help understanding and make them more transparent.

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    2. Queen E, do you know who or what brought about the investigation in the first place? Does the FIG solely think to review judges or would a particular country, athlete, coach or team have put in an inquiry to the judging to create such an investigation? There will always be talk amongst us all as to the judging and where we personally feel a few tenths we're added or denied to our favorite athletes or teams but overall I think all the elite judges do their best to judge well on the spot. I find it odd that this judge was questioned over what I am assuming was a questionable few tenths when there was such a debacle over the bars finals. Why we're those judges not questioned? Even if they find those judges did nothing wrong I cannot believe they wouldn't have also investigated them as well since those scores were such an anomaly in this sport. I feel badly that one judge was singled out. Was it due to a major deviance in score versus the other judges on beam that signaled the inquiry?

      -B

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    3. I don't really know - I think that the FIG should publish the proceedings of these hearings to make things transparent. I assume there was a variance between her marks for the gymnasts named, and the marks of other judges. She didn't judge again in the comp. I kind of wonder more why she was cleared?

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  3. I did not know that judges could be involved in marking athlets of their own countries. That shouldn't happen in the first place.

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    Replies
    1. In that case there would be no one who could judge these competitions - all the judges come from somewhere 😀. And then there are the Tech Committees who draft the Codes of Points - they can all skew things if they want to. The illusion of bias free, objective marking can't be maintained for long if you think about it.

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    2. I hope more details will be published as put like this it can seem like a specific grudge with the Russian panel in light of the doping scandal

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    3. This all took place well before the doping scandal was publicly known about. I don't think it is a grudge, but it does appear to have been poorly managed. Hopefully, as you say, the FIG will release more details.

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    4. I think the weird thing is that the Russians decided to publicize this. These investigations happen every year, but the FIG never names those under investigation (nor specifies the event or phase of the competition the investigated were judging). To my knowledge the FIG doesn't even publicly name the judges who are found guilty! It always leaves the fans to speculate about which events might be under scrutiny, like I know for the 2014 worlds a large number of men's judges were investigated and many people thought it was related to the Chinese men's very close, controversial win over Japan. But all we can do is speculate because FIG never makes it public - it's possible some of the judges in the UB final were investigated, we just wouldn't hear their own federations publicize it!

      I get that she was cleared of the allegations, but it's still an odd decision IMO. Cultural difference?

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    5. Also, to the OP, the only rule is that you are not allowed to judge an event final if a gymnast from your own country is competing. Otherwise, you're good. It's interesting that Ulyankina could potentially end up judging two of her own personal gymnasts in Rio if Paseka and Tutkhalyan both make the team! Although I guess we never see her out on the floor with them anyway.

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    6. I can only assume that for some reason the news of Vera's suspension leaked and she felt she wanted to clear her name. More of a local than a cultural thing, then my blog goes and translates it into English!
      I do think more transparency in these matters would help the FIG demonstrate the fairness of its proceedings - otherwise with all thatched happening in the wider world of sport it might be left open to nuance and innuendo.

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  4. http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/figNews/view?id=1593

    Well this is interesting....maybe the FIG has decided to start being more transparent? I can't remember them having ever named specific judges who were sanctioned before!

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