Ilia Averbukh: “I think the main drawback of the current judging system is that we don’t know which judge gave which score. In the old system, we knew that a representative from a certain country gave you a certain score.”

Choreographer Ilia Averbukh named the main drawback of the judging system in figure skating.

original source: Sovsport

Choreographer Ilia Averbukh discusses the inherent subjectivity in figure skating judging, calling it an integral part of the sport’s rules and culture. Here’s a translation of his comments.

“Q: Do you like the current system of judging and scoring programs? What would you change about it?

Ilia Averbukh: I think its main drawback is that we don’t know which judge gave which score. In the old system, we knew that a representative from a certain country gave you a certain score, and they had a name, and so on. Now, the scores are anonymous, but the actual calculation of points, the system itself, seems fairer to me.

Whenever people give scores, there is always subjectivity. I will always say that figure skating is a subjective sport, until artificial intelligence starts judging without people. And even then, I’m not sure everything will be fair, because some special program will be built into the AI.

Figure skating and the subjectivity of scoring – it’s part of the game, part of the rules of this sport.”

Related topics: Ilia Averbukh