Emerging
market nations come with emerging market baggage. This was illustrated quite
clearly in the Sochi Olympic Winter Games, where a plethora of issues, ranging
from brown water, stray dogs, and questionable infrastructure threatened to
create a public relations nightmare. The American media was not kind to Sochi
during the early days of the competition, but suddenly had an about-face in the
second week, gushing about how successful the games have been. Were the
journalists coerced into acquiescence? Considering the fate of Anna
Politkovskaya, it would not necessarily be surprising. But this is conjecture,
something that may never be proven. And it doesn't need to be, since there was
enough controversy within the competition itself to raise more than a few
eyebrows.
In the Ladies' figure skating competition, 17-year old Adelina Sotnikova stunned the world when she upset reigning Olympic gold medal champion, Yuna Kim, taking home the most prized award in front of a delirious home crowd. There's no doubt that Sotnikova brought her A-game, giving everything that she had, which included a program that on paper was technically more challenging than Kim's, by a margin of 3.94 points. This included one more jump than Kim had on her program.
However, Sotnikova's first element, a triple Lutz-triple toe combination, had an incorrect entry and necessitated an automatic deduction, yet the random and anonymous judges' scorecard revealed a huge discrepancy in the grade of execution, with one judge giving a perfect rating to an obvious mistake. That alone should be more than enough to warrant an investigation and to file an appeal. Yuna Kim, on the other hand, skated her technically "lesser" program with near-perfect execution. Thus, South Korea filed their appeal.
Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports felt otherwise. His opinion is that South Korea should stop claiming sour grapes because of one obvious factor that he alleges the Koreans are ignoring : figure skating is a subjective sport! Because of its subjectivity, he reasons, the winner of these types of competitions will always be held to debate. Wetzel asserts that the Korean skating federation is reacting emotionally and with futility, since in his opinion, Sotnikova won fair and square.
Ironically, by acknowledging that figure skating is a subjective sport opens the door to challenging the ruling on the ice, since subjectivity naturally lends itself to debate. Yet by chiding the Korean federation in doing just that, Wetzel is contradicting the very core of his argument. The infrastructure of figure skating is corrupt, yet according to Wetzel, we must accept its corruption as non-corruption.
It's a flawed argument, but in the realm of a judged and artistic sport, how can anyone argue against such an analysis? Evidence, for one. It's what occurs across courtrooms all across America : we are never absolutely sure about a defendant's innocence or guilt but reasonable conclusions are all that's necessary to convict or acquit. And there was more than enough evidence for any reasonable person to suspect manipulation against Yuna Kim.
On the technical side, perfect grade of execution points (labeled as "+3") were far higher for Sotnikova (33 +3 GOE's) versus Yuna Kim (13 +3 GOE's), who, according to Lawrence Yee of Yahoo Sports, "has long been considered the golden standard" of these execution grades. Aside from the aforementioned error in Sotnikova's first element, she also had a very obvious and very visible error when she stumbled out of her triple flip-double toe-double loop combination. Although a small error, a step-out is a minimum -2 GOE deduction, yet six out of the nine judges gave this a lenient -1 GOE.
Fundamentally, the picture becomes more problematic. Four of the nine judges are from former eastern bloc nations, nations that come under significant influence (or pressure) from Vladimir Putin's Russia, who is himself a questionable figure, a former KGB agent and one who re-wrote Russia's own constitution so that he could be eligible for a third presidential term. One of the judges is married to the head of Russia's skating federation, while another was accused of accepting bribes in a match-fixing attempt at the 1998 Winter Games! Seeing as how these compromised judges are practicing their craft on their home turf, oblivious to the criticisms that may come their way, one wonders, what else needs to be demonstrated to show reasonable doubt?
But in Mr. Wetzel's strongest argument, he fires back that not all of the judges are from the eastern bloc and that statistically, a small few (in his case, the two glaringly compromised judges) could not have the leverage to sway an entire panel that voted overwhelmingly in Sotnikova's favor. However, here too are flaws. First, a judge does not necessarily have to hail from an eastern bloc nation to be otherwise incentivized or threatened to give a particular result. I stress again that this is Putin's Russia. Second, if Sotnikova deliberately skated a tough technical program to collect maximum points, how does one explain the glaring omission of Japan's Mao Asada from this overall discourse?
Asada had a very disappointing short program and was thus realistically not in medal contention. It does not discount the fact that her program for the free skate was technically and quantifiably the MOST DIFFICULT of all the skaters' routines. Indeed, she completed one more jump than Sotnikova, all with perfect execution, while also pulling out the triple axel, a trademark 3.5-revolution jump that no other woman is currently attempting in competition. Yet her free-skate marks were far lower than Sotnikova's. If jumping for points is the name of the game as Wetzel asserts, how then to explain Asada, who landed more numerous jumps and one so difficult than she's the only one in the world to attempt it?
Of course figure skating results are likely to generate controversy and there definitely cases of sour grapes being played out. However, this is not one of them : the technical and fundamental evidence allows any reasonable person to be highly suspicious of the judging behavior, and is certainly subject to investigation.
But Wetzel is also right : there is a culture of corruption in figure skating that has to be acknowledged and the participants should be aware of what they're getting themselves into. It doesn't excuse the behavior, but some cultures, whether that be of a sports federation or that of a corporate environment, are more willing to accept said behavior, even dare I say, profit from it.
The skating controversy is strictly a skating issue. But the lessons that could be extracted from it apply to many industries, especially finance. In particular, be aware of the advertising machinery that pushes the emerging markets or any type of investment vehicle of which you may not be familiar with. The assumptions you may have about these markets may not be correct, but even if they are, it may not even matter.
In the Ladies' figure skating competition, 17-year old Adelina Sotnikova stunned the world when she upset reigning Olympic gold medal champion, Yuna Kim, taking home the most prized award in front of a delirious home crowd. There's no doubt that Sotnikova brought her A-game, giving everything that she had, which included a program that on paper was technically more challenging than Kim's, by a margin of 3.94 points. This included one more jump than Kim had on her program.
However, Sotnikova's first element, a triple Lutz-triple toe combination, had an incorrect entry and necessitated an automatic deduction, yet the random and anonymous judges' scorecard revealed a huge discrepancy in the grade of execution, with one judge giving a perfect rating to an obvious mistake. That alone should be more than enough to warrant an investigation and to file an appeal. Yuna Kim, on the other hand, skated her technically "lesser" program with near-perfect execution. Thus, South Korea filed their appeal.
Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports felt otherwise. His opinion is that South Korea should stop claiming sour grapes because of one obvious factor that he alleges the Koreans are ignoring : figure skating is a subjective sport! Because of its subjectivity, he reasons, the winner of these types of competitions will always be held to debate. Wetzel asserts that the Korean skating federation is reacting emotionally and with futility, since in his opinion, Sotnikova won fair and square.
Ironically, by acknowledging that figure skating is a subjective sport opens the door to challenging the ruling on the ice, since subjectivity naturally lends itself to debate. Yet by chiding the Korean federation in doing just that, Wetzel is contradicting the very core of his argument. The infrastructure of figure skating is corrupt, yet according to Wetzel, we must accept its corruption as non-corruption.
It's a flawed argument, but in the realm of a judged and artistic sport, how can anyone argue against such an analysis? Evidence, for one. It's what occurs across courtrooms all across America : we are never absolutely sure about a defendant's innocence or guilt but reasonable conclusions are all that's necessary to convict or acquit. And there was more than enough evidence for any reasonable person to suspect manipulation against Yuna Kim.
On the technical side, perfect grade of execution points (labeled as "+3") were far higher for Sotnikova (33 +3 GOE's) versus Yuna Kim (13 +3 GOE's), who, according to Lawrence Yee of Yahoo Sports, "has long been considered the golden standard" of these execution grades. Aside from the aforementioned error in Sotnikova's first element, she also had a very obvious and very visible error when she stumbled out of her triple flip-double toe-double loop combination. Although a small error, a step-out is a minimum -2 GOE deduction, yet six out of the nine judges gave this a lenient -1 GOE.
Fundamentally, the picture becomes more problematic. Four of the nine judges are from former eastern bloc nations, nations that come under significant influence (or pressure) from Vladimir Putin's Russia, who is himself a questionable figure, a former KGB agent and one who re-wrote Russia's own constitution so that he could be eligible for a third presidential term. One of the judges is married to the head of Russia's skating federation, while another was accused of accepting bribes in a match-fixing attempt at the 1998 Winter Games! Seeing as how these compromised judges are practicing their craft on their home turf, oblivious to the criticisms that may come their way, one wonders, what else needs to be demonstrated to show reasonable doubt?
But in Mr. Wetzel's strongest argument, he fires back that not all of the judges are from the eastern bloc and that statistically, a small few (in his case, the two glaringly compromised judges) could not have the leverage to sway an entire panel that voted overwhelmingly in Sotnikova's favor. However, here too are flaws. First, a judge does not necessarily have to hail from an eastern bloc nation to be otherwise incentivized or threatened to give a particular result. I stress again that this is Putin's Russia. Second, if Sotnikova deliberately skated a tough technical program to collect maximum points, how does one explain the glaring omission of Japan's Mao Asada from this overall discourse?
Asada had a very disappointing short program and was thus realistically not in medal contention. It does not discount the fact that her program for the free skate was technically and quantifiably the MOST DIFFICULT of all the skaters' routines. Indeed, she completed one more jump than Sotnikova, all with perfect execution, while also pulling out the triple axel, a trademark 3.5-revolution jump that no other woman is currently attempting in competition. Yet her free-skate marks were far lower than Sotnikova's. If jumping for points is the name of the game as Wetzel asserts, how then to explain Asada, who landed more numerous jumps and one so difficult than she's the only one in the world to attempt it?
Of course figure skating results are likely to generate controversy and there definitely cases of sour grapes being played out. However, this is not one of them : the technical and fundamental evidence allows any reasonable person to be highly suspicious of the judging behavior, and is certainly subject to investigation.
But Wetzel is also right : there is a culture of corruption in figure skating that has to be acknowledged and the participants should be aware of what they're getting themselves into. It doesn't excuse the behavior, but some cultures, whether that be of a sports federation or that of a corporate environment, are more willing to accept said behavior, even dare I say, profit from it.
The skating controversy is strictly a skating issue. But the lessons that could be extracted from it apply to many industries, especially finance. In particular, be aware of the advertising machinery that pushes the emerging markets or any type of investment vehicle of which you may not be familiar with. The assumptions you may have about these markets may not be correct, but even if they are, it may not even matter.
