Adjudicators Anonymous
Prior to Torino 2006 it adopted a new system in which the judges’ scores remained anonymous. A measure aiming to prevent pressure on individual officials by dubious outside influences!
The names of the nine judges on the panel are known and published alongside the results. But all public accountability for their scores is removed, as only the trimmed (highest and lowest scores are dropped) mean is posted. That ISU monitors the judges' individual scores in a post-event evaluation is certain. But having these scores out in the public domain seems to be one way of keeping officials under a positive pressure to be at their best with every call they make.
Results of Ice Dance | Free Dance in Sochi 2014
Results of the final of the 2013 GrandSlam Standard Final in Shanghai
If a deal was struck to trade favourable marks in the ice dance and team competitions (an allegation made prior to the Games in a report by French newspaper, L’Équipe), and the Eastern European judges voted as a bloc, they’d be able to affect the results even after the high and low scores get tossed.
However, because the judges’ scores are secret, no one outside the ISU can know if that’s in fact what happened.
The Globe and Mail, Canada
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