Committee files formal complaint on Sochi judges

Fans of Kim Yu-na stage a rally on Friday to urge the Korea Olympic Committee to submit an official complaint to the International Skating Union concerning the women’s figure skating results at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. [NEWS1]

The Korea Olympic Committee has filed an official complaint with the International Skating Union over the composition of the judging panel for the women’s figure skating competition at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where Kim Yu-na surprisingly came in second place.

The committee on Friday said the complaint demands that the ISU conduct a thorough investigation and urges for reform.

However, the Korean committee did not complain about the panel’s performance nor about the score Kim received.

Kim, the gold medalist at the 2010 Vancouver Games, won silver at Sochi with a score of 219.11 points after her long program on Feb. 21, despite what many thought was a flawless performance.

Russia’s Adelina Sotnikova won the gold with a total score of 224.59 points, by far her best performance ever.

“Since figure skating is not an event where we can overturn a result, we decided to complain to the ISU for having assigned inappropriate people to the judging panel,” said a Korea Olympic Committee spokesman.

After the final event, media outlets worldwide, including USA Today, ESPN and NBC, questioned the scores given by the nine judges, who included Alla Shekhovtseva, wife of the president of the Russian Skating Federation, and Yuri Balkov of Ukraine, who was suspended for a year after attempting to fix the ice dancing competition at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.

Germany’s Katarina Witt, who is the last woman to win back-to-back Olympic titles - in 1984 in Sarajevo and 1988 in Calgary - said she was upset with Kim’s loss.

“I am stunned by this result. I don’t understand the scoring,” said Witt.

The judges saw Kim perform six triple jumps, while Sotnikova did seven, but that didn’t explain why Carolina Kostner of Italy, who also performed seven triple jumps, was given 7.34 points fewer than Sotnikova.

The ISU, however, announced on its website on Feb. 22 that the figure skating scoring was fair.

Regarding the complaint, Kim said through her agency All That Sports, “I respect the decision made by the Korea Olympic Committee and the Korea Skating Union.”

BY KWON SANG-SOO [sakwon80@joongang.co.kr]