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ISU Proposes New Judging System for Ice Skating VOA News 19 Feb 2002 07:31 UTC 
The International Skating Union officials have proposed a new judging system for its figure skating events.
ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said Monday in Salt Lake City that under the proposed change, the number of competition judges will increase from nine to 14, but only seven scores, randomly picked by computer, will count.
The present system of awarding skaters marks based on judges' opinions of technical merit and artistic impression will be eliminated. Instead, a skater's elements will be assigned numerical values for difficulty, and each element will be given a grade for execution.
Mr. Cinquanta said the proposed system will reduce the chances of bloc judging. The changes must be approved by the full ISU, which meets in June in Tokyo.
The ISU said last week it would consider ways to change its judging procedures following the judging scandal in the pairs figure skating competition at the Salt Lake City Olympics. A French skating judge has been suspended for alleged misconduct in judging the event.
A Belarussian athlete and his team leader (Yaroslav Barichko) have left the Winter Olympic Games over a reported doping scandal. The suspected culprit, whose name has not been released, was reportedly a short-track speedskater. The athlete failed to show up Monday for a second round of drug tests, after earlier results were thrown out because of a procedural mistake.
In those first results, the athlete was found to have more than 300 times the legal limit of a performance enhancing steroid (nandrolone).
In competition Monday at the Winter Games, two German first place finishes put Germany in a tie with Norway for most gold medals won.
The Germans took the women's biathlon 4 x 7.5 kilometer relay, ahead of silver medalist Norway. Russia won bronze.
Earlier, Germany edged Finland by one-tenth of a point in 120-kilometer ski jumping. In that event Slovenia took the bronze for its first medal of the games.
The two victories bring Germany's gold medals to eight, tying first-place Norway.
Also Monday, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France won the Olympic ice dance gold medal. Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh won the silver, and world champions Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy got the Bronze medal.
And Alisa Camplin of Australia won gold in freestyle skiing women's aerials. Veronice Brenner of Canada took silver and compatriot Deidra Dionee won bronze.
Some information for this report provided by Retuers and AFP.
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