In the STL Post-Dispatch this weekend, there was an article about a study completed by a U.S. professor regarding the outcome of figure skating events over the past couple of decades. (Sorry no online article to link to.)

This professor took all of the judging ordinals (Olympics, Worlds, and other major international events) starting in the early '80s and ran some statistical analysis routines on the raw data. His study turned up some interesting (but not surprising) results:

1) There is statistical evidence of judging bias over the past couple of decades.

2) While there is statistical evidence of bias, the professor also found that a majority of ordinal placements were statistically similar across judges and across events. In other words, while there is some bias, it is not widespread and most events over the past couple of decades have demonstrated judges relatively in agreement with each other.

3) The highest level of bias was very clear. The statistically most significant bias came when Russian judges were awarding placements to U.S. skaters. Russian judges were much more likely to lower U.S. ordinals than any other combination of judges and skaters.

It was kind of interesting overall. Amazing to think that someone took the time to collect, collate, and analyze the data. However, the outcomes are not terribly different than I would expect.