The Judges' Panel Included the Russian Skating Federation President's Wife

Scoring comes from the judges and a judges panel. They're in charge of the Grade of Execution scores and those component scores. GOE scores (which are graded on a -3 to +3 range) are weighted values that reward skaters who do elements beautifully and punish them when they do those elements poorly. Often times, these GOE points determine winners and losers.

The nine judges are picked from a pool of 13. And yesterday, judges from South Korea (Kim's home country), U.S., Great Britain, and Sweden were swapped out for the free skate because they had already worked the short program.

One of the Olympic judges who took their place was Alla Shekhovtseva, the wife of Valentin Piseev, the longtime president and general director of the Russian Skating Federation. Yes, a judge on the panel that determines whether or not a Russian was going to win a gold medal at a competition held in Russia is married to a man in charge of the Russian Skating Federation.

Also on the panel is a Ukrainian man named Yuri Balkov. Balkov was suspended from judging for a year after trying to fix the Nagano ice dancing competition and reportedly has ties to Moscow. "The two other new long program judges were from Estonia and France, which was the country that conspired with Russia to try to fix the pairs and ice dancing competition at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City," USA Today reports.

If you look at Sotnikova's score sheet, there are a couple of judges who really liked her jumps and elements more than the others. Her first jump, a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination, actually got a -1 GOE from one judge — meaning that it was performed slightly below average. One judge gave it a zero, and a two more gave it a +1, meaning those judges saw the jump as pretty basic or maybe a tad above average.

But there was one outlier who gave Sotnikova a +3, meaning that it was up there with the best the jump or element could be done. In fact, according to that judge, almost all of Sotnikova's elements — her spins, her jumps, and footwork — were some of the best he or she has ever seen. Here's Sotnikova's score sheet and all the scores that judge submitted (look at all those 3s):

You'll also notice the judge who gave her the 3s was also one of the kinder ones when it came to penalizing Sotnikova's sloppy step out. (It was only knocked down to a -1.) The judge in the second column was also pretty kind and generous with his or her 2s and 3s, as is the one in the fifth column. But none come close to the judge whose numbers are circled.

When determining those GOEs, the highest and lowest scores are thrown out, a measure enacted to stop people from gaming the system. But you can see how throwing an extra three out almost every single time ensures that Sotnikova won't be hurt in the overall scores, and ensures that Sotnikova has a 3 in 10 of her 12 elements. All those 3s could also protect other 3s that judges may have given out.