WHO, REALLY, ARE THE OLYMPIC JUDGES . . ???

* WHO, REALLY, ARE THE OLYMPIC JUDGES . . ??? *

I WONDER . . WHO, EXACTLY, ARE THE people sitting in those judges seats, behind the monitors, with those pens and pads in front of them, doing all that judging - of the world's greatest athletic performers and performances . . ?

Who is paying them, who are they REALLY working for, and from whom do they take their orders? I am left wondering this, after some of the truly bizarre 'judgements' that have been handed out over the course of the past several days. In our Olympics, some - many, actually - of the competitions do not actually require 'judgements', but merely rely on such simple things as accurate timekeeping, in order to determine who has won an event. Some require only that, while others fall within an area where, along with time, several other factors much be judged, giving certain additions and/or deductions along the way. Then there are the events where time is really not at great issue and instead, a battery of judges must each weigh dozens of factors about a given athlete's performance, in order to tally some 'total', a final number, corresponding to exactly how well or how poorly they performed at said event . . .
Now I am left to wonder - does this 'number' represent how well they really did, or instead, does it represent how well the judges FEEL they did at that particular time and place? Because in my humble and honest opinion, and from what I have seen recently, many of our hard working young champions have been, and are are continuing to be, ROBBED of the good scores they clearly deserve . . .
Let's take the men's figure skating, for example. Last night Johnny Weir was robbed of the true recognition and accurate 'judgement' he deserved, after putting up an extremely clean and very well skated performance from among his competitors. In my opinion absolutely NO ONE put up an amazingly stellar and perfect performance; everyone who skated last night was certainly very capable of doing, and should've done, either a little or A LOT better than they did when it finally came down to crunch time . . .
So we must ask ourselves . . out of all the less-than-perfect performances, who had the least amount of gross, quantifiable errors? Well, one of them was definitely Weir. He had virtually no real mistakes whatsoever. Does this not count for anything these days, when almost every other athlete at these Games has choked somewhere under one of the many understandable pressures they all are under, whether it be the small fact that this is the most important competition in the world, or the fact that millions and millions of people are watching you, along with having to perform in front of all your friends and family, and their friends, for your country, everyone who is expecting and depending on you to be Superman or Superwoman on that particular day, etc., etc. . . . whew.
Elvis Stojko, the Canadian ex-champ silver medalist, who at one time just happened to be a pretty good quad jumper, is these days a Yahoo Sports Olympics commentator, and he has lashed out at the judges for their decision to elevate Evan Lysacek's final score to one just past - and beating - that of the Russian champ, Evgeny Plushenko, giving Evan the gold. This, I think, is because Plushenko also does a quad, like Elvis used to do. Or is it because Stojko is vehemently anti-American when it comes to men's skating? I am confused . . .
There are great expectations on these skaters to perform their jumping spins flawlessly - those very difficult maneuvers that require speed, lots of air, perfect timing, precision, and a perfectly executed landing - those triples, those axles, those combinations. Then there is the other half of the event, where 'art' is involved, and where beautiful music and great choreography come into play. Then there is this weird/gray area. Where it's like 'you have to do a quad' to be considered the best. And if you don't, then how good the rest of your performance was really doesn't matter much of the time. Well, I have seen great, wonderful, more artistic and more intuitive performances from skaters who didn't do a quad, performances where clearly, greatness was exhibited and where, in that respect, a quad shouldn't have to count for anything.
Such was the lackluster quad put up by Plushenko last night. Yeah, it may be a quad, but it clearly wasn't done without difficulty and it certainly wasn't executed without flaws. Personally, I would rather see a perfect triple than a sloppy quad any day. Is it just me? I enjoyed watching Lysacek's full, clean triples, and honestly was not particularly blown over by Plushenko's barely-made-it-through, weak quad. Though again, neither skater was at their very best; their airs could've and should've been higher, the pressure of the moment was clear on both of them, they could've done this, they should've done that, etc., etc., . . .
So - where does technical stop and art start, or vice-versa? What percentage of points is granted to each area of an event? Because there clearly seems to be a serious problem here. Weir, receiving LESS points than a skater who actually FELL during his routine - such as was the case with Simon Cho from Canada - what the hell is that?
There is a conspiracy going on here . . .
Lol. Seriously, though . . more on this soon . . .