Figure Skating Judging Is Biased

If Figure Skating Judging Is Biased, It Is Quite Obviously Biased Towards Drama, Darling

Figure skating is the only sport where a man can hurl himself skyward, revolve four times like a washing machine full of sequins, land on a blade the width of dental floss, and still lose marks because his “energy was insufficiently evocative.”

That is not athletics. That is a Bake Off technical challenge with blades.

So when a young skating sensation once joked that perhaps being gay might boost his artistic scores, the internet did precisely what it always does. It spun faster than a quad Axel and landed face-first in controversy.

Let us examine this calmly, like judges pretending not to have firm favourites since 2019.

The Mystical Dark Arts of Programme Component Scores

First, figure skating judging is already an occult practice. You earn points for technical elements. Fair enough. You rotate four times. The maths checks out. Then you receive Programme Component Scores, which measure artistry, musicality, performance, interpretation, and something called “skating skills,” which appears to encompass whether your aura is sufficiently at one with the orchestra.

There are entire doctoral dissertations written on PCS. Somewhere at Oxford there is a thesis entitled, “Edge Quality and the Post-Modern Soul: A Reckoning.”

So when someone jokes that sexuality influences judging, it lands in a sport already drenched in Swarovski crystals and subjectivity. It’s rather like accusing the West End of favouring people who can sing.

What Judges Actually Reward: A Rigorous Scientific Investigation

But here is the amusing bit: figure skating judging is biased. Not towards any particular sexuality. Towards sheer, magnificent chaos.

Judges favour:

• Drama
• Drama in slow motion
• Drama in eyeliner
• Drama set to Rachmaninoff, ideally whilst weeping

If you skate to a techno remix of lift music whilst dressed in beige, you will lose. Not because of who you love. Because beige has never won anything except a planning permission in Swindon.

The sport has long carried its stereotypes. For decades, male skaters were expected to be either hyper-masculine warriors launching themselves to cinematic soundtracks, or ethereal swans gliding to violins. Nothing in between. No chap skating to Oasis whilst dressed like a middle manager from Basingstoke.

The Unwritten Scoring Criteria Nobody Will Officially Acknowledge

So when a skater makes a tongue-in-cheek remark about orientation and scoring, what he is really poking at is the unspoken truth: figure skating rewards performance archetypes.

The judging sheet might as well read:

• +2 for emotional commitment
• +3 for convincing eyebrow acting
• -1 if costume resembles a magician who got lost on the way to a Butlin’s talent show

And let us not pretend the sport hasn’t been wrestling with masculinity debates since before the war. There were eras when commentators whispered about male skaters’ “artistic presence” the way Edwardian society discussed trouser cut.

Meanwhile, the actual jumps were happening.

Ilia Malinin: The Chap Who Defied Physics and Still Didn’t Get a Medal

Quad Lutz. Quad Flip. Quad Salchow. Quad Axel, which sounds like a Marvel villain who can’t get planning permission.

Ilia Malinin — two-time World Champion, holder of the Guinness World Record for the first quadruple Axel in competition — didn’t merely jump. He practically applied for low Earth orbit. And then, at the 2026 Milan Olympics, with a five-point lead and the entire planet watching, he fell. Twice. Finished eighth. Surrendered the gold to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov. The sort of result that makes a nation go very quiet and put the kettle on.

Now imagine rotating four and a half times in midair and thinking, “Do you know what I require right now? Better posture energy.”

That is the comedy.

When Defying Gravity Is Simply Not Sufficient

Figure skating is the only Olympic sport where a person can break the laws of physics and still be informed, “We simply didn’t feel the narrative arc.”

Narrative. It’s ice skating, not a Radio 4 adaptation.

To be clear: the backlash happened because words matter. Particularly in a sport where many LGBTQ+ athletes have fought hard for recognition and dignity. Jokes about favouritism can unintentionally echo rather unpleasant old stereotypes. That is genuinely real, and worth acknowledging properly.

The original comment — made on Instagram Live when Malinin was a teenager — was that if he claimed not to be straight, his Programme Component Scores would go up. USA Figure Skating duly dispatched him to sensitivity training. He apologised. Life, somewhat uncertainly, moved on.

But satire lives in the absurdity of the system itself.

If judges truly rewarded orientation, one would expect strategic announcements mid-season.

“Breaking news: Athlete revises personal biography and playlist ahead of the European Championships.”

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Precisely.

The ISU scoring system does not enquire about your romantic arrangements. It asks whether your triple toe loop demonstrated sufficient edge quality, and whether your arm extension suggested adequate emotional longing.

Longing! In rugby, longing gets you substituted and asked if you need a lie-down.

In figure skating, longing is worth 0.75 in Grade of Execution.

Democracy on Ice: A Sport Where Everyone Is a Victim

Let us take the wider view. Judged sports in general are theatrical. Gymnastics? A wayward toe costs you a medal. Diving? Splash management is practically an art form. Figure skating? You must persuade an entire arena that gravity has personally wronged you.

And here is the deeper comedy: PCS is supposed to assess skating skills, transitions, performance, composition, and interpretation. That is five different ways of asking “Did we enjoy watching you?”

Enjoyment is subjective. Some judges adore elegance. Others prefer power. Some appreciate musical nuance. Some appear to want the ice itself to catch fire.

So when a skater jokes about scoring bias, what he is really acknowledging is that artistry can feel unfathomably mysterious.

You can land absolutely everything and still trail someone who “connected emotionally.”

Connected to what? The rink’s complimentary Wi-Fi?

The audience does not calculate Grade of Execution. They gasp. They applaud. They post furiously on social media.

Meanwhile, the judges scribble numbers like accountants at a ballet recital, quietly judging everyone including themselves.

Figure Skating’s Magnificent Identity Crisis

The humour is not about sexuality. It is about the sport’s eternal identity crisis.

Is figure skating a sport? Is it theatre? Is it interpretive ice opera? Is it competitive mascara application?

Yes.

All of it. Simultaneously.

That is the magic.

And here is the rather encouraging twist: skating has evolved enormously. The men’s field is full of athletes who combine extraordinary athletic power with genuine expressive choreography. The old binary caricatures are, mercifully, fading. You can be strong and artistic. Flamboyant and technically precise. Reserved and utterly dominant. The ice doesn’t particularly care either way.

Fans, however, care about absolutely everything.

They analyse edges like forensic investigators at a crime scene. They dissect choreography like Guardian film critics with a deadline. They argue over PCS spreads like economists arguing about inflation — which is to say, loudly and without consensus.

When controversy arrives, it ignites immediately.

Because skating fandom is extraordinarily intense. Polite on the surface and volcanic underneath. Rather like the British public when someone jumps a queue.

What is genuinely hilarious is that the very same fans who insist the judging is hopelessly biased will declare the scoring system utterly infallible the moment their favourite wins.

Suddenly the ISU is beyond reproach. The judges are visionaries. The system is pristine.

Lose by 0.32 points? Corruption most foul.

It is democracy on ice. Which is to say: messy, passionate, and resolved by someone nobody elected.

The Real Bias: Narrative Arcs Win. Full Stop.

And here is the actual satire: figure skating judging is not biased towards sexuality. It is biased towards narrative arcs.

Comeback story? Bonus points. Teen prodigy? Bonus points. Veteran redemption tour? Bonus points. Programme inspired by personal heartbreak? Bonus points multiplied by however many tears were shed in the kiss-and-cry.

Skate to a generic remix with no discernible storyline and the judges will regard you the way a British GP receptionist regards someone who has turned up without an appointment.

Athletes know this perfectly well. They package their programmes strategically. Music selection matters enormously. Costume design matters. Facial expression matters. Whether your programme suggests you have recently endured something quite specific and emotionally significant — matters a very great deal indeed.

That is not favouritism. That is performance sport.

But from the outside, it can look rather mysterious.

When someone remarks, jokingly, “Perhaps I’d score higher if…,” what they are genuinely expressing is frustration with the intangible portion of the judging.

It is considerably easier to measure rotations than emotion.

The satire writes itself.

Imagine figure skating judged like football.

“Lovely quad Axel, but we need a word about the arm choreography between the goal and the corner flag.”

Or imagine football judged like skating.

“Haaland’s finish was technically flawless, but the choreography between dribbles lacked emotional cohesion and we simply didn’t believe the narrative.”

You see precisely how absurd this becomes.

The Quad God Cometh — And Then, Magnificently, Blew It

At the end of the day — and it is quite a day — figure skating remains one of the most demanding sports on Earth. It demands the explosiveness of a sprinter, the balance of a tightrope walker, and the theatrical commitment of someone auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare Company on frozen glass.

The judging? It is complicated. Human. Imperfect.

Which makes it absolutely ripe for ridicule.

But here is the sweetest irony of the lot: the skater at the centre of all this — Ilia Malinin, self-styled “Quad God,” the young man who caused a minor international incident with an Instagram Live comment — is known for having done something nobody else on Earth has managed. Landing the quad Axel cleanly in competition. The ISU gave him a Special Achievement Award for it. He won two World Championships. He set a world record free skate score of 238.24. He has landed seven quadruple jumps in a single programme.

And then, at the Olympic Games, with the world’s cameras trained upon him, he fell twice, finished eighth, and told reporters simply: “I blew it.”

Historic. Monumental. And magnificently, cosmically human.

And yet the internet spent considerably more time debating an old comment than a physics-defying jump.

Because we are a species capable of witnessing actual flight and still finding a way to argue about the vibes.

So perhaps the real bias in figure skating is not towards any particular identity.

Perhaps it is towards drama.

And if that is the case, the judges are at least consistent.

They reward whoever makes them feel something.

Even if that something is controversy.

Especially if it is controversy.

On ice, everything spins. Jumps. Twists. Reputations.

Including public opinion.

And somewhere in the judges’ booth, a clipboard is being raised and someone is quietly asking:

“Yes, but did we actually believe the arm choreography?”

That, dear reader, is the true comedy. And it will outlast every quad Axel ever landed.

Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!

Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old American figure skater nicknamed the “Quad God,” made history in 2022 as the first person to land a quadruple Axel — a four-and-a-half-rotation jump — in competitive skating. He went on to win consecutive World Championships in 2024 and 2025, setting the highest free skate score ever recorded. The controversy referred to in this piece stems from an Instagram Live session in 2023, during which a teenage Malinin joked that claiming not to be heterosexual would improve his Programme Component Scores. USA Figure Skating sent him to sensitivity training; he subsequently apologised. The comments resurfaced during the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, where Malinin — despite holding a five-point lead — fell twice in the individual free skate and finished eighth, surrendering gold to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov. The internet, true to form, had thoughts about all of it.