共用题干 第二篇

Star Quality

A new anti-cheating system for counting the judges" scores in ice skating is flawed,
according to leading sports specialists.Ice skating"s governing body announced the new
rules last week after concerns that a judge at the Winter Olympics may have been unfairly
influenced,
Initially the judges in the pairs figure-skating event at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake
City voted 5 to 4 to give the gold medal to a Russian pair,even though they had a fall during
their routine.But the International Skating Union suspended the French judge for falling to
reveal that she had been put under pressure to vote for the Russians.The International
Olympics Committee then decided to give a second gold to the Canadian runners-up
（亚军）.
The ISU,skating"s governing body,now says it intends to change the rules.In
future 14 judges will judge each event,but only 7 of their scores一selected at random一will
count.
The ISU won"t finally approve the new system until it meets in June but already
U.K.Sport,the British Government"s sports body,has expressed reservations."I remain
to be convinced that the random selection system would offer the guarantees that everyone
concerned with ethical sport is looking for",says Jerry Bingham,U.K.Sport"s head of
ethics（伦理）.
A random system can still be manipulated,says Mark Dixon,a specialist on sports
statistics from the Royal Statistical Society in London."The score of one or two judges who
have been nobbled（受到贿赂）may still be in the seven selected."
Many other sports that have judges,including diving,gymnastics,and synchronized
swimming,have a system that discards the highest and lowest scores.If a judge was
under pressure to favour a particular team,they would tend to give it very high scores and
mark down the opposition team,so their scores wouldn"t count.It works for diving,says
Jeff Cook,a member of the international government body"s technical committee."If you
remove those at the top and bottom you"re left with those in the middle,so you"re getting a
reasonable average."
Since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney,diving has tightened up in its system still further.
Two separate panels of judges score different rounds of diving during top competitions.
Neither panel knows the scores given by the other."We have done this to head off any
suggestion of bias,"says Cook:
Bingham urged the ISU to consider other options."This should involve examining the
way in which other sports deal with the problem of adjudicating（裁定）on matter of style
and presentation,"he says. According to the new rules proposed by the ISU,which of the following is right?