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Another judging controversy in figure skating. Just what the sport needs. And in many ways, just what it deserves.
This one started, however innocently, after U.S. judge Joe Inman sent an e-mail to about 60 of his fellow judges and skating officials. In it he criticized the "transitions" of the reigning men's Olympic, European and Russian champion, Evgeni Plushenko, citing Plushenko's own comments as evidence. (Transitions are the connecting moves that link the showier elements of a program, such as jumps, making those elements more demanding and visually interesting.) Inman's e-mail cited an interview that Plushenko gave to the Web site AbsoluteSkating.com after his most recent European championship, in Tallinn, Estonia, last month. In that Q&A, Plushenko was quoted as saying: "If the judges want someone to place high, they can arrange it. Like in Tallinn, Brian Joubert [of France] got more points for his transitions than me, although we did exactly the same transitions on the ice. In fact, we don't have any transitions, because we focus on our jumps."

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