Judge's error may have cost Estonian skater Niina Petrõkina European first place

An apparent error in inputting scores by a judge presiding over Estonian figure skater Niina Petrõkina's short program performance at the ISU European Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn this week may have cost her first place, though it is not yet clear.
The rather low outlier score of 0.75 entered by one judge may have pushed down the final tally to second place, which Petrõkina was awarded, rather than first.
Up against a strong field, Petrõkina, the crowd favorite, set a new personal best in the short program at the championships Wednesday and goes into the free skate round in second place.
However, questions have arisen about the procedures on the night, at the Tondi Ice Hall.
Petrõkina scored 68.94 points, ahead of her previous personal best of 68 points, achieved at the 2023 World Championships – and took silver in the event.
Anastasiia Gubanova (Georgia) came first with 68.99 points.
A closer look at the competition protocol, however, reveals that Slovenian judge Breda Marinšek gave Petrõkina a 0.75 score for skating skills, while other judges scored between 7.50 and 8.50, i.e., a factor of 10 or more higher, indicating a potential input error.
Had the Slovenian judge intended to give a score of 7.75 instead of 0.75, Petrõkina's total score would have gone up by 0.06 points, after removing the highest and lowest marks and applying the coefficient as per standard.
This would have given her a final score of 69 points, placing her just ahead of Gubanova by 0.01 points.
It is also possible that the Slovenian judge intended to score Petrõkina's skating skills at 7.50, which would have better explained the score of 0.75 in error, if the judge entered the digits "7" and "5" without the decimal point in the right place.
However, the low recorded score would not have affected Petrõkina's final result, and her total would have remained at 68.94 points with a 7.50 from the Slovenian judge, leaving her in second place by a cat's whisker.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm