More flawed judging

I don't have a complaint at the top. Tonight -- or last night, I guess -- Evan Lysacek was clearly the winner. His program was better, he skated it more cleanly and with more style than did Plushenko. But I think the judges fell into the trap I identified in my earlier post -- giving scores based more on reputation and past performance than on this particular performance.As a result, Johnny Weir was badly cheated. In fact, this night, taking nothing away from the Russian, I thought he deserved a higher score than Plushenko got and should have had the bronze. But the judges, though recognizing that Plushenko was not quite as inspired in this performance as in the short program, mostly stuck with their judgment from the short program. Somebody ought to be able to skate a possibly substandard short program, then come back and nail the long program and get rewarded for it.

I didn't see any echoes of my previous complaints in the bits and pieces of news coverage I looked at, and perhaps nobody else will agree with me on this. But I thought the judging was, if not downright shameful, at least more than a bit flawed.