Russian freestyle federation protests against Olympic acrobatic freestyle score

Lev Kofman, president of the Russian freestyle skiing federation, has written to International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper complaining about the scores awarded Russian competitors in the Olympic women's aerials on Monday. Kofman emphasized that Russia weren't lodging an official protest over the event, won by Australian Alisa Camplin ahead of Canadians Veronica Brenner and Deirdra Dionne.

But he echoed the complaints of skiers Olga Koroleva, who finished fourth, and Natalia Orekhova, who was seventh.

He said he wrote Kasper that the judges "are not professional enough. They're not objective. The Americans and Canadians vote only for their own people."

Koroleva was first after the first jump of the finals, her most difficult. She landed her second jump cleanly, but still couldn't get past the Canadians who had surged ahead with their second jumps. "I think I did a good jump," she said. "I earned third place, and my degree of difficulty was the same as the other girls'." Orekhova didn't really blame the judges for her finish, but she did say she thought the judging was skewed in the qualification round.

"I believe my scores are lower than what I deserve, especially in the qualification competition," she said. "I believe the judges are biased. Mostly I think the judging was biased in the qualification. Today, I blame myself because I did make some errors."