So, the controversy over the women’s figure skating competition in Sochi.

Korea’s Kim Yu-na, jobbed by the judges.

Or was she?

Maybe the Russian girl, Adelina Sotnikova, deserved the gold.

The decision seems to have pivoted on this: Sotnikova performed the more athletic routine, with more jumps. Kim performed the safer routine, but also the more graceful.

And that jumps/style thing leads to an apples/oranges situation, and people of good will (or skating judges, even) are forgiven for having differences of opinion.

It’s not like this has never happened before. Pick an Olympics, and at least one skating event (and probably two or more) has been controversial. I have spent probably weeks of my life writing about some of those, and it the whole of it ennobles no one.

Let’s figure out some ways to fix this.

1. Make the judges own up to the score they have given. At the moment, judges are scoring anonymously. In figure skating, anonymity is an invitation to cheating or vote trading.

2. Tune down the value of jumps. This is key. The sport has been taken over (and nearly ruined) by multiple-rotation jumps and the value attached to them.

And this isn’t just about the aesthetically unpleasing skater winning because he or she popped a couple of triple-triples … it also is about the carnage on the ice.

Hardly anyone gets through a program cleanly. A fall here. Another fall there. Because they didn’t land the triple Salchow. Or a quadruple toe loop. And the non-elite skaters, those outside the top 10, say, are falling down all the time because they can’t land a triple. Or maybe a double. I watched some of the also-rans skate, and it was a mess.

The essence of figure skating is athleticism grounded in grace. And skaters going “splat” on the ice is never attractive. No costume, no music, no interpretation of the music can salvage the “splat” in the eyes of judges or viewers.

Thus, limit the number of jumps, and their revolutions. I’m going to say six jumps in the long program, three in the short … and no more than three rotations per jump.

Let’s take the quads off the table entirely. They just get people hurt, and bring violence into what ought to be a gentle sport and reward leapers over skaters.

3. Attach greater penalties to falling. Everyone wants skaters to stay on their feet. Which they did, once upon a time. (See: Peggy Fleming. And see the video of her 1968 gold-winning long program). But since the jump mania, which really took hold about 25 years ago, we have people sprawled all over the ice. So, sure, you can get a reward for a triple; but we are going to punish you severely if you can’t land it.

4. And let’s get an age minimum in here, too, as there is in gymnastics. Sixteen would be fine, as in gymnastics. (Which, yes, would have left out Russia’s childlike 15-year-old, who was thought to have a good chance at gold.)

For one, I fear athletes that young can be too easily dominated/manipulated by adults, whether they are coaches or parents. Even an 18YO is more likely to say “no”.

Second, the childlike girls arrive with an advantage over their sexually mature competitors — a thinner, shorter, lighter body, which makes a major difference in jumps, which apparently are what determines champions.

Gymnastics figured this out. Skating should, too.