However for many countries the decision was more down to politics than technical merit.

The first score is for technical merit, or what the skater tried to do.

"At this point," she said, "he still has the most technical merit of any program tried."

Other experts, however, say the Soviet ideas may have technical merit and should be evaluated.

They took first despite one mark of 5.2 and another of 5.3 for technical merit.

And this is before even considering the technical merits of those two languages.

"We'll look at this and evaluate it on its technical merits."

"But it had adequate technical merit, and the judges know I can do this stuff."

Much like figure skating, players are given scores for technical and artistic merit.

Each case has been examined on the basis of its own technical merits.