The Russian pair has just "won" the gold medal, stealing it from the Canadian pair. Unbelievable!! How a program with mistakes beats a perfect program (even if the mistake-filled program is 'slightly' more difficult) is beyond me!

To email the International Skating Union about this, use this address:

info@isu.ch

Those judges definitely deserve the 'bottom' award.

And the Americans should have finished third. I think the skating judging has produced too much controversy at the Olympics, the sport's most-watched competition.

Thanks for the email link.

I feel traumatized.

All of which is proof that stuff that requires something ambiguous or subjective like judging is not a sport. A sports is something that involves the scoring of points, the completion of a race in the quickest time, etc. A sport is based upon absolutes - highest score (or lowest, like golf) or fastest time.
Meanwhile, contests are based upon people being "judged". Dog shows? Contests. Beauty pageants? Also contests. Bodybuilding, "Battle of the Bands" venues, Gymnastics, Figure skating, Chili Cook Offs, Dressage, Ribbon dancing, Synchronized swimming? All contests. Some of them have an athletic component. But they are all still merely contests, the winners determined by a group of individuals.
There is far less controversy in real sports. Either you score more points, or you are the fastest. Plain and simple.
Let it be said that I admire the athletic skills of those contestants that compete in the pageants such as figure skating or gymnastics. And they can be called athletes. But their fields cannot be called sports.
I now await the bloodbath of retorts by individuals that fail to understand this distinction.

AU Tiger, I don't necessarily disagree with you. But since figure skating is the most popular sport of the Winter Olympics (based on TV ratings) and gymnastics one of the most popular of the Summer Games, I don't think they're going to be pulled from Olympic competition any time soon.

There has been talk a-brewin' about ice dancing getting yanked as an Olympic event because of all the absurdities of judging. If it were, would anybody care?

BoSoxRudy, I'm not saying they should yank the popular contests from the Olympics. Ouside of the games, they have such little support. And they seem to vanish from the radar for 4 years after these affairs.
The certainly have some merit, on some level. But they are judged events. And they will always produce controversy...as evidenced by people whining because someone was "robbed" in their eyes. But that's because they are contests, and not sports.
I just think it's important for people to get a grip on the fact that these are subjective contests, and put it in perspective.

I feel like a watched a robbery in broad daylight tonight. Hopefully the ISU will try and explain how such a miscarraige could occur.

As for nonsense about it not being a sport because it has controversy, I remember a doozy of a controversy at an NFL game in Cleveland a couple of months ago.

I have to agree -- Ina/Zimmerman and Pelletier/Sale both got screwed royally. I hate to see imcompetent judging in any sport, but it seems to be more egregious this time than just about any other time I've seen it. For crying out loud, the Russian guy fell out of his jump. In other sports, when you make a mistake, it can cost you the game -- I guess it ain't the same in figure skating. I think these people are great athletes, but it's hard to call it a fair sport after seeing what happened tonight...kudos to all the athletes for giving their best!

Oh, I get your point about distinction between contests and sports. Yup, gotta agree with you there. As long as an event is won by judges' opinions and decisions, and not by something measurable, there's bound to be controversy and outrage.

What I still don't understand is: "Ouside of the games, they have such little support. And they seem to vanish from the radar for 4 years after these affairs." That may be true of sports like synchronized swimming, but figure skating has a huge global following, and it maintains a very high profile year-in, year-out. Clarification???

Judged sports like swimming and diving have actually cleaned up their acts quite a bit. Both sports have set out very specific values of difficulty for every single "trick" or series of moves, as well as very specific deductions. I don't follow diving all that closely, but I know that gymnastics has successfully eliminated almost all judging controversy since instituting these objective standards.

Skating will never succeed in doing so. Some fundamental technical aspects of skating, such as edging and speed, are completely outside the grasp of the casual fan, and even many serious fans. And then there are aspects to skating that will forever elude any kind of objective standards, such as choreography. Only one thing's for sure, tonight's decision won't be the last firestorm over the "sport's" judging.

I agree it was shameful. The only people who did not think the Canadians won the gold after their performance were the five judges who handed it to the Russian team. And how bad for them -- you are the Olympic champions, but the crowd and you know you were not the best skaters. They were rather subdued as they received their medals. It really was bad for everyone.

I encourage everyone to write to the ISU. There is always talk of trying to clean up the judging. This could be the event that pushed it a little further.

I am rather skeptical about the U.S. team's chances in the mens and womens. I have seen a consistent judging bent toward the Russian teams throughout the season. It would be a shame for other events to end up the same way as the pairs.

Regardless whether it's a contest or a sport, umpires, judges, and refs all make subjective, judgement calls.

But referees don't make calls based upon whether they like the style of the performance. Or the music, which has nothing to do with sport.
You don't see the Mets getting extra baserunners after between-inning organ performances.

Sandra Bezic said it best when she stated that she was embarrassed of the sport of figure skating. I have no idea why, but in pairs' and ice dance, there is such a blatant predjudice toward North American teams. And everyone saw it last night. Even the Russian pair didn't seem to enjoy getting the gold medal. It really makes me scared for Bourne and Kraatz, who beat eveybody at the Grand Prix final, and Lang and Tchernyshev. Not too mention Kwan.

AU Tiger:

[quote] There is far less controversy in real sports. Either you score more points, or you are the fastest. Plain and simple.

---

But unfortunately, in order to be the fastest or the best, some athletes resort to steroid use (or corked bats, or whatever).

People lose faith when they see 'miscarriages of justice' like this, and it hurts the sport. Both Sale/Pelletier and Ina/Zimmerman deserved to move up a place after moving long programs. But they didn't. The remained 2nd and 5th respectively.

The people who run the sport and the judges need a morality check, because ultimately they may be doing themselves and their sport in. The competitors are not to blame--they don't want to win for an inferior performance. But such was the case.

I have to disagree from the general sentiment. The Russians were marked down for their technical mistake and won it based on Poland and France's higher artistic score for them. From a casual observer, I thought their performance was more artistic than the Canadians because it was more passionate and beautiful. The Canadians skated a clean performance no doubt, but somehow it seems rather spirit-less and less artistic than the Russians, and that is where they lost it. It's not like the Russian guy fell on his face or anything.

I think the outrage is that the commentators have such a bias in their coverage and practically wanted to hand it to the Canadians before they even skated. Whoever that woman is, she needs to go. I realize it is a competition, but please stop pandering to the North American audience and give some balanced coverage.

Here are the marks:

[quote]
Legend -- Ord: Ordinals. Tech: Technical marks. Art: Artistic marks.
Elena Berezhnaya and
Anton Sikharulidze

Judge Ord Tech Art Total
Sanaia, Russia 1 5.8 5.9 11.7
Yang, China 1 5.8 5.9 11.7
Brennan, U.S 2 5.7 5.9 11.6
LeGougne, France 1 5.8 5.9 11.7
Sierocka, Poland 1 5.7 5.9 11.6
Lavoie, Canada 2 5.7 5.8 11.5
Petukhov, Ukraine 1 5.8 5.9 11.7
Krick, Germany 2 5.8 5.8 11.6
Sugita, Japan 2 5.7 5.9 11.6

Jamie Sale and
David Pelletier

Judge Ord Tech Art Total
Sanaia, Russia 2 5.8 5.8 11.6
Yang, China 2 5.9 5.8 11.7
Brennan, U.S 1 5.8 5.9 11.7
LeGougne, France 2 5.8 5.8 11.6
Sierocka, Poland 2 5.8 5.8 11.6
Lavoie, Canada 1 5.9 5.9 11.8
Petukhov, Ukraine 2 5.8 5.8 11.6
Krick, Germany 1 5.9 5.9 11.8
Sugita, Japan 1 5.8 5.9 11.7

---

And here is a quote from the Globe and Mail (Canadian newspaper) article:

[quote] After the Russians performed, with at least one noticeable slip-up, the Canadians went about impressing NBC's talent. Near the end of their 4½-minute routine, Hamilton set the stage for a final key move.

"Throw triple loop, and the gold is theirs," the 1984 men's Olympic gold medalist yelled.

After Salé landed cleanly, Bezic, a five-time Canadian national pairs champion, said: "Simply perfect. . . . They did it."

If there was any doubt in viewers' minds as to who was about to win, the announcers did their best to clear it away.

As the Canadians left the ice, Hamilton said: "There are going to be some giant, huge, high, enormous marks."

And Bezic added: "Canada House is going to be jumping tonight!"

When it was announced that the Russians had won, Hamilton was adamant that it was a mistake.

"How did that happen?" he said, adding that Salé and Pelletier "won that program, there's not a doubt for anyone in the place, expect for maybe a few judges.

---

Very interesting to see the judges’ actual score sheets, canmark. Thanks.

In comparing the total combined scores each judge gave the two pairs, it shows that:

- the Canadian judge may have been the MOST biased, giving the Canadian pair a .5 pt. advantage
- the German judge gave the Canadians a .4 pt. advantage
- the U.S. and Japanese judges each gave the Canadians a .2 pt. advantage
- the Russian, French and Ukraine judges each gave the Russians a .2 pt. advantage.
- the Chinese and Polish judges each scored it evenly.

The total combined point differential should have given the Canadians first place by .7 pts. - but then the Canadian judge would have had to explain his/her favoritism in what was essentially a dead heat. But even by removing his/her scoring, the Canadians still won by .2 pt.

And note that the Chinese and Polish judges, who both scored it even-steven, both gave the #1 ranking (and thus the gold medal) to the Russian skaters. Why?

The results also do not factor in "pregnant chads" and senior judges who mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan.

[quote]Originally posted by Seph:
And note that the Chinese and Polish judges, who both scored it even-steven, both gave the #1 ranking (and thus the gold medal) to the Russian skaters. Why?
[/QB]

---

In the event of the tie, they look at the Artistic Impression scores as a tie break... the Chinese and Polish judges obviously gave the Russians higher Artistic scores while giving the Canadians higher Technical scores.

Actually, figure skating scoring is very complicated. It is all about ordinals (how each judge ranks the skater) rather than points. So a score of 5.7 with a first place ranking from Judge A is worth more than a 5.8 with a second place ranking from Judge B. Confused yet?

I actually remember at U.S. Nationals a few years ago when Nicole Bobek was in 4th place with one skater to go. You would think that 4th would be the best she could do then, but in fact after the other skater performed, Nicole ended up in 3rd because of the complicated ordinals system.

There are two things that have amazed me more than the actual outcome of the competition.

1. I was very proud of the Salt Lake crowd for not booing the Russians. They were bright enough to realize that it was not the skaters who judged the competition. I realize that skating fans are probably more sophisticated, but when emotions run high like they did last night, it would have been tempting for anyone to show their protest to the judges and boo. I'm proud of the crowd (and a poet, too).

2. I have become a fan of the Canadian pair for how gracefully they handled their disappointment. I have seen them interviewed at least 4 times since the awards ceremony. Yeah, they may still be in shock, but they seem to have a healthy attitude about it all. They have shown to the world what it's like to be graceful and beautiful skaters, but more importantly, what it's like to be graceful and beautiful human beings. I don't know about you, but I think that's what is most important.

A friend just called to say he saw a skating mag editor on CNN raving that the cause of last night's disgrace was a conspiracy between the Russian & French judges. Is anybody else watching CNN?

Just caught a piece of the interview with Mark Lund, International Skating Magazine. He was outraged and has placed a call to demand an explanation from the judges. (Cute guy, but sounded like a scorned drag queen). The moderator suggested that perhaps there are different styles of skating (Western and Eastern) and that those judges perhaps appreciated their style better. Mark went on to use the word "fixed".

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: CowboysHskrFan ]

After watching my tape of the programs a couple more times, I am somewhat more ambivalent about the outcome. I don't know if I can say now that Sale & Pelletier were robbed. Berezhnaya & Sikhuralidze had a very good skate of an amazing program while S&P had a near-perfect skate (her back "broke" on one of the throw jumps, and their unison was off in a number of places) of a so-so program.

What won it for the Russians was speed, moves in the field, unison, intricacy of choreography, line & carriage, and most noticeably, edging. While the Russians did slow down a bit toward the end, their speed for most of the program was far superior to the Canadians. B&S's program is full of all these wonderful "in-between" moves (e.g., Elena's bent-back spread eagle flowing into Anton's spiral) that S&P were lacking. The Russians' unison was simply amazing. Even after Anton stepped out on the 2x, he managed to recover in time to synch the 2nd jump of the series, a double toe, perfectly with Elena's jump. Whereas all the Canadians' big tricks are isolated moves, the Russians throws and lifts are preceded and followed by footwork or moves in the field. As for line & carriage, the Canadians are good, but the Russians are superb. And the one difference I noticed most was edging. B&S's edges are so deep, while S&P's edging, in the "Love Story" program at least, is rather shallow. Edging is a really big thing with the judges because shallow edges are a sure-fire sign of a second-tier skater.

Having said all that, is it clear that the Russians won? Can't really say that either. And despite everything I said, I'm still leaning to the Canadians. All I'm saying is that it was a **LOT** closer than it might have appeared, despite whatever Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton have to say [Sandra's a great choreographer, and Scott's a great skater, but neither one of them are very good analysts].

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: BoSoxRudy ]

Christine Brennen article. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/comment/bre...ennan-pairs.htm

Juicy excerpt of the week:

"After the pairs long program on Monday and the judges' controversial 5-4 vote for the Russians, French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne, who voted for the Russians, told members of the International Skating Union's prestigious technical committee, as well as a few judges, that she was forced by her federation to vote for the Russians in a deal that would deliver a vote for the French team in the ice dancing competition later in the Olympic Games."

To conclude from my last post, can you imagine if pairs skating got kicked off of the Olympics games? That's even a better honor for S/P to be the pair that got figure skating excluded from the Olympics.

I am so stunned by what happened last night, and by the articles I've read today, that I was inspired to register here at Outsports, to add a question and comments.

My question is about the scoring criteria used in judging of Figure Skating. Is it completely subjective? I mean, do the judges just watch the routine and then then go, "I think I'll give that a 5.7 for technical and a 5.9 for Artistic"? Or is there a set point standard, i.e. each move/trick is worth a certain amount, and each mistake causes a deduction of a certain amount? I suppose with a little Internet research I could find the answer to my question, but I thought it might be worth discussing here.

I can't help but compare this to gymnastics. Granted, in gymnastics there is a certain amount of politics and subjectivity involved in the scoring, but there is a Code of Points, leaving very little "wiggle room" for the judges' whims to impact the outcome. As even the casual gymnastics watcher probably knows, each wriggle, wobble, mis-step, and fall is cause for a mandatory deduction of points, whether it is 0.1 or 0.5, depending on the severity of the error. For example, the skaters from China would have been deducted 0.5 points when the girl fell on her difficult "quad" throw, but the difficulty of that move would have earned them a set amount of points -- perhaps 0.25 -- somewhat offsetting the deduction. All of this would be spelled out in the Code of Points.

Would it be so hard to completely revamp the scoring of figure skating, using gymnastics as a model?

I'm sorry my first post here is such a long one. Cheers...

This news just in... The Chinese judge from last night's debacle has pulled out of judging tonight's Men's competition, "due to illness." Hmmmm...

Re: Christine Brennan article (above). Here suggestion of kicking the French judge out is tantamount to shooting the whistle blower, but not the people who committed the crime.

This actually happened before in ice dancing, where one judge supposedly told another the order the ice dance teams would finish before they even took to the ice. Both judges were suspended.

But doesn't this also discourage people from coming through with the truth? This is not to say the French judge should be forgiven for being complicit in the crime either...


[quote]The ISU released a statement Tuesday which read: "Following the reaction of the public and the media to the results of the pairs event at the Salt Lake Ice Center last night, and to respect public opinion, the ISU is doing an internal assessment to monitor if the ISU rules and procedures have been respected.

---

Lord knows what this inquiry will find. Like asking Lay and Skilling to investigate Enron.

It is a shame that such a popular sport gets itself into so much controversy. I doubt that the "internal assessment" will produce much.

This problem goes back a ways. It is known as "block voting" and dates back to the Cold War era. Eastern (read Soviet Bloc) judges would band together to improve their skaters' rankings, and the Western judges would follow suit. It became a battle of what countries were drawn to complete the nine member judging panel. The big surprise here was that the French judge flopped. This may have been explained by the posting above.

The scores for the long program are a bit more subjective than the short. The short has eight required elements and there are "standard deductions" for mistakes on each element. Of course, nothing is that standard as judges can usually deduct anywhere from .1 to .4 depending on the fault.

In the long program, skaters "earn" marks rather than "lose" them. It is all about what a skater completes in their program. That is why Oksana and Tara were rewarded in 94 and 98 for tossing in last minute triples at the ends of their programs. This boosted their scores (theoretically) by the necessary .1 or so they needed to win. This addition process makes the long program more subjective because it is really up to the judges to determine the quality and worth of all of the elements the skaters throw in.

Given the fact that the Canadians skated a clean program with the same basic elements as the Russians, one would think that this would put them ahead by that .1 or so needed to win the gold. Their program had lots of energy and flow, even though it was not the "classic" skating program the Russians skated.

I would really like to see some reform in the skating ranks, but the previous comment is right. How do internal representatives clean up their own house, when this kind of stuff has been tolerated for decades?

[quote]Originally posted by charliecstl:
Given the fact that the Canadians skated a clean program with the same basic elements as the Russians, one would think that this would put them ahead by that .1 or so needed to win the gold.

---

By "same basic elements", I assume you mean the big tricks (throw triple jumps, SBS jumps, split triple twist) because the programs are in no way comparable otherwise. Aside from the big tricks, the Canadians' "Love Story" is a relatively simple program, whereas the Russians' "Meditation" is beautifully intricate and complicated.

The beauty of the "Love Story" program is that it tells the story of the movie on ice: they meet, they court, they fall in love, but she falls ill and tragically dies. The choreography that represents her death, the spread-eagle death spiral, is a stroke of genius. And the ending, where he's alone on the ice as her "ghost" drifts away from him, is enough to give you chills. Unfortunately, as amazing as those moments are, they don't really give the program much value, and the rest of the program is rather empty, just not a whole lot of footwork or moves in the field, which makes it a far easier program to skate. "Meditation", on the other hand, is a genius work of intricate flowing choreography, which is why it was by far the most difficult program of the competition.

There was a lot of controversy amongst S&P's fans when they chose to do "Love Story" instead of this season's program, "Orchid". "Love Story" is the crowd-pleaser, but it's also going on its 3rd year, and the crowd doesn't decide the placements. "Orchid" is new and full of all the wonderful "in-betweens" that "Love Story" lacks. As far as difficulty, "Orchid" compares well with "Meditation". "Love Story" just isn't in the same league.

Canada got screwed and I hope there is some way they can stick it to the judges or somebody.

I didn't watch the program, as "things that happen on snow" are generally of more interest to me than "things that happen on ice" - with the exception of speedskating. I did see the controversy on the TV evening news tonight, and I think this has been an excellent discussion.

I don't see how it's possible even to judge people at that level. I only wish I could skate at 1% of the level of the person who comes in last.

During the Olympics broadcast tonight Bob Costas also reported that the French judge told the ISU she was "forced" to place the Russian pair first in order to assure they voted for the French couple in ice dancing. The ISU is investigating, but I don't hold out much hope. It's unrealistic to expect any organization to investigate itself and criticize itself. In order to try and repair the incredible damage done to the sport, the ISU needs to ask a disinterested third party to get to the bottom of this and issue independent recommendations for future steps that might avoid this fiasco occuring again. If the French judge truly did throw her vote, someone owes Canada a gold medal.

Ahhhh...Juan Antonio Scandalranch is gone, and the crooked nature of the olympics keeps on going.
What a crock o' steaming intestinal sculpture.
Ever since the scandal of olympic bribes/collusions began with the story of how Salt Lake City got the games (lo, those many years ago), I have always referered to the olympics as the "dirty olympics."
Looks like this poison runs straight to the core of this mafia-esque event.
Its not just the IOC swapping votes for payola, its the judges swapping points from one event to pay off debts to other events.

Atlanta had a bomber. Now Salt Lake gets a different sort of bomb to taint their games.

[quote]Originally posted by Brian Handy:
[QB]And the Americans should have finished third. [QB]

---

i highly disagree, and the chinese pair that won the bronze did get unanimous third-place ordinals. MY OH MY i'm in awe of the throw quad salchow attempt and can't wait until they land it in competition.

More conspiracy theory. From today's Globe & Mail:

[quote] A well-placed figure skating source told The Globe before the Olympics began to watch judging patterns in the pairs program for evidence that the outcome would be tied to the ice-dance competition. Several sources have confirmed that deals were made for Italians Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio to win gold in ice dancing ahead of Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh.
Among the judges opting for the Russian pair Monday was Marie Reine Le Gougne of France. Insiders insist this was part of the deal. French skaters Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat are apparently slated for a bronze medal in ice dancing. There isn't a French judge on the ice-dancing panel.
Sources also say Ms. Salé and Mr. Pelletier weren't the only skaters not judged fairly in the pairs. Yang Jiasheng, the judge from China, went with the Russians ahead of the Canadians too. Sources are suggesting that the Chinese judge gave the first-place vote to Ms. Berezhnaia and Mr. Sikharulidze, hoping that the judges from the former Eastern Bloc countries would help in giving the Chinese pairs team the country's first medal in the event. All nine judges ranked Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo third, despite a shaky performance in the long program.

---

So like aren't the Judges held to the same strict standards of abiding by rules and regulations that the atheletes are????????

Just saw Salé and Pelletier on Larry King and they are both pretty adorable. The way they talked, though, remindedme of the SCTV skit ``Great White North.'' Can you say ``hoser?''

yeah, both Jamie and David have been amazing in how they've handled a very bad situation. And yes, they're both adorable. Jamie's Great White North and David's Quebec'er accents really add to their charm.

An interesting tidbit: the Figure Skating World message board (the most active and knowledgeable figure skating board I've come across) conducted a poll about the pairs competition. Out of 798 votes, 26% went for Elena & Anton, 71% for Jamie and David, and 2% undecided. (While web polls are probably the most unscientific, at least this one did not allow for multiple votes from the same IP address.) This doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but it does show that there's quite a bit more ambivalence about the outcome amongst educated figure skating fans than the general public.

NBC finally presented a bit of balance to the scandal on this morning's Today show. One guest, Paul Wylie, thought that S&P won, although he wasn't nearly as vehement in his opinion as NBC's two analysts, Hamilton and Bezic. The other guest (forget his name, but he covered Winter Olympics and figure skating for the Chicago Tribune) said that all the scandal is a fire that's being fueled and fanned by the media, especially NBC. He thought the outcome was much closer than most people are saying, and that while he probably would have given the edge to S&P also, he can see how five of the judges would give the nod to B&S.

The reporter stopped short of accusing NBC of fanning the fires of controversy to generate ratings, but the one thing everybody does agree on is that interest in figure skating is much higher now, and the ratings should spike accordingly -- nice little fringe benefit for the network that paid gazillions of dollars for the Games' broadcast rights.

One thing that helps to fan the flames, though--and it's often been the case in ice dancing as well--is that the top six pairs finished in exactly the same order in both the short and long program. When you see that happen once, it's a coincidence, but when it becomes a pattern, it looks fishy.

I would have placed the Americans fourth, personally. There is a long-standing (maybe not written) rule in figure skating that the judges don't nail you for failing an element that has never been done successfully in competition. The Chinese deserved the bronze. If memory serves correctly (it's been awhile), Brian Boitano two-footed an attempt at a quad in his gold medal performance.

As other posters have indicted, I think figure skating really needs to get its act together and come up with a more rigorous scoring method like gymnastics has. If the Russian program had been rated at a difficulty of 6.0 and the Canadian's at 5.8 going in (the way they do in gymnastics), it would be easier to accept that the Russian's could be chosen despite not skating cleanly. As it is, the artistic impression marks sometimes seem to be too much of a fudge factor. Plushenko's extremely high artistic impression marks last night seemed calculated to keep a favorite in medal contention...

It isn't just the evil european judges either whose judgement is questionable. I couldn't help noticing that the American judge last night gave the same technical merit marks to Yagudin and Goebel (5.7). I realize Goebel made a more difficult jump, but his spins & footwork were not as good...to me, Yagudin looked like everything you'd expect a three-time world champion to be.

[quote]Originally posted by BoSoxRudy:
An interesting tidbit: the Figure Skating World message board (the most active and knowledgeable figure skating board I've come across) conducted a poll about the pairs competition. Out of 798 votes, 26% went for Elena & Anton, 71% for Jamie and David, and 2% undecided. (While web polls are probably the most unscientific, at least this one did not allow for multiple votes from the same IP address.) This doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but it does show that there's quite a bit more ambivalence about the outcome amongst educated figure skating fans than the general public.

---

Hi, Rudy - 71% to 26% is almost a 3-1 ratio; it is hardly ambivalent.

28% (I'm going to lump the 2% "undecided" in with the 26% in favor of S&P) is less than 71%? Well, um ... duh.

The point of the post is that amongst more educated figure skating fans, there is a lot more support for the Russians' victory. Compare the FSWorld numbers to the NBC web poll, in which less than 5% fell into the Russian/undecided category. True, 28% is still a minority, but significant enough to indicate that the outcome of the pairs competition was far closer than the (relatively figure-skating-ignorant) general public would like to believe.

I myself am very ambivalent about the outcome. After the competition, I thought for sure the Canadians had won. But I've watched the tape of the programs three times now, and the more I watch them, the Russians come off as more and more impressive, and the Canadians' program starts looking simpler and simpler. So you have to choose between a very good skate of a very difficult program and a near-perfect skate of a medium-difficulty program. It's hardly clear-cut.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: BoSoxRudy ]

Brad in Memphis, TN wrote:

I have become a fan of the Canadian pair for how gracefully they handled their disappointment. I have seen them interviewed at least 4 times since the awards ceremony. Yeah, they may still be in shock, but they seem to have a healthy attitude about it all. They have shown to the world what it's like to be graceful and beautiful skaters, but more importantly, what it's like to be graceful and beautiful human beings. I don't know about you, but I think that's what is most important.

Well said, Brad! I couldn't agree with you more. Jamie and David are classy people, and have become instant heroes up here in Canada. Their 'second place' finish will, I think, serve them just as well in their future endeavours as a gold medal would have.

I'm certainly disappointed that Sale/Pelletier didn't win gold. I thought they would win with a clean program. They obviously had a better technical performance and I think they were rewarded with higher marks for that. The presentation mark is more subjective and the case can be made that B&S deserved their higher mark (as some said in this thread). Therefore I don't believe the final result is necessarily a robbery.
Some judges have their preference and I might not agree with them. Both pairs had beautiful programs. Looking at the components of the presentation marks, both sides could reasonably argue they were the best.

The 8 components for the presentation mark are:

1. harmonious composition/conformity with the music chosen
2. variation of speed
3. use of the ice surface
4. ease of movement/sureness
5. carriage and style
6. originality
7. expression of the character of the music
8. unison (pair skating)

Each elememt is described on the Skate Canada website.
Presentation mark

Just wanted to chime back in after reading news reports from multiple sources this evening.

The head of the French Olympic contingency came out and announced that his judge had been "pressured" to vote other than she may have given the quality of the performances. There are a number of sources who went on the record that the pairs and ice dance competitions were already judged before the Games began. There is mounting evidence that some of the judges failed the oath that was sworn by them in the Opening Ceremonies.

I don't see that this is about whether or not the competition was fairly judged anymore. I think it is now all about how deep the problems in the sport go, and how to fix them.

I have little faith that the ISU will do the right thing, but (to me) the Canadians should be made co-champions with the Russian team. At this level of skating, the reigning World Champions are not doing an "easy" program or a "medium" program. They are doing an Olympic level program that the vast majority of experts in the sport stated very clearly was better performed than the Russians' very beautiful, but not trouble free effort.

I do not think the Russian team should be penalized, but lets call the kettle black and then work on fixing the problems.

[quote]Originally posted by BoSoxRudy:
28% (I'm going to lump the 2% "undecided" in with the 26% in favor of S&P) is less than 71%? Well, um ... duh.

The point of the post is that amongst more educated figure skating fans, there is a lot more support for the Russians' victory. Compare the FSWorld numbers to the NBC web poll, in which less than 5% fell into the Russian/undecided category. True, 28% is still a minority, but significant enough to indicate that the outcome of the pairs competition was far closer than the (relatively figure-skating-ignorant) general public would like to believe.

I myself am very ambivalent about the outcome. After the competition, I thought for sure the Canadians had won. But I've watched the tape of the programs three times now, and the more I watch them, the Russians come off as more and more impressive, and the Canadians' program starts looking simpler and simpler. So you have to choose between a very good skate of a very difficult program and a near-perfect skate of a medium-difficulty program. It's hardly clear-cut.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: BoSoxRudy ]

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I watched the skating over again and have to say that it is not as wide a margin between the two pairs as I formerly thought. THe Russians had a program much more difficult than the Canadians. There were only two mistakes I could see that would lower their marks. I feel the Canadians still should have won. I will say that the americans have a very strong case against their placement. They should have been placed above the second Russian couple.

For the 8 components of presentation from above,
I would give
1)Sale/Pelltier
2)even
3)B/S
4)S/P because their elements were done confidently
5)B/S
6)Sale/Pelltier
7)Sale/Peltier(they were on)
8)B/S

To add, the French judge did admit to being pressured in the way she had voted, and I have no doubt that the french would have given the vote to the canadians, so in a way, the canadians were "robbed."

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: savvy ]

i won't play holier than thou. i'll admit right up front that i am part of that relatively figure skating ignorant general public. (don't worry about me, i've been called worse, i'll get by.) i do, however, know something about numbers (fret not, non-techies, i won't belittle with epithets such as relatively math ignorant general public), and while 72-28% is in fact far different than 95-5%, it is still so incredibly lopsided as to be significant beyond any know measure.

the existance of ANY dissent is the justification used by some to do nothing about global warming, and the justification used in some third world countries for doing nothing about the rampant spread of AIDS in their populations -- the scientific community isn't unanimous. maybe so, but that doesn't mean they aren't sure. the skating community isn't unanimous either, but that doesn't mean they aren't sure!

Hi, Rudy - 72%-28% is considered a landslide by pretty much any subjective standard, so I don't think there's any ambivalence involved here. I agree the margin between the two pairs was not huge, but I think it was clear. Even if it were not, it's become pretty clear that there was untoward aforethought given to the outcome by at least two of the national skating federations. I feel badly for the Russian pair - by all accounts they seem blameless, although I would love to hear how they feel about receiving gold medals that are tainted - but it seems that at the very least Sale and Pellitier should also be acknowledged with a gold medal.

Guess what? It's not an election! Gold medals aren't decided by hanging chads!! The 18,000 spectators didn't decide the placements; the nine judges did. I really regret bringing up that stupid web poll (on a North American board, chock-full of ardent Canadian fans, by the way), because it takes away from the point I was trying to make. The point is this:

What makes for truly great skating is very much lost on the general public - deep and clean edges, moves in the field, line, intricacy of footwork, and so much more - qualities that separate the great from the pretty good. The point is that amongst people with a deeper understanding of the sport, you'll find plenty who believe that the Russians deserved to win, in contrast to the "they wuz robbed" mentality of the general public. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that four of the judges on the panel genuinely believed that the Russians deserved to win. As for the fifth judge's "true" decision, well, that's to be determined.

If you believe the Canadians should have won, fine. If you want to scream, "They wuz robbed!!!" 'til the cows come home, knock yourself out. But just understand that there is a legitimate argument for the Russians' victory.

Since there were three other judges (besides the Russian and French) who put the Russian pair first, I was wondering something. Has anybody asked them to expalin their rationale? My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you are in the top 3 going into the long program and win the long program, you win the gold medal because the log program counts for 2/3 of your score. So these other judges awarded thought the Russians won the long program as well. Maybe I just don't understand this correctly.

Considering that the french judge came out and said she was pressured, means that she most likely she would have voted the other way, otherwise I doubt she would have made this alleged confession to the others.

According to Canoe, The polish judge said that they they gave the nod to B/S because S/P's program was "2/3 years old." Whatever.