Check it out!!!

http://www.msnbc.com/news/705743.asp

click here

Good for the Olympic Committee, and I am really really happy for Canada and for their Olympic Gold Skating Team. The absolute right thing was done. I think the intense public pressure in the U.S. and Canada finally paid off.

Fantastic!! I just turned on MSNBC to see it, and I TOTALLY agree. This is the best compromise!

Way to go, Canada!!

The Russian media is very angry about this.

Given what we know about the French judge being manipulated, this was absolutely the right decision.

Personally, I think the sport of figure skating just regained its integrity.

While I agree this is the right decision, the media (as usual) has just gone way overboard with the coverage. NBC broke in to regular programming and CNN has been covering the story for an hour straight. The only difference between this year and many other Olympic skating competitions is that this time they got caught.

And high time they got caught too. The ISU doesn't understand, IMHO, what a front-page, prime-time sport skating is in the US & Canada. Bob Costas tried to tell that to the pig-headed & belligerent Ottavio Cinquanta last night. Maybe it was Jacques Rogge who got through to him, reminding him of how much skating here is dependent on corporate generosity and how corporations don't like to be associated with a corrupt sport. If so, he'll be a major improvement over Samaranch, who would have "investigated" this case till kingdom come.

I have a question for the skate mavens: wasnt' there a similar case of collusion, circa 1980, involving the East & West German judges. IIRC,
Germans were banned from judging intl meets for a while. I think it even involved Austrian & Swiss judges.

And here comes ice dancing...from the Official Salt Lake Olypics website:

[quote] Those people who suspect that ice dancing results are decided before the event begins need only look at the career of Grishuk and Platov for confirmation. Between Olympics they won 21 consecutive events, including two in which Grishuk actually fell, an extremely rare occurrence in elite-level ice dancing.
Grischuk also stumbled during a compulsory dance at the 1998 Nagano Games, but she and Platov won gold anyway.
One of the judges, Jean Senft of Canada, went public with allegations of vote trading among the judges. The International Skating Union (ISU) responded by sanctioning Senft for “national bias” in her scoring. But then Senft released a tape recording of a telephone conversation with Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov that proved his collusion with judges from Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
An embarrassed ISU suspended Balkov for a year, but, like an athlete who tests positive for steroids, Balkov has served out his suspension and will return to the Olympics — as a judge in ice dancing.

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Bravo!! This was really the perfect solution. Kudos to Pellitier and Sale for the way the comported themselves all through this. It's nice to see graciousness rewarded. I do wonder what B &S (sorry, I can't spell their names) think about this. She was interviewed on TV this morning and she and her coach were quite adamant that there should be only one gold medal, that the judges had spoken, and that they felt it was correct that they have the gold.

Was it really the right decision to make both pairs gold-medal winners? This writer doesn't think so...

Heaven forbid we hurt anyone's feelings

I've changed my mind about this. At first i thought that since the French judge "fixed" her vote, that you eliminate her vote and you have a deadlock, 4 for the Canadians, 4 for the Russians. But obviously the Russian judge cheated as well. The Russian vote should be thrown out as well and the Canadians should be the ONLY gold medalists in this event. I feel bad for the Russian skaters, but even they knew they didn't win. You could see the look on their faces at the medal ceremony. Two golds is not the answer.

On a side note, I wonder how riled up the media or the public would be if it were an American team instead of a Russian team? Would NBC have been so critical of the judging?

Oh, just to clarify my earlier comment, I think this was the right decision given the IOC wasn't about to strip the Russian pair of their gold medal (which would have touched off yet another firestorm of controversy, for sure).

However, having double gold medalists implies that both competitors (or teams, in this case) gave performances equally worthy of the championship. I don't believe this to be true here. The Canadians CLEARLY skated a superior program & deserved that gold medal in the first place.

There's no precedent that I'm aware of (I'm not claiming to be an authority--I could easily be wrong) for stripping someone of the gold medal after it's been awarded, unless they're found guilty of cheating. The last time I recall a judging error being corrected at the Olympics (the synchronized swimming; strangely another Canadian involved), they issued a second gold rather than take the gold away from the other swimmer.

[quote]Originally posted by George_vikingfan:
But obviously the Russian judge cheated as well.

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How do you know that? In North America, the prevailing sentiment is that Sale & Pelletier "wuz robbed". But in Russia and much of Eastern Europe, the prevailing sentiment is that Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze were the superior pair. It's possible, if not highly likely, that the Russian judge's honest assessment of the competition placed B&S first and S&P second because she favors the classic Russian style over the less polished but technically cleaner Canadians. For all we know, the French judge would have arrived at the same conclusion independent of any threats or pressure.

The decision to award a 2nd set of gold medals is the correct one. This has been a bad situation for both pairs. Jamie and David had the devastating experience of feeling like they were gypped of the gold, and Elena & Anton feel that their gold medal has been discredited.

I am hoping that the French judge isn't scapegoated, and that all parties who colluded in this situation are held accountable. The French judge has been suspended, but I haven't heard of any other punishments. Hopefully it's just a matter of time.

I don't think stripping the gold medal from B & S is necessary. By all accounts, they are blameless here; the collusion by the judges was certainly not their fault. Taking back their gold medal would only duplicate the despair Sale and Pellitier felt on Monday night, and there's never a good enough reason to do that to someone.

Okay, so here's my take on this whole debacle.

First - that article in the Philly paper is completely out of line. It completely undermines what the Olymics are supposed to be about (which is a myth, but still, we can delusional.) Besides, every time they see these medals, they're going to see the tarnish instead of the shine. As I said before, the judges did no favors to the Russians. It's as hard for Anton and Elena as it is for Jamie and David. Maybe more. S&P are set for life. B&S are always going to the villains of this story.

Second - At the moment, no one has indicted the Russian judge. There's no evidence of any wrongdoing on his part.

Third - The French judge is a scapegoat. The ISU suspended her, and I would bet money that now no further action is taken after this dies down. And it sucks, because remember, this woman is a volunteer who devotes herself to this purely for the love of the sport. I'm not saying she wasn't wrong, but she's taken all the blame and that's just not right.

Fourth - It breaks my heart that Anton and Elena have to worry that they'll be jeered at the exhibition. They definitely don't deserve that. I hope that my faith in humanity proves me right and that they'll get a great standing ovation. Unfortunately I'm also a pessimist by nature.

Fifth - Stripping a gold medal is a serious charge, and I think the scared outburst of one judge is not nearly enough to do it. And besides, if you do the math, technically the two teams tied the free skate. B&S won (deservedly) the short program. Technically, they should still be alone on the medal podium.

We are euphoric up here over the decision to award a gold medal to David and Jamie! I never thought it would happen, and we certainly appreciate the support from the international community. David said with tongue in cheek that they wouldn't mind accepting a bronze medal as well, to complete their collection. It will be interesting to see how the award ceremony will be handled next Thursday.

Let's hope this may be a first step in restoring some credibility and integrity to the judging aspects of figure skating and other sports. Kudos to Jacques Rogge for getting involved and acting quickly...a refreshing contrast to King Juan who condoned deceit and corruption.

[quote]Originally posted by Lev Stone:
Okay, so here's my take on this whole debacle.

Fourth - It breaks my heart that Anton and Elena have to worry that they'll be jeered at the exhibition. They definitely don't deserve that. I hope that my faith in humanity proves me right and that they'll get a great standing ovation. Unfortunately I'm also a pessimist by nature.

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I think its idiotic for the Russians to think that way. They were not jeered after the competition, when they should have expected it the most, when everyone was angry and emotions were very high.