[Olympic][b]WE WERE ROBBED!!![/b]

Tsyr · Feb 13, 2002

Storm Raven, you say figure skating's inclusion in the Olympics is offensive... do you realise how offensive you sound? Comparing figure skating, diving, gymastics, etc... to a beauty pageant?

I'm not trying to provoke more flames, Storm Raven. Just pointing something out.

MythandLore · Feb 13, 2002

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2002/news/2002/02/12/skating_judging/index.html
Skating federation to investigate judging
SALT LAKE CITY (CNN) -- The International Skating Union announced Tuesday that it will conduct an "internal assessment" into a controversial judging decision at the finals of the Olympic pairs figure skating competition Monday night, where the coveted gold medal went to a Russian pair who stumbled, rather than to a Canadian couple who didn't.

In a statement issued after a routine review of Monday's judging, the ISU, the sports federation governing figure skating, said it will try to determine whether "the ISU rules and procedures have been respected."

Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the reigning world champions, skated what the crowd in the Salt Lake Ice Center judged as a nearly flawless performance in their long program Monday night.

But five of the nine judges put them behind the Russian couple of Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze who took the gold.

During the Russian pair's final skate, Sikharulidze bobbled the landing on a double axel jump. Fans in the arena who saw both couples skate booed and jeered as the results were posted. The decision has sparked outrage across Canada, where the headlines on two major newspapers read, simply, "Robbed!"

"We have no control over this. It's not the [Russian] skaters fault, either. We do our job, and the judges do their job, and they are human, too," said Sale. "We're not sure what happened, but we're just really happy with what we did." Judges from Russia, China, Poland, Ukraine and France placed the Russians first; judges from the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan gave the nod to Sale and Pelletier.

The results raised anew a long-running controversy over block voting, in which judges have been accused of voting together to favor skaters from their regions, broken down along Cold War lines.

Four of the judges who voted for the Russians are from former Soviet or communist countries; the four who voted for the Canadians are from countries in the Western bloc. The French judge was the exception, going with the Russians -- somewhat ironic, considering that Pelletier is French-Canadian.

After the decision, he told the Canadian media that he was considering hanging up his skates.

"After a night like tonight, you badly want to cut your figure skating career short," he told the Toronto Globe and Mail.

In the 1998 Nagano Games, a Canadian judge publicly raised charges of block voting in the ice dance competition, which led the ISU to issue new procedures to review controversial decisions.

Pairs judging under scrutiny
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 12 -
When the marks flashed and the boos rained down, David Pelletier buried his face in his hands and Jamie Sale’s eyes filled with tears. There was no easy way to explain how they could have looked so magical, yet come away with silver.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/704988.asp

http://www.nbcolympics.com/x/f/frame.htm?u=/news/705360.asp

NBC LIVE POLL! 96% Canadains Win.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/x/f/frame.htm?u=/news/705138.asp

omedon · Feb 13, 2002

Orginally posted by Storm Raven
I didn't respond to them because, for the most part, I don't have a position worked out on most of those one way or the other. I don't really have a clear definition in my head as to why curling would be an Olypmic sport, but shuffleboard might not. But that isn't what we are talking about here.
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I disagree with you on that point. I think it is perfectly valid for this reason. You have a criteria of what makes something a sport (a) and claim that figure skating does not meet this criteria (b). But if such things as shuffleboard, hungry hungry hippoes, or Pogs meet your criteria and your were to say that they were not a sport it would prove that your criteria is invalid. So you should give it some thought.

Orginally posted by Storm Raven
In figure skating a judge is intended to decide the entirety of the outcome. It is intended that a figure skating judge not only have an impact on the outcome, but that he dictate it entirely. His judgement is the sole criteria upon which medals are handed out.

Perhaps, I do not claim to know the ins and outs of how figure skating is judged. But I do know that a triple sow cow (spelling?) is better than a double sow cow. Perhaps the modern incarnations of Ice skating have moved too far away from its origins. This move was mainly done for entertainment value. If I remember correctly Figure Skating in the Olympics originally had a very stringent technical component, requiring the skater to skate in figure eights no less.

I do agree with you that in its current state Figure Skating is seriously lacking clout as a sport. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a sport underneath. There is an awful lot of merit placed on the artistry. And I understand that this is your main arguement.

Artistry does not equal sport.

But figure skating is much more than artistry. If you were to strip away the music, costumes, and some of the other theatrics you still have people performing difficult athletic tasks. One person may do a double, another a triple, another may attempt a quadruple and fall. It would seem clear in this case that the person who did the most difficult trick and succeded should win. This sort of jugding has impact on the result without dictation.

This is figure skating at its base level. It is not written into the essence of figure skating that the judges dictate it entirely. That is why there has been such an uproar about this recent judgement. People want to know why the judges voted the way they did. They want to see a breakdown: This pair did 2 very difficult jumps, 3 medium, and 1 easy. That counts as so many points. If they fell that is minus so many points. If they are equal on all these criteria then the judges may debate about who did a better tripple.

The judges are in fact supposed to look at the height of the jumps as well. Something as easily measured by someones eye as the person to cross the finish line first. It just has to be judged responsibly with an account or reason for the scores. Perhaps it can't be done. Perhaps there are too many calculations to make in short time they have during the routines. If this is the case then maybe figure skating needs to be changed. But nothing so drastic as be removed. (I hope).

Orginally posted by Storm Raven
What criteria will you use to determine whether the subjective judgments of a judge should be questioned or not? Since you have no standards for the competition itself, how do you have any standards for grading the officials?

I disagree there are indeed standards in Figure skating. Falling is bad. Difficult tricks are better than easy tricks as I mentioned above.

Orginally posted by Storm Raven
If you can't see the very important difference in those circumstances, then you are beyond help.

I think that is a little harsh on your part and If you read my post more closely you would discover the contrary and that I do agree with you on the bulk of what you have to say on this point.

I won't discuss the other responses because they seem a little off track of the topic and I would like to make these posts shorter and more to the point.

Storm Raven · Feb 13, 2002

Tsyr said:
Storm Raven, you say figure skating's inclusion in the Olympics is offensive... do you realise how offensive you sound? Comparing figure skating, diving, gymastics, etc... to a beauty pageant?

I'm not trying to provoke more flames, Storm Raven. Just pointing something out.

And you have yet to describe why figure skating, diving and other judged events are different from a beauty pageant. No one has come up with any kind of rational basis for saying figure skating is sport, but the Miss Universe pageant isn't.

Both have entrants who work hard to get there.
Both are judged entirely based upon the subjective decisions of judges.
Both factor in nonevent based elements such as who "deserves" to win this time, and who impressed the judges at a cocktail reception.

Where is the difference? Figure skaters are athletic and strong? So are bricklayers. That isn't a basis for claiming that it is a sport.

Until you can come up with a coherentand rational reason to differentiate figure skating from a beauty pageant then I will continue to maintain that they are no different.

Tsyr · Feb 13, 2002

*edit* Scratch that, I really don't feel like causing any more flames, directly or indirectly.

Rather, I'll close my posting for the day with this.

taken from Marriam-Webster

One entry found for Olympic Games.

Main Entry: Olympic Games

Function: noun plural

Date: circa 1610

1 : an ancient Panhellenic festival held every fourth year and made up of contests of sports, music, and literature with the victor's prize a crown of wild olive

2 : a modified revival of the ancient Olympic Games consisting of international athletic contests that are held at separate winter and summer gatherings at four year intervals -- called also Olympics

Take that how you will. Note, however, that it says athletic contests, not sports.

Storm Raven · Feb 13, 2002

omedon said:
I disagree with you on that point. I think it is perfectly valid for this reason. You have a criteria of what makes something a sport (a) and claim that figure skating does not meet this criteria (b). But if such things as shuffleboard, hungry hungry hippoes, or Pogs meet your criteria and your were to say that they were not a sport it would prove that your criteria is invalid. So you should give it some thought.

Nope. What I'm saying is that my criteria might or might not include poker as a sport, but that it reasonably excludes judged events. Since I am not interested in debating the merits of whether poker and shuffleboard should be included in the Olympics, your entire line of reasoning is irrelevant.

Perhaps, I do not claim to know the ins and outs of how figure skating is judged. But I do know that a triple sow cow (spelling?) is better than a double sow cow. Perhaps the modern incarnations of Ice skating have moved too far away from its origins. This move was mainly done for entertainment value. If I remember correctly Figure Skating in the Olympics originally had a very stringent technical component, requiring the skater to skate in figure eights no less.

Yes, it did, but it still comes down to some guy judging that this person's figure eight is better looking than that guy's figure eight. And that removes it from consideration as a sport.

But figure skating is much more than artistry. If you were to strip away the music, costumes, and some of the other theatrics you still have people performing difficult athletic tasks. One person may do a double, another a triple, another may attempt a quadruple and fall. It would seem clear in this case that the person who did the most difficult trick and succeded should win. This sort of jugding has impact on the result without dictation.

Nope, you still have people deciding that this particular triple axel is better looking than that triple axel, and judging things based on entirely subjective criteria. You can't remove the entirely subjective element from events like figure skating. No matter how hard you try to grind them down to something objective, you still have some guy deciding that this sit-spin was better executed than that sit-spin for whatever aesthetically pleasing reason he finds important that day.

[snip a bunch of stuff about trying to systemize figure skating scoring]

I disagree there are indeed standards in Figure skating. Falling is bad. Difficult tricks are better than easy tricks as I mentioned above.

But you still haven't eliminated the problem of a judge essentially handing out medals to one person or another based entirely on virtually unverifiable personal judgment. Skater A did five jumps of X difficulty, and Skater B did the exact same jumps, but Skater A made them look better so he wins. Nope, still doesn't work.

der_kluge · Feb 13, 2002

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I doubt many of us here are huge Figure Skating fans - I know I'm not. In fact, I only caught the very tail end of the performance last night as my wife was watching it, and I heard the announcing mention being embarrased by the sport.

I think, for me at least, it's a matter of principle. I was outraged by the apparent politics of it all. I would have felt the same if it was gymnastics, or water ballet. It's just not right.

I think it would do the world proud if the Russians who won the Gold medal gave them to the Canadians. I think that would speak volumes.

der_kluge · Feb 13, 2002

The other thing that annoys is that, for the rest of their lives, the Canadian couple is going to tell the story...

"Yes, we were at the Olympics, and we won a gold, but...."

Their story will always have to contain that "but..."