Update - there will be an investigation
 

The ISU (International Skating Union) has announced that there will be an immediate investigation into the judging of the pairs event 'in light of the public and media outcry'.... Hopefully, some judges will get their cred's revoked ... Interesting that France and Poland 'tied' their votes ...

I skated compettively for many, many years, and I am still in shock - didn't they learn from Nagano (dance)? I still cry when I see poor Jamie break into tears .... on a classy note, the Canadian Olympic Team had a party for them at Canada House last night afterwards and everyone sang 'O Canada' - check out CBC for more coverage .... and you can send an email to Jamie & David!

GO ELVIS!!!!!!


Here's the link to the news report on the investigation - http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/news/eisler0212

Shultzz, I know that a lot of your posting is done just to be obnoxious, not to glean insight into the world around you, but they are trying to make the Olympics more accurately reflect the sports that society participates in today. Maybe it's just me, but I think that there are a lot more snowboarders than curlers in my peer group.

As for what happened last night, I am very sad. The Canadians deserved the gold and everyone seems to know it and acknowledge it but the judges. I also feel terribly for the Russians who won. It was clear that they felt trapped in the middle of a terrible situation.

Schultzz - so the winter games have events that aren't sports?

Well what the hell does bowling or darts have to do with the summer games. I just found out that bridge is soon to become an olympic event. How do you justify leaving work to train for that...?

WOO HOO i'm the crazy 8s gold medalist :D

That Is Called Polotics!!!!

Hell saw a bunch in the Cold War Period between Russian Rulled Countrys!

It really has,( Unfortunualy changed to much)!

I saw that part and went GAG on the Scoring!

When you get to time and that is all, the ratings will be right!:rolleyes:

I so agree!! Even Peggy Fleming or whatever female was talking to Scott Hamilton said that she was embarrassed for her sport.

I agree also that the Russians knew that they didn't deserve the gold, but what were they going to do, say Sorry..we think that the Canadians deserve it. They might have won with a clean program, but last night wasn't it.

But look on the bright side, I assume that the Canadians will go back to Canada and the udges will go back to ...
;)

Chinese Figure Skating Judge Quits
 

Local news just announed that the Chinese judge has withdrawn from further event judging. The judge favored the Russians....

Yeah, because she knows there is going to be a can of whoop-ass opened , that's for sure ....

How it worked out that in the event of a tie (ie - the technical and presentation marks added together were the same for each judge), the 'tie-breaker' are the presentation marks, which in this case, the Chinese and Polish judges gave the higher marks to the Russians , and therefore the gold ...


On a lighter note, David and Jamie did the 'Tonight Show' with Jay Leno - he brings out a Canadian flag and plays 'O Canada' ...

Another report has it as well that this vote fix was also for the dance competition to put Bourne & Kratz into 5th place ....

Arggh! Don't even get me started on this whole crap....

I love figure skating! I wish I could have done it when I was younger. Anyway, Sale and Pelletier were obviously robbed. It broke my heart to watch Jamie during the medal ceremony...you could just tell how hard she was fighting the tears....her and David are two of the most polite, sportsmanlike athletes I have ever seen! I saw their interview tonight on NBC and they did not have one bad thing to say....obviously they were upset, but they accept it and move on.

I really hope that something can be done to change the way figure skating is evaluated. It is so terrible that great atletes like Sale and Pelletier get screwed over by some stupid judges.....they worked so hard to get there, they deserved the gold (and over 200, 000 people on http://www.nbcolympics.com think so too.....95% for the Canadians, 5% for the Russians) and their hearts must be breaking now!:(

Side note....too bad for Elvis Stojko tonight too....if he had've landed that quad, I'm sure he'd be in the top level for the free skate! But he did amazing to still pull out the triple right after that.....just shows what an amazing athlete he is too!

Go Canada!!!!!!:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Oh yeah...one more thing....I REALLY hope this crap doesn't happen to Bourne and Kratz in the dance competition!:) I (and I'm sure I'm not alone!) will be sooooo pissed if they perform well and get denied an Olympic medal!:(

Yaaaay for Canada!!!:D:D:D:D:D:D

My take
 

My first comment is that I was a competitive figure skater for 10 years (I used to skate at the same rink as Todd Eldridge!!!:)) - I know what's what.

It seems to me that if they're not outright fixing scores, then the judges are voting for skaters based on their history of performance. In other words, "Welll...they didn't do that great tonight...but since they *normally* do well, we'll give it to them." Neither scenario is fair.

Someone made the comment that they don't watch figure skating because it's corrupt. Give me a break. Yes, there is obviously a problem, but it's not exactly rotten-to-the-core. This problem really only seems to exist with pair and dance events. There are all kinds of sports scandals. How 'bout the current speed skating scandal where US skater Ohno is accused of helping to fix a Olympic qualifier event so that his friend could make the Olympic team? Or the Sydney Olympic scandal where a guy cheated at the US Archery Olympic qualifer (BTW - I'm a member of the National Archery Association). He later resigned his place on the team. Or all of the German swimmers accused of taking steroids?

In events where the stakes are high, cheating will occur. Is it right? Absolutely not! Is it impossible to fix these problems? No! The international sporting community needs to take a hard look at their policies and their athletes. But really though, it comes down to finding athletes and officials who believe in integrity.

As for the pairs skating controversy, I hope that the investigation results in the removal of the judges involved. I don't think that, if fixing was found to take place, that the gold medal would be taken away from the Russians. It wasn't the Russian skaters fault. Plus, they'll have to live with knowing that they didn't quite earn it.

Sale and Pelletier from Canada earned that gold medal. Period.

......Kelly :)

Re: I think some olympic judges need their heads checked...
 

Ohhhhh I am in so total agreement with you-the candian couple so deserved the Gold medal-they were unbelievable-perfect in their performance

Re: My take
 

You're giving examples of individual fraud and not corruption.

This is not the first (or second, or third, or...) time this type of thing has happened in figure skating. This form of back-scratching has taken place between several different nations in the past. And when individuals tried to do something about it, they were swept under the rug. The only exception now is that something may actually change, but we'll see.

Don't count on it. The latest word is that the Skating gurus decided that the Russians could keep the medals but there would be more "talk" to make sure things like that don't happen again...yea right, and the sun won't come up tomorrow.