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

Ok I don't usually rant and rave but after what happened tonight in the figure skating pairs I'm going too.

Canada deserved gold hands down - the Russians made mistakes, Pelltier and Sale were perfect. I guess there is a hidden rule somewhere that Canada is not allowed to win gold - in any figure skating event. :mad:

As I watched Jamie and David skate I knew they had it - I thought if they hit everything - which they did - there was no way they could't win gold - guess I thought wrong.

I am happy they won silver but their performance was far superior to the Russians and that fact the team who won gold made mistakes and the team who won silver didn't - wonders never cease...

After what happened to Wotherspoon earlier - it' been a pretty sad day...

At least we won our hockey and curling games.

Ok now that that's out of my system I'm going to bed!

I AGREE!!!!!

Salie and Pelletier (sorry butchered names I know) skated the most perfect and beautiful program I have ever seen! It was INCREDIBLE! I was grinning ear to ear thru the whole thing because they are my fav skaters and they were PERFECT, (%&$&^^ PERFECT-- HOW HOW HOW could the judges put those russians first??? They weren't perfect, they didn't look like they wer ehaivng a good time--she is a damn robot for all the facial expressions she shows--wheres Jamie and David--they have FUN while they're doing it and THAT should count for something toooo!

OK< editing to say-just saw the medal ceremony and the Russians knew they didn't deserve it and that's got to be hard on them too--to know FOREVER that they don't have a firm grasp on it, that the crowd wanted Canada!!

I AM SO BUMMED! Ive been a HUGE fan of Canadian pairs teams since I was a little girl! I thought FOR SURE Salie and Pelletier had it, they were SO AMAZING!

on another note tho-- when I turned on coverage tonight it was to see the American flag being raised for a medal ceremony IN ALL THREE PLACES for men's halfpipe!! WOO HOO! GO USA!!! That was so wonderful and amazing to see!!!

blah blah blah
 

this shit's been going on in ice skating for yrs, too corrupt of a sport for me to watch.

In total agreement with everyone. It was a clean, fluid, NOT SLOW skate. Like Scott Hamilton said, how do you win the skate, win the night, and win the crowd but not win the competition?

I know what you mean I was asking myself the same question...So Unfair if you ask me.


Nichole

I was completely in shock. Maybe they should change the way they judge. What is all that ordinal crap anyway. :confused:

Rumour has it that Bourne and Kratz will not get a medal... pretty disgushting thought considering they haven't even skated yet...

Maybe most the world didn't respect Canada and gave the Russians the benifit of the doubt because they dominated for so long.

Did we expect anything less? When the whole Olympics starts off with bribes and dishonesty just to get them to hold it in Salt Lake City... I thought they should re-vamp the whole scene right there.

I also think what they are doing with the tickets is weird. The scalpers have all the tickets so you have to pay $350.00 for an event that base value is $95.00. I never understood how scalpers get all the tickets but when the olympian's families only get two (2) tickets to the event and have to buy the rest for Grandma and Grandpa from the scalpers... that is just wrong!

I remember hearing a few years ago that in the figure skating competitions that most judges come from former Communist bloc countries and they tend to vote for themselves. Remember Nancy Kerrigan and Oksana Baiul? I thought that it was ridiculous when I watched the news this morning. The Russian woman fell! How can that be worthy of a gold medal? :eek: Canada was robbed!

I am in total agreement- AND shock.

It makes me nervous for the rest of the figure skating competition.

If Michelle Kwan skates a perfect, beautiful program...and doesn't win, I'm never watching the sport again. Let the Russians win that too.

-mumbles-

Jess

Siob, my Canadian sister :) ((hugs)). I am not kidding when I say that I was in tears for about half of their performance, and I was sure they'd won. I am still in shock. Every time Jamie got choked up, so did I. God, I'm a sap! I do feel for the Russian pair who is stuck in the middle. I say we all sing a round of O'Canada for Jamie and David :) Jamie even said "aboot" like a good Canadian should ;)

And schultzz, the winter games are so much more exciting than the summer!! You need a grip.

Amycat, the sweep of men's halfpipe, and that medal ceremony was incredible. 20,000 people singing our national anthem...god it was awesome!!

OK, enough from me :)

Pairs Skating
 

I skate because I have a love for the sport the makes me go to the ice and keep trying until I am bruised and sore to the point I can't walk correctly. I can't even imagine all the work and effort put in by the Canadian pair and to be dismissed due to the fact they are not a favorite of all the judges. I agree with the choreographer who said "My heart breaks, and I'm embarrassed for our sport right now." She couldn't have said it better.

Side note: This did remind me of the movie The Cutting Edge when Doug and the girl(I can't remember her name to save my life right now) almost did not make the Olympic team due to the same type of shallow judging. What a classy pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier are though to shine through the disappointment and to have the utmost poise through it all. I don't think I could have.

UofISigKap, that's exactly what I was thinking. The whole story kept reminding me of Cutting Edge. Even when the announcer said that they had had their own love affair, albeit rocky at times.

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.

Michelle Kwan HAS already skated a perfect, beautiful program, according to my future sister-in-law who is an avid competitive figure skater (Lord knows this doesn't come from me, I barely know my right from left). Per FSIL, Tara Lipinski two-footed most of her jumps in the Olympic program, but the judges didn't catch it due to the way she landed or something like that. Michelle Kwan's program couldn't have gone better, and she still came in second. FSIL, who has also met Tara Lipinski (pre-Olympics) said that she's dumber than a post. Michelle Kwan is smart and will go far in life. Too bad she has to get slighted on the way.

Ok....that wasn't a very fair comment. Pre-Olympics, Tara was all of 14 years old.


......Kelly

Ok, have these judges learned nothing from the past week's events: Italians are 1st right now they stumbled - Canadians skated perfect -again- they are second..... :confused: :mad:

I'm watching the Olympics now. The speed skater wiped out.:( Ouch!
I can't wait to see Michelle Kwan skate. She is an artist on ice.
What is up with these judges screwing Canada?:rolleyes: