Canadians finish second despite a "perfect" program

[hblair]

Where's Boroda?

[skernsk]

fdski.  

I can't believe I am arguing figure skating a day after the event when it's all over but the crying...a new low for me.

According to those marks the Canadian team should have won.  It's the "artistic impression" that they got screwed on.  I'm about as artistic as hblair is a yankee.  I do think that if you have a gayer the costume and goofier music it has an immediate impression on the judges for some reason and they are likely to score you higher.  

I watched both of them skate.  Canadians did better (no mistakes), had much more intricate and scary looking lifts and throws, and they skated with passion that captured the building.  That to me is the deciding factor.  

Like I said...it's done and nothing can be done to change it.  Suck it up and move on as they say.

[Udie at Work]

Originally posted by Nifty
funny you should bring up boxing.  1988 Middleweight bout goes to a decision.  It's given to Park of South Korea over Roy Jones, Jr.  Jones landed 80+ punches to Park's 30+.  That, combined with other issues, led to a revamping of Olympic boxing's judging practices.  Maybe the same will happen with figure skating eventually.

 Park who?

 I saw Roy Jones Jr. kick the snot outa some dude on HBO a couple of weeks ago

 I bet if you asked Roy, he could care less about the olympic thingy.....

[Kratzer]

A friend of mine at work summed it up best:

"Anything that has 'judges' isn't a sport, it's a pageant."

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Eagler


whadda ya mean? Those girls have the best legs in the whole dang eeevent

You got that right! I've had the hots for Dorothy Hamill since 1976......!!!

[Krusher]

yep, the Canadians got screwed. They need a better way to judge that is impartial. The fans at the arena went nuts for the Canadian team, it seams hard to believe that the judges didnt.

[Soda]

The problem is, figure skating, like boxing, has gotten a terrible reputation for this sort of thing.  I watched 3 different coverages of it yesterday and they all agreed that the Canadian team won while the Russian team had 3-4 mistakes in their program.  It's not the skaters faults though since they just go out and compete.

Overall score didn't mean much either as the ranking ordinal really decided the competition.  If you look at the total scores the Canadian team won by 4 points (104.7 to 105.1) but the ordinal score transpired to give the victory to the Russian team.

Apparently:
- the judges are NOT isolated in ice skating.  The US coverage quite clearly showed 3-4 of them sitting together at one point.
- the judges attend the practice sessions to watch the teams programs and can pre-grade based on difficulty/presentation.  The actual performance is not the sole graded aspect.
- judges are lobbied by coachs (and paid promoters) before the event and during the practice sessions.  It is accepted practice though many feel this should not be the case.

Strangely enough, Ice Dance, has had one of the worst skating reputations for being fixed and not pairs.  I hear the Olympic committee has asked the judges to assemble today and explain their scoring, not that anything will come of it.

I actually liked some aspects of the Russian performance better than the Canadian one.  The Russians should have gotten silver though since they missed some landings on their jumps.  She missed one and he almost wrecked on another.

-Soda

[SirLoin]

Reminds me of last year when they caught on camera two russian judges giving signals to each other during the score tallying.......Figure skating is by far the sleaziest sport in the world...Boxing and Mike Tyson come in a distant second.

[loser]

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRR


k figure skating has never been one of my interests...

but last night my g/f made me watch the pairs final.


between my bouts of looking at the wall and making faces at my cat...i noticed..holy toejam..these people can skate.


then today i watched the endless replays of the skates (poor Ron Mclean, he better be geting paid big bucks to care about figure skating)

and god darn it if im not really pissed off  

My fellow Canadian skaters deserve that medal...no doubt about it (shut up)


however you cant take the medal away from the Russians,, that would suck for them even more...

cant believe im fuming mad about figure skating

[Thrawn]

This is hardly the first time Canadian figure skaters got screwed out of gold at the Olympics.

[Dune]

I have to agree.  The Canadians got jobbed on that one.

[Pongo]

Originally posted by fd ski
judges submit their "grades" at same time and do not cosult wiht other judges ( actually i think they are physically separated from others ) hince conspiracy is quite out of question.

It's a subjective sport. If it had goals, it would be easier to judge.

what you meant to say I believe is that its subjective whether its a sport or not.

[midnight Target]

It just wouldn't be an Olympics without a decent controversy!!

[Elfenwolf]

Hey look, If all you Canadians feel like you got jobbed so bad by the Russians, then why don't you do the manly thing  and INVADE them? Huh? Put your ARMIES where your MOUTHS are, you bunch of frost-bitten sniveling WHINERS. Sheeesh, it's fuggin figure skating, for Christ's sakes. Who gives a rat's bellybutton but some stupid Cannuks watching their Goverment Subdsidised Televisions (Sonys, of course) from the comfort of their igloos??
Go spear a walrus,
Elfenwolf

[loser]

nice troll chitbag...wont bite