Monday, February 13, 2006

Skating avoids controversy

I tuned in to CBC's coverage of the Pairs Figure Skating. Rest assured there will be no repeat of last year's controversy where the French judge was allegedly told to vote for the Russians in exchange for the Russian judge's vote for the French Dance Team, initially denying Jamie Sale and David Pelletier the gold.

This year, rather than the scores being out of 6 and listed by judge country at the bottom of your screen, the scores are totalled for us -- Technical Elements + Program Components - Deductions = Total

For those of us who have watched figure skating and despised the politics so evident with the judging, at least it will no longer be evident. Instead, political or personal bias will be hidden. This does nothing to assure that vote-buying is not a factor. In fact, it's simply a way for us to be kept out of the loop.

I don't know what real efforts have been made to clean up the judging, but it would seem this superficial change will only aggravate viewers who liked making the comparisons between individual judge's scores, for each skate.

Well, not giving us all of the information is a way to avoid scandal, but it does nothing to ensure that judging irregularities will be noticed or prevented.

canadianna

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Last year's controversy? I didn't realize the winter Olympics had become annual. *wink*

trustonlymulder said...

What I find so ironic is that the figure skating, which doesn't have a measurable 99.99% accurate score like a timed event or a distance event, is the post popular event at the olympics.

My wife, an American, said to me three or four weeks ago, "So what's the Canadian scandal going to be this time?" and I thought about it and realized she is right. First we had Ross "spark it up" Rabagliati(sp?) and then the pairs figure skaters, and toss in Ben Johnson, or Beckie Scott.

I know in my heart that on the Beckie Scott, pairs skating and snowboarding we had strong points for why the kerfuffle was created, but if something happens every olympics, it starts to make you wonder.

Now to just cross our fingers, watch with hope, and cheer on the canucks.

p.s. I asked my wife for one of them fur trader hats for Valentine's day. They are SOOOOOOO cool!!!!

Canadianna said...

surecure -- oops! I must be getting old -- time is just spinning by so fast that it seems like last year.

trustonlymulder - I like those hats too.

Anonymous said...

I figure skated when I was a kid and my mom was a coach. We stopped watching because of all the politics. Since I haven't watched in awhile I'm really confused by the new grading system.

Lol the hats are great! My boyfriend got the hat and the vest and I got the multicoloured scarf and a hat for Valentine's Day!

Jim said...

I was wondering why Ben Agosto couldn't get Canadian citizenship and skate for Canada with with Tanith Belbin?

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