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Pastimes : Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patsy Collins who wrote (5)	2/12/2002 7:22:18 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 238

Skating federation to investigate judging sportsillustrated.cnn.com Posted: Tuesday February 12, 2002 6:04 PM Updated: Tuesday February 12, 2002 6:19 PM 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.

To: Patsy Collins who wrote (5)	2/12/2002 8:29:05 PM
From: Buckey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 238

Paatsy, The whole world including the Russian couple Know the fix was in. I suppose you think the WWF is not fixed either. It was blatant this time. The Ice Dance was easier to cover up for many years because of its very nature. The Canadians Nailed a perfect program while the Russians had no less that 4 mistakes as pointed out by Scott Hamilton. The Cold war is over. we lost the back room competition not the on ice.

To: Patsy Collins who wrote (5)	2/12/2002 10:57:35 PM
From: charlie mcgeehan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 238

so patsy how are things in kiev these days? charlie

To: Patsy Collins who wrote (5)	2/13/2002 10:08:57 AM
From: Stew	Respond to of 238

Well - you seem to be in the minority. Crookedness in pairs judging has been established and exposed before this travesty. A paid pool of judges who's tenure is determined by competence and impartiality is the answer. Don't give me that "anti Russian U.S." melarky. "Balladic" Bulltickey!