[CaptainK]

"I suspect that after Ice Dancing at 12 pm today, the medals can be announced which is too bad because the mens and ladies singles long programs are considered to be the premiere events and they will have no factor in the medal count.

I'm confused by that statement. They aren't giving individual skating gold medals that are included in the overall national medal count?

I'm a former skating fan who was worn down by the political nature of the judging.

[staytrue]

Think of the team scoring like football.

The most you can score on any one play is 8 points.

In team ice skating, every team gets 8 plays (short programs in dance, pairs, men, ladies and long programs in the same).

The problem is the most you can score is 9 points in the short program and 4 points in the long program.

That is just stupid.

Because if you are behind by more than 16 points, you can’t win after the 4 short programs.

There are three more skates today and so the USA is eliminated from gold medal contention because it is more than 12 points behind Russia and you can only score 4 points per skating event.