FR LIVE EVENT-Olympic Scandal Press Conference..

MSNBC.com ^ | February 13, 2002 | Kelly O' Donnell

[codebreaker]

Sandra Bezic with the commentary..

[DJ88]

So what's going on???? Why did they pull away from it? I wanted to WATCH IT!!!! Dang.

My scores on this idiots performance:
Skating Around the Issue:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Triple Toe Loops Around the Issue:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Credibility:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

[carton253]

The Americans won a tough game in regulation. The Yugoslav referee said no, put three seconds on the clock and gave the Russians another chance to score. The Russians did not. The same referee put the same three seconds on the clock to give the Russians another chance to score. They either did it the 2nd time or the 3rd time (I was 12, but I do remember it) But the ref kept putting 3 seconds back on the clock until the Russians scored.

The Russians celebrated like crazy. The Americans were stunned. They refused the silver medal, and they are still in a vault.

It was the biggest ripoff in Olympic history.

[tracer]

Not so many tomatoes right now, but green jello works almost as well....

[McGavin999]

Well, regardless of what these jerks decide, the Canadian couple will get the contracts and endorsements and I seriously doubt if the Russian couple will ever get a job in professional skating. The judges may make decisions regarding the metals, but the public decides who it wants to see. This has been disasterous for the Russian couple.

[jackbill]

Please fill me in on what happened in the U.S. v. Soviet basketball game. Thanks.

The officials kept adding time to the clock until the Soviets got ahead - if I remember correctly.

And, as for that silver medal that's still in the bank vault, my former Congressman Tom McMillan - of the U. of MD - wanted the team to accept it. I haven't heard any of them have a nice thing to say about him since.

What what McMillan's party affiliation? Guess.

[carton253]

Don't you know it. If you are going to cheat, at least don't do it where everyone can see you do it.

[DoughtyOne]

This just in. The Canadian Hockey team has scored 4 goals to zero against the Russians. Olympic judges have announced it will only take three more goals to break even. Only the italicized comments have been changed to protect the innocent.

Eurotrash press conference at 11.

[Stand Watch Listen]

FYI...

Cold War on the Courts
U.S. and Russian basketball teams play the most controversial game in Olympic history

[Chief Inspector Clouseau]

I am expecting Kato to burst out of the back curtain!

Sorry for ze duplicate post...now ver iss zat little yellow man?...

[discostu]

1 - Like almost all judged sports the "scoring" system is base + difficulty - errors. Thus a harder routine performed not as well can still rate equal to or higher than an easier routine performed better. The Russians had the harder routine according to everybody.
2 - Like almost all judged sports 50% of the scoring is based on artistic merit. Since, as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder half the score is up to the whims of the judges (IMHO the Canadians' costumes were hideous and anybody that bases anything on Love Story should be pelted with rocks and garbage, my score card gave them an artistic merit score of 0).
3 - Unlike most judged sports the scores don't actually matter (I'm talking strictly within the rules here). The scores are put forth to give the audience some indication of what the judges are thinking during the competition. The actual placement in the standings is done by vote, the judges vote 1 -2 -3 -who cares for each competitor and that's how the awards are determined.

In short this is just a fine shining example of why judged sports are to be mocked. There can be no objective determination of the winner in a judged sport. We see this over and over usually in figure skating, frequently in gymnastics and sometimes in diving. It always starts the same way, some butthead color commentator decides he's just seen a gold medal performance and says so on the air, then all of America agrees with him, but the judges weren't watching the TV broadcast and they didn't feel they saw a gold medal performance. And now there's some huge "controversy" that will burn hot for a while and then nobody will care until the next "scandal" and this one get's refered to in some retrospective of sporting scandals, like NBC aired about 9AM MST today (roughly an hour before the press conference).

[DJ88]

5:00pm??? Why not right NOW??? Who's gonna be watching at 5:00pm?

[learner]

Best press conferance ever. That Kelli is hot. The next press conferance will be even better, but I suspect the Itallian won't be there.

[SoCal Pubbie]

The game ended three times. The first time the clock ran out but the ref ruled that the coach had called timeout, even though the rules stated that a timeout MUST be called by a player on the court. The clock was reset and the ball inbounded, but the Soviets did not score. I can't remember what the next excuse was but somehow there was another problem and the Reds got another chance, and the US coach Hank Iba messed up by not puting the tallest player, Tom MicMillian if I recall, on the guy throwing the ball in. The heave went down the court, the Russian guy knocked the defender down and made a short shot at the buzzer.

[DoughtyOne]

That was the female hockey team.

[Elkiejg]

As much as I dislike the liberal press hounds - I was cheering for them at this news debacle!! They were pinning this ISU guy to the wall and would not give him an inch. I think he was shocked more than once at the questions being asked -- think he thought he could snow them - NOT. Of course he gets the last laugh - he kept dancing around with his answers and the bottom line is - nothing will be done unless an appeal is filed and then the whole federation has to "consider" what should be done. What a bunch of BS.

[DJ88]

Excuse me, but if that's the case, why do they even GIVE out scores for technique and artistic merit? The RUSSIANS made 4 big mistakes....TECHNICAL ERRORS...that SHOWED the WHOLE WORLD they shouldn't be the gold medal winners...and their performance was boring as hell. The Canadians had higher SCORES in BOTH areas, but ONE JUDGE gave them a 2nd place ranking....the FRENCH JUDGE. If you watched the competition, NBC even panned over to the judges who looked absolutely STUNNED at the outcome themselves..as if they had no IDEA why the Russians won it. That in itself was a HUGE CLUE that the fix was in already.

[browardchad]

What I got out of this whole fiasco (correct me if I'm wrong):

There are procedures in place to take medals away from athletes accused of wrongdoing (drugs), but there are no procedures in place to take medals away if a judge is accused of wrongdoing. Case in point, per MSNBC anchor: Jones, a US boxer in Seoul, was robbed of a gold medal after he clearly defeated his Korean opponent. Years later, a judge admitted taking a bribe (from the Koreans, presumably) to fix the decision, BUT THE MEDAL WAS NEVER TAKEN AWAY FROM THE KOREAN AND GIVEN TO JONES.

The IOC is a sick joke.

[steve-b]

Give the olympa-scammers what they truly deserve. Ignore them. Don't buy their stuff, don't generate any revenue for them. And then they will fade away, like the tired old con persons they are.

It occurs to me that there's a silver lining. If this keeps up, by 2008 hosting the Olympics will give the ChiComs about as much of a prestige boost as hosting the Jerry Springer show.

[codebreaker]

CNN saying that the head referee made the complaint to the International Skating Union.

[DoughtyOne]

This is the dirty little secret isn't it. My perception is that the IOC is eurotrash personified. Look at that flag incident. It didn't have to be a big deal. The IOC made complete fools out of themselves.