Posted on 02/13/2002 9:03:17 AM PST by codebreaker
Sandra Bezic with the commentary..
I have my opinion, you have yours. You want to say you win because you "know more" than I do? Go ahead, if that makes you happy. As a matter of fact, I'll put in bold letters so that you can pat yourself on the back for being the brains of this "Olympic Skating Controversy". Is that what you want? It's your way or the highway, correct? Just to get it over with, to let you have your way and make you look like you won, here it is:
BY DEFAULT, DICOSTU WINS THE DEBATE OF WHO WON THE GOLD MEDAL IN THE OLYMPIC PAIRS SKATING. HE COMES TO THIS CONCLUSION BASED ON HIS "RATING" OF THE TECHNICAL AND ARTISTIC SCORES. HOWEVER, EVEN TODAY THE FRENCH JUDGE IS NOW ADMITTING SHE WAS "PRESSURED" AND "MANIPULATED" IN THIS COMPETITION TO VOTE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. BUT THAT DOES NOT MATTER, DOES IT?
There. Happy now? I'm not arguing with you anymore. I don't CARE what you think. If you post to me, I won't post back. It's not that I'm not able to debate you, I just get tired of the same things being said over and over and over.
Let the IOC figure it out...and apparantly, they will. Whether or not they change the results, which probably will never happen, this has managed to put a "black eye" on the Olympics and it is NOT something that will go away and never be talked about again, as you "think". You're off base with that one. As a matter of fact, that's all ANYONE is talking about right now.
But like I said, YOU WIN. That's all you wanted, so I give it to you.
But just like the Gold medal, it doesn't matter. It's just a game.
I've tried to be civil through this entire thread except for one post which wasn't directed at you and I apologized for when I learned I had misinterpreted the post it was directed towards. It's not my fault you're being shrill and unreasonable. Maybe if you presented something based on logic instead of telepathy I could actually debate your points. But statements on what the judges WERE thinking cannot be debated.
If you want to believe that the Russians skated better than the Canadians, GO AHEAD. I think the Canadians skated better than the RUSSIANS.
End of discussion.
Considering the Canadians didn't error shouldn't they of scored higher?
Only common sense.
I had no bias going into this competition. I always thought the Russians were excellent skaters. However, they were NOT perfect the other night, IN MY OPINION, and IN MY OPINION, they did not deserve the Gold medal.
We shall see what happens with the ice-dancing competition. If the French win it, then we know.
However, IN MY OPINION, the fix was already in before they even hit the ice.
So....I guess....they were just "messing" with the audience, huh? Stupid.
B - The reports of Frenchies "admittal" have mutated pretty heavily. The original Costas "story" of tuesday was a hypothetical (he said so), and his story was a direct trade. Then late yesterday some pres of some French association said she was "preasured". Then early today it was reported that he said she was "manipulated", an "honest" person surrounded by people taking advantage of her "emotional fragility". Since then that pres's PR dude said what the pres said was "incorrectly translated". So we're right back to where we were before.
Over all I think this is the funniest damn thing I've seen in years. All judged sports are inherrently stupid because they're subjective. Even if they were scored "beauty" sports like figure skating are silly because... well they just are, sports should involve sweat, active opposition and cups. The extra punchline to this is that nothing will change. Skating has these "scandals" (since it's a subjective sport and the scandal always revolves around people making objective absolute declarations I don't really think they're true scandals) periodically and nothing ever changes. Nobody is going to get a different medal. Maybe a judge or two will be "sanctioned" (they don't get paid anyway) but the method of selecting judges won't change and the method of scoring won't change. And shortly after the Olympics are over nobody is going to remember or care.
It's funny.
{start big quote}Three Judges voted the Russians First - Russia, Ukraine, France
Four Judges voted the Canadians First - USA, Canada, Japan, Germany
Two Judges had them tied - China and Poland .. The ISU MANDATED tiebreaker is the PRESENTATION score, which both judges gave to the Russians, ergo the Russians got First Place Ordinals based on the tie-breaker.
If you add the scores together the Canadians WON the long skate 105.1-104.7 , but since they use Ordinals instead of Overall score the Russians were given the victory.
The Score breakdown for any interested is this : Bereshnaya-Sikarulidze: Short 104.3 Long 104.7 Sale-Peletier : Short 103.9 Long 105.1 Shen-Zhao : Short 101.9 Long 103.1 Totmianina - Marinan : Short 99.8 Long 100.7 Ina - Zimmerman : Short 99.5 Long 101.1
Using the Factored Placements system (Short worth 1/3 Long Worth 2/3) that the ISU uses the final results would have been :
Sale-Peletier : S - 1 L - 1 Overall - 2 GOLD
Bereshnaya-Sikarulidze : S - .5 L - 2 Overall 2.5 SILVER
Shen-Zhao : S - 1.5 L - 3 Overall - 4.5 BRONZE
Ina-Zimmerman : S - 2.5 L - 4 Overall - 6.5 4TH
Totmianina - Marinan : S - 2 L - 5 Overall - 7 5TH
With the Judges Points :
Sale-Peletier : S - 103.9 L - 210.2 Overall - 314.1 GOLD
Bereshnaya-Sikarulidze : S - 104.3 L - 209.4 Overall 313.7 SILVER
Shen-Zhao : S - 101.9 L - 206.2 Overall - 308.1 BRONZE
Ina-Zimmerman : S - 99.5 L - 202.2 Overall - 301.7 4TH
Totmianina - Marinan : S - 99.8 L - 201.4 Overall - 301.2 5TH
I think it is clear that the ORDINALS system needs to be scraped .. Add up the judges scores and let it be a score based outcome. An added bonus to this would be that it would do away with the "HAVE TO LEAVE ROOM FOR OTHER SKATERS" problem -- and it would give a team anywhere in the top 10 after the short program at least a chance at a medal. {end really long block quote}
The emphasis on the short program scores and overall total scores is mine. I'm pointing out something that almost everyone in this discussion is ignoring completely
THE GOLD IS NOT WON BY THE LONG PROGRAM ALONE
Two programs count in this. No one is contesting that the Russians won the short. I've even heard the Canadian contestants say that. While the long program contributes more to the short they both count. As you can see the Canadians DID win the long (which they wouldn't have had I been a judge) but they didn't WIN IT BY ENOUGH TO GET THE MEDAL.
And as for the French "admital" that came from a third party who was not involved in the conversation where it supposedly came up, and has been denied. Still could have been a fix. I have never stated that it couldn't. But it also could have legit. That's what so many people refuse to admit.
Also remember there are two scores: techincal and artistic. While flubs are supposed to subtract from both they aren't supposed to subtract as much from the artistic (because flubs are technically technical but also detract from the artistic presentation they are supposed to be primarily assessed against the technical). But again how much? Who knows.
Because of the silly nature of the scoring. Especially because half the score is artistic (something that's completely subjective, there are no absolutes in art) you never really know what's going to happen. The real sport in figure skating is playing "spot the looney" with the judges, they're all insane, God only knows what they're going to think. If you actually like the artistry of figure skating (it can be very pretty) I recommend watching the programs but never allow yourself to learn the scores or results, leave the room, mute the TV, do what ever it takes. Nothing distracts from the beauty of figure skating like the 9 people that pick the winner.
Again...I'm sorry. And I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being honest. I don't understand why they even USE the scoring system in the FIRST place when it doesn't matter.....
I'm going back to football, baseball and NASCAR ...at least there, when a team SCORES or a car comes across the finish line, YOU KNOW WHO WON.
I hope we can just put this aside. Normally, with medicine, I'm not like this. :-)
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