Newsflash: Justice is made: double gold in figure skating

Yes, as a Canadian I am very glad to see that Sale and Pelletier got the medal they deserved.

Let's hope that the judging in the ice dance is fair, and that all the skaters get the placings that they merit.

wow
They were saying last night that they weren't going to decide anything till Monday.

2 gold medals in one event? sorry, but i must differ ;]

i now officially consider the olympics a joke. of course i also think there are -far- too many events. i wonder though if the proliferation of events is due to marketing, equanimity or merely a lack of control.

I didn't realize one of the top officials was French (International Skating Union president Ottavio Cinquanta). It must have been a tough pill for him to swallow. In a way I feel bad for the Russians. They look like villians when I doubt they had anything to do with the judging.

Hi, Migellito!
Nice to see ya' back!

It's an odd solution to give two golds for an event, especially after it was decided two judges cheated. The Russian apparently was swapping votes for a competition with a French athelete that comes later. The Russian judge was kicked off the panel at the last Olympics for cheating.

This somehow fits perfectly in this Olympics after the scandal of Salt Lake City bribing the committee for the games. I wonder if Enron is the official sponsor....

As a Canadian myself, I am happy to see that Salé and Pelletier get what they deserved.

Did anybody manage to capture their performance in a DivX file I can download? héhéhé

Justice?

HA!

Nonsense, the IOC crumbled under the public opinion. The audience figured the Canadians should've won, the judges figured otherwise and all of a sudden there is "cheating" because they differ on opinion and after much commotion and _media hype_ both get gold? Bullshit.

This strengthens my opinion that figure skating has no place in the Olympics.

hehe
This just reminds me why I never watch the Olympics...

To "craeonics":

I'm curious. Just how much experience do you have in the arts? It smells as though you are in favor only of sports that can be judged unequivocally, where there is no argument in ANYONE's eyes as to who came first, second or third. Sure, there is basic inherent value in that, but to summarily exclude something as beautiful and passionate as figure skating is terrible.

On the one hand, figure skating is less clear-cut, but that is taken into account with separate marks for technical and artistic merit. On the OTHER hand, beyond a certain point it does become clear that obvious mistakes should count for a mark beneath first... and from where I stand, the judges abused their power.

This is not a case which is so cut-and-dried so that people like you, Craeonics, can just vent your pompous opinion and proclaim it gospel.

What makes your opinion any more valid or important than craeonics'?

You said it yourself. Figure skating is "art." The Olympics are sporting events.

I'll refrain from commenting on whether or not the judge cheated until I catch the performances myself, but I tend to agree with crae on this one.

"What makes your opinion any more valid or important than craeonics'?"

DUH, opinions are validated based on experience and observation of all angles! (Plus the fact that Craeonics chose to punctuate with the term "Bullshit," which illustrates his infinite wisdom in this matter to no end.)

Let's consider some unrelated analogies. To be absolutely blunt, if you are a Caucasian you will never experience the full effect of what it is like to be called "chink" or "nigger" by the typical white lummox who would use these terms. To a milder extent, a typical teenager who hangs out at McDonald's will not appreciate the subtleties of French or Vietnamese cuisine. Similarly, the average adolescent with Linkin Park in his headphones will not understand the superior maturity and intelligence required of his peer to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. To a stronger extent, a small-minded MoPar or Ford enthusiast will spare no saliva in denigrating Japanese cars even though he (unlikely that women would be so stupid) has never touched or set foot in an import due to his pea-sized brain and consequent biases.

Now back on topic. Your suggestion that figure skating is not a sporting event lowers your credibility. Figure skating IS a sporting event; like ski slalom, luge, bobsledding, hockey and every other 'conventional' event, it requires years of focused training, pushing one's mind and body to the maximum, exploring the limits of strength, dexterity and stamina, and doing incredible things ordinary mortals cannot. All Olympic figure skaters are athletes without question. The successful expression of one's soul in this form CAN be rated in the current scale of technical and artistic marks, and if you have spent a lifetime in arts of any kind you learn to make distinctions; hence, competition, and the concepts of gold, silver and bronze medals.

I will wait for you or craeonics to come forward sharing experience of your own and/or of your children in figure skating.

Oi, looks like I stepped on some toes here. For your information, I _have_ figure skated until I tore some ligaments in my ankles.

Let me grab some points you state, which I think sports is not about (judging by my infinite wisdom, finally someone recognises it):
. "the arts"
. "beautiful and passionate"
. "artistic merit".
And some of your points which it is about:
. "It smells as though you are in favor only of sports that can be judged unequivocally, where there is no argument in ANYONE's eyes as to who came first, second or third"
. "it requires years of focused training, pushing one's mind and body to the maximum, exploring the limits of strength, dexterity and stamina, and doing incredible things ordinary mortals cannot"
All "sports" requiring a jury should be gone. It should not be about "art" (which must be the most abused word out there), but about performance.

By your standards, playing piano would be a sport to. And what about ballet?

A second point, which is where my remark came from, having two sets of gold medals sort of nullifies the effect of it. Judging from their press conference, the Canadian couple weren't too happy with it. As one of them put it: "this is not about us".

/me goes step on some more toes

Damnit, something ate my [enter]s...

Thank you for your clarification, Craeonics. But if indeed you have figure skated yourself, it must be that opinions among even veterans of the sport must vary. (Yes, I say "sport," as I think of "sport and more" instead of "less than sport" or "other than sport.")

I don't dispute your contention that the awarding of two gold medals makes a joke out of the whole thing. But I think there would still have been a stink made from within the IOC organization if anybody with integrity had stood up to protest the original ruling. Unfortunately, your first post in this thread felt quite crude IMO and further sullied the image of the event.

It would be enlightening to poll past champions such as Brian Boitano, Kurt Browning et al and cull their views. Would any of them say that figure skating was too great a joining of sport and art to be included in the Olympics?

Playing piano as sport, you say. Or how about classical music in general. I think one could make a case for that! Not many pianists I know make a point of working out for hours every day just to be able to play recital programs, but it would help. I wonder what David Dubal or Dean Elder would say...

Actually, over the past century, much HAS already been written or typed on the debate regarding the validity of music competitions, but that's such a large can of worms that it really belongs on a separate forum or newsgroup even.

What about gymnastics? This is something I like to watch, for many of the same reasons in figure skating. But aren't things such as the floor exercises seem subject to subjectivity?

"Figure skating IS a sporting event; like ski slalom, luge, bobsledding, hockey and every other 'conventional' event, it requires years of focused training, pushing one's mind and body to the maximum, exploring the limits of strength, dexterity and stamina, and doing incredible things ordinary mortals cannot"

Putting all this poncing around on frozen water...[preferably backwards] into a little perspective, I'm reminded of the cyclist in the Commonwealth Classic, here in Oz, a few years ago. Early on in one stage of the race, he crashed....hard, but being a typical REAL sportsman, he got back on....continuing to complete a further 100-odd miles to the finish of the day's race.
Because he had crashed, he was required to be checked up in medical, where he was found to be fine....if you ignore the broken pelvis, that is....

There are a lot of 'sports' in the Olympics, winter and summer, that are definitely more 'artistic' than 'physical'. These entrants may be the world's best in their fields of endeavour, but not all 'sports' are essentially 'equal'.
Rifle shooting requires a sort of 'fitness' somewhat different to that of a weight-lifter....[and neither are particularly 'artistic']...

And ac4000, please don't try to differentiate/discriminate between "Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto" and modern rock music. [Although I might agree that 'rap' ought to have a 'c' in front of it], there are plenty of examples of complex musical orchestration/composition in music NOT written by someone long-since dead...

And then there's 'luck'....the Aussie short-course speed-skater who didn't crash, and went on to score the first ever Gold for Oz in the winter Olympics...

Slightly off topic: in the end it all depends on what the Olympics are about. It could be strictly for the "non-artistic" sports as a way to have nations compete, or it could be as a global stage for various disciplines of sport. Right now it's a bit in the middle.

What? Ozzies can skate? Do you have ice over there?

Crae...apparently, there is more skatable snow in Australia than in the French Alps....but then again, I'm 47 and have never seen snow falling...

Er...that would be 'ski', not 'skate'....oh well, I DID say I'd never seen it falling....

*cough* Skiing is done on snow, skating on ice *cough*

/me kicks in the open door again

/me can't stop kicking in them doors

Furthermore, "snow" is the stuff that fall from the sky and of which you can make snowmen and such. "Ice" is frozen water, same as the stuff you put in your drinks, but on a larger scale. Sometimes ice falls from the skies, it's called "hail" then.

And if you still mix up snow and ice, have someone throw a snowball and an iceball at you. You'll feel the difference once you wake up.

/me laughs at crae's attempt to correct me, un-beknownst that I had already done that myself nearly an hour earlier...