Olympics

[cindysphynx]

Joanne asked:

> 
> > BUT was that "a" Gold Medal or "the" Gold Medal?  Did they 
recalibrate the votes
> > taking out the Frenchwoman's (which is what I would've advocated) 
or did they
> > just issue another one?  In other words, what happened to the 
Russians?
> > 

Katze replied:

> They issued another set of Gold medals for the Canadians. The 
Russians
> will keep their Gold Medals. 

Further details are that apparently there is always an alternate 
judge in a competition of this importance.  A 10th judge, if you 
will.  He/she scores the competition, but they don't count the 
alternate's vote unless there's some highly unusual reason.  I 
suppose if a judge had a stroke during a program, they could use the 
alternate's vote.

The pairs alternate was a Czech judge.  They have not stated the 
marks the Czech alternate would have awarded.  My guess (and it is 
only my guess) is that the Czech alternate was not promised a bribe 
or otherwise compromised, and so gave higher marks to the Canadians.  
After all, if the Czech alternate ranked the Russians higher, the 
skating union could just disqualify the French judge, use the 
alternate's marks, and the Russians would still have the gold.

If, however, the skating union disqualified the French judge, they 
might have to use the marks of the alternate, therefore creating a 5-
4 split in favor of the Canadians, giving them the gold and giving 
the Russians the silver.  To avoid that debacle (and to avoid 
destroying the poor Russian skaters who did nothing wrong), the 
skating union is just awarding a double gold and hoping to get out of 
the spotlight.

I would love to be a fly on the wall while all of this wrangling is 
going on.  I suspect the Olympic Committee really put a headlock on 
the skating union people.  I'll bet the conversation was something 
like "Award a second gold medal *right now* or the only way Ice 
Dancers will be in the next Olympics is if they buy tickets."

I believe the rank order for the men's competition was spot on and 
totally fair.  I will be watching the ladies' competition closely.  I 
have never understood the high marks Irina Slutskaya always receives 
for presentation.  Perhaps all of this scrutiny will make the ladies' 
competition a bit more fair.

Cindy (who is a *huge* figure skating fan, but who thinks ice dancing 
should be dropped from the Olympics because it is rigged, too 
subjective and barely a sport anyway)