For those of you following the onctroversy.. The Canadian pair in figure skating were awarded the Gold. The French judge is under investigation now...

Actually the Russians won it.
The Canadians were awarded one after the fact due to judging error.

Gotta love politics...
Remember LadyM, semantics is everything!

That is correct, we never won it and the Russians will keep theirs. This is a first.

According to this, it wasn't the first time this has happened.

This current fiasco is the fourth time
such a elevation has occurred.
from a silver to a gold, that is.

now, everyone will want one.
judged sports are gonna take a beating from this.
This is why I like non-judged sports better.
it's easier to tell who won.
Who had the fastest time? or
who has the most points?
that makes it easy and unrefutable.

however, things like the Raiders-Patriots game
this season do kinda **** me off.
refs can be as bad as judges.

Oh Linda1...way too tired to read that whole thread lmao! I have a bad memory. But let's not call this a judging error. That was no error as that judge knew exactly what she was doing! Aw well, something else the media can carry on about till the end of time. Plus this crap shouldn't ever be happening in any event and should have been taken care of along time ago! Boxing as well? I heard something to this effect I think...It makes me so mad...can't even enjoy the Olympic Games! >WHAT A WORLD!!!!. Am I babbling yet? Ok, I'm going to bed.

[ 02-15-2002: Message edited by: Aries ]

An obvious injustice was remedied...sort of. To make it totally correct, however, the Russian team should have their gold taken away.

After all, the French judge's inappropriate behavior was only partially addressed. The team she wrongly voted against was corrected....but what about the team that she incorrectly rewarded? They still have gold medals; this clouds the gold awarded to the Canadian champs.

I think it stinks.

Except that it wasn't the Russian skaters' fault - to take their gold away would punish them for a French judge's corruption.

Neither pair may be entirely happy with this solution, but I think it's the best available.

Okay, the Canadians and the Russians share a gold - I can live with that. The French judge is suspended - that seems logical. Why haven't I heard anything about a punishment for the Russian judge/federation/whoever that put the "pressure" on the French judge? To me, that sort of bullying is just as offensive.

Cheers, Lord Andry, I'm still spitting bile over that Raiders/Patriots nonsense. (Yeah, I'm an Oakland fan living in K.C.-land).

How long before we have a curling scandal?

The French judge's score was eliminated from the voting (after her disclosure), which left the Russians and Canadians in a tie--each pair received 4 votes for first place from the remaining judges.

The ceremony last night--with both flags being raised equally and both anthems being played--seemed like the fairest way to resolve this shameful state of affairs. The skaters had nothing to do with this mess, and none of them should have been penalized because of it. In the end, the four of them could go home proud and happy.

But this sort of thing has been going on in figure skating for a long time. Had not the North American media-both U.S. and Canada--raised such a public stink this time, this situation would probably have gone ignored. But it cast such a cloud over the Olympics, and detracted so much from the hoopla over other events, that the Olympic Committee was forced to address it--and do so quickly.

A diver (I think) had previously been denied a gold medal in a Summer Olympics because of a judge's scoring error--the judge accidently entered the wrong score. But, without a loud public outcry on that one, it took the Olympic Committee a year to correct the error and finally award the diver the gold medal she had really won in the first place.

Too many eyes were on Salt Lake City this time--if they hadn't resolved this situation quickly damage control would have become impossible.

So, this is a problem, isn't it?

This is why the rest of the world hates us.
We act like we're better than they are.
Russians think we're whiners.
Everyone thinks the US media sucks.
they can't report anything objectively.
now, everyone thinks that the US media made the IOC make this decision.

This old guy on 60 Minutes put it best last Sunday.
We can't do this holier than thou routine, even if we are right.

So what happens to the other medals? Does the Bronze automatically get the Silver now? Does everyone move up a place? Or, are we left with no Silver medal winners? That doesn't seem right. If there's a tie, shouldn't the Silver go to the former Bronze? (And, did my question make any sense at all?! Looking at it again, it looks kinda confusing.)

No, the Bronze medal winners don't get the Silver. It's sort of like when you have a contest and there's a tie, the first two people get 1st place, the next highest score gets third because they ARE in third.