Linda Fratianne Update

"I remember about a year before the Olympics, Carlo Fassi came to my mom and dad and said he wasn't sure Frank had the political connections to get me the gold - if they'd put me with him, he could almost assure you that their daughter would get that gold medal......My parents didn't even have to ask me about that, as I was completely loyal to Frank." She added, "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened back in 1980 if the USFSA had gotten behind me like the Canadian Association got behind their pair team. But back then, you just did your job and went home were glad you weren't third."

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This is Linda's quote from the original article as quoted by SkateFan4Life.

What I wonder, and does anyone know? Did Fassi use this claim of sekret, (probably corrupt), political powers , guaranteed to win you the gold, to attract topnotch skaters to his program?

If so, it is not surprising when looking back, people like Linda and Frank believed him and went the conspiracy theory road.

Even if Carlo claimed it, does not mean he really did it, BTW.

I'd be curious what others think. Like SkateFan4Life, I wish he had finished his biography. I would have read it.

dpp

Again, mentioning Fassi, I do recall Hamilton mentioning him in that commentary.

What I would dedeuce from all this is:

1. No body saw the figures being judged.
2. Many people (and judges) saw the Short.
3. Lots more saw the Long.

But much of 2 and 3 above are based on subjectivity.

It's really open to a conspiracy theory between the exchange for Anett and Robin and Fassi was behind it. Is it true? Who knows? I doubt we will ever know.

Joe

Joe, I agree with your 2nd and 3rd points, but there were a few people who saw the figures being judged, and one of them posted on the rec.sports.skating.ice.figure newsgroup that she saw the figures and thought the results were fair for Anett/Linda. Also, although Carroll/Fratianne have come up with many contradictory stories about 1980 over the years, one thing that C/F have said in at least one interview was blaming Linda's lost SOLELY on her placement in figures, claiming that figures were unfair, but not claiming that the short or long were judged incorrectly. I don't have the exact quote handy, but it's come up in the past, if you want to do a google search. Anyway, basically C/F accepted the short & long results but not figures (which are conveniently impossible for almost everyone to judge for themselves, unlike the short & long), from what one or both of them have said on the record in interviews.

It's really open to a conspiracy theory between the exchange for Anett and Robin and Fassi was behind it. Is it true? Who knows? I doubt we will ever know.

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This is the horrible, insidious nature of Frank Carroll's lies--CARROLL'S ANETT/ROBIN CONSPIRACY THEORY IS PROVABLY *NOT* TRUE!!! Now, I don't want to rehash all of it here again, but here once again Carroll has people like you, who never saw the men's competition and only saw part of the ladies, believing his lies simply because he has said them in print.

Now, as I have said before, some of C/F's claims can't be proved one way or the other, but some of them ARE clearly lies and CAN be shown to be such (such as "eastern bloc conspiracy" and "ladies/men conspiracy").

On a side note, on Skatefans a poster who knew Carlo fairly well has said that Carlo wanted people to think that he could have influence, regardless of whether he really did--it was something of a marketing strategy. I don't know what he did or didn't do for most of his career, but there are some specific cases, like the two I mentioned above, where the facts show that Carlo couldn't have done what Carroll claimed.

Lois

Is it true that her mother overheard two international judges saying that they were going to put Fratianne in 2nd?

If people suspected the judging to be fixed, how come Frank Carroll or the UFSA did not do anything about it?

This has to be the hotest thread this summer.

Lois - Your sole reporter who watched the figures is not a convincing argument. You seem to be saying it takes 7 judges to make a decision and only l spectator to affirm their decision. Sorry I can/t buy that.

I sincerely believe there is a conspiracy because nothing can actually be proven, as you say, one way or another. I don't find anything wrong with conspiracies. They exist in politics for sure and whenever there are more of one group of judges who always decide in unison. No way to prove any of this so the conspiracy lingers.

I have nothing to lose in this instance because my feelings for Linda are not all that important to me. But I do feel for any skater who may be the subject of a conspiracy. In Worlds 2002, Irina won her gold finally with 6 slavic judges all voting in her favor. That's the way of life.

Joe

bleuchick said:

Is it true that her mother overheard two international judges saying that they were going to put Fratianne in 2nd?

If people suspected the judging to be fixed, how come Frank Carroll or the UFSA did not do anything about it?

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According to the article in Blades magazine, it was years later that Linda's sister told Linda this story of what her mother overheard (I think, after her mother had died). To me, it seems possible that the judges might have just been chatting, saying that it looked like Fratianne would come in second. To me, it is hard to build a conspiracy theory out of that.

Frank Carroll, I think, did do everything he could, but there wasn't really anything he could do except cry foul. As for the USFSA, Linda changes them (in the same article) with not "getting behind her."

In general, the USFSA is not one to rock the boat, as witness their animosity to the World Skating Federation.

Mathman

I remember reading an interview in which Linda Fratianne stated she kept her 1980 Olympic silver medal in a shopping bag stashed
under her bed for many years and simply could not look at it. A young neighbor of hers in Sun Valley asked to see it, and she had to think for a minute before she remembered where she had "stored" the silver medal. She retrieved the medal and then said, "You know, the medal looked nice after all."

I again watched my videotape of the 1980 Olympic ladies long program, and, frankly, neither Fratianne nor Poetszh skated stellar long programs. Both were pretty robotic, especially Poetszh, who really was rather clunky.

I'm sure many of you watched the "Fire on Ice" television special that was aired a few years ago on American network television that spotlighted the American women who have won Olympic gold medals in figure skating. It also featured a number of other Americans who did not win gold but who were outstanding skaters. The skaters mentioned included in this broadcast were: Tenley Albright, Carol Heiss, Peggy Fleming, Janet Lynn, Dorothy Hamill, Elaine Zayak, Rosalyn Sumners, Katarina Witt, Debi Thomas, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, and Tara Lipinski.

Noteably absent was the era from 1977-1980. Linda Fratianne and Annet Poetszch were excluded from this program. I wondered why this important period was omitted - perhaps the television producers felt they could not include the 1980 Olympics without beating the drum on the "conspiracy" theory. Albright,
Heiss, Fleming, Yamaguchi, Kerrigan, and Kwan were interviewed for this program. Kwan certainly did not cry foul over her second-place finish at Nagano; rather, her attitude was that it had been an honor to represent the US at the Olympics, and she was proud to have won a medal. Perhaps the television producers had attempted to get an interview with Fratianne, and instead of receiving a gracious response to her silver medal win, she lambasted the system for "robbing" her of the gold medal.
If that happened, perhaps the producers felt it was best to omit the 1980 Olympics. Just a thought......

Skatefan4Life - I appeciate your last take on this matter except for the final sentence which, to me, creates another conspiracy:

"Perhaps the television producers had attempted to get an interview with Fratianne, and instead of receiving a gracious response to her silver medal win, she lambasted the system for "robbing" her of the gold medal.
If that happened, perhaps the producers felt it was best to omit the 1980 Olympics. Just a thought......"

Your operative word is 'Perhaps' and invites another hypothetical nuance to this whole thing.

Hopefully, one day, we will hear from Frank and Linda for the definitive words spoken on this topic. In the meantime, Anett won. for some it was ok, for other it was not. There are few competitions where everyone agrees with the results.

Joe

Thanks for all your response. I read the BOI and thought..oh no here goes another scandal like SLC.


Btw, in the BOI magazine, doesn't Linda looks like Jamie Sale?

Mathman - well, I guess the USFSA does have something in common with Skate Canada - don't rock the boat and everything will be fine.

After reading that article on Linda Fratianne, I am trying not to feel sorry for her because she seems to have moved on and done well since that olympics (had a child, married though now divorced, still in touch with Frank and enjoys working with him) but I still feel sorry for her and all the skaters who go through the same problem. At the end of the day, all that is left is "what if" and many questions never to be answered by anyone.

Pretty sad, imo.

I'll give one kudo to Linda Fratianne -- after her Olympic disappointment, she did not turn pro immediately but competed at the 1980 Worlds, where she won the bronze medal. It was a disappointing finish - third place - for the defending World champion, but at least she was there, and she tried to win the title. If I remember the competition correctly, neither Fratianne, Poetszh, nor Lurz skated their best, and Jim McKay said something like, "The only thing I can say is that I'm glad I'm not a judge for this competition."

On the other hand, Roz Sumners skipped the 1984 Worlds after her Olympic disappointment. She might have been able to defeat Katarina Witt and defend her World title, but she took the easy way out and skipped the competition. This isn't mean to "bash" Roz - it's just my opinion.

Joesitz said:

Lois - Your sole reporter who watched the figures is not a convincing argument. You seem to be saying it takes 7 judges to make a decision and only l spectator to affirm their decision. Sorry I can/t buy that.

I sincerely believe there is a conspiracy because nothing can actually be proven, as you say, one way or another. I don't find anything wrong with conspiracies. They exist in politics for sure and whenever there are more of one group of judges who always decide in unison. No way to prove any of this so the conspiracy lingers.

I have nothing to lose in this instance because my feelings for Linda are not all that important to me. But I do feel for any skater who may be the subject of a conspiracy. In Worlds 2002, Irina won her gold finally with 6 slavic judges all voting in her favor. That's the way of life.

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Joe, I am certainly not saying that one educated spectator confirms that 7 out of 9 judges were correct, but how many people were saying that the figures judging was not correct--I believe that it's two, Carroll and Fratianne, both of whom certainly are guaranteed to be more biased than the spectator! I'm just saying that, apart from the judges, there *were* a few people who watched figures, and at least one agreed with the majority of the judges.

About conspiracies, you are wrong in part. Sometimes they CAN be proven not to exist, or vice versa. In SLC 2002 and with the toe-tapping judges, they were pretty much proven to exist. In the case of 1980, two specific Carroll conspiracies can be proven *NOT* to be true--men/ladies and Eastern Bloc are NOT true, because, for instance, you cannot have an Eastern Bloc conspiracy handing a victory to Anett when there are only *2* out of 9 judges from the Eastern Bloc, and 5 out of the 7 judges for Anett were Western (so the 7 mixed judges voting for Anett were hardly a regular, cohesive bloc, as Irina's 6 Slavic judges could be), yet Carroll had the nerve to lie about that in an interview, claiming an Eastern Bloc conspiracy cost Linda the gold. Carroll's claim was flat out false. Same for the ladies/men one, also provably false, but I'm not going to re-type all of that. Carroll in a particularly outrageous interview also viciously attacked Carlo Fassi while admitting that he could never figure out *how* Carlo could have rigged the results--uh, earth to Carroll, maybe you could never figure out how it was "done" because Carlo Fassi *didn't* rig them?! Joe, you obviously aren't a believer in "innocent until proven guilty," but you are choosing to take the word of a liar (in some of his claims, with others impossible to prove or disprove) with vague, flailing claims over that of Carlo, who hasn't been proven to have lied about anything here, AFAIK.

One thing that Carroll and Fratianne will never admit in all their whining, bitter interviews is the possibility that Anett actually won fairly, yet every time this subject comes up there are many people who think that Anett did indeed deserve the gold over Linda. There's a desperate grasping-at-any-excuse-no-matter-how-impossible-or-wrong attempt to paint the competition as a landslide win for Linda (in their opinions), when this was clearly not the case. Close and debatable, sure, and you and C/F are entitled to your opinion, of course, but 1980 was never a clear-cut landslide-win situation, it's always been a split-opinion, endless-debate Oksana vs Nancy, Brian vs Brian, Tara vs Michelle competition. The what-if that C/F never seem to be able to consider is, what if Anett actually did deserve the gold and their biases are blinding them to Linda's weaknesses...

Joe, I can't imagine why you would think that C/F should have the definitive words spoken on 1980, when they have lied about 1980 in the past. Personally, I'd love to have Carlo Fassi produce the definitive words spoken, from beyond the grave, but realistically I'm fairly certain that there will never be any definitive final word on the ladies in 1980.

About the weird 3rd hand judge story that Linda has suddenly come up with now about her sister and her dead mother, I share Mathman's skepticism, and then some. For one thing, I just can't see two conspiring judges being stupid enough to talk openly in a public restroom with the skater's mother nearby. In a couple genuine scandals, they've had the common sense to use phones and private rooms. More importantly, the article specifically says that this alleged, unverifiable overheard conversation was before the *long program,* yet, remember, the results had basically been decided several days *earlier* during figures, F/C have claimed that the figures were rigged, but those were already long over, Anett was extremely likely to win unless she did a total zamboni act (which she did not do), and the skater who beat Linda in the long was Denise Biellmann, not Anett--is Linda now trying to imply that there was a conspiracy for Denise to beat her in the long, since Denise was the skater to whom she was 2nd there? I believe everyone posting here who saw the competition agreed that Denise's win in the long was deserved! Lots of unanswered questions, and, conveniently, no possibility of questioning the late Virginia Fratianne about that story.

Regarding the TV documentary, I don't know what they were thinking, but when I watched that show I was wondering if they merely found the 1980 ladies skating as generally uninspired as I did and omitted those years for that reason, since they didn't have a US winner who would require inclusion. But one thing that's often happened for me is that the best or most interesting or thrilling performances IMHO have come from non-medallists who'd be left out of this sort of program regardless (Denise in 1980, Tiffany Chin in '84, Caryn Kadavy and Midori Ito in '88, Nathalie Krieg in '94, etc.).

Lois

Whether a skater deserved to win gold may have no relationship to whether there was corruption and/or conspiracy. To take a case where there was evidence of such, there are enough people who believed that Berezhnaia/Sikuharlidze should have won the gold regardless of the judging panel and that Anissina and Peizerat deserved the gold, even if Tokhtakhounov had made a deal to influence/ensure their win.

What I do remember from years of watching figure skating during Soviet times is that, were a Soviet or Eastern European judge to go against the party line in a competition meant not only led to banishment for him/her from a privileged position with travel, but also to being blackballed from jobs and schools and decent housing for the judge and the judge's family.

Whether this was a straight deal depends on the judging panel. Since the composition of the 1980 Olympic Ladies' and Men's panels doesn't support a straight deal, if there was a conspiracy -- personal or political -- it was a couple of layers deep.

Lois, Caryn only skated the SP at Oly's 88. She had a horrible case of the flu and did not skate the long. (She was great in '87 worlds however.

And as to conspiracies, one can never prove there is no conspiracy at all.

Not all conspiracies are political.
There is sex for a vote.
There is money or favors of other kinds for a vote.
Then there is political bloc-headism.
Then there is "I will vote for you in ___ if you will vote for
me in the ____.
Then there is the combination of some or all of the above.

If 2 bloc people pay off in some way 3 judges, that would do it.


But I don't quite get why you take this so seriously. As hockeyfan pointed out, sometimes the fix is in for the person who should have won anyway. Robin deserved to win. Pretty much everyone acknowledges it. And no says he arranged it himself.

I believe Carlo liked to have this sekret politikal powers aura, so people cannot be blamed if they believed it when it made them feel better to do so. But whatever was done, it in no way diminishes the fine quality of Robin's skating or the brilliance of his later career.

dpp

I agree with Doris's assessment that Robin Cousins deserved to win the 1980 Olympic gold medal - conspiracy, deals, or whatever.
He was the best free skater, and his long program was the class of the field. The gold medal went to the right skater, and Robin earned that gold medal.

Doris, I know that Caryn only skated the short program in '88--I remember her bedside interview during the long on ABC's coverage. I mentioned Caryn and Midori as examples because I thought that they skated the two outstanding short programs in Calgary, yet neither of them was in contention for the gold thanks to figures, and IMHO both of them were undermarked in the short, where I remember that they both had triple loops in their jump combination, with Caryn being superior artistically but putting the triple loop first, while Midori had her high-flying triple loop as the more difficult 2nd half, in combination with the required double jump (was it the double loop that year?). Anyway, my point was that neither of them would be shown in a network 1988 Olympic segment, yet for me they delivered the best and most memorable performances in that event. You can pretty much count on TV retrospective coverage of '88 being limited to Katarina/Liz/Debi only, with outstanding non-medalist performers like Caryn & Midori in '88, Tiffany in '84, etc. ignored by the editors or producers.

One of my top main reasons for taking offense at Carroll & Fratianne's self-serving attempts to rewrite history to suit themselves is historical accuracy. Falsely rewriting history is something that deeply offends me whenever it occurs, not just in skating (obviously there can be more important implications in other fields, like politics, but I won't go there), and C/F's calculated media campaign has been all too successful, sadly. I already gave the example of Newsweek magazine in 2002 wrongly stating as if it were a fact that Linda lost the Olympics due to "eastern bloc judging," which was clearly not the case, for example--one of many C/F successes in manipulating the media and rewriting history, because all too many people take a source like Newsweek as an accurate reference, which in this case it certainly is not. In the future, I'm sure that there will be more lazy writers who will write about that imaginary "Eastern bloc judging" loss, and so the lie spreads. (yes, I realize that theoretically there could be an incredibly bizarre, convoluted, 5/7ths western conspiracy of some sort, but realistically the C/F claims are like stating that the earth is flat--logic should dictate going with the reasonable explanation unless there's strong evidence to the contrary, and the burden of proof here should be on C/F to prove the equivalent of "the earth is flat," not the other way around).

Now, you and SkateFan4Life saw the competition in '80, and you can decide for yourself whether Robin's gold medal was deserved, for instance, but you are in a minority at this point, I would guess. Joe here is a perfect example of someone who did not see the competition, yet he now posts that he believes Robin's win was part of a conspiracy, solely because of the C/F media lies. Unfortunately, there are all too many skating fans or casual viewers like him whose beliefs will be tainted by the C/F media campaign. It's grossly unfair and slanderous to everyone involved, from Robin and Anett to Carlo Fassi and all the judges who didn't happen to agree with C/F, because Carlo and the judges are being accused of a very serious crime without a shred of proof against them. From the 2002 scandal, everyone here should be able to realize that C/F are making serious criminal charges, and it's not a trivial issue. If they had real evidence, that would be different, but I have yet to see any.

Oh, and irresponsible, bad journalism is another of my pet peeves--there's certainly a lot of that in skating. Anyway, as I've said before, I truly wish that this subject would disappear forever, but as long as it's rearing its ugly head again I consider it a more serious topic than the endless arguments about taste with Oksana/Nancy/Tara/Michelle/etc. that I avoid, and why should Carroll and Fratianne be allowed to lie with impunity without being challenged by the facts? When there are two or more sides to a story, it's certainly not fair or just that only one of them gets exposure.

Lois

Fassi wasn't dead for nearly two decades after the 1980 Olympics. He had plenty of time to respond, as well as access to the press in many countries, considering he spoke all the major Western languages. Not to mention his stable of students, some of which might have leaked his version, if he slipped it to them. Where was his response? Did the press everywhere suppress it? Did he not respond so that his mystique as a judge influencer wouldn't be exposed as belonging to the man behind the curtain? Was he above it all?

If there was no response, it's no wonder that Carroll's and Fratianne's versions have stuck for so long. And I've never heard a student of Fassi's -- retired or active -- defend him against their allegations. The party line has always been, "I go out and skate and the judges judge. I can't help what the judges do."

As far as the general press reporting lazy half-truths about figure skating, every skating fan would have been bald a long time ago from pulling his/her hair out over this. Even the author of Gay Blades -- one of the most atrocious "novels" I've ever read -- who seems to drop most of the names in the right places, insists on calling Anissina and Peizerat "the Russians." (Although, come to think of it, he may have been doing this deliberately, to refer to SLC. Hmmm.)

Actually, Carlo Fassi strenuously denied having done anything against Linda in at least one newspaper interview in February 1980, in which Carlo pointed out that the competition wasn't even that close, and Linda had lost 7-2! Carlo also denied Carroll/Fratianne's charges over the years, but there weren't many times that the subject came up in the media prior to Carlo's death in March 1997, at least from what I've seen, so there wasn't that much need for rebuttal from Carlo during his lifetime (and he was planning to include one in his unfinished book). As I have mentioned before, it was *after* Carlo's death that Frank Carroll and Linda Fratianne suddenly started doing a whole lot of interviews whining about 1980 with wildly inconsistent stories, after Carlo was conveniently unable to respond.

As far as Carlo's students are concerned, most of them weren't even at the 1980 Olympics, so students like Peggy Fleming or Jill Trenary wouldn't have any personal knowledge of 1980, and I can't recall any of them having been asked about the subject in interviews. Nor would I consider that a normal interview question, so it's not surprising. It's not like you'll see many interviews of any sort with Emi Watanabe or Susanna Driano, who did compete against Linda and Anett that year, for instance. And the standard skater reply has always been that they just skate and let the judges do their thing, I think that's quite deeply ingrained in competitive skater media mentality.

Lois

I recall reading comments made by Lisa-Marie Allen, the US silver medalist and 1980 Olympic teammate of Linda Fratianne and Sandy Lenz, the bronze medalist. Allen told the press, when asked she she thought Fratianne's chances were to win the Olympic gold medal, "I think Linda has been totally molded and packaged to win the gold medal." After the competition, a reporter asked Allen for her assessment of the results. She said,
"Annet won fairly and squarely."

Thank you for the Lisa-Marie quote, SkateFan4Life. I hadn't known that she had given her opinion on the results, but I'll have to make a note of that for the next time that this topic will inevitably (sigh) come up again. Would you happen to have a reference handy for Lisa-Marie, so I could try to find the article myself? Anyway, I'm glad to see that another of the top women, and an American at that, agreed on the record that Anett's win was fair and square.


Lois

Is is really necessary for you to check my references, Lois? Honestly, just take my word for it when I write that I read those quotes from Lisa-Marie Allen. She certainly did make those remarks in reference to Linda Fratianne and her assessment of the results.

I have quite an extensive collection of figure skating magazines, old books, new books, historical books, etc., but that particular book, unfortunately, was lost when I moved about a decade ago.
It was a very thorough and interesting volume on the 1980 Winter Olympics, and it included all of the sports, plus the political situation of the time - the US hostages in Iran, President Carter's threats to boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, and bios on many of the top athletes.

Misplaced and lost items are just one of the hazards of being mobile, I guess. Oh, well!