- Joined
- Mar 26, 2014
It was not a biathlete, it was the cross country skiier Larissa Lazutina.
The difference in this is it a controversy around the world, especialy the figure skating world, where the rest of the world just laughs at Russia when it comes to Plushenko and Lysacek.
You are right - it was about skiers. The issue was not that simple and obvious - the athletes even appealed to the European Human Rights Court - if it were just "corrupted russians were caught" I guess, we would have just tried to forget it as soon as possible. Of course, no one bothered to listen.
Let's forget about skiing - I just wanted to say that Olympic scandals are not about sports federations and their relative powers - it goes higher to the power of countries. And as I said, there is only one universal power - the USA.
As for "the rest of the world just laughs", I usually dismiss comments about "the rest of the world" because they are emphatic tools when someone wants to beef up her personal view. But this time OK, how about that: Elvis Stojko is part of Russia or the rest of the world? The question is because he did not laugh but wrote: "[T]he judges’ scoring probably killed figure skating because kids now are going to see this and say, 'Oh, I don’t need a quad. I can just do great footwork for presentation marks and do a couple of nice spins and make it to Olympic champion..." And even those who said that based on the rules Lysacek won fair, also said that it was a close call, and quads should have been graded higher because for example the difference between triple and double axel was bigger than between triple and quad toeloop. Does not sound like a laugh to me.
Ok, summing up. I am still hot on FS (god knows until when). And there is not much happening. Next Sunday I will go to the show in Moscow. And then another big pause. What is left is this running around the circles discussion. It is futile: no one will change her mind. And the protest will be declined not because it is Korean federation. Russian federation would hardly bother but even if it did the likelihood of the positive outcome would be minuscule. We just don't have a single case but the second gold medal in SLC when such protests resulted in something (in fact, it was a shame, imho).