Maria Butyrskaya

[Joesitz]

the competition about which a senior Russian official said afterward, "Why didn't Frank Carroll slip us a bottle of vodka? What did we care which American girl won?"MM

That kind of sums up the Russian hierarchy on who cares when there is no worthy Russians at the top, and from a country too stupid not to play the game.

Joe

[Mathman]

I guess you only ever win the nod from the panel that was judging that day and that's all you can do.

Emma made this point, too, on another thread. I agree 100%. The judges are "part of the playing field." I think that by the time the athletes get to the elite level they come to understand this and accept it as the nature of their sport.

David Pelletier said after the Salt Lake City situation, "That's figure skating. If I wanted to be timed by a stop-watch I'd go downhill on skis instead."

Ultimately I view it as a sport - a very difficult set of skills need to be learnt and practiced over and over again. Like any other sport you have to perform spot on on the day of the competition and hope that the people enforcing the rules to do so fairly. Other sports can be skewed by bad calls, to take a topical sport - tennis - the line judges and/or any over ruling by the umpire can end up being quite controversial and the "what ifs" that can play out if someone believes a call was made or overruled unfairly are there too.

Basketball is my favorite example. On every play there is contact that could warrant a foul either way. The players are completely helpless if a particular referree had it in for them. You hope for the best.

The point is that the skaters do need to have skated fairly equally before these kind of things can come into play.

Like Anne Frank, in spite of everything I believe that figure skating judges are good at heart. I have been grouchy on this subject lately because I just lost a good on-line friend due to an ill-considered post of mine on a figure skating board. So quite naturally I am taking it out on the whole sport, LOL.

But I think that by and large the best performances do get the highest marks, and even when the pols are wheeling and dealing, the skaters still have to step up with a worthy performance.

Mathman

[Eeyora]

Now I am beginning to appreciate Cinquanta's brilliance in hiding this kind of information from the public under the New Judging System. The unadorned facts make the sport look irredeemably corrupt.

Mathman

I understand. It is very frustrating at times. I think a compromise should be made in certain situations to release the judges Nationalities. I agree it is making skating look worse.

[antmanb]

http://www.aya.or.jp/~polaris/winter...igure_w_ex.htm

Lulu got third place ordinals from Australia, Austria and Germany.

Butyrskaya got third place ordinals from Russia, Ukraine, Poland and France.

This was one of those OBO things where it is tricky to find out who really won.

Slutskaya got no ordinals higher than fifth.

BTW, Michelle received first place ordinals from USA, Germany and Poland, with the rest, including Russia, going to Tara. This was the competition about which a senior Russian official said afterward, "Why didn't Frank Carroll slip us a bottle of vodka? What did we care which American girl won?"

MM

So Russia going with a technical skater over an artistic one started then.

I can't remember Butyrskaya's skate from nagano at all...was i misremembering Slutskaya's skate from Nagano and actually thinking of her worlds performance? I can clearly remember her landing that 3sal/3loop...was that worlds? Thikning about it it probably was because she one silver that worlds didn't she?

Ant

[antmanb]

Thanks for the link MM...I momentarily forgot (when I asked for the link) how much I didn't/don't 'get' OBO

I do remember being so happy for Chen Lu....I can't remember for the life of me what the SP's for Chen and Slutskaya were like...and I am totally blanking on Slutskaya's skates too...urgh!

I can't remember Lulu's at all but Slutskaya's was the one where she wore that navy blue dress with a gold emblem on it. She still had her girly hair then and that was the year that she started filling out a bit more. She was still using the long sweeping LBO edge into her lutz as opposed to the LFI mohawk, cross in front set up she uses now. She had been struggling with the triple lutz all season, IIRC at Europeans she had a nasty forward fall on it and at the Olys she did 2Lutz/2Toe which caused a bit of a str that she stillin the final group and above Bonaly who i presume did either 3toe/3toe or 3toe/2toe and 3sal as the solo jump.

Ant

[antmanb]

You hope for the best.Like Anne Frank, in spite of everything I believe that figure skating judges are good at heart.

Mathman

You really have to otherwise you can end up ruining your enjoyment of the sport you love. You know when you can smell a rat...that's what online message boards and groups are for - screaming and shouting about it afterwards!

Ant

[attyfan]

"This was the competition about which a senior Russian official said afterward, "Why didn't Frank Carroll slip us a bottle of vodka? What did we care which American girl won?"

MM

I heard that a Russian coach (some people say Irinia Rodnina and some say Tarasova) asked Frank why he didn't slip the judges a bottle of vodka -- although I have not heard anyone say that Callaghan did so (and the comment, if true, indicates that Tara should have won; they just would have voted differently if bribed). Has anyone ever determined if any Russian official really did say any such thing? This whole story strikes me as a slam on the Russian judges. After all, Tara won in a 6/3 vote, so the Russian vote wouldn't have changed the outcome.

[Mathman]

After all, Tara won in a 6/3 vote, so the Russian vote wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Quite true. They would have needed two bottles of vodka, one for Russia and one for Ukraine.

But maybe they could have shared...

The Ukrainian judge was Alfred Korytek. He was suspended by the ISU after the 1999 World Championships in Helsinki for collusion with the Russian judge, Sviatoslav Babenko.

But not to worry. By the time of the 2002 Worlds in Nagano, Mr. Korytek was back judging the ladies event, this time representing Israel.

Mathman

PS. Koytek was evidently a little rusty after his time off. In the qualifying round he placed Fumie Suguri 6th (behind Kirk, Robinson, Butyrskaya and Sebestyen, as well as Kwan). The other six judges placed Fumie 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, and 3.

[Joesitz]

Koytek was considered incompetent even at cheating. He fled to Israel because the Russians didn't want him. Watch for him in Torino and you will know before the competition begins whom he will give the high scores.

Let's face it, no bottles of vodka, you don't know the game! It's not about skating, it's about the game!

Joe

[Eeyora]

"MM

I heard that a Russian coach (some people say Irinia Rodnina and some say Tarasova) asked Frank why he didn't slip the judges a bottle of vodka -- .

I heard it was Rodnina who did work with Michelle in her early days with Frank Carroll.