Controversial Olympic Competitons

[Buttercup]

Not quite. I believe that Sally Stapleford had a more or less unprompted tearful confession from Marie Reine Le-Gougne and she then blew the whistle on her which is what really set the media alight

Not quite. Yes, Stapleford confronted her - but the big thing was the closed-door meeting in which the judges had to defend their scoring - that made it official and after that the IOC and ISU had no choice but to go into full damage control. Also, contrary to what you write, Stapleford did not get an umprompted confession, she specifically went and questioned La Gougne. And she did this because she thought S/P were robbed; at that point she wouldn't have had any way of knowing what we know now. Also, the US media was all over it from the get go, well before there was any confirmation of wrongdoing.

The ISU did ban for life Sally Stapleford and (argh i forget his name now...someone help me) for blowing the whistle on Le Gougne and informing the ISU immediately of her confession.

Also inaccurate. Sally Stapleford was banned for trying to set up a rival skating association (World Skating Federation), which was obviously something the ISU was unhappy about. She was very visible in working to establish the WSF and lost her eligibility three years after SLC (go here http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-164742-181960-87292-0-file,00.pdf for the ISU decision on the matter). She and several of the other WSF founders who were ruled ineligible then took their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This would be the court of last appeal for such a case (Floyd Landis's final appeal re the 2006 Tour de France is now in CAS proceedings). CAS dismissed the appeal in 2006 and upheld the ISU's decision.

 

[antmanb]

Also, contrary to what you write, Stapleford did not get an umprompted confession, she specifically went and questioned La Gougne. And she did this because she thought S/P were robbed; at that point she wouldn't have had any way of knowing what we know now.

Why would she question Le Gougne over S/P supposedly "being robbed" when there were another four judges who also gave the win to B/S? My memory could be wrong but i was sure the confession from Le Gougne came unprompted maybe it's come from the book the second mark? I'll try and have think about where i thought i heard this.

Also inaccurate. Sally Stapleford was banned for trying to set up a rival skating association (World Skating Federation), which was obviously something the ISU was unhappy about. She was very visible in working to establish the WSF and lost her eligibility three years after SLC (go here http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-164742-181960-87292-0-file,00.pdf for the ISU decision on the matter). She and several of the other WSF founders who were ruled ineligible then took their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This would be the court of last appeal for such a case (Floyd Landis's final appeal re the 2006 Tour de France is now in CAS proceedings). CAS dismissed the appeal in 2006 and upheld the ISU's decision.

Okay the life time ban might have come from losing her elligiblty for the WSF but i'm sure i remeber at the time her ban for whistelblowing was greater than the ban given to the cheaters. In any event the ISU has egg on their face if they continue to give judging assignments in the most important championships in the sport including the Olympics to tried and convicted cheats, toe tappers and givers and recievers of bribes. While bringing in an annonymous judging system so that said cheats, toe tappers and givers and reievers of bribes can continue as always but this time not risk being named and shamed, while discouraging whistleblowers by having greater sanctions for whistle-blowing than for cheating.

Ant

 

[~tapdancer]

Originally Posted by Mathman
No matter how much the North American media might have hollered at the time, it would have been forgotten the next day as the Olympics moved on to the next event.

The US media. Canadian TV had already gone on to the next event.

Not saying the US media doesn't deserve the criticism but don't act like the Canadian press is pure...they wuzrobbed for years for B&K. I loved B&K but the Canadian press went absolutely nuts over the 98 Olympics ice dance scoring.

 

[icedancingnut31]

Navka and Kostomarov deserved that win. The controversial move in Torino was giving Tanith and Ben the silver. Grushina and Goncharov and Denkova and Staviyski were both better. I have never cared for them nor do I think they should have even medaled.
I just did a Paper on the Pairs Result in 2002 and I thought the dance result was more controversial. Le Gougne was pressured by a member of the mafia whose goal was obtaining a visa to france. I don't think Marina and Gwendal should have won the gold. Anissina and her mother both had contact with Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov and he guarenteed her she would win. Even though they may have been the best she still conspired to have the results fixed.
And according to Stapleford and Jon Jackson the approach from Le Gougne was unsolicited.

 

[icedancingnut31]

The USFSA banned Tonya for life not the ISU. The ISU did ban for life Sally Stapleford and (argh i forget his name now...someone help me) for blowing the whistle on Le Gougne and informing the ISU immediately of her confession. The whistelblowers get banned for life for having integrity. The cheaters get a three year ban. That is the way of the ISU, and then people are surprised that figure skating is a corrupt sport.

Ant

That would be Jon Jackson

 

[escaflowne9282]

Why would she question Le Gougne over S/P supposedly "being robbed" when there were another four judges who also gave the win to B/S? My memory could be wrong but i was sure the confession from Le Gougne came unprompted maybe it's come from the book the second mark? I'll try and have think about where i thought i heard this.

::sigh:: Warning: a dead horse is about to be revived.
Not quite , according to "The Second Mark" after Marie Reine Le Gougne walked over to her

Sally Stapleford started speaking to her about integrity and honesty, implying, quite strongly, that she was lacking in such qualities because she had placed the Russian pair first. Le Gougne is the nervous type anyway, and with no less than Sally Stapleford giving her a dressing down , she began to cry. Then two other members of the technical committee joined them,Walburga Grimm of Germany and Britta Lindgren of Sweden. At which point Sally Stapleford said to her ,"Okay tell them what you told me: Why did you do it ?" After which all three members left convinced that the French Federation had forced her to vote as she did as part of a deal with the Russians...
...." But Marie-Reine, how can you expect to be elected to the Technical Committee with judging like that?"

After which MRLG completely broke down

Another interesting passage:

Then it got really bad , because Sally Stapleford told her she had to write a letter confessing she voted under pressure

Joy Goodwin- The Second Mark p 260

Based on this , it would appear that Le Gougnes confessions were not unprompted and Sally Stapleford is hardly the angel so many make her out to be. However, that does not mean that there was no truth to her being pressured. I do wish her allegations had been investigated, which ,sadly they never were.

 

[antmanb]

That would be Jon Jackson

That's it thank you :agree:

 

[antmanb]

Based on this , it would appear that Le Gougnes confessions were not unprompted and Sally Stapleford is hardly the angel so many make her out to be. However, that does not mean that there was no truth to her being pressured. I do wish her allegations had been investigated, which ,sadly they never were.

Thank you for the passages. I'm not sure that anyone really thinks Sally Stapleford is an "angel", however, her integrity in making sure the truth came out, I think, is unquestionable. If the ISU had any, or indeed, valued integrity the vote swapping allegation should have been investigated in the dance. The ISU has no interest in cleaning up it's house, merely adding layers of annonymity making it difficult at best and impossible at worst to identify and punish cheating judges again.

Ant

 

[Buttercup]

Why would she question Le Gougne over S/P supposedly "being robbed" when there were another four judges who also gave the win to B/S?

My guess would be that the other four would have been viewed as bloc-voting; but a French judge doesn't go with the bloc theory and would have stood out more. Maybe La Gougne was also behaving strangely. I've no idea. The news reports from the time seem contradictory and unclear on what exactly happened between Stapleford and La Gougne prior to the latter's confession. Since I wasn't there, I can't say . (Meanwhile, I see escaflowne9282 has added some relevant bits from The Second Mark - thanks).

I don't recall Stapleford being suspended for reporting what happened. And while there are certainly things to criticize about the ISU, I don't think they're in the business of penalizing whistleblowers. Several of the people involved were later linked with the WSF, so maybe that what made it appear otherwise.

 

[Ptichka]

I just did a Paper on the Pairs Result in 2002 and I thought the dance result was more controversial. Le Gougne was pressured by a member of the mafia whose goal was obtaining a visa to france. I don't think Marina and Gwendal should have won the gold. Anissina and her mother both had contact with Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov and he guarenteed her she would win. Even though they may have been the best she still conspired to have the results fixed.
And according to Stapleford and Jon Jackson the approach from Le Gougne was unsolicited.

I can tell you why I never believed in that particular conspiracy theory. The idea there was that France supported B&S in pairs in exchange for Russia's support of A&P. However, it would be absurd (IMHO) for anyone to trust Alla Shekhovtseva to vote for anyone other than Lobacheva & Averbukh in dance. Because of her connection to ice dance (she is, after all, not only the ice dancing judge for Russia but also Piseev's wife), Russia cares about ice dance more so than about any other discipline, pairs including. Furthermore, Shekhovtseva is a good friend of Linichuk (L&A's coach) - during the 90's, she helped her grow her school to the point of becoming the most (if not only) dominant ice dancing school in Russia, seriously hurting the discipline in the process (Linichuk would pretty much sink some teams so that others could swim). The conspiracy theory argument, of course, went that Shekhovtseva only voted for L&A at the Olympics because by then the scandal broke anyway, and she did it to cover her tracks and because she thought that the whole deal was off. Frankly, that to me sounds a bit too far fetched. If anything, the results being so close between A&P and L&A show how ridiculous the system is/ was.

 

[mycelticblessing]

Navka and Kostomarov deserved that win. The controversial move in Torino was giving Tanith and Ben the silver. Grushina and Goncharov and Denkova and Staviyski were both better. I have never cared for them nor do I think they should have even medaled.

I think Del/Schoes as well as Denkova/Staviyski deserved to medal more than B/A. B/A however, were lucky, that they were consistent while many other teams were participating in the splatfest that was the OD. Del/Schoes low CD marks kept them off the podium, and Denkova/Staviyski OD was below their usual level, costing them a medal. G/G, despite an uninspired FD, did deserve the bronze because their technical difficulty was high, and thus did well under the CoP.

 

[gkelly]

Michelle HAD to SKATE PERFECT. NO FLAWS, no little sloppy landing, no weak landings, no anything. Tara, Sarah, Sasha, could have improper technique, low landings, wrong take off, underrotatted jumps and still win or medal. MICHELLE couldn't.

Kwan won many competitions with such flaws, and medaled at even more. She didn't win at the Olympics, but that's only two competitions and it just so happened that someone else brought their A game both times.

 

[antmanb]

My guess would be that the other four would have been viewed as bloc-voting; but a French judge doesn't go with the bloc theory and would have stood out more. Maybe La Gougne was also behaving strangely. I've no idea. The news reports from the time seem contradictory and unclear on what exactly happened between Stapleford and La Gougne prior to the latter's confession. Since I wasn't there, I can't say . (Meanwhile, I see escaflowne9282 has added some relevant bits from The Second Mark - thanks).

I don't recall Stapleford being suspended for reporting what happened. And while there are certainly things to criticize about the ISU, I don't think they're in the business of penalizing whistleblowers. Several of the people involved were later linked with the WSF, so maybe that what made it appear otherwise.

Ok i'm dragging way back into memory now but didn't Jean Senft from Canada get into more trouble when she tape recorded the attempt by Yuri Balkov to rig the Nagano dance event then Balkov himself recieved?

And I am fairly sure that what prompted Sally Stapleford and Ron Pfenning to give their support to the WSF was because both lost their important positions in the ISU in the Congress meeting that followed the SLC scandal. Britta Lindgren also lost her position in the ISU at the same congress. That, to me, is too much of a co-incidence that the main people who blew the lid on the attempted fix of the Pairs and Dance event at SLC all lost the important positions they held in the ISU immediately, whereas the cheaters got a wrap on the knuckles and were back in business (including Didier himself who flouted the ban from attending ISU events by showing up at the GPs) in a relatively short space of time.

Ant

 

[Mathman]

Then two other members of the technical committee joined them, Walburga Grimm of Germany ...

OK, this is completely off the wall, but if someone named Walburga Grimm confronted me in a dark alley, I'd panic, too.

 

[cassieandcheetah]

My question is, if Gordeeva/Grinkov win over Dmitriev/Mischtenook was not controversial, why was the win for Berezhanaya/.Sikarulidze? I say shame on the North American media and Scott Hamilton.

 

[gkelly]

My question is, if Gordeeva/Grinkov win over Dmitriev/Mischtenook was not controversial, why was the win for Berezhanaya/.Sikarulidze?

Simple answer is national allegiance. Both teams were both Russian, so no one was rooting for one over the other on nationalist grounds, and the results couldn't be blamed on nationalist bloc judging.

Many fans did prefer Mishkutionok/Dmitriev's style and thought they should have won because they made fewer obvious mistakes. But some of us could be persuaded by arguments that G&G had better basic technique in general. So not enough for mass outrage.

 

[mycelticblessing]

My question is, if Gordeeva/Grinkov win over Dmitriev/Mischtenook was not controversial, why was the win for Berezhanaya/.Sikarulidze? I say shame on the North American media and Scott Hamilton.

Both G/G and D/M were Russian, so only D/M fans would be unhappy with the decision. B/S and S/P were from different countries. Plus 2002 Olympics was in the US, where S/P would likely have a much larger fan base than B/S, hence more fans making noise about it. The North American media blowing up the issue really didn't help either. What did Scott Hamilton do? Whine about it on TV?

 

[escaflowne9282]

Ok i'm dragging way back into memory now but didn't Jean Senft from Canada get into more trouble when she tape recorded the attempt by Yuri Balkov to rig the Nagano dance event then Balkov himself recieved?
Ant

My understanding of the Nagano dance situation was as follows: Yuri Balkov approached judge Jean Senft to arange a deal that would have the dance podium in Nagano be as follows 1.Rus 2.Rus.3.Can(!!!) which she was pretty complacent with.
B&K showed up to Nagano and wound up fifth in their second CD ( where it was argued that they hadn't done the correct pattern in certain sections) and finished fourth in the OD with a watered down dance filled with progressive steps and stroking, that was only a shell of what they had used to get on the podium at the fully attended GPF that season. So entering the FD, B&K ,based on factored placements, had to finish no lower than second in order to get on the podium. First was unanimously to G&P ,with K&O ,B&K, and A&P finishing second third and fourth respectively in the FD. Looking at the ordinals however, judge Jean Senft had put B&K second in the FD, and was the only judge to do so (all of the other judges on that panel had them third or fourth). She also put A&P in fifth and was the only judge to do that as well. Because her results were so out of line with the rest of the panel and because these corresponding ordinals would have had B&K on the podium, she was cited for National bias by the ISU.

It was then that she "came forward" with the tape of her and Balkov negotiating a deal(the negotiated results of which, she had voted) . My understanding was that the ISU suspended both of them for two years, but it was Skate Canada that hung her out to dry and told her to stop whining. Meanwhile, the Ukranian Federation was more than happy to use Balkov again.

Funnily enough, Yuri Balkov was on the SLC dance panel, and he voted in favor of B&K getting the bronze despite the fact that both partners fell in the FD and thus recieved a bigger deduction than FP&M. It would appear that , if anything, he liked B&K and was working in their favor. I guess this is why I never understood the constant Wewuzscrewed argument by so many concerning B&K in Nagano.

 

[Buttercup]

And I am fairly sure that what prompted Sally Stapleford and Ron Pfenning to give their support to the WSF was because both lost their important positions in the ISU in the Congress meeting that followed the SLC scandal. Britta Lindgren also lost her position in the ISU at the same congress.

According to the ISU press release, Pfenning was re-elected to the technical committee at that congress (June 02), and another of the WSF group (McKnight) was chosen for the appeals council. I have read that Stapleford lost her-reelection bid by a slim margin. I can't speak as to the motivation of the WSF people, but they are still accountable for their decision to start a new federation. Since going through old ISU press releases is not my idea of fun, I'd rather stop at this, if you don't mind .

OK, this is completely off the wall, but if someone named Walburga Grimm confronted me in a drak alley, I'd panic, too.

Me too.

 

[blue dog]

OK, this is completely off the wall, but if someone named Walburga Grimm confronted me in a drak alley, I'd panic, too.

LoL Buttercup and Mathman-- Frau Grimm was somewhere around 80 years old at the time of the 2002 Olympics, so she hardly could've done anything to harm you!