First of all, I don't think it's right to throw everybody from a certain ethnicity or nationality into some negative stereotype.
Agreed!
Also, the only time I remember anyone saying there was a conspiracy when the Russians won was when there was a conspiracy. Back in the golden era of the late 90's, the Russians dominated and were clearly better than just about everyone else in pairs, men's and dance. The commentators may have wished that Todd Eldredge or Michael Weiss were as good as Alexei Yagudin or Evgeny Plushenko, but I don't remember anyone suggesting that a fix was in. Dick loved Irina Slutskaya and her pink cheeks, though probably not as much as he loved Michelle.
Oh, I remember plenty of examples, some overt and some by insinuation (e.g., choosing to focus commentary on the Russian skaters' weaknesses and the the American skaters' strengths, but not vice versa).
And I have no doubt that Russian commentators did the reverse.
Or East Germans, if you go back to the 1970s and 80s. The trope was already familiar by the 1990s, so if American commentators simply expressed honest doubt about a result that didn't favor the American skaters, audiences and non-skating media were often quick to jump to conclusions of fixes that the commentators may not have even meant to imply.
Here's the problem: what's valued under this system is not visible to the television viewer. I can see when someone falls. I can't see if someone is a little underrotated, or if they have a deep edge or not. Two legged footwork looks almost as nice as one legged footwork. And even if I can see the ur's or edge calls--sometimes you can, depending ont the camera angle--it doesn't affect the overall look of the program.
So there are two general approaches to commentary.
1) Focus primarily on the overall look of the program. Praise skaters who are appealing in their body line, musicality, emotion, energy, charisma, ability to consistently avoid major mistakes, etc., and express disappointment over performances that are less successful artistically. Encourage viewers to evaluate the performances on the basis of artistry and entertainment value and make little reference to sporting accomplishment except to note the difficulty and success (or lack thereof) of the jumps.
2) Focus primarily on the technical details of the program. Point out several areas that each top skater does well and also areas where they may lose points. Encourage viewers to appreciate the qualities that are most valued by skating purists and by the rules, and to develop an eye to see finer details for themselves.
I think the best commentary would be a balance of both approaches. Of course, too much talking during the program takes away from hearing the music and enjoying the program. I'd also be happy if the commentators would say as little as possible during the program and took notes to point out important details with instant replay while waiting for the scores.
A sport that appeals only to those who have to "get educated" because it's so complex is not a sport with much populist appeal, which means it won't get a lot of airtime or press. I know it's more popular in other countries, that's wonderful. It will live on. But in a few years it will probably only be seen to subscribers of ice network in the biggest market in the world.
I don't think the sport should compromise its own values just to appeal to American mass audiences. Skating will never be as mainstream in the US as baseball or basketball, because most viewers don't have the opportunity to try figure skating themselves. (Either there's no ice nearby, or it's too time consuming and expensive to put in the training necessary to progress from basic skating to actual figure skating.)
So it may be that the sports-oriented coverage will all be online or on sports cable networks, and there will be only a few broadcasts a year of Nationals and Worlds (and Olympics) on mainstream networks geared toward casual audiences. That's about how things were before the skating boom of the 1990s, only now there's online coverage to satisfy the serious fans.
However, it would be possible for broadcasts to make beginning skating lessons and beyond sound appealing to viewers, and it would be possible for broadcasts to help viewers learn to see for themselves more of what the judges are looking for.
By my cake slicing analogy mentioned in my previous post, each half of the cake has similar layers (vanilla, chocolate, and almond). Speed, for instance, is one of the layers and used across-the-board in my proposal as one of the criterion (or bullets) to assess the quality of each element. By element, I mean the standard elements (i.e., jumps, spins, footwork sections, and my proposed field moves sections) plus transition (defined as anything in between standard elements). There will be a GOE for transition and of course speed will be one of the considerations. So the “overall speed” has been accounted for once by slicing it into sections (speed in jumps, in transition, etc.). It will be redundant to have a “skating skills” category to count it again.
I'm still not sure whether you're proposing a major change to the scoring system or just a cosmetic change in the way the existing scores are reported to audiences.
I'd love to brainstorm how it might work if you want to get specific.
