I've been a huge figure skating fan from when I was a child. I remember watching Dorothy Hamill skating to win gold in Innsbruck. I've seen lots of my favorites *not* win gold over the years. Of course, in the days of compulsory figures, that happened more often than I would have liked! But that was also part of the excitement and the fun! I never knew how it was going to turn out until the final skate ended. I still watched and enjoyed the sport. I was not one to believe in big judging conspiracies - but the judging controversy in 2002 changed that.
It's one thing to think the judges are nuts, blind, or inept. It's another to be convinced that the judges are corrupt and making placement decisions in advance of the competition. Coupled with what happened in Nagano in 1998 (with Yuri Balkov - the Ukranian judge at this Olympics), it made me think the corruption was endemic to the sport. After listening to the denials and rationalizations of the officials in charge of the ISU, it became harder for me to believe that they were not involved in the cover-up of these events - especially when there ended up being no investigations into the accusations lobbed at the ISU leadership. Of course, these judging decisions were not made for the betterment of the sport but for the advancement and (probably financial) betterment of the parties involved. I stopped watching figure skating after those Olympics. It lost the "spark" for me after that competition. I found the CoS to be unwieldy and deliberately abstruse for the layperson. I did stop in for the occasional competition (for the fun of it), but I was no longer what I would call a "fan" of the sport. I suspected that the changes made to the judging system were cosmetic. I wondered if the anonymity was put in place to hide any judging inconstancies, rather than try and keep people from influencing the judging. The fact that the people involved in the judging scandal got slaps on the wrists while some of the whistleblowers ended up with lifetime bans should have been enough to convince me the sport is still corrupt.
But I got sucked into this Olympics. I watched every competition from the team event forward. I was not emotionally invested in any of the competitors. Like I said, I haven't even closely followed the sport in over a decade. But I did have fun for a while. I was disappointed that the men didn't deliver in their free skates. I was excited watching the pairs push the limits of their sport! I loved watching ice dancing - I still find looking for the subtle mistakes that can cost so many points incredibly challenging! And I enjoyed the Ladies' free skate. I loved watching Mao Asada's personal redemption in the free skate - that, to me, was a highlight of the show! I totally felt the top three ladies were the correct three to put on top. I truly enjoyed Sotnikova's skate. It was electric. It was exuberant. But there was a lot wrong with it. While I loved watching her skate well, I couldn't (and still can't) understand how some of her scores were as high as they were. That graph that vtgal added was pretty telling. There was a great article on thewire dot com entitled "Why People Think Adelina Sotnikova's Figure Skating Gold Medal Was Rigged." It went into a lot of detail about the scores and the choreography and had some revealing charts about the judges scores. I'd post a link, but the last time I tried, I got banned, so I won't be doing that again!
Based on what I have been reading, and the people involved, I think the top level corruption still exists within the ISU (and most likely, at the USFSA.) As far as I'm concerned, adding to the viewership adds to the money, and the money ends up in the pockets of those corrupt officials. If another group manages to crawl out from under the thumb of the ISU & the USFSA, then maybe I'll come back to figure skating. But these groups are bloated, corrupt dinosaurs that will only become extinct if people stop watching the competitions associated with them. I wish there were more outlets for me to watch figure skating, but this sport is a monopoly controlled by an organization that will ensure no other group can maintain a foothold to compete with them. (Google "Ron Pfenning" if you want more information about that.) "Stars on Ice" is scheduled to come through my city this spring. I figure a couple of tickets for that show is within my budget! Outside of that, I think I'll go back to watching youtube videos of skaters I really enjoy and skipping the competitions.
Sorry my first post is such a bummer.
hwell: My first attempted post wasn't quite as "wah-waaaah," but I just have to call it how I see it and make my decisions based on
my comfort zone. That said, I don't think less of anyone with a different opinion of me. My opinion came about after *years* of following the changes in the ISU and
my interpretation of what I saw. YMMV.
