About the role of Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezik -- they are hired to give their opinions on TV. They did. So what? It's up to the ISU not to foul it's own nest, never mind what over-enthusiastic and perhaps silly television announcers say.
Scott and Sandra were hired to educate and inform the viewers, and analyze the competition as a whole, not publicly become cheerleaders for one pair over the next ,while also making outlandish statements. It would be one thing if they had disagreed, and pointed out what they felt S&P did better and explained which judging points they did not agree upon with the panel. The problem is they just kept getting more and more histrionic; first, they were prejudging the competition(if they just skate clean..., throw triple loop... etc). After the competition, they started going on and on about S&P's "magic", then implying that all of the Russian pairs in history had won unfairly. Then Bezic began surmising that B&S must feel so guilty for getting a medal that was not deserved. Then ,Scott described how tepid the audience was to them.Then ,Bezic's "I'm embarassed for our sport" proclaimation came about as B&S were taking their bows.Finally, when audience is asked to rise for the medal ceremony,you can hear Sandra Bezic shout "No!".
I don't think I've ever seen any commentators treat skaters so disrespectfully before and IMHO , that goes beyond simply giving an opinion.That was not commentary, that was a temper tantrum and they should rightfully be taken to task for it regardless as to if one judge(or even all nine judges) admitted to being pressured a day later.
I think it was a matter of the old 'skate clean' should win. Same rationale for Lipinsky. She skated clean.
No one has ever said that S/P were a better Pairs team than B/S. It had to do with the standard 'clean skate', and that's what S/P did THAT night.
But Joe...M&D were clean that night in 1994 and it was G&G who made errors. Katia Gordeeva said in "My Sergei", that M&D got slightly more applause at the medal ceremony and that it bothered her.
Kwan and Lipinski were both clean in 1998, and while Lipinski may have been more "on fire" that night, there were still 3 judges who preferred Kwan, which means there was still some room for disagreement. I guess I'm just not convinced there ever was a "must skate clean" standard.
As to SLC, I would have given S&P the technical mark, and B&S the edge on presentation( I agreed most with the Chinese judge).I never had a strong opinion at the time as to who should have won, but it got a bit tiring to see all the hysteria and it made me dislike S&P for quite a while(though I've warmed to them and have started to like them since '06).
The men's event really should not have been close at all. Urmanov did have a poor flip but was otherwise clean for the standard of that time; but Stojko also popped an Axel and had pretty poor spin positions and lots of two foot skating. I think Scott Hamilton just never liked Urmanov and his opinion affected his commentary and US perception.
I absolutely agree with this. Urmanov's style was a bit...eccentric and esoteric ,but his posture, lines, extensions, edging et al. were head and shoulders above Stoijko's,. Stoijko didn't do the first triple axel and replaced his quad with a second axel which thus lost him his technical advantage. I hated Urmanov's long program in 1994 (although I liked him in general), but he was the only one who really had all the goods, and didn't have a disastrous SP.
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There are links to other related stories and columns on that page - some are pretty interesting to read six years later.
Mr. Cinquanta must have bit his tongue on that last part!
