- Joined
- Mar 22, 2004
OwenEvans said:I've always for Tiffany Chin in Sarajevo. Something like 14th in the figures, fantastic short and great long (where her only mistake IIRC was stepping out of her 3F) to end up fourth. Just a travesty, but because of (IMO) dodgy judging of figures, results often were. I've always thought it interesting that at Tokyo WC just a year later, after Roz and Elaine had retired and she was the reigning US champ, the judges thought her figures "improved" so much she was (I think) 3rd going into the SP.....
Yeah, the figures results from Sarajevo make very little sense, Witt in third? Zayak in 12 or so? I like the idea of figures (I thought they should have separate free skating, figures and a combined competition) but it was a very obvious place for cheating judges to do their thing since they usually weren't taped and the figures themselves disappeared. IIRC Peggy Fleming was skeptical of Witt's third place figures in Calgary saying that Witt's figures _seemed_ to have improved and then noting how slow she was skating them and how her loops were too small.
As for the SP in Sarajevo, it looks to me (courtesy of youtube) that Elaine Zayak got totally rooked (6th place). No way on earth was her SP worse than Kira Ivanova (3rd!) or Sumners (5th) (with foot done on the double axel and big bobble on a camel spin though I think in terms of choreography it was the best SP there and except for those two mistakes she was awesome)
My theory is that judges were really pushing the three Russian ladies and two American women got screwed.