Thank you, Marjaana. As I said before, I *never* introduce this subject. I only post to provide the *facts* that Carroll/Fratianne ignore and that readers would otherwise be ignorant of from the unresearched, one-sided articles, as well as an alternate but frequently held opinion that the results were fair. If I (or someone else--sometimes others post corrections before I do, though not this time) don't provide the actual background, readers of the articles who didn't see Lake Placid and happen to be online would be completely unaware from the journalistically sloppy and unbalanced articles that there *is* a completely different side to the story, an ignorance that most offline readers will blissfully maintain, sadly. I happen to believe in fairness and accuracy in reporting, and I would hope that most people here do as well. If Carroll and Fratianne would drop the subject, no one would be more thrilled than I. I believe that if Anett had been American or Linda had been European these stories would never have appeared, and 1980 would merely have been described as a moderately close competition and disappointing loss for Linda. To date, I have not been criticized for getting facts wrong, as Carroll and Fratianne have, only for publicly posting on the topic to set the record straight. Corrections would be one thing, but attempted suppression of only one side of a story is another ball game. Those sick of the topic should direct their complaints to Carroll and Fratianne.
As far as the '80 Olympic results were concerned, aside from Denise Biellmann I found the women's competition extremely forgettable, though fair, and had Carroll and Fratianne not started their "we wuz robbed" media campaign I truly wouldn't have given those three medallists any further thought after 1980. In the late '90s, I had to do a fair amount of research from old skating magazines and newspaper coverage and video in 1980 to uncover the details of the competitions, though I did remember far more of the men's competition, which IMHO had more memorable performances overall. There are a number of other competitions that come up on a regular basis and elicit the same sorts of arguments each time, which I usually skip, as some people on this thread probably ought to do with 1980, but the difference between 1980 and, say, Nancy/Oksana or the Battle of the Brians or Tara/Michelle is that those are essentially those endless subjective-sport personal opinion & values debates, while Carroll & Fratianne are making criminal charges and lying about the facts. Definitely not comparable situations. If Carroll had claimed that Richard Callaghan had bribed the judges for Tara's win in '98, for instance, I'm sure that would take any Tara/Michelle threads in entirely different directions, as happens with 1980 for that reason.
It's not like I passionately hated Linda for decades, I had pretty much forgotten about her in less than three months after Lake Placid, and I truly do feel sorry for her at this point, because I think that she's been seriously messed up psychologically by her family and coach.
Valuvsmk, FYI the opinions I express are entirely my own, not Robin's. I try to make that clear. I've never asked him about the 1980 results, and he seems to like Linda personally. And berthes ghost, your opinions on the 1980 World Pros are as valid as anyone else's, but I can't resist pointing out that someone at NBC disagreed with you, as I was quite astonished that when NBC did their 1980 World Pros repeat at the end of '81 they showed both performances of only one skater--Robin Cousins, not one of the US women, which I would have expected with Dorothy, Peggy, and even Tai & Randy available for double coverage.
On a different tangent, I think some of my earlier Disney post was misinterpreted. Some skaters, like Rosalynn Sumners, have been utterly miserable in Disney on Ice, but there are other skaters who genuinely enjoy skating in shows like that. Linda stayed with Disney for at least 5 or 6 years, if not more, and she met her husband in the show and probably formed friendships there. She could have left for Ice Capades or other options several times, I'm sure, as that sort of pro contract seems to have been a fairly standard couple of years. Skaters have different tastes and personalities, and there are pro performers like Richard Dwyer who were apparently perfectly happy to spend around 40 years doing essentially the same number in the same show, for example. I don't recall Linda bashing her Disney years the way Roz has in interviews. Linda hated her silver medal, but I'm not so sure that she hated Disney the way Roz did. There are quite a lot of skaters in these tours who have stayed in them for many years, if you read their bios. They aren't all miserable, believe it or not.
Lois
