04/25/24
February 18, 2002
French Judge Insists Russians Deserved Gold.: Back home in France, Marie-Reine Le Gougne insisted that she had voted for the Russian couple in good faith. Although the ISU ruled that Le Gougne had been pressured to vote for the Russian pair, Le Gougne explained that she had been pressured for months to vote for the Canadian couple and claimed she was threatened after the Olympic competition and forced to admit she had acted under instructions from the French figure skating federation. Le Gougne said that Sally-Ann Stapleton, head of the ISU technical committee and other ISU members had put pressure on her to force her to admit she had misjudged. Le Gougne may retire to her small farm where she raises and trains crawdads.
posted by Mack Twain to football at 10:03 AM - 4 comments
another thing... this is listed under Football. A user mistake or a bug?
posted by gyc at 11:06 AM on February 18, 2002
Looks like Football is the default category and probably just user error. I rewatched the Russian performance last night as well as the Canadian one and the Russian one was absolutely gorgeous, even with the technical missteps. Are all their figure skaters classically trained in ballet along with the skating? Is that a common understood requirement of effective figure skating? It certainly showed in their fluid movements.
posted by evixir at 05:24 PM on February 18, 2002
The Russians are certainly trained in ballet, and historically there has been a greater emphasis on balletic moves in the Russian/Soviet program than in other countries. I know that other countries' skaters also take classes in ballet, but more than likely not to the extent of the Russians. Which certainly does show in their fluid movements and has definitely contributed to their historic success in pairs skating and in ice dance. That said, it's certainly not the only approach to either discipline (IMO), but things change very slowly in figure skating. As I'm sure most people realize these days. <g> What I'm wondering is this: what on earth you can train a crawdad to do? And will it be an Olympic sport in 2006?
posted by eilatan at 11:02 PM on February 18, 2002
hmmm... so either way it seems the ISU did do the right thing in throwing out the scores of someone who obviously shouldn't have been in the position of awarding gold medals, regardless of knowing what actually happened.