Winter Olympics No Video Thread

[disneyseniors]

The most noticeable scoring controversies involved Canadians to be honest. Americans won medals regularly and golds at that. Against Russians. Canadians were blocked from podiums because of the old horse trading that use to happen. I remember watching the ice dance at Salt Lake and seeing the Canadian pair skate an amazing free dance, until the very end when the final movement had a problem. Commentator just went, and there is the excuse to keep them off the podium. It was always hilarious that Canadians medaled and won championships at Worlds and Grand Prix final only to skate the same at the Olympics and not medal.

As for judging now. Most of the biggest controversies have been in the park events of skiing and snowboarding. People connected with the X Games being completely dumbfounded by some of the results at every Olympics since park events were added.

I don't remember the Canadian controversies, I guess. I was too focused on the outright cheating by the Russian judges on the American teams. Very frustrating to watch. They even looked mean. There was a lot of controversy back then it seems. I am so glad that favoritism is not rampant like it was way back then.

 

[soccerdad72]

US Curling!!

 

[DrMont]

I don't remember the Canadian controversies, I guess. I was too focused on the outright cheating by the Russian judges on the American teams. Very frustrating to watch. They even looked mean. There was a lot of controversy back then it seems. I am so glad that favoritism is not rampant like it was way back then.

I am afraid it still is rampant, the public just doesn't see it. But that is always the case with any event that has 'judges' grading performance.

 

[Lesverts]

I am afraid it still is rampant, the public just doesn't see it. But that is always the case with any event that has 'judges' grading performance.

There hasn't been a major controversy in figure skating scoring since 2014. Most of the controversy now is traditionalists complaining that there is no artistry left. Especially in the men's that have just become how many jumps can he cram into a program and pairs with how many big throws and jumps can we put into the program.

 

[DCLMP]

You must not have watched 25 years ago or so. The Russian judges Always gave very low scores to American skaters even though the other countries gave them High scores. It was very noticeable. That was when you saw the judges give their individual scores after every event. It was so obvious that they would not give Americans any recognition at all. It soured me on watching the olympics for a while. It seems so much more fair now and I'm glad of that because skating is my favorite Olympic sport. Things are much better now with fair scoring.

Back then figure skating was very subjective from the local level to the international level. It was not just a Russian thing. All countries tended to score their skaters higher. It's good they went to a different system.

 

[RedAngie]

I remember in 2002 the Canadian pair skaters gave arguably the best performance but received suspiciously low scores from one or more judges. An investigation showed that the Russian and French judges colluded to have the athletes from their countries win different events. i.e. “Hey French judge, score the Canadians low and let us Russians win the pairs, then we’ll score your competition low in ice dancing where France will win.”

The Canadian pair were belated awarded a shared gold instead of the silver.

And I think the judges involved were either suspended or banned.

And the skating world dumped the very subjective 6.0 scoring system.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

It's Doubles luge time!!! Practice runs.

 

[prairie_girl]

Looking forward to hockey!

Have the US women not played a game yet? Canada has played two so I guess I assumed everyone had started.

ETA- sorry for assuming you’re American if you’re not.

 

[soccerdad72]

Have the US women not played a game yet? Canada has played two so I guess I assumed everyone had started.

ETA- sorry for assuming you’re American if you’re not.

They’ve played three games (3-0).

The poster might be referring to the men’s tournament

 

[prairie_girl]

They’ve played three games (3-0).

The poster might be referring to the men’s tournament

I know. I’m just subtly pointing out that there’s women’s hockey too

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

It's 90s night in ice dancing, and everyone chooses junk. But our couple chooses Lenny Kravitz. Give them the Gold right now just for that.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Looks like Vonn injured her left leg (the one that had the acl tear) in a complex tibia fracture which sounds incredibly painful. I am not surprised it was her left leg either, with her acl tear it would make it more susceptible one would think to a subsequent injury and the tear could have compromised her overall stability.