SALT LAKE CITY – The referee of the pairs figure skating Monday, Ron Pfenning, thinks something fishy went down. So Ottavio Cinquanta, the president of the International Skating Union, went right to the fish’s mouth.
“I have an allegation and a denial,” said Cinquanta. By Monday’s meeting of the ISU, he also will have an official appeal and call for an independent inquiry from the Canadians on behalf of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, filed in the apparent belief the French judge bowed to pressure for a good score Monday night in exchange for the promise of the Russians returning one to a French pair in the ice dancing.
“You can be assured if we find something improper, the punishment will be very tough,” said Cinquanta. But seeing as the 11 members of his council don’t assemble until after two stages of ice dancing, any inquiry won’t take place in time to be reassuring the competition is on the up and up.
“The [judges] have been given the [Olympic] oath,” said Peter Tchernyshev, one of the U.S. dancers. “I am confident they will do the right thing.”
He didn’t attend Cinquanta’s press conference. Probably, it is better that way. The moving lips were not reassuring the sport has had its epiphany.
“We are on the eve of a possible review of the judging system to limit the possibilities of misunderstanding,” Cinquanta said, which sounded like a good thing until he was asked about eliminating the practice of a judge coming from the same nation as a competitor.
“It’s like saying these judges are cheating,” he said.
Well, that is what people are saying and for the good of the sport, the idea is to get them to say it less. If Americans don’t judge Americans in fencing, perhaps Russians shouldn’t judge Russians in ice skating, a logical point the guy who runs it failed to grasp, not exactly confidence-restoring.
Still, that solution is not as simple as it sounds. There are only about 13 nations that skate at a level that can produce the nine credible judges needed at a competition. There also is a bias safeguard already in place. A judge who votes a countryman two or more places above the consensus of the other eight must submit a letter of explanation to the referee.
We don’t see the letters and what passes for acceptable explanations. We do know that many of the active judges were also accused of cutting Sonja Henie every break, so a mandatory retirement age is a good idea. The ISU might consider doubling the eyes for the pairs, since it is impossible to study both skaters well. It also should make judges available to the media after competitions so that they can explain themselves.
Cinquanta insists he favors this, but said the same thing in Nagano and here we are four years later with a Ukrainian judge suspended for improprieties in Japan having been restored for these competitions. “The suspension was served,” shrugged Cinquanta, a reminder that accepting a mandate for changes and making sound ones are two different things.
All this said, I’m requiting myself from the jury. Just because the Russian pair made one obvious mistake to the Canadian pair’s none, doesn’t mean Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze didn’t jump higher, throw farther and have the more demanding program, if what appeared to be the less expressive and graceful one. Although in the minority, there are skating experts, none of them from Canada, who felt it honestly was as close as the 5-4 decision reflected.
Now of course when the American referee thinks the Russians won for funny reasons, the result can’t be shrugged off to subjectivity. We just hope there really is a smoking gun somewhere or all this is just blown smoke.
If any inquiry is just for the sake of appearance, it only mirrors the object of the whole sport: Making an impression. No matter how ice skating changes before 2006, the problems inherent in its very nature will not.