There may never have been better performances by the top two pairs in an Olympic figure skating competition. It was a moment when one could almost pity the usual villains of the piece in figure skating, the judges.
The 5-4 decision in Monday night’s free skate that made Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze the 11th straight Russian couple to win Olympic gold was sure to cause debate. But it was an accurate reflection of the difficulty in choosing between them and the silver medalists, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada.
The judges were immediately vilified, especially by NBC’s commentators, Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton. Former Canadian pairs skater Bezic expressed outrage and 1984 Olympic champion Hamilton of the U.S. choked back tears.
The Chinese pair, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, won bronze, the first Olympic pairs medal for their country. U.S. champions Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman wound up fifth with an excellent performance before the sellout crowd in the Salt Lake Ice Center.
Pelletier, a model of sportsmanship despite his dismay over losing, publicly shrugged off the result as part of being in such a subjective sport. He refused to discredit the Russians’ victory.
“What I can’t control, I can’t control,” he said. “If I didn’t want this to happen, I would have gone down a hill on skis. I don’t want to rain on anyone else’s parade.”
The Russians’ coach, Tamara Moskvina, dismissed the controversy by saying “the result is announced and published.” But Moskvina knew how the Canadians must have felt. One of her previous teams had skated flawlessly at the 1994 Olympics but lost to Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov, who made a couple of small mistakes.
Conspiracy theorists were noting the French judge’s vote for the Russians as a potential part of a deal in which a Russian judge will help the French team win the dance next week. That speculation is not entirely groundless in a sport where such agreements have been all too common.
Because the judges don’t speak to the media, there would be no explanations for their decision. The North American crowd spoke with dismayed groans and lusty boos as the scores were announced.
Did the judges prefer the seamless flow and understated elegance of the Russians as they interpreted the “Meditation of Thais” by Jules Massenet? Or the Canadians’ more emotional rendering of the score from the movie “Love Story?”
Were some judges penalizing the Canadians slightly for reviving a 3-year-old program? Or was a predilection for the classical over the schmaltzy the determining factor?
Sikharulidze’s flawed landing on one jump, the only mistake either of the top two made, was reflected in the Canadians getting better technical marks from six of the judges. That was reversed in the decisive presentation marks.
“It comes down to preference of style,” said Jirina Ribbens, a skating expert. “The Canadians skated brilliantly, but the Russians’ program is more difficult. They are consistently using their edges, and every connecting move weaves into the next. He puts her in intricate positions the whole way through.”
Not only was there drama during the competition, there was also some in the final 30 seconds of the warmup for the medal contenders. As the Russians prepared to practice a throw jump, Sale ran into Sikharulidze. She was knocked hard into the ice, and he needed to steady himself with his hands.
It was the fourth gold medal in the last six Olympics for a Moskvina-trained pair. Russians representing the Soviet Union, the Unified Team and now the Russian Federation have won every pairs gold medal since 1964.
Moskvina also coaches Ina and John Zimmerman, whose performance in the 4-minute-30-second free skate received deafening applause.
“What we did out there was a gold-medal performance for us,” Zimmerman said.
