There may never have been better performances by the top two pairs in an Olympic figure skating competition. It was one of those moments when one could almost take pity on the usual villains of the piece in figure skating, the judges.
The 5-4 decision Monday night that made Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze the 11th straight Russian couple to win Olympic gold was sure to cause controversy, but it was an accurate reflection of the difficulty in choosing between them and silver medalists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada.
As the winners’ coach, Tamara Moskvina, once said, using an old Russian proverb to illustrate differences in taste: “Some like the preacher, some like the preacher’s wife and some like the preacher’s daughter.”
Did one 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?
Because the judges don’t speak to the media, there would be no way to know. The North American crowd spoke with dismayed groans and lusty boos as the scores were announced.
Sale, stunned by the result, was still in tears just before she went out for the medal ceremony. Pelletier, smiling, helped her compose herself.
The Chinese pair, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, won the bronze, the first Olympic pairs medal for their country.
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 Republic have won every pairs gold medal since 1964.
Moskvina also coaches U.S. champions Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman, who finished fifth with a performance that got deafening applause from the Salt Lake Ice Center crowd. It was so loud Ina worried about losing her place in the 4-minute-30-second program.
“When you’re young, you always want to go to a competition and win,” Zimmerman said. “Then you mature and realize the satisfaction has to come from within. What we did out there was a gold-medal performance for us.”
Their only mistake came when Ina had to put a hand on the ice to steady her landing on a double-axel jump. While some of their lifts and footwork lacked the difficulty of those who finished ahead of them, Ina and Zimmerman had the satisfaction of knowing this was a memorable performance. They lost fourth place by a 5-4 margin.
“I’m not saying we’re going to retire, but if I walk away tomorrow, I could say I walked away at the top of my career,” said Ina, who finished fourth in the 1998 Olympics with Jason Dungjen. “As our performances get better, it’s so much harder to say, `How are we going to get better the next time?”‘
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 had to steady himself with his hands.
Bereznaia, 24, had nearly died in January 1996, when her previous partner, Oleg Shliakov, caught her in the head with his skate blade as they practiced side-by-side spins. The toe pick of the skate penetrated her skull, damaging motor and speech areas in the brain.
When she recovered, Bereznaia began skating with Sikharulidze, 25. In the 1998 Olympics, they finished second to Moskvina’s team of Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev. Moskvina said Bereznaia and Sikharulidze are better in several areas than her past champions.
“They have better lines, are better romantically, have stronger speed and better elements,” she said. “You can admire their body line without them ever skating.”
