Wednesday, February 19, 2014

You can still smell it from here/roller coaster derailed

The sport has always been political, but in elevating D/W to the top the way it did, it took the only pure thing the sport had going for it - the actual skating - and bastardized it. In the past, some skaters/teams certainly won on account of political wrangling, but NEVER were attempts made to redefine or obliterate the definitions of every aspect of the skating in order to justify the elevation of one skater/team over another. Until now. Comments section, February 19, 9:08 p.m.
  *****
It's more athletically demanding to be artistic and to have the proper components. We've packed that program full of technically hard elements with extremely demanding transitions....

You have to be more of an athlete to be able to execute that.

I still love this free dance. It is a really difficult program to perform and the last minute is really demanding and to finish like that it was special.

Scott Moir.
The bolded sentences in both quotes, especially.

Listening to Virtue and Moir's press conference, it almost seems as if everybody thinks they're being daring by discussing the actual skating. But not too much. Even while emphasizing the difficulty of being "artistic" and having proper components, making it implicit that this is what their competition does NOT do, Scott shrunk from being explicit. Must not discuss the skating of their opponents. Where else does this happen in freaking SPORT? Where you have to act like it's a pageant - or at least the Canadian side does. The U.S. side can have it both ways.

Also, that's some very emphatic stuff from Scott. How come in the reality show we had to hear how subpar, underperforming, uncertain and up against it they were? Wouldn't it have been helpful if, in the reality show, the fact that it was more athletically demanding to be artistic and do the proper components had been emphasized so this fact would reach a wider audience? They just spent episode after episode acting like they sucked, didn't trust themselves, had no faith in themselves, and were worried about beating freaking Weaver & Poje. Throughout their reality show we heard NONE of this (well, the Marina stuff, not the stuff about how strong they knew their programs were, and that they fully understood what it demonstrated about their athleticism and their skating skills, and why it then deserved to be rewarded. It was a CANADIAN FREAKING NETWORK, but no. We had to hear that they thought they were BAD and DW were perfect.)

The Marina stuff feels like reality show to me. She can't split herself in two. She had three teams, two of them American. That appears to me to have been the deciding factor in the opening ceremonies. It also is contradictory to say "Needs to bring her A game" in one breath and the next say she pours her heart into your choreography, every note in the free is handcrafted, and you still love it.

THEN WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

It was unbelieveable to me, however, the yay Skate Canada. On its face, in public, Skate Canada has enabled the selling out of Virtue and Moir to Davis & White. I say don't crawl into their heads with Marina, so I won't crawl into their heads with Skate Canada and assume they don't know what's going on, but their Federation has done them no favors, and their Federation is not a neutral, let the chips fall where they may entity. The Federation is supposed to advocate for them, and only them. Not the Americans. It didn't.





Can any ice dancers even pretend to believe their protocols after this? Look at the pcs up there (and review the KP calls in the short). It's fiction.

Although we've known this was coming pretty much since last season, and particularly after the Letter of Inquiry following the interruption in Carmen, and we knew definitively after the Grand Prix Final that there was nothing Scott and Tessa could do, or DW NOT do, to win, this thing still leaves a stench that's not going away.

What this sport did was spit on itself. It made a DECISION to do so. It's more than awarding a dumbed down, tricked out, politically enabled dance team. In order to do that the sport had to turn around and intentionally repress every single standard of the sport, everything it tells the world ice dance ought to be, everything it has said figure skating is meant to be, down to what is stroking, what are edges, what is speed, what is rhythm  - down to every fundamental, this sport repressed the team that fulfills/executes the defined standards of this sport better than anybody before and likely, better than anybody since, in order to reward a team that faked it. It's not just that DW were given a gold medal (they certainly did not win it). It's what the sport did to itself - pretty much shat itself - sorry - to get it done.

Some people complain about - isn't there going to be an investigation?

This was happening in plain sight for almost two years. Not just the elevation of Davis White, but the suppression of Virtue Moir. Everybody saw it coming. If anybody was interested in investigating/stopping, they'd have done it a long time ago.

But as soon as Skate Canada gave the green light, why would anybody bother? Skate Canada left the doors unlocked, the lights on and the safe open.

It looks to me as if Virtue and Moir had resolved to be at peace with the results, but it's turning out to be a little more of a task than they expected.

As usual, everybody is focusing on coaching (and Virtue and Moir re-affirmed their faith in Marina after going overly-reality show in post-competition remarks), and not focusing on Federations.

One timeline as I remember it is Marina mentioned in a Vancouver-era interview that the USFSA gave her the third degree about Phantom - wanting to know why Virtue Moir got Mahler and Davis White got seemingly overused, second hand goods.

In 2011-2012, the USFSA kicked Le Strada to the curb and Marina had to set the program to new music with different timing. The USFSA knew what it was doing with Davis White. The USFSA knew what it was aiming to pull off with Davis White.

Meantime, in 2009-2010, Skate Canada assured us that the judging was going to be pristine in Vancouver.

In 2010-2011 Skate Canada proactively pushed Scott and Tessa's lies at us.

And after that, VM were somehow dumped.

Tessa and Scott have never played ball in the same way Davis White have played ball; this is a very petty, obviously 100% political-is-personal and vice versa sport, and maybe some people thought Virtue and Moir were uppity - even in their own Federation.

In 2011-2012 Skate Canada threw Tessa and Scott under the bus at Canadians (Funny Face), and had nothing to say about Funny Face versus Die Fleudermaus - it was all about promoting Gilles & Poirier.

In 2012-2013 Skate Canada threw Scott and Tessa under the bus at Canadians and then backed it up and ran it over them a few times and played "me too" with the ISU by downgrading a key element, forcing VM to rework it and use another. That's the ISU's game - suddenly Skate Canada was playing.

It had nothing to say when mud was slung at Virtue and Moir after the 4CC's interruption. Nor after the Letter of Inquiry from the ISU.

IOW, Skate Canada said to the ISU and the judges at large - do what you want with them. We won't protest. We'll help when we can.

It let Virtue and Moir swing in the wind.

The USFSA, meantime, to say the LEAST, was busy protecting Davis White, from awarding them monstrously inflated scores at every Nationals to dumping the team (Shibutanis) that had been nipping at their heels in 2011.

Skate Canada had nothing to say after the Grand Prix Final 2014 when the ISU hijacked VM's scores, gave them to Davis White and added a bonus so Davis White could win, even though Virtue and Moir had resoundingly defeated Davis White on the ice.

There's more - the U.S. had no problem whatsoever taking potshots at Virtue and Moir (go back and read ice network), while Skate Canada fell over itself promoting the notion that Davis White versus Virtue Moir was "apples and oranges" or a matter of preference, or too close to call because Davis White were superb.

Skate Canada has no conflict of interest. Skate Canada isn't supposed to promote U.S. skaters. Skate Canada spent as much time promoting Meryl and Charlie as being on par with Virtue Moir as it did promoting Virtue Moir - actually much more time, because it didn't promote Virtue Moir at all.

Did the USFSA show respect in turn, acknowledge Virtue Moir as incredible skaters and dangerous rivals?

Virtue Moir who?

It's fine if people want to spit and hiss at Marina Zoueva, who gave Virtue Moir much better programs than the dumbed down reheated material she gave Davis White every year, but I find it outright bizarre that the one entity that is meant to promote Virtue Moir and ONLY Virtue Moir - did worse nothing. Washed their hands. Touted the American rivals. Didn't utter a peep after Virtue and Moir were ripped off at the Grand Prix Final.

What did Mike Slipchuck say after the Sochi free dance? He sounded like freaking Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: "For those who find the results questionable, those will be questionable results."

But never mind, these things happen. (Paraphrasing)


And that was ONLY after the free dance. He couldn't bring himself to question the seven point differential in the team event. After all, Virtue and Moir made a visible wobble and we all know Davis and White made no mistakes, except they did, as they do every single time.

Thanks Mike. I can't wait to hear the fuming from SC next time RUSSIA does something. Since the L'Equipe article came out, again, it was Canada blaming RUSSIA and running interference for the U.S., because it looks to me as if Skate Canada loves Meryl and Charlie as much as the USFSA does.

Random remarks:

If you want to visualize Virtue and Moir as trying to keep a lid on their anger while steam keeps escaping, we can see that their reality show sales job is starting to fray. Scott mentioned that since the reality show, they're used to "playing for the camera" and that he and Tessa did it on cue after seeing DW's scores. Playing for the camera? What's that Scott?

They always do this. They get in front of the camera and assert that they're the most honest genuine straight up open and transparent duo ever to draw breath, then they stand on the sidelines doing running commentary, helpfully pointing out the bullshit we may have missed. What have they knocked/mocked so far since the free dance? Hall & Oates. Being really real in front of the camera. Scott rooting only for Canadian sports teams.

(For years Scott pretended he roots for no American teams, suddenly he proactively outs himself as a Red Wings fan - a freaking American HOCKEY team. We all knew it, but he'd never admit it. Now he volunteers it.)

Scott also suddenly knows Tessa's favorite television shows, music, etc.

******

It says something about this "sport" that it will engineer a scheme to award Olympic ice dance gold to the US team in the same era the greatest ice dance team of all time is competing, a team that twice in a row destroyed the US team on the ice and still were only allowed to receive the silver medal.

I hope the petty bureaucrats and self-dealing homers that got this done are prepared to deal with the fallout because there will be fallout. The reason this can get done in ice dance is that ice dance is about skating skills, and the once every four years public isn't supposed to be able to tell good skating skills from bad skating skills. Except this time, they did and could and the public knows what happened. We could see the game plan - give DW a track record so nobody would question when they won again, when it really counted.

The problem is a billion people watched the Sochi ice dance competition and didn't give a shit that DW had been beating VM in the past, on the ice in front of their faces they saw a team that was conspicuously, blatantly, clearly, obviously, SKATING much better than the other team, and losing. That same audience can figure that's how DW won in the past.

That's how much better VM are than DW. The whole - create momentum - let's create a scoring pattern/precedent - did nothing to make viewers believe their eyes were lying watching the ice dance event in Sochi.

P.S. The following is my impression:.

This "gold" is a notch on the USFSA bedpost, PERIOD. Davis White aren't as popular as Virtue and Moir, not even in the U.S. One of the biggest fallacies ever, promoted on message boards in particular, is that Davis and White are "crowd pleasing". Davis and White haven't been crowd pleasing since Die Fleudermaus. Prior to that, they were crowd pleasing with Bollywood.

I believe there are as many skating fans in the U.S. pissed off at this result as there are skating fans pissed off in Canada and points overseas and further south.

There's always been a sort of fallacious reverse zero sum with the marketing of Davis White - they may not be sophisticated, so they must be "crowd pleasing."  No. They're not "smooth" so they must be the more athletic. No, what Virtue and Moir do takes more athleticism. They have no control, so they must be fast. No, Virtue and Moir are faster.

It might not seem "fair" that Virtue and Moir are better at every point, but Virtue and Moir ARE better at every point. Leagues better. Scott has faster feet than Charlie and better blade run too.

I read something interesting at fsuniverse - of course nobody took it and ran, but it did make me think a little bit. Somebody said nobody objected to the ascension of Davis and White, even though it was the ascension of fake skating (that's my interjection) until they started beating Virtue and Moir. IOW, somebody should have cried foul when they beat Belbin & Agosto, when they started reliably burying - not just winning, burying - teams on the international circuit. I agree, it should have been called out in its own right, not just vis a vis Virtue Moir. That a non-skating PACKAGE was hustled for two years and then railroaded in Sochi.

We can't call it a "hustle" in Sochi - it was daylight robbery. Nobody got hustled. Everybody had no choice but to stand and watch. But, we all saw it coming and we all watched it happen, knowing what was happening while it was happening, and Skate Canada helped.

And it's another one of those fun skating things - THEY know we know.

___________
P.P.S. I want to reprint this from the comment at 4:29pm in the post below this one.
That V/M "literally did nothing" is both true and untrue. Their skating is pure, but that doesn't mean they haven't benefited from the cancerous system in which they've skated for all these years. They have. The system turned against them. Instead of calling that out and explaining that their sport does that to skaters - it facilitates their victories but can also turn around and fuck them up the ass when it wants to - they let the story revolve around the relationship with their coach. Which isn't to say that isn't part of their story, but so much of success in ice dance depends on the PR narratives that drive it forward. D/W's narrative won out. V/M's narrative was focused on selling lies about their personal life and "letting the skating speak for itself." The first part is bullshit, the second part I agree with. But if you're going to go with the second part, and train with the coach who also happens to train your biggest competition, and then lose because you won't sell out your skating (which is commendable), you can't go throw your coach under the bus and not expect that to play bad in the press. She got on board the "we won't sell out our skating" with them, and then it plays like they sold her out in the aftermath.

and this:

The question of whether changing coaches would have mattered, or if their own coach could have done more for them, etc. - any attempts to lay blame or say "if things had gone differently," or "if they'd done this instead of that," are useless. They miss the reality of what is happening. The entire sport is infected by an aggressive and terminal cancer. All of the "what ifs" or "maybe that's" are like treatments everybody knows deep down won't save the patient's life but will only prolong the suffering.

For the past 48 hours, V/M have looked lost and defeated. They can claim they're resigned to the results and maybe they are, but that doesn't mean they aren't still hurt by them. Thing is, though, they've been part of that system all this time. They've benefited from it in the past. It turned on them.
and 2:12pm, below.

They grew their programs beautifully. They got to GPF and outskated D/W. They still lost. If they or their coach had spoken out then, and claimed a fix was in, would it have mattered? Wouldn't they have been further beaten down for speaking out? They tinkered with their programs in an effort to fix any issues they believed (or were told) they had, and look what it got them: a five point deficit in the overall individual event at the Olympics. It wouldn't have mattered what they did in the end. They were destined to lose no matter what they are or their coaches tried to do. Maybe Marina was right to want them to stick as closely to the original vision of the program as possible. I know that doesn't mesh with the mentalities of fierce competitors, though. So I can understand the frustration V/M probably felt. But they were all up against the fucking wall. They didn't have the political power to overcome it, period. Even if they'd switched coaches, that lack of political power would have remained because V/M aren't American and it was the USFSA's turn to get the gold in ice dance.
Their FEDERATION should have spoken out. Their Federation was too busy proclaiming the system was fair. Skate Canada is complicit in this defeat. It helped lay the groundwork. It participated in DW's getting gold.

A component - no double meaning intended - of the system was toying with, undermining Virtue  Moir season after season. As Beverly Smith said "It's always something." Their own Federation got in on the act twice in a row for the team's biggest showcase before the sport's biggest event. It shat on them before Worlds 2012. And last year it not only lowballed the scores, it gutted an element. The very fucking thing the ISU loved to do to VM.

The game is systematic. Look at that idiot, Lynn Rutherford, linking to an article that said because VM have had a pattern of getting L3 on the Finn Step, the call of L3 on the Finn Step in Sochi was likely justified. Really? How about this Lynn, that it was the previous L3's that weren't justified? And if a flat or shallow edge gets L3, how come time after time Meryl Davis's flats and shallow edges got L4?

Past protocols justify present protocols. That was understood when the past protocols were CREATED for VM. Dock VM on the Finnstep KPs. Ignore Meryl Davis on the Finnstep kp. Voila - a track record in the protocols.

The whole system is working hard hard hard to take the narrative away from the skating. Don't look at skating, look at numbers. Don't critique the numbers!

EVERYBODY was in on it, everybody who worked to promote or comment on ice dance this season and last.

I really wouldn't worry about the pushback trying to paint VM as whiners. Sale & Pelletier were painted as martyrs on the cover of Time magazine and even today people kind of cringe when they try to make Salt Lake City a scandal, because all anybody has to do is go to youtube to put that to rest. B&S were that much better than S&P. The public narrative limps along, but there's no conviction behind it.

BTW - it's a sign of just how undeserving, how BAD, DW are that once the fix was in there was no more trading off victories, no more "rivalry". Virtue and Moir had to absolutely be SMOTHERED, not allowed to win at all. There would already be so much doubt where it should count - on the ice, that there was no room for doubt in the record.

56 comments:

  1. I actually rewatched 2002 nbc pairs last night and it was Madning because sp were declared the winners by commentators before their program was over despite Sandra mentioning the Russians did have harder content. Sp spent so much time on two feet....

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    1. The real red flag in 2002 was why everybody had a heart attack that B&S won. They were the better team. At the very least, an extremely strong team that legitimately contended for gold and, if clean, a team that had to have the edge due to superior skating skills and more difficult content.

      The outcry there is exactly as if DW hadn't been given gold in Sochi, and suddenly the media started screaming, betraying that the fix had been in and somebody double-crossed what had been agreed.

      That's how SLC came off. That the fix was in. Otherwise there is no WAY anybody would be positive S&P would come out on top after those two skates from B&S marred only by a small 2axel bobble from Anton in a program packed with difficulty and much more content than S&P.

      It came off like somebody had double-crossed the agreement to give S&P the gold. It screamed it.

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  2. I think when they were thanking Skate Canada for their help, they meant in helping them get all the training help they needed, not anything politics-related. V/M have shown in the past few years that they don't care about politics, just look at their show! Maybe they were arrogant enough to think they could win without it, I don't know.

    And I don't think they were lying about Marina. They love her, they love training with her, but sometimes they felt neglected. And if you're feeling insecure about your coach's loyalties, little things like her not being at nationals can sting, even if you understand why it's happening.

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    1. As has been emphasized above, it is the SYSTEM that screwed them over. And in the same breath they say they may have felt neglected, they turn around and re-avow how much they loved their free dance (created by Marina), that Marina poured her heart and soul into their choreography, that every note is hand-crafted, and that it's packed with difficulty and proper components. That's all Marina. If only all ice dance teams were neglected that way.

      They've since clarified their remarks, quoted above, but they are avoiding the problem, or only daring to allude to it. It's the ISU. It's the system. And part of it is also Skate Canada because Skate Canada ran them up on the flagpole and invited the world to take shots at them, and defended the results when that happened, and took a few shots itself.

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    2. It's possible to love the program she made for them and yet sometimes be unhappy with the training situation. I believe them when they say they wouldn't leave her but that doesn't mean they were always happy. The Canadian media is fascinated by their coaching situation and they answered their questions. Of course the answers were too complex and flew right over the heads of most people, with the takeaway being that they were blaming her for everything. I don't know why they decided to be honest here when they essentially never are, but everything in that press conference rang true: relationships are messy and when your rivals keep beating you, you're going to wonder if your coach could be doing more.

      Why did they never wonder the same thing about Skate Canada's politiking? That's the big mystery.

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    3. It almost sounded to me like they were personally stung by Marina's decision not to go to Nationals with them and that's what came out at the press conference.

      It didn't change the fact that what she's done for them is spectacular and they acknowledged that - her choreography is second to none and when she's teamed up with V/M there is no better coach/team in the business. The three of them together are lightening in a bottle, and I think they know it and Marina knows it too. What they have is very, very special. They also acknowledged that they believe she loves them. It certainly seems so based on her interactions with them over the years. V/M have "tells" when they're being genuine and when they aren't. When they were talking about Marina, they were giving off the "we're being genuine in this moment" tells. I'm sure the relationship is complicated because all relationships are, and it's possible to love and appreciate someone deeply (and know they love and appreciate you deeply as well) but still get your wires crossed once in a while.

      So perhaps that was just them airing that out of hurt more than anything else because emotions were running high already, but the questions they were being asked had to do with whether they felt Marina had betrayed them in favor of D/W and *that's* why the latter won. And of course, that wasn't what V/M were saying, but that's how it was spun because they weren't being as clear as they could have been in their answers and everything became conflated in the write-ups of the press conference. The whole thing was oddly bipolar, really. Tessa talked for like, a minute and a half about the significance of their training relationship with D/W which fit the traditional talking points, but then turned around and mentioned being particularly close with Charlie (but not Meryl), which came across as very passive-aggressively WASP-like. The whole damn press conference seemed tinged by an underlying sense of emotional hurt that was bubbling to the surface no matter what they were saying otherwise, but the underlying source of that hurt was what no one would really touch on - how the system had been fucking them over.

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    4. Someone asked V/M if the situation felt like "someone has fallen out of love with you even though you haven't changed," which I thought was the WORST way to explain what had actually happened, because that's not how it all went down. It's not like the system one day rolled over in bed, looked at V/M, and said, "eh, I don't have the same feelings for you anymore. I love this other team instead. It's not you, it's just that my tastes have evolved." Bullshit. The entire system was fucking hijacked by people with the power to do so, and suddenly up became down and black was white and left was right, etc.

      Based on Marina's comments, which are always couched in her own Russian homespun language and analogies, I think she may have been as confused as V/M were at points during the season. But who knows. Maybe she was more resigned to what was happening, or their wires were getting crossed when it came down to how to attack the problems. Which I could possibly understand because this year's problems were on a different level than ever before - things didn't play out like they had in the past. Even at D/W's first competition, when they pulled in an absolutely astronomical score, Marina looked - confused. And not in a "why aren't they scoring higher?" kind of way, but more in a "why are they scoring this high already?" way. At least that's how it read to me. I thought she looked more happy/excited in the K&C on Monday night when V/M's scores popped up (and they'd pulled in a WR score) than she did when D/W's were announced. But maybe that's just me projecting. Regardless, the system is the problem and V/M only tangentially touched on that, but sort of left it off to the side and then started talking about relying on their federation for support, and all I could think was "fucking load of good that did you."

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    5. "Someone asked V/M if the situation felt like "someone has fallen out of love with you even though you haven't changed," which I thought was the WORST way to explain what had actually happened, because that's not how it all went down. It's not like the system one day rolled over in bed, looked at V/M, and said, "eh, I don't have the same feelings for you anymore. I love this other team instead. It's not you, it's just that my tastes have evolved." Bullshit. The entire system was fucking hijacked by people with the power to do so, and suddenly up became down and black was white and left was right, etc."

      I hated that analogy because it is so, so, so far off base. It completely ignores that there was a rulebook and long-held right or wrong standards when it comes to skating and dancing that were tossed out the window.

      I feel like every reason given in the press to try to explain why DW ended up on the top was once also given as a specific problematic issue that was meant to be eliminated with IJS. Saying that the judges just preferred DW's style better is a bunch of bs.

      I think the hijacking analogy is another appropriate one for this situation. It's exactly what happened.

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    6. All of the commentary this season ignored the rulebook. I think it was concerted. It was all about wow factor, momentum, and strained analogies. Everything to point the viewers away from the fact that the ISU was pushing results that were in blatant violation of the standards and criteria set down in CoP.

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    7. Yes, and you're right, we're back in pre-CoP, same old, bad old, ice dance world and it's on PURPOSE. The narrative for this season called upon pre-CoP rationales that CoP was meant to eliminate, until the past two season the sport got nostalgic and decided ignoring CoP was the better course.

      Except, I think this is the worst of all, pre and post CoP. As others have pointed out, in the past there's been all kinds of politicking as to placement, but when it came to the Olympics, most of the time at least the gold medalists were deserving. There was something sacred about it. This was AGGRESSIVELY thrown out the window, with malice aforethought, and it's going to come back and bite the sport in the ass because wrong always does. Not on our timeline, but it does.

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  3. "What this sport did was spit on itself. It made a DECISION to do so. It's more than awarding a dumbed down, tricked out, politically enabled dance team. In order to do that the sport had to turn around and intentionally repress every single standard of the sport, everything it tells the world ice dance ought to be, everything it has said figure skating is meant to be"

    I have described it as a bomb going off in ice dance that sent shrapnel years into its future, but THIS. I no longer call ice dance a sport, but the event did spit on itself and shat itself in order to make what happened on Black Monday happen. They had to turn ice dance on its head, make inside out and outside in. Black into white and white into black. They had to redefine every long held objective standard about skating and dance. When you take a step back and look at the enormity of what went into this, it's nauseating and jaw-dropping.

    Here's a frightening thought. The US has had someone on the ISU's ice dance technical panel. Part of what made this happen was getting judges trained to think what DW was doing was better. Think about the Australian judge-in-training on FSU who at first thought that VM were miles ahead of DW, went to an ISU judging seminar, and came back talking about how no, it was actually DW that was better because they ticked more boxes. Think about the comments that the Chinese judge made while commentating on Chinese television? There are a number of judges now out there who are trained to think like this. What do you do with those people? Send them all in for reprogramming? How does this not affect the judging going forward?

    The true travesty of the day was what happened at the top, but look at how many other teams got fucked over in how they were scored as anyone who skated and danced were crucified and while teams more like DW were gifted. The announcement of the score for almost every team in the field could rightfully be followed by the question "What the fuck????" Scores were too low. Scores were too high. Were *any* of them actually correct? The numbers given to these programs were meaningless.

    I'm going to have to post this in parts, so this is part 1.

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    1. Part 2:

      "It looks to me as if Virtue and Moir had resolved to be at peace with the results, but it's turning out to be a little more of a task than they expected."

      I think the same. It seems they had planned to accept their fate, there was nothing that could be done, but planning to be at peace with something really, really sucky is oftentimes a lot harder than you think it's going to be.

      "In 2010-2011 Skate Canada proactively pushed Scott and Tessa's lies at us.

      And after that, VM were somehow dumped."

      Two things happened in 2011. 1.) Patrick Chan won his first world title. 2.) SC's inexplicable teacher's pet Paul Poirer teamed up with a rich American girl who loves the spotlight.

      Skate Canada desperately wanted that elusive men's OGM, an medal, might I add, that they still don't fucking have. I'm just going to say right now heaven help the 2018 and 2022 Canadian men's champions. I have a hunch who those guys might end up being, and, well, heaven help them. VM already had an OGM. I think SC thought that if VM continued on top in ice dance that it would hurt Patrick's chances in men's. Down the river they went. "Do whatever you want with Virtue-Moir, just give us that MEN'S OGM for Chan." Meanwhile, getting that ice dance OGM for Davis and White, and specifically for Davis and White, was the USFSA's number 1 priority. This was a priority, IMO, that was in place well before the Vancouver games.

      Sometimes, I think back now and remember odd events in the 06-10 Olympic quad. At NHK 2006, DW were the first team to receive all level 4 elements. Was it earned or not? I remember commentary from the 2008 US National Championships. They finished 20-30 points behind BA, but Tracy Wilson promised that they'd soon be challenging them. In 2009, when everyone was talking about how great S&D was, I distinctly remember asking myself if I'd even seen the same program because what I saw wasn't great skating. It was a bunch of largely frentic, overwraight flailing to cover up a lot of little errors that they were making.

      Paul Poirer for some reason has always had more of SC's attention than was actually warranted. Once you add in a rich girl who loved the spotlight and had no problems sharing it with Debbi Wilkes, well....


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    2. Part 3:

      "I read something interesting at fsuniverse - of course nobody took it and ran, but it did make me think a little bit. Somebody said nobody objected to the ascension of Davis and White, even though it was the ascension of fake skating (that's my interjection) until they started beating Virtue and Moir. IOW, somebody should have cried foul when they beat Belbin & Agosto, when they started reliably burying - not just winning, burying - teams on the international circuit. I agree, it should have been called out in its own right, not just vis a vis Virtue Moir. That a non-skating PACKAGE was hustled for two years and then railroaded in Sochi."

      In 2009, there was a small group of us who were screaming as loud as we could that DW should not be beating BA. BA were a team that had some issues with their skating, some of which were cleaned up at least partially when they went to Linichuk. Those of us advocating for BA were told we needed to stop because DW and BA were the same kind of team and if we liked one, we had to like the other. No. DW had the issues that BA had, except to a worse degree. DW had more issues than BA did. At no point in the time frame that DW's and BA's careers overlapped were DW ever better than BA. Tanith and Ben can get from one place to another on a blade edge and they can get out of an element on an edge without having to reset. I could go on, but the were the better team. No one wanted to listen to it though because you couldn't say one cross word about DW's skating. This part where DW were pushed over BA is an important part of this narrative that often gets overlooked. Every team that was ever in DW's way was thrown out of the way. Every team that ever nipped at their heels (Shibutanis, 2011 US Nationals; PB, 2012 Worlds--beat them in TES in the SD and, if I remember correctly, the final point gap between PB and DW was smaller than the one between DW and VM) was pushed back the next season.en PB and DW was smaller than the one between DW and VM.) was pushed back the next season.

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    3. I also feel that the Skate Canada directors were busy pursuing personal agendas because even when they pursued larger agendas, such as Patrick's gold, they fucked it up. They appeared to have little influence on Patrick, who went this season without a technical coach, the team that gave him the quad. Everybody knew before this season that he was no longer the stand-alone with fabulous skating skills plus quads - other men were showcasing a similar package - not yet with all of Patrick's content, but enough so Patrick had to deliver both components of his program - the quad and the feet, connecting steps, transitions. He was less of a sure bet to do that after he left Colorado.

      The enthusiasm Skate Canada showed for Piper & Paul at first appeared to be mostly a Debbi thing - they were her vehicle to get her mug back in the spotlight so she worked the phone to get as many public appearances for them as she could, so she could tag along. I thought that until their scores came along at Canadians 2012 along with Scott and Tessa being lowballed. My only guess about Skate Canada's Paul Poirier fixation is their top skaters - including their 1, 2 and 3 ice dance teams - all train outside Canada, and they really want an international or world medalist who trains in Canada with non-Russian coaches (although Carol Lane is a Brit or ex-Brit, close enough).

      The fact that DW are winning despite their inability to get from here to there on an edge, as you point out, and despite their inability to enter or exit an element without resetting, is barbaric.

      I used to think B&A were a clumsy team. Tanith's lack of grace sometimes appeared excessive, and her control of her body in space was never anything to write home about. But, when I was reviewing B&A during the time I first started to really examine the skating of DW to find out why it was blow up the scoreboard every fucking time they stepped on the ice, I was surprised to see that, unlike with DW, there was a there there. Yes, Tanith was spastic, all elbows and knees, and had no rhythm whatsoever. Yes, Ben was so much better. Drill down to blade level though, Tanith could skate, and did skate, and used her edges. And she did get stronger, and have more run of blade, after she moved to Linichuk. It made no sense at all for DW to surpass them, but of course, they needed to set up DW for Vancouver. Tanith was dating Charlie by this time and the ambition she'd previously shown for Vancouver appeared to be something she'd abandoned.

      Any time something can't be said, something is being suppressed. That's a given. Even people who love DW know it's fake, or they'd talk about it, instead of trying to shut down the subject. If you can't support something on the objective merits, then something's wrong.

      I agree this isn't a sport. I also agree with the cancer analogy, that it has become so thoroughly corrupt, so saturated with mendacity and calculated manipulation (such as fucking with VM competition after competition to create a protocol record, while giving DW a bye), that there's no going back.

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    4. And that cancer continues to metastasize, spreading to the younger skaters. When you grow up in such a corrupt system, it is pretty disheartening to see the politicking and the results. And eventually many of these young skaters will think they need to work the system like that.

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    5. And what I read in support is "DW deserved gold" not their skating, or that performance, but that the two of them deserved it because they're deserving as people and hard workers.

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  4. so what now? anyone else depressed that they're retiring and that the USA media is trying to villainize them?

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    1. I'm in the US. The US media is doing what it does. Ignore them. Our news cycles are short and this will be soon forgotten.

      Am I depressed that this seems to be the end? Yes. There's never been a team like VM before. There probably never will be again. I'm sad that I won't get to see them do the Paso Doble SD next season. There are a few rhythms they never did in any form during their senior career that I would have liked to see them use in a FD. They will only skate these programs in my dreams, next to a few other long-retired favorites skating competitive programs that should have been.

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    2. :( im absolutely gutted. i did not want them to go out that way

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    3. I don't want them to go out yet. I want them to come back next season and keep doing what they're doing, which is not bow to the will of the system and sell out their skating. They lie about fucking everything except that. They and their coaches put together Olympic winning programs and they went and skated them and WON the Olympics on the ice.

      But I know it's so much more complicated than that, and they have a child at home and they may want to move on to the next chapter of their lives. But damn, I would hate to see them go out this way - in the shadow of scandal allegations and judging fuckery.

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    4. 10:44, I don't want them to go out either, but it does feel like the end. They do have a child and other things they want to do with their lives. I just wish the ending had been better. I don't know if staying another season or seasons makes it any better though. I don't think they'll suddenly start getting the respect, especially since DW are saying they're going to continue to compete.

      Actually, that DW are staying and VM seem to be going makes what happened worse.

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  5. A question now. DW seem to have indicated that they're continuing on. If they really do keep skating, what happens to them. Do they keep getting held up like this to justify handing them that OGM they didn't earn? Do they get dumped in favor of IK?

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    1. pls pls pls dump them for I/K elena has more grace in the tip of her fingers than meryl can ever have

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    2. I/K were SO INCREDIBLY OVER-SCORED at the Olympics it's not even funny. Their winning the bronze was a joke.

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    3. They sold it and really played their cards right. They took a page out of DWs book

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    4. I like I/K a lot but they have zero transitions and you could drive a truck between them in their dance holds, among other issues. By overscoring them like this, the judges are telling them they have practically nothing to work on and that's a shame because they have great potential. It's the same thing with D/W, really.

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  6. "What this sport did was spit on itself. It made a DECISION to do so. It's more than awarding a dumbed down, tricked out, politically enabled dance team. In order to do that the sport had to turn around and intentionally repress every single standard of the sport, everything it tells the world ice dance ought to be, everything it has said figure skating is meant to be, down to what is stroking, what are edges, what is speed, what is rhythm - down to every fundamental, this sport repressed the team that fulfills/executes the defined standards of this sport better than anybody before and likely, better than anybody since, in order to reward a team that faked it. It's not just that DW were given a gold medal (they certainly did not win it). It's what the sport did to itself - pretty much shat itself - sorry - to get it done."

    I feel the same way about this. I don't have anything against D/W. I'm sure they work incredibly hard. But they didn't get it done on the ice. The sport has always been political, but in elevating D/W to the top the way it did, it took the only pure thing the sport had going for it - the actual skating - and bastardized it. In the past, some skaters/teams certainly won on account of political wrangling, but NEVER were attempts made to redefine or obliterate the definitions of every aspect of the skating in order to justify the elevation of one skater/team over another. Until now.

    And it's just not some good team being beaten down in order to make this happen. It's V/M. The team that embodies what PURE SKATING is about and has always, always, ALWAYS put it into practice on the ice.

    Their hands aren't clean when it comes to the system. V/M have benefited from it in the past, especially as pertains to the facilitation of the constant litany of lies proactively shoved at the public. When Scott Moir said with a cheshire cat-like grin on his face that he knows some "die-hard V/M fans" would support them no matter what, I wondered: would that be those fans who choose to believe the lies you tell them, Scott? Who take you on your word because they think you and Tessa are good people who wouldn't deliberately screw with their heads just because you can? The ones you mock and laugh at when they buy into your hoax? Are those the people you're talking about? Is that why you're grinning so hard?

    Despite that, though - there's a hard truth in all of this. Which is that at GPF, and during the individual event at the Olympics, V/M out-skated everyone, hands down. They rightfully earned a second gold medal on Monday night. Their programs were brilliantly choreographed, trained, and executed beautifully. They should be going down in history as two-time gold medalists in ice dance. Because that's what they accomplished out there. THEY GOT IT DONE.

    And the medal was denied to them. It was a flat out screw job. They did everything they needed to do. THEY WON the battle on the ice, which is WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO PLAY OUT. But it didn't matter.

    Politics didn't just put the wrong team on the top of the podium. The sport completely sold itself down the river to do it.

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    1. "I feel the same way about this. I don't have anything against D/W. I'm sure they work incredibly hard. But they didn't get it done on the ice. The sport has always been political, but in elevating D/W to the top the way it did, it took the only pure thing the sport had going for it - the actual skating - and bastardized it. In the past, some skaters/teams certainly won on account of political wrangling, but NEVER were attempts made to redefine or obliterate the definitions of every aspect of the skating in order to justify the elevation of one skater/team over another. Until now."

      Ice Dance has always had plenty of political funny business. It's no secret. In the past though, the heart of the discipline, the skating and the dancing, were never sold out though. Also, in the past, the political gifts tended to mostly be "one night only" in nature. A team might get held up briefly, but it wasn't anything like what happened this past quad with DW. In the Olympics, there were times that maybe the silver and bronze were incorrect, but when it came to the deals, it seemed that the OGM was somehow sacred and they made sure it made it's way into the hands of the most deserving team. You can possibly make an argument about 1994, but I think you could have put that podium in any order and had a justifiable case for doing so. This time though, they gave it to a team that wasn't even 2nd or 3rd in line (or possibly, 4th or 5th or even further back), of actually putting the skating and dancing down to rightfully earn that medal.

      There was nothing about skating and dancing that was left unassaulted for this. Everything had to be redefined and recalibrated to DW.

      "Despite that, though - there's a hard truth in all of this. Which is that at GPF, and during the individual event at the Olympics, V/M out-skated everyone, hands down. They rightfully earned a second gold medal on Monday night. Their programs were brilliantly choreographed, trained, and executed beautifully. They should be going down in history as two-time gold medalists in ice dance. Because that's what they accomplished out there. THEY GOT IT DONE.

      And the medal was denied to them. It was a flat out screw job. They did everything they needed to do. THEY WON the battle on the ice, which is WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO PLAY OUT. But it didn't matter. "

      YES. They were not allowed the medal they should have had, but VM got it done out there. On the ice, they slaughtered DW two events in a row.

      "Politics didn't just put the wrong team on the top of the podium. The sport completely sold itself down the river to do it."

      Or, alternately, sold its soul to the Devil.

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    2. Skaters who skate like D/W, such as Chock/Bates and Coomes/Buckland, have shot up the ranks recently and that's no coincidence. The system has shifted away from pure skating and dancing to acrobatics and flashiness. We're going to see larger and larger size differences to the point where teams will start looking like pairs skaters. Skating in hold will disappear entirely outside of step sequences. As long as lines and posture aren't completely terrible, they won't affect the scores. Skating-based transitions will become very rare. And so on.

      It's already started and it's only going to get worse,

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    3. "It's already started and it's only going to get worse,"

      I disagree with this. I don't these Olympic results are an indicator of any kind of larger trend in ice dance that isn't directly tied to the elevation of DW. Meaning, certain teams being held down and others being held up was due in part to the vote-swapping deal and the campaign to put D/W on top of the podium. Hence why a team like Shibs were held down but someone like Chock/Bates was not.

      When D/W move on (whenever that might be), so too will the redefinitions of skating the ISU, USFSA, and the American press are trying to sell as legitimate. It's already been happening. The teams coming up that are being rewarded are actually skating, with difficult transitions, good lines, posture, etc. They aren't "pairs teams without the jumps" and that is not the direction ice dance is moving. Even G/P are being forced to improve and skate more in hold. D/W are outliers, which is why the system had to be hijacked to put them on the podium in the first place.

      None of the other teams are outliers who will be hijacked into positions at the top. They may receive some politicking (like G/P did), but in the end look who made the third spot of the Canadian Olympic team: Paul/Islam, the pure skaters.

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  7. I thought that it was DW's decision to go with PotO? I was under the impression that Charlie really liked the music. Like the way Coomes/Buckland insisted on Michael Jackson this season when Platov wanted them to do Swan Lake or something equally Russian/dramatic.

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    1. Marina said she and Charlie were the only ones who liked the music. She got grilled by the USFSA and she and Charlie made the case. The USFSA apparently wanted to be certain she wasn't "hand crafting" for Virtue Moir while giving Davis White boilerplate. Of course she WAS giving Davis White boilerplate, because that's what they skate, but it was in their best interests, not against them.

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    2. If Meryl didn't like the music (and honestly, dramatic music aside, she doesn't seem the type to like PotO), I wonder why she didn't argue harder with her partner and Marina... The music did work for DW in all kinds of camouflaging ways (big music, big gestures, acrobatics), but it really wasn't Olympic worthy.

      Those old discussions that DW had to scrap programs a couple of times makes me wonder about who actually chose the music. Weren't they supposed to skate to La Strada once? Maybe once upon a time DW did want to challenge themselves with not-typical-for-them music, but the USFSA cannily intervened. They knew it was the dramatic style that worked quite well.

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  8. Oc I completely agree. The reality show was a missed opportunity to change the narrative. But don't forget producers are involved who steer the story as well. Also, good for you for mentioning your battle with anorexia watching the women's short dance was worrisome these girls are too tiny. Thank god for Ashley Wagner and k. Osmond.

    Last point. Why haven't you commented about the petitions? It's about a show of force and disgust by the fans which is the whole point of your blog. We are all fed up.

    And im glad Scott mentioned they relied heavily in mike s. From skate Canada. In my mind that was a direct Fuck you to skate Canada and an acknowledgment that skate Canada thes vm under the bus. How you do that to the greatest ice dancing team in history I'm not sure.

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    1. I don't have a battle with anorexia - not clear where you got the impression I said anything in that ballpark. I have mentioned that it appears to me that Meryl Davis's weight is a strategic decision and not an eating disorder, because it helps camoflage DW's problematic technique. That's about it on the topic from me.

      I don't think the reality show could have changed the narrative so as to impact the results at Sochi. Those results were fixed. It COULD, however, have opened the conversation about the calibre of skating Virtue and Moir put on the ice, and why it's the best. That "artistry" and "athleticism" aren't split, which is how most sports writers tend to write about skating. That skating "artistically" while demonstrating superior blade technique is a thousand times more difficult than skating without. Scott is only now introducing that into the conversation, when it's too late and other people are already running off with the post-Sochi narrative.

      Instead he and Tessa ran down their fucking SKATING, constantly, in the reality show, while assuring us Meryl and Charlie were perfect and almost unbeatable.

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    2. so sorry! I must have gotten you confused with another poster who did mention overcoming an eating disorder and how unhealthy meryl looks.

      last time I mention it, but what do you think of the petition? as an enraged figure skating fan who has stopped watching figure skating bc of the scandals, only to be beckoned again by magic like VM, and then so disgusted that I cant watch it anymore bc of the scandal, this vicious cycle has destroyed the sport exactly at the time when VM brought it credibility. that's what drives me crazy. its not just that VM are torvil and dean 2.0-AND WAY BETTER THAN TORVILLE AND DEAN in my opinion- they gave the sport credibility again. and now they threw it out the window to please a shitty no personality couple like davis and white. god they suck. anyway, my point is, the petitions wont open an investigation. only skate Canada and organizational clout could. but its a way for fans like us to voice frustration and anger. that's why ive been begging you to throw your support behind it.

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    3. "That "artistry" and "athleticism" aren't split"

      This. Ice dance, out of all the figure skating disciplines, is the one where you really can't divorce technique and art, skating and dance. The federations are just looking out for their own interests, but the more they confuzzle people by non-educating them about the skills (and not just the theatre), as well as the intricacies of the judging, the idea of ice dance as a legitimate sports discipline slips further and further away.

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    4. "I don't think the reality show could have changed the narrative so as to impact the results at Sochi. Those results were fixed. It COULD, however, have opened the conversation about the calibre of skating Virtue and Moir put on the ice, and why it's the best."

      YES.

      There's nothing about the show, including not doing it in the first place, that could have changed this outcome. They could have used it as a tool to do some educating about skating and ice dance though.

      I'm fairly convinced that there is nothing that could have changed this outcome, down to VM being honest about what they are to each other and SC actually doing their jobs in supporting VM politically. The USFSA is more powerful and have the force of the US press, which is infinitely more large and powerful than the Canadian media. However, even if it wouldn't have changed the outcome, that's no excuse to have not done the right thing and put up the good fight in the areas where they needed to.

      8:47, enough, please, with the petition. The rest of us are choosing to voice our anger and frustration in other ways.

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    5. Anon at 8:47 AM....That's correct, that wasn't OC, that was me, former anorexic. (as I called myself) I wasn't saying that I know that's what's going on with Meryl Davis for certain, but I did say that, do to my own personal experiences, I have my suspicions. I don't think what's going on with her is at all "natural," and although I seriously don't care for her skating, I seriously do hope that she gets some help for what is, at the least, some very screwed up issues with food and her own body image.
      (And I know that if I wrote that on FSU, the administrators would right now be providing "the authorities" with my IP address and information, so that the cops could come beating down my door for daring to give my opinion.)

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    6. 11:28AM - thanks for helping to clarify. To clarify my own remarks, I didn't think Meryl Davies' weight was at all natural either. But people do intentionally become underweight for strategic reasons - actors, for example, have been known to lose extreme amounts of weight for a role that calls for it. Disguising Davis & White's poor technique appears to depend a great deal upon Davis not occupying that big of a footprint in space, as it were. What isn't as in your face at her current weight/proportions would be so if she were at the fighting weight she maintained as a junior. They are extremely driven and have had rely on everything but the actual skating to bring themselves to this point. If their skating could have brought them here, I guess I think maybe she wouldn't be so underweight.

      I don't, of course, know. I just think about their bad technique, and how her size helps sell it, and how calculated everything is in their programs and presentation, and tend to interpret her weight through that filter.

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    7. I get what OC is saying. Meryl might not have body dysmorphia. She might know she isn't fat, but engages in disordered eating to stay at her fighting weight.

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  9. Figure skating is so opaque and archaic. If I had my way, there should be, firstly, accountability. No anonymous judging. If questions about a certain judge's scoring were raised, then s/he can be called to the carpet and explain/justify the reasons for that, voting corridor be damned. Secondly, there should be no more 'saving room for later' scoring; that was so 6.0. Thirdly, education. If one British Eurosport commentator's remarks are to be believed (and as far as I can understand), he was not allowed to study as a tech specialist or something because of his day job. Fair enough about the conflict of interest, but surely there could be an option for commentators to be educated like a tech specialist but never serve as one. Also, I wish the skating broadcasters would do the side-by-side comparison more (w/c they used to do, at least with CBS back in the 90s for the CDs?) so you could see upfront the difference in the quality of ice dancing technique. This would be quite useful for the pattern portion of the SDs nowadays.

    Unfortunately, I can't have my way. Figure skating resists so hard concerning transparency and education. The people that run it are content to let the viewers and fans in the dark (all the better to make deals with), and tell us 'it's sooo complicated', 'you don't need to know that', 'I don't understand it myself'. They think we should be satisfied with fluff and talk to us like we're dumb. Seriously, it deserves to get kicked out of the Olympics.

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    1. This year more than ever, in the ice dance division, ice dance pro-actively set out to point viewers away from the ice. To a person, the commentators said it was about momentum, style, the wow factor. A decision was made to sell it to us as theatre only, because if anybody had discussed actual skating, it would not support the deal that it is now obvious was in place.

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    2. Eurosport guy had no intention of wanting to work as a tech but rather wanted to educated so he knew the system top to bottom.

      Dick button was commending "Meryl Davis exquisite pointed feet interpretation everything and the program tells a time honored story"

      Comments underneath on twitter such as
      Reminds me of Maia usova
      When I was watching them I thought I bet dick button loves those pointed feet
      They were so wonderful, lyrical, so precise, just wonderful
      She looks so fragile yet so strong like a prima ballerina...beautiful
      And finally a dissenter - are you kidding? Meryl has horrible carriage and body line. You are contradicting everything you say you admire in a skater

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    3. @9:45, thanks for your correction. I must have misunderstood, except for the part where he said he wanted to get educated. Still makes no sense why the ISU would prevent that. Then again, we are talking about the ISU...

      I also saw that Dick Button tweet and wanted to call him out, but I realized it wouldn't really do any good because most of the people who commented on his tweet were pro-DW, and the old coot is probably very stuck to his opinion. I am beginning to think that all commentators have their biases and inconsistencies; it's just a matter of degrees, so for me it's a matter of choosing my poison. But some are better than others when discussing the actual skating. I mostly like Robin Cousins right now. Brit Eurosport guys are too 'cheerleader-y' and not enough analysis. I think Button was too carried away by the prospect of that American ice dance gold; he can definitely be playing favorites. Also, I can't really take him seriously when it comes to ice dance.

      Did he reply to the dissenter? I suppose the DW fans jumped on that person for daring to say something that spoils their party.

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    4. "Reminds me of Maia usova"

      NO. NO. NO. You do not say that Meryl Davis has toe point like Usova. Meryl has no toe point. To this day, Usova remains the ultimate standard when it comes to toe point.

      Speaking of Usova, maybe 5 or so years ago, she appeared on one of those Russian skating shows. In her mid-40's, she still had better edges, extension, and toe point than Meryl Davis has right now.

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    5. "NO. NO. NO. You do not say that Meryl Davis has toe point like Usova. Meryl has no toe point. To this day, Usova remains the ultimate standard when it comes to toe point"

      I know. Oksana Grishuk has better extension than Meryl Davis. Heck, Evgeny Platov has better extension than Davis.

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  10. Later today I'm going to do a post on Steve Milton's article. Milton has been writing about figure skating for a couple of decades now and in the interim hasn't bothered to learn so much as what can be found between the pages of Figure Skating for Dummies. So his article is a self-cancelling mess.

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  11. Oh, Christine Brennan is talking about crooked judging and looking for shenanigans tonight with the Russian judge on the ladies panel. The hypocrisy is something.

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    1. The judging is only crooked when Americans aren't winning!

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  12. omg! these Russians have zero shame or accountability. they just overscored the Russian to beat yuna kim who skated perfectly. fix is in everywhere. these sochi Olympics are embarrassing.

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    1. I love how a slew of people from the US are all outraged when the inferior Russian beats the superior defending champion, but when the far inferior US Ice Dance team is placed over the infinitely superior defending champions from Canada, it's all fair.

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  13. I hate to say this bc I love yuna kim, but im glad this happened. maybe this will force a look into the judging because yuna kim will not go down like this. controversy here we come. hopefully it will revive the VM controversy. this is unreal. I am in utter shock. the Russian should be bronze, AT BEST

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  14. We already have an article decrying the judging in ladies unfair:
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/brennan/2014/02/20/winter-olympics-games-sochi-figure-skating-women-yuna-kim-gracie-gold/5643143/

    "American skating insiders question Sochi judging." Everything but the ice dance judging, right?

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  15. DorisPulaski explains why people thought D&W were off-time in the SD:

    I found the nbcsports channel to be badly synched. All the dancers had better timing on Hd coverage on the nbc primetime show and On Demand. The whole dance event was much more enjoyable with the feeds synched.

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  16. Does the judging swap/scandal between Russia and the United States seem more plausible now? lol The only thing the judges need to learn how to do is make sure the gap between the scores are a little less so it won't be so obvious. They always seem to have that 5 point difference between 1st and 2nd place. They must think skating fans won't know the difference

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