Everything old is new again

Beverly Smith - Ilushechkina and moscovitch second chances

Wanted to share the above. It's a typically terrific piece from Smith, profiling two appealing, easy-to-root-for figure skaters, and it's worthwhile also for what it says about this team's funding situation.Without revealing numbers, Smith's article reinforces how expensive it is to train for elite competition.Thank heaven Tessa and Scott gave up the funding they were entitled to receive for not training and competing this year, or even more figure skaters would have found themselves up a financial creek this season.

Trophee Eric Bompard 2014 Short Dance Results:

Trophee Eric Bompard 2014 Free Dance Results

Look at that lockstep.

Perception is reality

 

My sympathies, but the real crime was in ice dancing.

For more than a week, I've been writing, then tossing, a bunch of half-written posts about the recent ISU vote to keep figure skating judging anonyous.There was nothing to say that isn't self-evident, or that's how it felt when attempting to bang out a few remarks about the results. Among those in the media who weighed in, the most frustrating take was Beverly Smith's.

Here's Beverly Smith's article:

Beverly Smith fails to get down to business

In my preliminary post efforts, I kept circling, but not nailing down, what really bugs about Smith's article, apart from the fact that this is the sole knowledgeable legit media figure skating writer who has called out Davis White's skating, and yet her article on the ISU vote is a waste of time. It never gets to the heart of the actual problem with anonymous judging. Then, I got it. She's disingenuous.

Smith employs a bunch of rhetorical questions such as - why would such and such a country vote for anonymous judging? Do they think this or that? Do they perceive the situation thus and such instead of thither and yon? It's hard to comprehend, bemoans Smith.

Spare me. Smith is a smart woman. She knows that voting itself is political. The USFSA can cover itself in sanctimony while voting "No" to anonymous judging now that Meryl and Charlie have won an ice dance gold medal thanks to anonymous judging. That's political. That's voting theatre. Same with Korea calling out the ISU then rushing to safety by voting to keep anonymous judging.

Smith's questions show a reluctance to acknowledge that figure skating is as corrupt as it is, and, more disappointing from Smith, as corrupt outside of Russia as it is. Her perspective appears to be that figure skating has wandered down a path that leads people to perceive that it's untrustworthy, and anonymous judging reinforces that unfortunate perception. Even though, and apart from Russia, of course, figure skating is totally trustworthy, because Smith never gets around to saying it's not. Surely if figure skating weren't on the up and up, she'd be able to produce a few non-Russian examples of dubious results. She's not saying, after all, that the ISU's inability to keep Russia on the straight and narrow is the problem with figure skating today. She's saying anonymity is.

All of which makes me wonder why she bothered writing her eulogy for the Sochi ice dance outcome. That's where a set of imposter American ice dancers were handed a gold medal over the Canadian team that actually won the event.

As the Olympic figure skating competition got underway, Smith observed that Davis and White were constantly scored higher than Virtue and Moir despite core deficiencies in Davis and White's skating, deficiencies that violate the standards and criteria set down in CoP. However, the reason this situation came to pass is apparently a big mystery. Smith never asked the basic journalistic questions of who, what, when, where, why.

Was Russia behind it? I don't think Smith believes that. Then who is behind it? How did it happen? A bunch of well-meaning judges, technical specialists, referees, and Federations honestly assessed Meryl and Charlie's wide-stepping, slow, posing, two-footed, blade-flatting jungle-gymnastics as meeting CoP criteria better than Virtue and Moir? Not possible. Amateurs can see Meryl and Charlie blatantly flout CoP. Did Smith think it was purely coincidence, or the fault of Marina/Virtue Moir that every single season, at the last possible second, a key, showcase element/component in Virtue and Moir's programs had the rug pulled out from under it by the nebulous ISU grapevine?

This scoring could not be done without the blessing of David Dore nor without deals and influence peddling by the USFSA. Nor without the cooperation of Skate Canada. The Wizard of Oz didn't give Davis White unearned scores and unearned wins over the past quad. It was people. Powerful people in the ISU, USFSA and Skate Canada.

I'm over the "Bad Russia" narrative. Smith disappoints when she pretends amazement that Russia voted to abolish anonymous judging. Russia has benefitted from anonymous judging more than anyone, she seems to imply. If that's her belief, why did she ever bother lamenting the Sochi ice dance results, and Meryl and Charlie's Grand Prix final victories? Who does she think got that done? Russia? A bunch of well-meaning judges? If everybody but Russia is well-meaning, then what's the difference if judging is anonymous or not? Everybody's acting in good faith regardless!

Smith is challenged to distinguish between actual issues and perceived issues. The whole sport is. The whole sport weasels out of core issues by talking about perception, and dodging reality. The sport can't be trusted But why not? Just because the judging is anonymous and there's no accountability, it can't be trusted? Are there results in recent times that suggest anonymous judging enables unfair results? if so, how about mentioning a non-Russian example? If Russia is the seat of corruption, why not call for the ISU to police the Russian Fed, instead of calling for an end to anonymous judging?

People don't trust figure skating because it's not trustworthy. It's perceived as corrupt because it is corrupt. The cure for that is for the sport to conduct itself with integrity. Until that happens, everybody, including Smith, is going in circles.

It's only cheating if they're Russian, and looking at figure skating journalism

Christine Brennan, who after two decades still doesn't know all that much about figure skating at blade level, who looked away when Virtue and Moir won the ice dance competition on the ice, but the judges gave the gold to Davis and White instead, has no problem with that outcome.

She's mad because, in ladies, the judges gave ladies gold to the Russian instead of the Korean.

There is actually a case to be made for Adelina Slotnikova versus Yuna Kim (she has a triple loop, for one), and there is none for Davis White versus Virtue Moir.

So of course North America is taking up the Yuna's cause, because blaming Russia never gets old. All of North America will never get over the butt hurt that Russian skaters were the better skaters for a number of decades. Being better at an expensive sport that one must begin in early childhood tends to happen when the sport is underwritten by the state and the state proactively seeks out talent all over the country, and nurtures that talent, giving it every opportunity to succeed. That's how it tends to work everywhere with any sport. It's not something that should keep you up at night for Christ's sake. In those days Russia prioritized skating. N.A. did not.

What IS North America's issue with Russia in skating, an issue they don't seem to have with skaters from other countries?

The media has managed to unearth all kinds of things about the tech controller and the judges in the ladies free, but nobody thinks to explore the scoring patterns of competitions where VM lose to DW despite outskating DW. It's all a freaking mystery.

When Americans win, deals and cheating is okay.