But of course! What are you going to believe? The protocols, or your lying eyes? What report has more credibility - the skating itself, or the commenting on the skating?
So here we go.
I'm re-posting this from neverendingdreamtumblr, because it's important that video like this is seen by as many people as possible. I encourage everyone to visit neverendingdreamtumblr for these gifs, even though they're also posted here. That tumblr has the gifset neatly formatted in a grid, instead of inartfully angled, and the grid has more impact. The impact this mess deserves.
I'm also re-posting these gifs to push back against the notion promoted, even by Canadian skating interests, that it's impolite, hysterical, obsessive or disrespectful to notice cheating. P.J. Kwong, for example, seems to believe that challenging the results is disrespectful.
What does respect mean to P.J. Kwong? I believe it's disrespectful when a team goes out and skates according to the rules, and elevates the standards of execution set out therein, all the while demonstrating absolutely textbook+ skating according to the criteria that governs the scoring, and the rules are ignored. Instead, right in front of our faces, in defiance of what we've just seen, that team gets ripped off, point stripped, manipulated and low balled. Why? Because the sport can flaunt its lack of accountability.
It's also disrespectful to the skating public when a team produces bastardized bullshit while demonstrating skating technique explicitly discouraged in the guidelines, and is scored as if they skated exemplifying the rules, standards and criteria.
Gaslighting is always disrespectful, P.J.
It's always disrespectful when we're directed and coerced and badgered into accepting a lie as the truth. Everybody involved in telling the skating public to do that can fuck off, and that includes most of the Canadian commentariat. If they want to lie their faces off, that's up to them. But when it comes to pressuring fans to fall in line, who do they think they're talking to? A bunch of "fraus", that's who. "Frau" is biggest perjorative on the internet, and that label is implied in everything the skating commentariat says to and about its fans. It's implied in nearly everything sportswriters say about the fans. I believe the dismissive, trivializing tone used by skating site contributors such as Lynn Rutherford is intended to trigger appeasement and insecurity in the fans who are treated that way, who are embarrassed by the implied "frau" label. That patronizing tone is meant quell those who persevere with pointing out what happened in Sochi. So again, fuck that.
