Russian out the door?

[Dr T Non-Fan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/gen/news?id=1338183

"Without Russia, the Olympic Games will be lost," Smirnov said.

They should have brought their own vodka, regardless of the quality of potatos to the north.

Fact is, we always knew they were cheaters. Now they're getting caught and complaining about it.

[Mtl guru]

And now South Korea...

[Han Solo]

NBC is probably down on their knees to get the Russians to stay, since they want that much hyped US - Russia hockey rematch to be played.

[Pseudolus]

Reminds me of a T-shirt that was around the last time the Russkies boycotted the Olympics: 4 of the Olympic rings together with the 5th off to one side, and the caption "Let the Russians Play With Themselves"

[Oliver Klozov]

Salé and Pelletier should never have received the gold medal. Rogge is now lying in the bed he made.....or is he wearing the panties his mother laid out for him?

[VP]

Of course most of us here have our North American bias, but it's really hard to imagine an objective observer affirming the complainer's case.

Pairs - open and shut. The French judge's backpedaling the last few days just makes it more so.

Slutskaya - this was after they started their moaning, but she joined the chorus. No beef.

Cross Country - I don't know the procedures, but having been a supervisor for years in a job where there was drug-testing, I heard all the denials. I'm pretty sure the chance of false-positive is infintesimal.

Hockey- I didn't see the CZE-RUS game, so I don't know. I did see part of the USA-CAN womens' game last night and the officiating was bad and pro-American.

Ohno I - cest la vie. Kudos to Ohno for being a good sportsman.

Ohno II- I think they could've let it go, but the disqualification was not unwarranted.

Bottom line is the powers that be were right to set the precedent of overturning a bad call last week, but now they have to deal with sour grapes from many others w/o legitimate gripes. I hope they continue to tell them no.

I also heard the Russian hockey players will play tonight regardless of what their federation tells them.

[Aaron Brachowitz]

It's hard to take the Russian complaints about judging very seriously after decades of harsh judging of Western athletes by East Bloc judges. But they must feel very wronged to protest so publicly. I actually thought Slutskaya was generously judged last night, with four judges ranking her first despite Hughes' clearly superior performance. Hughes was inexplicably ranked fourth by the Russian and Danish judges.

[Oliver Klozov]

Does anyone believe that the Russian hockey team would actually obey its federation in the first place? What does the hockey team need with the Russian Federation anyway? What a joke.

[alex]

And what about Sasha Cohen? I felt she was much better than Kwan, but Kwan's marks blew Sasha away. I think it could have gone either way between the gold and silver winners, but I definitely think Cohen, and not Kwan, deserved the bronze.

[Brad Spirrison]

I agree with alex. Kwan's performance was uninspired and she got the bronze by virtue of her reputation.

[VP]

What about the clueless Tom Hammond (NBC play-by-play)? "Hughes would win a 3-way tie". Whatever. There was no such possibility. There was the chance of a 2-way tie, which did occur.

Going into Slutskaya's skate, the long program order was HKC.
S gets 1st - SKH in medals
S gets 2nd - HSK
S gets 3rd - KHS
S gets 4th or lower - KHC.

So they were right that S determined all 3 medals.

I think the judges got the top 4 right (HSKC, I thought K a bit better than C), with the possible exception of that Japanese girl who went first in the 2nd last group. She probably should have been 2nd or 3rd last night, but it wouldn't have mattered as far as medals.

[Aaron Brachowitz]

I don't get it, VP -- how does Slutskaya's performance affect the relative finishes of Kwan and Hughes? Why does Kwan finish ahead of Hughes in three scenarios but vice versa in the scenario that actually happened? I don't understand how they determine finishing order -- what exactly are they apply the 1/3-2/3 weights to? Everyone seemed to know instantly when they flashed Slutskaya's long program rankings that Hughes had won.

[Pseudolus]

I think it's because Kwan's score by itself means absolutely nothing. Slutskaya's scores are needed to give Kwan a ranking, and this ranking is what's combined with the previous ranking to award medals.

[Anonymous]

On 2002-02-22 10:48, Aaron Brachowitz wrote:
I don't get it, VP -- how does Slutskaya's performance affect the relative finishes of Kwan and Hughes? Why does Kwan finish ahead of Hughes in three scenarios but vice versa in the scenario that actually happened? I don't understand how they determine finishing order -- what exactly are they apply the 1/3-2/3 weights to? Everyone seemed to know instantly when they flashed Slutskaya's long program rankings that Hughes had won.


Hughes needed to beat Kwan by two places in the long program since she had finished 4th in the short to Kwan's 1st. (Short is worth 1/3 and it's applied using the ordinals)

So Hughes had taken care of beating Kwan but needed another skater to finish ahead of Michelle as well before she would overcome the deficit from the short program. That's it in a nutshell.

[Harry]

That still doesn't seem to make make sense from a fairness point of view.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Harry on 2002-02-22 11:42 ]</font>

[alex]

On 2002-02-22 10:37, mister nacho wrote:
How can you say one blew the other away? They both fell. You can point out that Cohen fell on the backside of a triple-triple. You can just as easily say that Kwan hit her combinations. And Kwan had the lead before last night by two places, so you're not taking both nights into account.


I'm just saying Kwan blew cohen away in the Judge's points for presentation and technical merit, and you can't argue with that. I don't see how Kwan merited all the 5.9's and 5.8s that cohen didn't get when
a)Kwan fell twice
b)Cohen's choreography was arguably better

[alex]

On 2002-02-22 10:55, Bashful wrote:

On 2002-02-22 10:48, Aaron Brachowitz wrote:
I don't get it, VP -- how does Slutskaya's performance affect the relative finishes of Kwan and Hughes? Why does Kwan finish ahead of Hughes in three scenarios but vice versa in the scenario that actually happened? I don't understand how they determine finishing order -- what exactly are they apply the 1/3-2/3 weights to? Everyone seemed to know instantly when they flashed Slutskaya's long program rankings that Hughes had won.


Hughes needed to beat Kwan by two places in the long program since she had finished 4th in the short to Kwan's 1st. (Short is worth 1/3 and it's applied using the ordinals)

So Hughes had taken care of beating Kwan but needed another skater to finish ahead of Michelle as well before she would overcome the deficit from the short program. That's it in a nutshell.


Yeah,

Before the last skater, Kwan was ahead of Hughes, since she was ranked second and hughes first in the long program.

[egg]

On 2002-02-22 11:41, Harry wrote:
That still doesn't seem to make make sense from a fairness point of view.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Harry on 2002-02-22 11:42 ]</font>


Fairness? We are talking about Figure Skating.

As far as the Russians are concerned - they are in glass house. Slutskaya received a 5.9/5.9 from the Russian Judge. Good thing they are impartial otherwise she might have received a 6.1/6.1
How could anyway think her performance was better than Hughes? She did no triple/triple combinations (compared to 2 for Hughes) did fewer overall triples, slipped at least once (I thought she slipped twice, but everyone else says once so I will let that go), I thought Hughes had better spins than anyone else. [/rant]

[switched]

Kwan beat Cohen because she didn't fall on her as(censored)s, she fell to one hand and recovered.

Cohen completely sat down.

[DonkeyPunch (Banned)]

>>"I don't know the procedures, but having been a supervisor for years in a job where there was drug-testing, I heard all the denials. I'm pretty sure the chance of false-positive is infintesimal."

It's higher than you think ....

[Aaron Brachowitz]

On 2002-02-22 12:14, switched wrote:
Kwan beat Cohen because she didn't fall on her as(censored)s, she fell to one hand and recovered.

Cohen completely sat down.

Seems like a pretty fine distinction. Kwan's misstep brought her to a complete halt and looked quite graceless, not just a little wobble on the landing or some other minor thing. I was very surprised she received two(?) first-place rankings, given that Hughes had already slam-dunked her run.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Aaron Brachowitz on 2002-02-22 12:28 ]</font>

[Aaron Brachowitz]

Related question -- would Slutskaya have won if she had received one more first-place ranking (she had four)? Just the long program or the overall gold?

[Hanse]

On 2002-02-22 12:32, Aaron Brachowitz wrote:
Related question -- would Slutskaya have won if she had received one more first-place ranking (she had four)? Yes (http://www.newsday.com/sports/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-oly-how-hughes-won-fig0222feb21.story). {Link borrowed from Bonnie in another thread}

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Hanse on 2002-02-22 12:50 ]</font>

[Anonymous]

On 2002-02-22 11:41, Harry wrote:
That still doesn't seem to make make sense from a fairness point of view.


What doesn't make sense ? The competition is made up of two skates and uses ordinals ... although it sounds like they're proposing some kind of "scoring system" that would allow for cumulative points for a given jump/spin/etc.

[Harry]

Here is why it doesn't make sense.

Scenarios before last skater (Slut for short)skated:
1. Slut is perfect/amazing/etc. - she wins gold, Hughes silver, Kwan bronze
2. Slut falls on her butt several times and is horrible - Kwan gold, Hughes silver, Slut or Cohen bronze
3. Slut is OK, better than Kwan, worse than Hughes - this is what actually happened.

Do you see the inconsistency from a logical perspective? Why (other than that is the way they do it) should Kwan get the gold in scenario 2? If she wasn't better than Hughes before Slut skated, how did she get better after?

[Aaron Brachowitz]

It is logically inconsistent in that A's performance should not affect how B and C finish in relation to each other. In reality (check the link), how A does affects the points that B and C each receive, thus potentially changing their relative finish.

[Anonymous]

On 2002-02-22 14:05, Harry wrote:
Do you see the inconsistency from a logical perspective? Why (other than that is the way they do it) should Kwan get the gold in scenario 2? If she wasn't better than Hughes before Slut skated, how did she get better after?



she didn't "get better" ... Hughes would have won the free skate, but the competition isn't decided in one night, you can't just ignore the fact that Hughes finished 3 places behind Michelle in the short program anymore than you can ignore any one of the 4 runs in the bobsleigh

[Harry]

That's not the point. I'm saying that the way they rank (score) the skaters is ridiculous. Kwan either did better than Hughes (both nights combined) or she didn't. It "should" have nothing to do with how the last Russian skater did.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=531&u=/ap/20020222/ap_on_sp_ol/oly_russian_rage_2
(Sorry about the length, there.)

At the end:
Renowned Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov, serving as a television commentator in Salt Lake City, told ORT that this year's Olympics were "a continuation of the Cold War."

"Perhaps it is caused by fear among the American people after the horrible day of Sept. 11 or fear that we (Russians) now have hope of climbing out of the hole we have fallen into and could be dangerous, so they have to humiliate us," he said.
(end quote)

I thought we were supposed to be the ones with the oversized egos.

[Double High C]

It is such a shame that the (not-so-ex) Commies can't get the conspiracy bug out of their heads.

It is also remarkable that they feel that an appropriate role of their fed gov't - and Putin himself - is to make statements on what actions their olympians can or should take w.r.t. playing in these games. If the matter were whether to participate in games in a Nazi Germany or another country that at least arguably seemed deserving of a boycott due to human rights abuses, then it would at least be understandable.

But Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc. making official comments about the judging???!!!

Related link (apologies if already posted, or if no longer working):

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/figure/news?id=1338353

[Dr T Non-Fan]

Now, the French judge is claiming that the CANADIANS were pressuring her.

So, we can conclude that she put the Russians ahead out of spite. Remind me never to watch figure skating ever again. That will put a dent in the ad revenue.