The five rings. The hundreds of athletes. The torch. The fiercecompetition. The podium. The medals. The national anthem. TheOlympics.
Nothing could possibly beat the feeling of winning a gold medal atthe Olympic Games — achieving a moment you have been training foryour entire life. But don’t ask Canadian ice skating pair, Jamie Saleand David Pelletier.
Unfortunately, they were robbed of the gold medal and their chanceto hear their country’s national anthem played at the medalsceremony. (The second, “Made for TV” ceremony notwithstanding.)
If you are one of the few people living under the ice who have notheard about the latest Olympic scandal, you are missing out on yetanother political interruption of fair competition. The controversystarted after the Russian pair, Elena Berezhnaya and AntonSikharulidze, won the gold for a not-so-flawless performance, whilethe Canadian pair skated an error-free performance and received amere silver.
So if Sale and Pelletier gave an essentially perfect performance,why didn’t they win the gold? It’s simple.
Somebody cheated.
The question on everyone’s mind is who would do such a thing? Manypeople seem to be speculating that the French judge, who favored theRussians, gave such scores in order to secure support from theeastern block judges for the French ice-dancing team.
As most people know, the old western alliance consisted of theUnited States, Canada, Germany, Japan and France, while the old redbrigade was made up of Russia, the Ukraine, Poland and China. Is it acoincidence that each country’s judge voted with their alliance,except for France? I think not.
The French judge, who had the deciding vote, went against herso-called alliance and cast her vote with the Russians. As we allhave heard, the French judge said she was pressured to vote for theRussian pair by the French figure skating association. But eventhough she was manipulated in her voting decision, it wascrystal-clear that the Canadian pair merited the gold medal.
Granted, both performances were amazing, making it difficult tojudge. However, there is no doubt that there was some kind ofcheating taking place in this event. Did anyone wonder why theRussians didn’t even stay to watch the Canadians skate? I know if Iwas in competition for a gold medal at the Olympics, I would be onthe edge of my seat, wishing for mistakes from my opponents. Didanyone notice how the Russians were not overjoyed to be on the toplevel of the podium? Maybe it was because of the controversy behindtheir win. Or maybe it was because they were overwhelmed by thecrowd’s boos of disapproval. Then again, maybe it was due to the factthat they already knew the medal was in the bag.
In any case, something has to be done to ensure the fairness ofthis competition in the future. Should the Russians be forced to giveback their gold medal if the International Olympics Committeeuncovers evidence of wrongdoing? No, because as far as we know, theyhad no previous knowledge of any cheating. If anything is to be donein terms of the standings, it already has been — the Canadians, Saleand Pelletier, were awarded their well-deserved gold medal.
In closing, our sports will never be completely impartial,especially those sports that must judge on as subjective a basis asartistic merit. We will never know what the true results were of the2002 figure skating pairs competition. Maybe the Russians did receivehigher scores for their sophisticated but imperfect performance. Orperhaps, the Canadians didn’t earn high marks because of theircostumes and music.
One thing’s for sure, we’re lucky nobody was whacked in the kneewith a large metal object, screaming, “Why me? Why me?”
–Gina Chacon is a journalism junior.
–This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed — include your full name,major and year in school.
