Posted on: Thursday, February 14, 2002

EDITORIAL
Bias nothing new in Olympic skating

Not since Tonya Harding's sensational rivalry with Nancy Kerrigan has there been so much intrigue about an Olympic ice skating event. Russia's surprise gold medal win over Canada on Monday is refueling suspicions that the world of figure skating is rife with skullduggery.

By most accounts, Canadian sweethearts David Pelletier and Jamie Sale gave a flawless performance, compared to Anton Sikharulidze, who stumbled through a double axel, and Elena Berezhnaya, who had a series of shaky landings.

The controversy has triggered a barrage of accusations that harken back to the Cold War, and we must be careful not to let Eastern or Western jingoism take us back to that dark time. On the positive side, however, the dispute could lead to changes in the way the sport is judged.

The most prominent "Icegate"conspiracy theory is that the nine judges split down geopolitical lines, with the Western bloc and Japan voting for Canada and the Eastern bloc and France voting for Russia. Some have alleged that France cast the fifth swing vote for Russia so that Russia will return the favor in a few days when the French compete.

The International Skating Union is launching an internal investigation into the allegations. But whatever the outcome, the results are final. Like it or not, Russia keeps the gold. And it must be remembered that this is not the fault of the Russian skaters, who simply did their best in a difficult competition.

Of course, we don't have to tolerate corruption, and demand that any judge found guilty of it will be thrown out. But the system of deciding who wins isn't entirely arbitrary. Each judge totals the marks for technical merit and presentation and ranks the pairs accordingly. In case of a tie, the pair with the better presentation wins.

Some say figure skating should be dumped from the Olympic Games because it's not a real sport. If that's the case, then what's to become of gymnastics and other events where athletes are judged by their artistry?

If athletes were judged purely by objective criteria, the only Olympic events would be races. If we want more than a race, we'll have to accept a few biases, unless they're so blatant that they leave the pundits speechless.