With his head bent down and an agitated demeanor, International Skating Union president Ottavio Cinquanta addressed the current irregularities in figure-skating judging yesterday.
The current controversy over the scoring system developed after Sunday’s conclusion to the pairs figure-skating competition. After Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze were awarded the gold medal over the Canadian team of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, speculation occurred that the judges unfairly ruled in the Russians’ favor.
The referee of the pairs competition, American Ronald Pfenning, made allegations to the ISU that there were judging irregularities at the event. The allegations were furthered when North American media outlets reported that there was an apparent tradeoff between the French pairs judge, Marie Reine Le Gougne, and a Russian ice-dancing judge. The result would place Russia’s teams in first for the pairs and give France’s team a boost in the ice-dancing competition.
Yesterday Cinquanta said he was embarrassed by the allegations of judges fixing the competition and denied the reports made by the media.
Cinquanta did say that the ISU will meet Monday to discuss the irregularities in judging but that he will not change the judges assigned to judge next week’s ice-dancing competition.
As far as Sale and Pelletier are concerned, they will likely to have to settle for the silver medal.
“It would be very, very difficult [for the council] to overturn the decision,” Cinquanta said.
The ISU president pointed out to the media yesterday that even if one judge did cheat the Canadian pair, the scoring was still 5-4, which made it a very close vote.
However, when the pair finished its performance Sunday in Utah, the crowd made it very clear that the judging shouldn’t have been that close. When Sale and Pelletier finished their flawless program, the fans in attendance chanted for sixes, a perfect score in figure skating.
Cinquanta, however, feels that the crowd’s emotions should have very little to do with the outcome of the competition.
“I cannot give the public the right to judge the figure skating,” Cinquanta said.
