The Fix Was In

Well, then, will it ever be settled, whether the judging for the 2014 Sochi Olympics short ice dance was legitimately and neutrally judged, or was the result, puzzling to many experts in the field, one that was arranged beforehand? As coincidences go, this one was a real leap into fantasy gone real, a hint of a conspiracy aired days before the actual event, the details of which spelled corruption, leading to a French sport magazine which had published the story, predicting the outcome turning out precisely as predicted.

(From L-R) Canada's silver medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, US gold medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White and Russia's bronze medalists Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov pose on the podium at the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 17, 2014 (AFP, Yuri Kadobnov

Even that seeming coincidence might have been shrugged off as perfectly feasible, with no skulduggery involved, but the many criticisms emanating from those who surely do know of what they speak from their own experiences and their knowledge of the sport augmented by their own impressions gained from viewing the two competing finalists, the Canadian team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and their U.S. challengers, Maryl Davis and Charlie White leaves room for doubt.

US Charlie White and US Meryl Davis compete in the Figure Skating Ice Dance Free Dance at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 17, 2014 (AFP, Damien Meyer)

The French sports magazine, L'Equipe, reported on a tip they had received, on "petits arrangements entre amis" (small deals among friends). That an agreement had been reached between the Americans and the Russian judges that they would aid one another to re-balance the scores in each other's favour. As the story went, U.S. judges would give a score-assist to the Russian skaters to win the first team gold; the Russian judges in ice dance would return the compliment for the U.S. to win gold.

This scandalous revelation was denied, denied, denied, by the Olympics Committee, and by those involved, sniffing in derision that they would sully themselves by pursuing such an avenue to Olympic gold. In the event, the Russian judges may just have held to their deal, effectively giving the gold to Davis and White to break an existing gap where no American ice dance pair has ever won Olympic gold for the event.

Both dance teams performed wonderfully well, no issue with that, a far as professional accomplishment is concerned on the 'amateur' competitive Olympics stage. And since the way each judge for each event hands out scores and in what amount, is never divulged, it will never be known in fact whether the American and the Russian judges did in fact engage in such underhanded activities.

The judging is complex; there are nine individuals deciding how well accomplished the level achieved by the skaters were exhibited, the level criteria achieved by an earlier technical panel. There are marks awarded for quality of elements and program components, moves are assigned base values augmented by "grade of execution" marks.

There is no Canadian judge on the panel, but there is an American judge. According to the marks allocated, the Canadian team was judged to have performed a complex 36-second-long compulsory quickstep segment clumsily, though they hadn't thought they had. The very fellow who invented the step, Finn Petri Kokko tweeted: "Hope Virtue/Moir wins. Americans timing off in #finnstep and restrained even otherwise."

Canada's Tessa Virtue and Canada's Scott Moir compete in the Figure Skating Ice Dance Free Dance at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the Sochi Winter Olympics on February 17, 2014 (AFP, Yuri Kadobnov)

He tweeted again that Virtue and Moir "should be leading in my opinion" and that "I don't understand the judges in ice dancing." Canadian Olympian Elvis Stojko was perturbed by the result: "That was not correct. Both teams are so close the result did not reflect that", he commented on Twitter of the outcome where the Canadian team was awarded 76.33 in the short program, and the Americans were given 78.89 points.

No one seems able to explain the marks differential.


"It was a great skate for us tonight, very technically strong and we connected with each other on the ice," Moir said afterward. "When we drew it up that's the way we wanted to do it."