Olympic scandal reflects poorly on sport
By Vicki Nguyen
Original and fashionable costume designs. Enchanting music. Magnificent and graceful techniques. A romantic overture. They glide across the ice with such vigor and beauty. Their concentration is unparalleled, their expressions are priceless. So elegant a sport, yet so controversial!
The world of figure skating is once again restless. There is a huge dispute regarding wrongly-awarded gold medals in the pairs figure skating event at the 2002 Winter Olympics. The majority of people believe that Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier turned in a golden performance; however, it was the Russian pair, Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who walked away with the gold medals by a 5-4 judge margin. The chain of events that followed were outrageous debates, series of investigations and worse, finger-pointing.
This is just another scandal to add to the list in the realm of figure skating. Gone are the ideals of the Olympics, where athletes and officials take oaths promising honesty, objectivity and fairness. The integrity of the sports world is again compromised.
It seems Olympic officials are doing their best to resolve the controversy swiftly and effectively. A second set of gold medals has been awarded to the Canadian pair and their silver medals will likely end up in a museum somewhere. So is this the end of the story and will the attention once again be rightly placed on the Olympics as a whole? I'm afraid not.
Not until the media candidly shifts their camera lenses and microphones away from the scandal. Not unless those involved in the world of figure skating face reality and accept the true nature of the sport. No one disputes the subjective nature of sports that require judging (such as gymnastics, figure skating, diving, etc.), yet everyone is hyped on the need for reform. A handful of alternatives have been suggested, from using computers to track scores to selecting judges from countries that are not involved in the events. While some of these solutions are quite sound, none have the possibility of being 100 percent objective.
Computers are programmed by humans; third-party judges can also be manipulated; paid judges can easily be tempted with outrageous bribes. As long as human nature is a factor in determining the winning and losing, there will remain human errors.
There has been talk of banning all sports that involve judging from the Olympics. An extreme move, but perhaps the only way to keep the Olympics true to what it represents. Change is always good and reform is definitely welcome and hopeful. However, to believe that this would eradicate the presence of biased opinions is rather naive, for it is nearly impossible to be objective in a subjective scenario. The best thing that has come out of this incident is that it shows how little tolerance there is for corruption.
The Russians feel jilted and the Canadians feel robbed. Let's not lose sight of the fact that figure skating is also a form of entertainment, which means through this unfortunate scandal, these four people have garnered more fame than they could have ever imagined. Gold or silver, they are already the biggest winners at the 2002 Winter Olympics!