Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who became the first American figure skating pair to capture gold in an Olympic ice dancing event at Sochi 2014, shouldn’t have taken first place, according to some.
Since figure skating, like a number of Olympic sports, is scored by subjective judgments instead of objective scores, there’s always room for disagreement when points are awarded. After Monday’s event, there’s been ample speculation that previous gold medalists, Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, were robbed – victims of corrupt judges.
"I don't understand the judging," tweeted former Finnish skater Petri Kokko, for whom one of the mandatory parts of an ice dancing routine is named. @Virtue_Moir should be leading in my honest opinion.”
Even Marina Zoueva, who created headlines for the two battling ice dancing teams when it was revealed she’d signed on to coach both of them, can’t always wrap her head around the judges’ point scoring. "How judges decide, I think you have to ask the judges," Zoueva said, according to CBS News, adding, "I do not understand what they're looking for."
One of the most vocal detractors of ice dancing judges in general and those who scored the ice dancing finals specifically has been Toronto Star writer Rosie DiManno. “The villainy of ice dancing knows no bounds,” DiMannon wrote. “Strip away the sequins, wipe off the pancake makeup, delete the frozen-in-place smiles, and what’s left is a tawdry whore of a sport where the judges are the johns. If the fix is not in against Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, then I’m the Princess of Wales."
DiManno went on to question how Davis and White beat Virtue and Moir’s short program routine, let alone how they managed to set a world record. She claims that the judges merely decided that at Sochi 2014, it was the Americans’ time to take home the gold.
The skaters, for their part, managed to remain diplomatic about the controversial aspect of their sport. “It's subjective,” admitted Davis. “That's what makes our sport so unique and so special.” Her competitor, Moir, said, "It didn't go our way, but I don’t think the judging was pre-determined; it's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess."
– Chelsea Regan
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