for the figure skating enthusiasts here, thanks for taking the time to explain the rules and judging process. but all the frustration you see posted by viewers, media and analysts is why the sport will probably never grow beyond all 2 or 3 of you. we common folk watch sports/games to be entertained and get satisfaction when participants get what we think they deserve...it seems like everything about figure skating judgment and politics is set up to be largely counter to that goal.
to our untrained eyes we see Virtue/Moir and Yuna Kim skate so beautifully that the audience is just stunned silent. but because their more robotic competition had a few more technical elements, they get the gold even if their performance is infinitely more forgettable. it's like watching your hockey team dominate for 60 minutes but lose in OT due to a bad penalty call; annoying and unsatisfying.
and I've never seen a sport where the people surrounding it are so quick to call everything into question. I swear I can hear Kurt Browning's eye twitching uncontrollably whenever unexpected scores pop up on screen. can you imagine watching an NHL game where the colour commentator keeps questioning the integrity of every officiating decision? if the Herald ran stories each morning about how inconsistent the penalty calls were the night before? if the stars of the league gave post game interviews where they hinted that the outcome of the games is really beyond their control but they're resigned to the fact that there's nothing they can do about it?
so anyways, maybe there's something shady going on that they'll never prove, or maybe everything is being handled with complete objectivity and professionalism and we're all just whiny uneducated once-every-4-years spectators. all I know is how this sport makes me feel, and right now I'm glad we don't have to deal with it again until 2018.
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