what if this coach is the Scotty Bowman of ice dancing though? it sounds like they're implying that as well. should they be like, screw you Scotty, if you insist on spreading out the golds between your two teams, then we're leaving and going with uh...Greg Gilbert? geez is that all that's available right now? eh, forget it.
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I don't know enough about the sport to know, but blaming your coach after the fact seems like sour grapes to me. Why not get a new coach? Also, at this level, does the coach make that much of a difference? Again I don't know anything about this sport so I honestly do not know.
"Oh by the way, Im coaching the US too!"
"Uhhhhh how about....no...or you're fired?"
Exactly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiggy_12
I don't know enough about the sport to know, but blaming your coach after the fact seems like sour grapes to me. Why not get a new coach? Also, at this level, does the coach make that much of a difference? Again I don't know anything about this sport so I honestly do not know.
Everything I know about ice dancing I learned from Blades of Glory, so unless their coach was Craig T. Nelson or from North Korea they never stood a chance anyways.
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If you really listen to Moir and Virtue, its clear they feel that the process of declaring a winner in Ice Dancing is very political, ie. its more like real life then sports. It seems to be similar to getting an Oscar nomination or a promotion at work.
Yes to certain degree you can say gamesmanship certainly influences all sports, but this goes beyond that to the realm of behind the scenes back room politics.
There was a write up by Cam Cole where a question was asked of an ice dancing "expert": What would happen if a clearly dominant ice dancing couple dropped out of the sky, would they win? The answer was that "they would do well......."
This infuriates me.
First of all, people are making the assumption that since Sid is yelling and passionate, he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't and he even mentions it.
Then he keeps referring to the baseless, rumoured story from L'Equipe and stating that the result was somehow shocking. It was not. If anyone has followed the sport at all since Vancouver (and I have for 15+ years) they will know that the prediction wasn't profound at all. It would be like me saying on June that the finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs would be Chicago vs Boston and Chicago would probably win. We knew who the top 3 team event finishers would be.
We also know that Davis/White have been the better ice dance team since the 2012 Skate Canada International tournament.
Again, I point to the fact that the results are posted online. Choose the supposed corrupt judge in the short dance since the marks are pretty uniform.
This infuriates me.
First of all, people are making the assumption that since Sid is yelling and passionate, he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't and he even mentions it.
Then he keeps referring to the baseless, rumoured story from L'Equipe and stating that the result was somehow shocking. It was not. If anyone has followed the sport at all since Vancouver (and I have for 15+ years) they will know that the prediction wasn't profound at all. It would be like me saying on June that the finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs would be Chicago vs Boston and Chicago would probably win. We knew who the top 3 team event finishers would be.
We also know that Davis/White have been the better ice dance team since the 2012 Skate Canada International tournament.
Again, I point to the fact that the results are posted online. Choose the supposed corrupt judge in the short dance since the marks are pretty uniform.
Agreed with some of what you've said. Heard Sid's rant, it was rediculous, and was backed up very poorly.
- As you point out the fact what the L'Equipe predicted happened, actually happend proves nothing. They predicted what was at the very least, in the top 2 most likely outcome.
That said, there's lots of assumptions you are making in your post in the other direction:
- Why are you saying L'Equipe mentioned is baseless? As Sid did point out, they do have some history on this type of thing.
- Davis / White have been better for 2 years, agreed. You assume this alleged conspiracy only involves this years Olympics..........is it not plausible it could go back further leading to this result?
- Results are posted on line, and apparently one judges scores, are very very suspicious.
That said, doesn't really matter. Not sure if they got jobbed or not, if there was a consipiracy or not. All I know is the sport should simply become more transparent with it's juding, stop hidding the judges and it wall seem much more on the up and up and crap like this wouldn't get rumoured.
I say baseless because we have ONE random magazine article reporting the day of the Olympic Games a RUMOUR from an ANONYMOUS coach.
There has been one proven conspiracy in all of ice dance and we knew the source (Marie Le Gougne) for months leading up to the Games. But what angers me is non-skating people saying that everything is corrupt, this is not a sport etc etc.
To be honest, it makes everyone sound like that fool at a Flames game who swears the NHL is out to get his team; that there is no way a Flames player should get penalized. I then ask, to what end? Davis/White are now Olympic Champions. Are they any more famous? Does the ISU get to pat itself on the back that there isn't a back to back Olympic champion?
As for a conspiracy going back more than this year. Again, if you really follow the sport you can see that no, it's not possible since every time they have faced head to head the better team won. And really they've gone head to head at the GPF, 4 Continents Championships and World Champions each year excluding 2011. So only 9 times since the 2010 Olympic Games.
And what about pre Vancouver when Virtue/Moir was also being beaten in the GPF leading up the Olympic Games? V/M had to change up the Mahler dance to gain more points to win.
Sid Sexeiro is a fool, and I would never put any credence into a word he says. This is an interesting discussion to be had, as the merits of the ice dancing program is rather questionable when it's nearly impossible to judge one "flawless" routine from another. But Sexeiro is the last person I would use in debating the subject. I've listened to enough of Sexeiro over the years to know he is a complete nitwit about most sports, and is also hardly what I'd call an impartial observer.
Micallef seems to know what he's talking about most of the time, or at least admits his flaws. Sexiro on the other hand is a complete blowhard know-it-all, and makes sure everyone knows it. He loves to spout about nonsense just to get clips on Youtube just like this one.
Last edited by trackercowe; 02-18-2014 at 06:22 PM.
I say baseless because we have ONE random magazine article reporting the day of the Olympic Games a RUMOUR from an ANONYMOUS coach.
There has been one proven conspiracy in all of ice dance and we knew the source (Marie Le Gougne) for months leading up to the Games. But what angers me is non-skating people saying that everything is corrupt, this is not a sport etc etc.
To be honest, it makes everyone sound like that fool at a Flames game who swears the NHL is out to get his team; that there is no way a Flames player should get penalized. I then ask, to what end? Davis/White are now Olympic Champions. Are they any more famous? Does the ISU get to pat itself on the back that there isn't a back to back Olympic champion?
As for a conspiracy going back more than this year. Again, if you really follow the sport you can see that no, it's not possible since every time they have faced head to head the better team won. And really they've gone head to head at the GPF, 4 Continents Championships and World Champions each year excluding 2011. So only 9 times since the 2010 Olympic Games.
And what about pre Vancouver when Virtue/Moir was also being beaten in the GPF leading up the Olympic Games? V/M had to change up the Mahler dance to gain more points to win.
It doesn't make anyone seem like that Flames fan because it's only happening because a legitimate sports news source (who were right about Lance Armstrong years in advance) felt comfortable enough with there info to go public. Very different then some passionate fans in the crowd deciding the "refs are out to get us".
The point I was making about the potential conspiracy going back further would not be proven impossible by the fact Davis and White beat them each time for the past 2 years. That was my point, you assume the same judges aren't at those previous events, when in fact many were. In fact, one judge that was at these Olympics has apparently been a judge at every event when the two couples went head to head and Virtue/Moire had incurred lower than would have been expected scores. Is this the same judge? We don't know because the sport lacks transperancy. By the looks of it, if you wanted to fix this sport at the Olympics, the best way to do it would be to start well before, so the results at the event you are trying to fix are "out of the blue".
Again, I don't really know what to believe. Davis/White looked really good at what they do, as did Moire/Virtue, I'm certainly not qualified to say who should have one. What i do know is the sport has set its self up to be questioned given the way they operate, and judging transparency should be a required minimum of any judged sport if for no other reason to hold judges to the accountability of knowing people will be able to judge what they did. Kind of like how people on here say a lot of crap they wouldn't say if people knew their true identity.
But to say people being passionate about this is like fans of a hockey team whining about officiating is just wrong:
- the sport hides its judges and isn't accountable publicly - that breeds questions
- legitimate news source reporting an issue, not just invented by fans - often where there's smoke there's fire
- we know one judges score are messed up and way off their peers judgements of the exact same program.
Seems to me some debate on the topic is more than reasonable.
Sid Sexeiro is a fool, and I would never put any credence into a word he says. This is an interesting discussion to be had, as the merits of the ice dancing program is rather questionable when it's nearly impossible to judge one "flawless" routine from another. But Sexeiro is the last person I would use in debating the subject. I've listened to enough of Sexeiro over the years to know he is a complete nitwit about most sports, and is also hardly what I'd call an impartial observer.
Micallef seems to know what he's talking about most of the time, or at least admits his flaws. Sexiro on the other hand is a complete blowhard know-it-all, and makes sure everyone knows it. He loves to spout about nonsense just to get clips on Youtube just like this one.
Sid's rant was beyond stupid, funny thing is his rant going viral is going to be fantastic for ice dance. He just got them all sorts of free publicity.
"....We also know that Davis/White have been the better ice dance team since the 2012 Skate Canada International tournament"
Exactly! Its not about who is better on the day, Ice dancing results are about paying your dues, putting in the time with high level results and then getting rewarded for it at the Olympics. The so called flaw that the judges marked down in the short program was debunked by the European commentator on the CBC, they played the exact sequence in slow motion and could not find a flaw.
Last edited by Flamenspiel; 02-18-2014 at 08:24 PM.
Sid's rant was beyond stupid, funny thing is his rant going viral is going to be fantastic for ice dance. He just got them all sorts of free publicity.
that is a bit of a stretch...most people will say "wait thats a sport" and go back to living their lives
The point I was making about the potential conspiracy going back further would not be proven impossible by the fact Davis and White beat them each time for the past 2 years. That was my point, you assume the same judges aren't at those previous events, when in fact many were. In fact, one judge that was at these Olympics has apparently been a judge at every event when the two couples went head to head and Virtue/Moire had incurred lower than would have been expected scores. Is this the same judge? We don't know because the sport lacks transperancy. By the looks of it, if you wanted to fix this sport at the Olympics, the best way to do it would be to start well before, so the results at the event you are trying to fix are "out of the blue".
Again, I don't really know what to believe. Davis/White looked really good at what they do, as did Moire/Virtue, I'm certainly not qualified to say who should have one. What i do know is the sport has set its self up to be questioned given the way they operate, and judging transparency should be a required minimum of any judged sport if for no other reason to hold judges to the accountability of knowing people will be able to judge what they did. Kind of like how people on here say a lot of crap they wouldn't say if people knew their true identity.
Here's the rub though, the judges are only anonymous to the public right now. Every score can be matched up by the officials.
Part of Code of Points was deliberately making sure that each mark couldn't be traced to a single person at the time. It prevented people from pointing fingers at a person right on the spot or allowed the judge to give a score without having a federation pressuring them to mark a certain way. They are anonymous on the score sheet. They are not anonymous to the ISU because they need to be able to track how each judge has been voting over a period of time (again for transparency). This just prevent immediate witch hunts.
There is a way to lodge a complaint as well with the ISU.
As for my Flames fan beef, I referring to arm chair referees who watch the sport for an hour every 4 years and suddenly become "experts", kind of like Seixero who keeps bringing up Petri Kokko, the supposed "inventor" of the Finnstep. Kokko is pretty much another athlete who has an opinion, much like ours. The Finnstep was kind of based upon a dance he did 20 years ago but to say he's an expert on today's component is wrong.
Didn't the l'Equipe article quote a senior Russian coach who confirmed that deals are made?
I would be inclined to believe it a lot more if they said which coach or had a shred of proof.
And as I've said before, under Cope of Points, it is impossible for one judge to fix a result as is suggested by the article.
I know nothing about anything. But if a sport had one proven judging scandal... I'm going to guess there's about 10 others that went undetected.
Ice Dancing is the only sport where you know who's going to win before the thing even starts. Back in the days of Shae-Lynn Bourne/Victor Kratz, the russian teams could have fallen into a pit of fire and still won the thing.
Has there ever been an upset in the history of the sport?
Frankly I'm more surprised that there is someone on this board that is defending Ice Dancing. Come to think of it I didn't think there was anyone anywhere that would actually defend Ice Dancing. I always assumed it was like going to the theatre with some random numbers handed out at the end.
Don't get me wrong it's very impressive! But so is Broadway...
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Skating suffers from a very real image problem thanks to 2002. It's going to take a long time before they get over that.
I didn't know anything about the "Code of Points" before reading this thread and I doubt any other people who watch ice dancing every four years will, either.
The perception is that corruption amongst the officials and judges goes back a long ways before 2002. Certainly the phrase "block voting" predates 2002. I also personally believe that if (some) judges currently have any opportunity to fix outcomes to the benefit of their country that they will continue to do so.
Hopefully it's as craigwd says and there is no more opportunity, and skating will in time rise above the scandalous times.
And thanks, craigwd for shining a bit of light on what is going on behind the scenes. You're a good ambassador for the sport, but unfortunately guys like Sexeiro have a much bigger stage.
