New Canadian whine — ‘Our dancers got cheated again’
TUESDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — There’s a brand new Canadian whine. It’s an angry little whine, with a hint of can’t-stand-to-lose. It’s called, “Our skaters got cheated again.”
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Canada’s ice dancing sweethearts, got beaten by Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S. at the Sochi Olympics. Nothing Canadians hate more than to be beaten by Americans.
Virtue and Moir. (Screenshot)
There’s a rumour, see, that the fix was in against our pair. A French magazine quoted an anonymous “senior Russian coach” who said the Russians and Americans had colluded to give the Russians a gold in the team competition and the U.S. a gold in ice dancing.
And sure enough, that’s what happened. Shades of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier in 2002, who should have won pairs gold but didn’t, at least not at first. After it was discovered that they were cheated out of it, they got their gold, and skating got a new scoring system that was supposed to put an end to cheating by the judges.
It’s too bad, in a way, because nobody can understand how the current system works, but according to some whiners it can still be used to cheat. It’s been in all the papers and on radio and TV since Monday.
Even the likes of Kurt Browning hinted during his commentary on the competition that Virtue and Moir should have won. Later, though, he seemed to back off, and Elvis Stojko was putting it down to two different styles by two different teams.
Virtue and Moir, meanwhile, were being perfectly gracious about it, saying they were pleased with silver.
Yeah, Virtue and Moir should have won gold, but isn’t it just possible that judges are human, too, and don’t always make good choices no matter how hard they try. Every time we get beaten at something does it have to be a conspiracy?
God only knows what will happen if we get beaten in hockey at these Olympics. We’ll probably cry that the refs were against us.
The good news is the Americans and Russians can’t take the gold from us in curling — both countries are already out of contention in both the men’s and women’s competitions.
But what if some other country beats us instead? Well, that would be cause for a raft of brand new conspiracy theories — never mind that it’s virtually impossible to cheat at curling, and it doesn’t even have judges.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Bad sportsmanship, canada. Suck it up whiners – you lost.
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So the team from our 51st state, Canadia, failed to beat the “mainland” favorites. C’est dommage.
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Ice Dance and Figure skating judging in general is the most corrupt thing in ANY sport. The French Magazine that broke this story wasn’t just some tabloid either L’equip is a reputable Sports periodical ( equivalent in North America would be Sports Illustrated), This Mag broke the original Lance Armstrong story into his doping years before it finally came to light. In the article it was written that The Russian and US judges struck a deal that would allow the Russians to win the Team skate and the US would win the ice Dance ,the story ran on Feb 8th, well guess what it actually happened. The governing bodies from US and The international Figure skating Governing body have denied such thing , Judged events have been focus of scandle for YEARS time for IOC to grow a pair, man up and terminate ALL judged events from the games this is making them look as bad as the 70’s and 80’s games with all the drug/blood doping that went on undetected.
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How does a judge cheat effectively given that the highest and lowest scores are thrown out? The prospect boggles the mind. Please elaborate.
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Thank you for this! I wish more Canadians thought like this. What’s even more unfortunate than the incessant whining by the Canadian media were Scott and Tessa’s comments about their coach. There’s nothing worse than entitlement (which is what their comments conveyed) and being unable to accept defeat (although is it really defeat when you win silver??) with grace.
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I was reading this and thinking, finally, a Canadian with some apparent objectivity. Until, that is, you claimed that Virtue and Moir “should have won gold,” and implied, so charitably, that the judges merely made a bad choice. From where I sit in my leather armchair, though, Davis and White were just plain better–more athletic, and equally as graceful as Virtue and Moir. And then there’s the fact that Davis and White have beaten the Canadians in every single recent competition, so their victory is hardly surprising. In any event, your reaction is at least an improvement from what I’ve been hearing from whining Canadians lately, so good job, I guess. I can’t wait until the US wins at hockey!
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Davis and White beat Virtue and Moir at the 2013 World Championships and again at the Olympics. No cheating or rigged judging was necessary. Both teams are wonderful, but Davis and White were better. Get over it. BTW, ice skating is not the only Olympic sport that’s judged, not timed. Never hear any whining from the skiers or boarders.
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No you don’t because the moves involved in snowboarding are concrete, much like jumps in figure skating you either land it clean or you you don’t ,easy to judge, the “Artistic impressions” in figure skating is Opinionated .
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The rigged judging accusations is exactly why I much prefer timed events, or scored events like hockey. It’s much more clear cut – If you’re the fastest or get the puck in the new more, you win, plain and simple.
It’s unfortunate that figure skating always seems to have a bad rep for cheating and judging scandals, but unless some kind of different scoring system is installed, judges will continue to be able to be swayed in some way or another.
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