Canadian pairs figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier fared better than ski jumper Anders Haugen. They didn’t have to wait 50 years for their placement to be adjusted.
The skating partners made out better than boxer Roy Jones Jr. He never got his gold, only a consolation prize.
And justice for the duo was certainly swifter than it was for countrywoman Sylvie Frechette. It took a year for the synchronized swimmer’s medal to change color.
The International Olympic Committee motto is citius, altius, fortius–faster, higher, stronger. That is supposed to represent a high ideal. The quest for c gold, silver and bronze is supposed to be settled on the playing venue under rules of fair play and good sportsmanship.
The Olympics are an international stage played out under the glare of a megawatt world spotlight. Nations are supposed to put aside their political tensions for two weeks, and judges take an oath in which they pledge impartiality. Yet throughout the course of Olympic history, many of the most notorious wrongs and controversies have stemmed from official action, inaction or judgments.
Some judges couldn’t count, some apparently didn’t want to, and some apparently made calls with their eyes closed.
Monday night, Sale and Pelletier skated a superb program that brought a thunderous ovation from the crowd. The performance seemed to eclipse Russians Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze for the gold. The scores went the other way, however, and the uproar began. Ultimately, after a French judge suggested she had been pressured to vote for the Russian pair, the International Skating Union and the IOC stepped in Friday and awarded a second gold medal to the Canadians.
ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta said, “We have declared misconduct.” The judge also was suspended.
The unsavory episode is not unique in Olympic annals. The closest parallel–and only other example resulting in the awarding of a second gold medal in an event based on judging–is the case of Frechette in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992. A judge said she typed in the wrong score, 8.7 instead of 9.7 for Frechette, enabling U.S. synchronized swimmer Kristen Babb-Sprague to win gold. Although the judge tried to fix the mistake, a jury of appeal at the Games upheld the original score. It took more than a year for FINA, the sport’s international governing body, to review the matter and give out a second gold.
The adjudication process was considerably slower for Haugen, the only American to win a ski-jump medal. Haugen departed from the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924 believing he placed fourth. Five decades later a Norwegian historian discovered a mistake in addition in bronze-medal winner Thorleif Haug’s score. He was demoted to fourth place. Haug had died, but in a special ceremony in Norway, Haugen, then 83, received his medal from Haug’s daughter.
“The difference here is that we acted quickly,” IOC director-general Francois Garrard said Friday of the Sale-Pelletier case. “We didn’t wait 50 years.”
Although for far different reasons, another pairs figure skating couple was embroiled in controversy. Germans Marika Kilius and Hans-Jurgen Baumler won the silver at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1966 they returned the medals because of allegations they had signed a professional contract before the Games. They were later exonerated, and their medals were returned in 1987.
The Summer Olympics is larger, more sprawling and more hyped than the Winter Olympics, and it has endured its share of high-profile medal spats, especially in boxing. It is generally conceded that Jones, now the professional light-heavyweight champion, easily earned the gold medal in his 1998 Seoul Olympic final against Korean Park Si-hun. But judges stuck Jones with silver. Appeals on Jones’ behalf failed, though years later he was presented a special Olympic award.
Similarly, future heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield came home from the 1984 Games in Los Angeles with a bronze medal in the light-heavyweight category, though many believed he deserved better. Holyfield had been disqualified from his semifinal bout for an alleged after-the-bell punch that only the referee appeared to see.
Long before those two current-day fighters made their mark, Ingemar Johansson of Sweden was disqualified by officials “for not giving his best” in the 1952 Games in Helsinki, Finland. Johansson, whose best soon was good enough to win the heavyweight title, was given his silver medal in 1981.
A less remembered tug-of-war over possession of a bronze medal took place in track and field in Los Angeles. French 100-meter hurdler Michelle Chardonnet was on her way to the podium to accept the medal when she was informed that a meet jury appeal determined that American Kim Turner had taken third place. The International Association of Athletics Federation considered the case and 31/2 months later ruled Chardonnet truly had won the bronze. Turner was bumped to fourth.
One of the best-known disputes involved Native American Jim Thorpe. In 1912, he won the decathlon and pentathlon. It was later revealed that Thorpe, considered the greatest all-around athlete of the first half of the 20th Century, took a small amount of money for playing minor-league baseball before the Stockholm Games. Applying the stringent amateur standard of the day, officials stripped him of his medals. It wasn’t until nearly 30 years after Thorpe’s 1953 death that the IOC gave medals to his family.
Americans with long memories also recall the anger provoked when swimmer Rick DeMont, then 16, lost his gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle in Munich in 1972 for taking prescribed asthma medication that contained a banned substance. Efforts to reinstate DeMont’s gold have gone unrewarded. Ben Johnson’s infamous drug-tainted 100-meter victory in Seoul and subsequent loss of his gold medal tainted the Olympics in a different way.
Probably no Olympic controversy resonates and lingers with U.S. sports fans as vividly as the American men’s basketball defeat in 1972, when officials twice put enough time back on the clock to allow the Russians to snatch victory.
Postmortem critiques of figure skating judges’ scores are nothing new. But the intensity and long-lasting nature of last week’s scorn reached new levels, reinforcing the belief the Canadians were robbed.
The pairs incident crossed the line from miscarriage of justice into scandal when it was determined the judges didn’t simply make a bad call but appeared to collude to fix the outcome. The stench was too strong for the IOC and the figure skating union to ignore.
Some not-so Olympic moments
The scandal surrounding the scoring for pairs figure skating is just the latest in a long history of Olympic controversies.
1908 London
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Men’s 400 meters
U.S. sprinter John Carpenter is disqualied from the race for interfering with Britain’s Wyndham Halswelle, who was about to overtake Carpenter’s teammates, William Robbins and John Taylor. Officials order the race rerun, but Robbins and Taylor refuse. Halswelle runs the race alone to take the gold.
1952
Helsinki
Boxing
Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson is disqualified “for not giving his best” in a gold-medal match against Ed Sanders of the United States. Johansson, who did not throw a single punch during the fight, beat Floyd Patterson in 1959 to claim the heavyweight title. He finally received his silver medal in 1981.
1968
Grenoble, France
Women’s luge
Three women from East Germany are disqualified for illegally heating the runners on their sleds before each race. Coaches for other countries in the men’s competition demand that the East German men be disqualified as well. Bad weather, however, cancels the last runs.
1972
Munich
Men’s basketball
The U.S. loses the gold-medal game 51-50 to the Soviet Union after officials put three seconds back on the clock, allowing the Soviets time to inbound the ball and score the winning basket. U.S. players boycott the medal ceremony, refusing to accept the silver.
1988
Seoul
Boxing
Despite dominating the light middleweight title fight, U.S. boxer Roy Jones Jr. loses a split decision to South Korean boxer Park Si-hun. Park later admits he lost the fight and raises Jones’ hand on the victory stand. In 1997, the IOC reopened the case and found no wrongdoing.
Women’s gymnastics
The U.S. team is penalized half a point when Rhonda Faehn doesn’t leave the platform after removing the springboard that a teammate used to mount the uneven bars. An East German judge insists that the rarely enforced penalty be applied. The U.S. loses the bronze medal to East Germany by three-tenths of a point.
1992
Barcelona
Synchronized swimming
Canada’s Sylvie Frechette is awarded a silver medal in synchronized swimming after a judge presses the wrong scoring button. The score is changed a year later, and Frechette turns in her silver for gold. Kristen Babb-Sprague of the U.S. is allowed to keep her gold medal.
1998
Nagano
Ice dancing
Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov allegedly persuades Canadian judge Jean Senft to rank a low-level Ukrainian ice dancing team eighth in exchange for Balkov’s ranking the Canadian team third.
Snowboarding
Canadian Ross Rebagliati is stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for marijuana. He later gets the medal back when the IOC rules that the drug code is unclear.
Sources: International Olympic Committee, The Complete Book of the Olympics.
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