No one would dispute that fairness is the basic issue in the Olympic pairs figure skating controversy, resolved Friday when the International Olympic Committee made the unprecedented decision to award a second gold medal because of a judge’s misconduct.
Yet the way the matter has been handled by Canadian Olympic officials and the North American media, especially NBC-TV, raises the question of whether the world’s superpower and its neighbor to the north bullied their way to get a second gold medal for Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.
Canadian Olympic team leader Sally Rehorick’s thank-you to the media suggested just that.
“I find it unusual,” she said at a news conference Friday, “that the first statement I want to say after I congratulate David and Jamie and their coaches is that it’s wonderful the support that you as the media have given to this cause.”
In other parts of the world, especially Russia, it seems another example of American arrogance and self-centeredness, in this case dragging Canada into what previously had been mainly a U.S. image problem.
Craig Fenech of New Jersey, agent for Sale and Pelletier, seemed to personify that attitude Saturday when he said, “I’m not going to flagellate myself for what the rest of the world thinks.”
“In our media, there is a feeling the U.S. is really strong, maybe too strong, with a lot of power and influence,” Japanese Olympic Committee spokesman Tsuneharu Kida said. “This has nothing to do with sport but maybe it influences sport as well.”
Sale and Pelletier are blameless in the affair. They wanted to be marked fairly for an excellent performance. There is evidence that did not happen because a French judge has admitted her failure to report that she was asked to vote a certain way.
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“I don’t think this is at all about the press and North American bullies,” said Mark Lowry, the Canadian Olympic Association’s executive director for sport and programs. “This is about a basic sports issue. There was clearly a problem with the judges.”
The Russians’ position
Yet the other gold medalists, Russians Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze, have been made to feel like pariahs.
“We can’t be happy. We can’t celebrate. We just sit here like dogs,” Sikharulidze said Friday.
“The Russians do not deserve to be disparaged,” U.S. Olympic Committee President Sandra Baldwin said.
Neither Fenech nor anyone in the Canadian delegation has encouraged Sale or Pelletier to make a phone call to the Russians to tell them directly what Pelletier has expressed eloquently to the press.
“I will talk to them if I see them,” Pelletier said. “We’re pretty sad he feels like this. He has nothing to do with this. It’s not our fault, it’s not his fault.”
Fenech said it would seem false for Sale or Pelletier to make such a call.
“To suddenly embrace in some phony, `We love each other, isn’t this wonderful we all have a gold medal’ would be phony,” Fenech said. “This isn’t going to become a love fest, and it isn’t going to become Nancy and Tonya.”
The reference to the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding scandal brings up another issue. The way that controversy consumed the U.S. media at the 1994 Olympics left other athletes feeling they were only a sideshow to figure skating’s circus act.
Pelletier addressed that in a Friday media conference when he said, “We feel not guilty but a little bit sad other athletes around the world aren’t getting the spotlight they deserve for the accomplishments they are doing.” He urged journalists to cover other events.
Less than two hours later, reporters received an advisory from the Olympic News Service headlined, “Sale, Pelletier To Hold Another Press Conference Saturday.” It was scheduled for 10 a.m., conflicting with five other Olympic events.
“There is an incredible amount of interest in David and Jamie, and the media wasn’t satisfied with what they got Friday,” Lowry explained. “The timing [of the news conference] would conflict with other events no matter when it was held.”
The Canadians are to receive their gold medals in a ceremony after Sunday’s second phase of the dance competition at the Salt Lake Ice Center.
“It should be the same in hockey. Everybody gets gold,” said Jaromir Jagr of the Czech Republic, an NHL scoring champion and most valuable player.
Past cases accepted
In some other past cases where officiating seemed scandalous but no judges complained of pressure, the losing country accepted without public complaint.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Japan believed Shinichi Shinohara deserved the gold medal that went to France’s David Douillet in heavyweight judo, and Russian Olympic officals thought Alexandr Karelin had beaten Rulon Gardner of the United States in Greco-Roman wrestling. No U.S. media asked questions about Gardner’s triumph.
Although Sale and Pelletier accepted their silver medals Monday night, members of the 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball team are still seen as sore losers for never accepting their silver medals after a controversial loss to the Soviet Union in the gold-medal game. Reports about the pairs controversy in the Russian media have said Bereznaia and Sikharulidze deserved to win and a second gold medal should not be awarded.
“North Americans think only of themselves,” said Jerome Bureau, editor-in-chief of the French sports daily L’Equipe. “It is the same in unimportant things like this figure skating decision as in important things like world affairs. It is seen as a manifestation of arrogance.”
The IOC executive board voted 7-1 with one abstention to approve the second gold medal for Sale and Pelletier. The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post reported that board member He Zhenliang of China dissented because he didn’t think the organization should cave in to the media pressure.
“There is at very least the impression North Americans have steamrollered a decision that should have been made over a greater period of time,” said University of Texas professor John Hoberman, an Olympics scholar.
“[IOC President] Jacques Rogge has left the impression he reacted to the vox populi. This is an unhealthy precedent for the IOC to establish. Anyone’s notion of due procedure has been violated.”
What seemed a much more clear-cut case in 1992 took 15 months to resolve. It involved a synchronized swimming judge’s admission of a mistake entering a mark into a computerized scoring system at the Barcelona Olympics. It also resulted in awarding a second gold medal.
The pressure here began with the outrage expressed by NBC commentators Sandra Bezic, a former Canadian pairs skater, and 1984 Olympic champion Scott Hamilton of the United States.
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“The commentary never looked at the other side,” said 1956 Olympic bronze medalist Ingrid Wendl, now a commentator for Austrian TV. “Imagine what would have happened if Anton had run into Jamie, instead of the other way around as it happened in the warmup. The media would have said the Russian was trying to hurt her.
“There are so many other things going on. The need for ratings. What a gold medal can mean for a skater financially.”