Like I said before you opinion my opinion don’t count. When multiple athletes have valid claims, they shouldn’t be dismissed. And if you don’t think they are valid in sport that had been hammered for poor judging for years, then you are nothing more than a biased fan. The sport of figure skating skill needs to be cleaned up further.

FYI, there is no specific “Dance Component” in the scores, and generally V&M have always fared extremely well in all the Program Component scores, even when their Technical Element scores have been lower than those below them in the rankings in previous seasons.

Your insistence that 2 couples from Europe who have uttered jealous complaints have to be listened to with reverence is bizarre. It is not uncommon for the losers in Ice Dance to utter disparaging remarks about other couples whom they deem unworthy podium finishers. Indeed the Russians complained about Torvill & Dean at the Europeans in 1984, imagining that because it was an Olympic year, they would automatically be placed ahead of the British couple. When they realised they were being ridiculous, they stopped whining and admitted T&D were simply better. Ofcourse that was before the days of internet blogging, when people with a personal agenda projected their own disappointment about something in their own lives, wrapped up with a gross lack of knowledge, and made it into something and nothing.

My final point to you would be this:
Apart from repeating endlessly the assertion that the Italians and Russians complained, they should be listened to, it was bad judging, and V&M cannot Dance – where are your points, one by one, to back up your opinion about V&M’s Freedance not being worthy of Gold? Have you mentioned one word about choreography, musicality, performance, unison, skating skills, edges, footwork difficulty, Lifts, etc etc.? What do you think constitues ‘Dance’? You haven’t actually said yet – at all!
Any passing observer could see that the Gold and Silver medalists had by far the best, and most intricate, and most thrilling choreography. Marina Zueva has alot of Torvill & Dean influences, which is nice to see, and they were by far the most exciting couples to watch. That’s Dance!

The judging across the board in all figure skating events was poor and all the scores were inflated. Covergirl proved my point with all her research, all data which I was already familiar with before writing the post. This story is about a flawed judging system, not the Canadians. It is this type of judging that led me to compete in a sport where I controlled my own destiny.

Covergirl, I take my hat off to you, sterling work with the facts and figures re Sandra Bezic, Dick Button and everything else in your attempts to refute the argument by Dominic. Sadly, in the age of internet Blogging, people with a passing interest in ‘Sport on TV’ can write poorly informed opinions and pass them off as fact, then be unable to respond to cogent arguments pointing out why they’re wrong.
I’m sure you’re British BTW Covergirl, and if you were competing or covering the Paralympic events, hope it all went well for you.

Dominic, my cousin in Cyprus competed in Greco-Roman Wrestling, and anyone who competes or trains in any sport deserves respect, but where you are totally wrong is in stating that Virtue & Moir’s Freedance was the 5th best on the night for ‘Dancing and Interpretation’. Since they entered the Senior Worlds 4 seasons ago, all of their Freedances have been performed in a seamless way, linking all of the (now endless) technical requirements under the new system. Their transitions and elements blend smoothly as one, and there is no clunky seperation of ‘here’s our circular step sequence, curve lift, rotational lift, twizzles’ etc. You don’t notice their elements as such till the whole thing is over because quite simply they are dancing on ice and captivating your imagination and attention, you’re not thinking about step sequences.

Before reading this thread, I watched on Youtube the TEB Paris GP performance of their FD and Canadian Nats. Neither was as good because, as Covergirl explained, a Freedance grows during the season with little adjustments, and they were primed and ready for the Olympics in their home country. Who wouldn’t be inspired to skate better than they ever have? Ofcourse the scores would go up for such performances. There was no conspiracy, or pre-ordained scoring. Indeed some Americans (Christine Brennan) tried to suggest before the Olympics that because the Technical Specialist at the event was going to be Marika Humphreys-Baranova (a Brit, married to a former Ukrainian) that she would favour the Russians. Both Davis & White and Virtue & Moir outskated the Russians and were scored ahead, so that pre-Olympic conspiracy talk was nonsense.

What was quite evident was that in the OD and FD, D&W and V&M were in another league compared to the rest of the competitors. Both couples have improved out of sight this season. Frankly, I thought last year at Worlds that V&M should’ve won the CD, and this season I would still have them ahead of their training mates in the CD segment of Ice Dance. In both the OD and FD in Vancouver they skated after D&W had skated 2 brilliant routines, but still V&M had that extra elan, unison, maturity and interpretation, and it was no surprise that V&M went ahead on both routines. I don’t dispute that some may prefer the Bollywood dance, and Phantom, of Davis and White – indeed Jayne Torvill preferred their FD routine, and said so last week in her magazine column – but she still said that V&M were worthy winners. Most comment I’ve read from people who liked D&W’s performance more still agreed that V&M were also incredible and had no quibble with the Gold, but just thought D&W very unlucky. It’s the fact this Blogger states they are somehow inferior as dancers and interpretors of music that is so laughable.

As for Faiella & Scali, they surprise me greatly. For the second time. The first was after Europeans, giving an interview to Eurosport – when the entire COP system was shown in a preposterous light, as Covergirl says, they won 80% of the competition but still got Silver – yet they said they “wanted to win silver” and were “very happy”, and the Russians “deserved Gold”. Bizarre, or overly polite, as I thought then, or far too deferential. Inspite of their very good performance in Tallin, they are limited as a couple in what they can do, and I certainly don’t consider them outstanding dancers who have qualities that V&M don’t.

I don’t have sympathy for Belbin & Agosto either. Their Moldavian OD and pseudo religious FD didn’t appeal to me, and I’m still smarting from them winning silver in Torino and denying Delobel & Schoenfelder a much more deserved Olympic medal in 2006.

As for Pairs/Dance blurring, which Dominic is concerned about, well the couple who blur the disciplines are the 2nd Russians Khochlova & Novitiski, whose routines consist entirely of her doing acrobatic moves with gymnastic flexibilty, and very little dancing, as a couple, with her technically weaker partner. That is not ice dance. What V&M do most definitely is.

Now to your address your weak debating points:

1) Dick Ebersol and NBC choose to part ways with the NBA because of the direction it was heading with Iverson. As a result, the NBA had to move to cable. That moves was not by choice, NBC decided it no longer would make money selling gangsters.

2) Kobe Bryant wasn’t even the biggest player on his team during most of the era. That belonged to Shaq. Iverson has had more influence on kids over the last 10 years than any other NBA star and it is not even close.

3) You illustrate my point about Iverson’s influence with your Neilsen ratings statement. While he brought an element of fan to watch, it was the fan who cannot afford to go to a game. That is why they watched on TV. At the same time, the average NBA fan was disenchanted by the gangster behavior. The people that can afford a game ticket don’t want to see Iverson.

4) The street thugs didn’t dictate the game pre-2000. Take a look at the uniforms that Jabbar and the rest wore. Fans don’t care to see “heroes” act like “zeroes”. In the 80s, the majority of the players could have been successful in things other than basketball. Look at Magic Johnson, he is a bonafide success as a businessman. Today, without basketball, 75% of the players would be in prison. Iverson included. Wait, he already did a four month stay and was released so he could become a basketball star. Forgot that.

This is the point on which I and the original poster disagree…
And whilst HE/SHE supported his opinion by quoting the Russians and Italians themselves[who OF COURSE were biased in favour of themselves...].. I supported my opinion with the list of experts who’s thoughts on the subject YOU seem to think should be tossed aside simply because they come from Canada, Britain and the USA… I wonder exactly who you would accept.?

That having been said… why would Dick Button favour the Canadians?
He is a very staunch American who has long been a vocal fan of Davis and White, and Sandra Bezic, despite her place of birth has been a commentator for more than 25 years for the American networks… she is an extremely savvy lady who is most certainly not predisposed to bite the hand that feeds her.
I also question your assumption that the British experts I quoted would be more likely to favour the Canadians…
In my experience both of the gentlemen concerned have never been anything other than totally even handed when commenting on figure skating performances… and in their comments to the press afterwards.
You are of course entitled to your opinion.. you didn’t say who you did think should have won?
I may not agree with it.. BUT I wouldn’t criticise you for it.. certain elements of Ice Dance are and always have been subjective… although that subjectivity is under attack from the new judging system, and that’s good news.
No.. my issue with the original poster was based not on his opinion..
It was based on his poor research and knowledge [or the lack thereof] of the subject matter, and that he tried to pass off conjecture, and HIS opinion as fact.. which it clearly was not.