Well, duh?

Yesterday, Russian figure skater, Adelina Sotnikova, won the Women's figure skating gold medal over defending champion Yuna Kim.  Both skated well.  Adelina's program was more difficult than Yuna's, but most of what I heard was that Yuna's was more "artistic", or something like that.

Today, or maybe sometime yesterday, some yahoo started a petition to change the results of the figure skating.  The primary complaint is that too many of the judges were Russians, and skating is corrupt, and the home crowd influenced the judging.  Not a word was said about the difference in difficulty of the two programs.

According to an article from the Huffington Post, Adelina won by tailoring her program to the current scoring system.  She did what she needed to win, under the rules of the competition.  Now, at least 1.6 million people want to change that after the fact, because they think, based on an uneducated eye, that Yuna skated better.  This is the problem with figure skating (and a lot of the Winter Olympics "sports".)  They are decided by judges.  Two experts can watch the same performance and disagree as to who performed better.  Johnny Weir said as much during the ice dancing competition, when he declared that the Americans (Meryl Davis and Charlie White) and the Canadians (Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir) are both so good and so close, but skate with different styles, that it really comes down to personal preference in determining who is better.  If you have read previous posts, you know I love Johnny Weir.  This comment makes me love him even more.  He admits that bias comes into play.  Many people in the skating world don't want to admit that.  They want to pretend that the winner is the best skater, just like the winner of the 100 meter dash is the fastest runner.  That is simply not true.

Figure skating has a history of disputed results.  Just four years ago Evan Lysacek won the gold medal without attempting a quad.  Evgeni Plushenko complained that no one should win the Olympic Gold Medal if they don't do a quad.  Of course Plushenko was biased, because he won the silver medal that year.  His comments, though, ignore the fact that Lysacek did something very similar in 2010 to what Adelina did in 2014.  He skated to the rules.  He racked up points by performing lesser jumps to perfection, rather than going for the more valuable jumps, but not completing them.  In doing so, he won gold.  That can't happen today for reasons I don't know (either scoring system has changed to reward a quad more or too many people attempt quads, so you won't be able to beat all of them without doing them yourself), but it was possible four years ago.

Once again, we have an allegedly disputed result.  Well, duh?  Any time you you include an artistic element in the scoring of an athletic competition, you are opening yourself up to controversy.  Add to that the third biggest athletic spectacle in the world (behind the Summer Olympics and the World Cup) and a competition between nations and people are always going to complain.  According to the Yahoo article linked above, about 90% of the signatures on the petition are from South Korea.  Well, duh?

A year and a half ago, I explored whether the "sports" in the Summer Olympics should remain in the Olympics based on several criteria.  In that discussion, I used the term "sport" in quotes, because I have a very specific definition of a sport.  I did not go into that, because I had a different purpose.  It may be time to explore "sports" a little more.

Nah, I don't have that kind of time right now.  To be simple, I believe a sport must be objective.  I have no problem with events that are not objective.  I enjoy the skating in the Winter Olympics and gymnastics in the Summer Olympics, but I maintain these are not sports.  They are athletic, they take a ton of effort, practice, hard work and talent.  The people who compete in these (and other) endeavors are phenomenal athletes.  Of course, so are the people in cirque du soleil.  And that is fine.  But if you are going to have a competition that involves judging and "artistic" elements, you are going to have differences of opinion.  This is a fact, not a controversy.

There have been controversies in the past, legitimate corruption.  Yesterday's result was not a controversy.  It was a difference of opinion.  And a bunch of whiney people who don't understand how the game is played.  Adelina understands how the game is played and she played it to perfection.  That alone is worthy of a champion.

As for all these non-sports competitions in the Winter Olympics, I'll leave them in for now.  Maybe in four years I'll decide which competitions to cut from the Winter Olympics, but not now.  Figure Skating will stay, though.  Otherwise, NBC will lose most of their ratings and I will lose Johnny Weir.  We can't have either of those happen.

Reflections on What Has Happened (Focus for this will be on US sports and medals, but we will touch on other stuff as time permits)

1. Loved the Women's Biathlon Relay.  US had their best finish ever, coming in 7th.  I believe my newest Olympic goal of seeing the US win a biathlon medal will be achieved in my lifetime.

2.  The Ski Cross quarterfinal that ended with one guy on his feet and three sliding across the finish line off their feet was hysterical.

3.  I really, really hate Canadian hockey right now.

Predictions Recap

1. US gets bronze in Men's hockey, gold in Women's. - Still pending and sadly still possible, and

2. Ashley Wagner shocks the world with a bronze. - Pending and tonight will decide. (She won't do it, though; Gracie will.)  WRONG!!!  and WRONG!!!

3. Mikaela Shiffrin becomes the darling of these games. - Not as close to wrong as yesterday.

4. US beats Russia in both total medals and golds. - Pending, and very close, but we are doing it so far.

5. I will watch more biathlon than anyone else in America. - Almost correct.

6. Putin will be on TV more during these Olympics than Kate Middleton was in 2012. And that's a bad thing, because Kate is much more fun to look at, for everyone except my Baltic States Insider. -Correct.  He officially passed her at 7:45 this morning.

7. Yuna Kim gold in figure skating. Lipnitskaya Silver. Gracie Bronze.  - WRONG!!!, WRONG!!! and WRONG!!!

8.  Norway wins Men's Biathlon Relay, Bjoerndalen gets his 14th medal.  Pending

9.  US 4-3 win over Canada in Men's Hockey.  WRONG!!!

10.  Sweden 5-2 win over Finland in other semi.  WRONG!!!


Predictions 

1.  I should stop predictions because I have become pretty bad at them.

2.  The Netherlands win both Speed Skating Pursuit Gold Medals.

3.  The city of Philadelphia does not get the 10 or so inches of snow needed to make this the second snowiest winter ever.

What to Watch For

1.  One last chance to see biathlon under the lights in the Men's Relay.

2.  I suppose the hockey gold medal game is happening, but...

3.  Four Man bobsled.

4.  Time to start thinking about post Olympics


Random Fact of the Day

Phil and Amanda Kessel scored 8 goals in the 2014 Winter Olympics.  Twelve of the 20 teams that competed in the Men's and Women's Hockey failed to score more than 8 goals.