By now you all know about the scandal that riveted this Games, the nation and much of the world. It was supposedly a quid pro quo between the French and the Russians. Last week, the French lady delivered the quid, voting victory to the Russian pair over the Canadians. For that sin, blindness or collusion, Madame Le Gougne is doomed to spend the rest of her life alternately confessing and denying-and, regardless of which, weeping uncontrollably.
Last night it was the Russian judge’s turn to make good on the quo. And if you doubt that Madame Shekhovtsova knows how to play the inside game very skillfully, consider that she is married to the president of the Russian skating federation. Through the first three stages of the competition, she had dutifully voted the French dancers first, with only the critical free dance remaining. There were more photo lens, binoculars and eyes trained on this Russian lady than would have been watching a guy at the airport waving a “Welcome Al Qaeda” sign. And before God and all those witnesses, she did the dirty deed: she voted her own Russians first ahead of the French.
Now maybe she knew it was safe to blow the quo because the French won anyway, if only by the narrowest 5-4 margin. And never mind that I agreed with her, though I saw it not as a triumph by the Russians, but rather as the Russian dancers being the least bad alternative. This dance competition provided some of the most dismal performances in memory (including two falls by performers in the top-five grouping, including the Italian bronze medallists.) No pair dancing here deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as transcendent Olympians past like Torvill and Dean or Klimova and Ponomarenko.
Both the French and Russian dancers chose extraordinarily ponderous programs. The French “I Had A Dream” program, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s immortal words would have been a surefire hit in Atlanta six years ago, perhaps in the synchronized swimming. In Salt Lake, they would have been better advised to have found a recording of Brigham Young saying, “I Found the Place.” The French weren’t the only ones who suffered from location. I didn’t notice many folks in the stands singing along to the Israelis rousing rendition of “Hava Nagilah,” “Yiddische Mama” and “Shalom Aleichem.” But if they can only reprise it at some future New York Olympics, I guarantee them not only a gold medal, but 1,000 new trees in Israel dedicated in their name.
The Russians were weighty too with their ecclesiastical turn on the ice (actually “Turn, Turn, Turn” on the ice). With their tattered cloths and disheveled hair (disheveled in ice dancing means no more than two stylists worked on them), they were more slightly more poignant than pompous, something nobody would say about the French couple. I should point out that the female half of the French team, Maria Anissina, is, of course, a Russian, as is the male half of the American, British and Israeli teams. So no matter who wins ice dancing, the Russians still reign.(It was sad that Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic even, couldn’t afford to import a Russian and instead had to settle for having an American on its ice-dancing team.)
Still, it was rather amazing, amid the judging scandal and the first word of a radical reform of the scoring system for the future, that the ice dancing judges did their same old tired act. The rap on the “sport” is that, since there aren’t even jumps or other mandated moves on which to hang one’s opinion, the results are pre-ordained. They cook them-from 1st place to 24th-at some cocktail party and nothing they see on the ice can dissuade them from their pre-competition wisdom.
Take the top eight pairs from the competition here. Each pair skates four dances; each of the eight was ranked exactly the same for each of the dances. In other words, the fourth-place Canadians took fourth four times, never third, never fifth. The Italians took third four times. And so forth and so on. (Occasionally, there is a breakout couple, like the Americans, Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev. They took 12th on their first dance, but after whining loudly, were elevated to 11th on their last three efforts.)
In the end, the French gold, the first-ever for French figure skating, counts in the record books as much as any other. But this is farce masquerading as sport. It can beautiful to watch, but is impossible to judge. There have been rumors for a long time that ice dancing will pave the way for ballroom dancing in the Olympic family. Don’t bet on it. When the reformers finish devising a new scoring system, don’t be surprised to find ice dancing swept under the Zamboni-and gone from future Olympics.
