Dammit...

Shades of the East German judges back in the day, anyone???

MILAN -- On Wednesday, France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won the Olympic gold medal in ice dance, narrowly edging out heavy favorites Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States -- and the turmoil over the outcome remains.

Both teams recorded their season-best score in the free dance, but ultimately Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron edged out Chock and Bates by a margin of 1.43 points after both nights of competition. Chock and Bates, the three-time reigning world champions, were clearly disappointed after the scores were announced and were emotional throughout the podium ceremony and during their media obligations later in the evening. Bates called their program their “gold medal performance” and both said they were proud of what they had done on the ice.

While Chock and Bates have remained gracious when asked about the judging of the competition, the results have sparked backlash -- and conversations about inconsistencies and potential unfairness.

Full article, HERE from ESPN.

A couple of things first... I don’t know jack about judging any Olympic sports. I ‘thought’ they had leveled the judging issues years ago by throwing out the high and low scores. Watching the two performances, the US couple had less errors during their skate.

Now, having said that, it’s obviously ‘politics’ reared its head in this one. The French judge gave the French skaters something like 8 points more than the US skaters...

The International Skating Union weighed in saying, “It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations,” the ISU said, adding it has “full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”

Sure they do... protecting what seems to be a long running issue with judges going back to the last Olympics, much less the international competitions...

Anyhoo, I think the US pair did better, and know they ‘should’ have won the gold, and apparently most of the other teams agreed!!!

Now back to your regular stuff...

Sigh...