Meddling: New Documentary On Peacock about the 2002 Salt Lake Pairs Scandal

[Fadeevfanboy]

There are so many qualified judges. Sending the same ones over and over, and refusing to ban the "bad apples" (most definitely including Jean Senft and Benoie Lavoie), is inexcusable. I'd like to see lifetime limits - e.g., two Olympics and ten World Championships, with no judge able to serve on consecutive World panels. This "old boys (and girls) club" leads to a lot of the cheating. Mix it up. Incent countries to train more judges.

I wouldn't put Senft in the same category as Lavoie. He is a shameless flag waving idiot. I do think she is generally a good judge, and I very much enjoyed her judging tutorials on CBC. She just handled the whole 98 thing terribly and very foolishly, and was probably led on by her own bias while deep down believing she was doing good.

 

[tony]

I wouldn't put Senft in the same category as Lavoie. He is a shameless flag waving idiot. I do think she is generally a good judge, and I very much enjoyed her judging tutorials on CBC. She just handled the whole 98 thing terribly and very foolishly, and was probably led on by her own bias while deep down believing she was doing good.

No one, regardless of how delusional they are, can think she was doing good by going along with a plan that she personally liked/her country benefitted.

It would be like someone paying to get all the answers to a big exam ahead of time, the exam ending up having a different set of questions than was promised, and then said person crying to the testing officials saying it's not fair that someone else gave them the wrong info. No one here would defend that, they'd be laughing hysterically at the idiot who tried it. Senft got the answers ahead of time, liked it, and then cried about it when it didn't happen. The end.

 

[Fadeevfanboy]

No one, regardless of how delusional they are, can think they were doing good by going along with a plan that they personally liked.

It would be like someone paying to get all the answers to a big exam ahead of time, the exam ending up having a different set of questions than was promised, and then said person crying to the testing officials saying it's not fair that someone else gave them the wrong info. No one here would defend that, they'd be laughing hysterically at the idiot who tried it.

Fair enough. I guess I am trying to give her some benefit of doubt as I really liked her until that point.

Lavoie and that idiot women judge judging Browning in 92, I always knew were clowns.

 

[Deleted member 221]

In fairness, mistaking a double for a triple could have legitimately happened pre-COP, and there was no way to review. It is a bit convenient to have happened to a judge's "own" skater, though. I would support a penalty for the judge, like being banned for a year, but not a lifetime ban, which Senft should have received in any fair system.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

I see people post this quite often and wonder where they live. Obviously not in Japan or Russia where skating is extremely popular.

Yeah you’re right, I give you that!!

However if u walked down the street in Moscow and you see in bars they’re watching football, are there places like that where they have figure skating on and everyone’s rooting for Anna?

I more less kind of meant like that. I can go to my neighbors here in West Hollywood and they could name Rams players or Dodgers players even though they don’t watch it that much but I don’t think anybody on my street could name a figure skater that’s current

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

There are so many qualified judges. Sending the same ones over and over, and refusing to ban the "bad apples" (most definitely including Jean Senft and Benoie Lavoie), is inexcusable. I'd like to see lifetime limits - e.g., two Olympics and ten World Championships, with no judge able to serve on consecutive World panels. This "old boys (and girls) club" leads to a lot of the cheating. Mix it up. Incent countries to train more judges.

That’s why I enjoyed the times FSU judged competitions of years past. Because I sure gave justice to Lucinda and Tonia K!!!!

 

[Janef]

I haven’t seen Meddling because I am in Canada but was curious about the Pairs 2002 controversy so I rewatched the programs. I would say that both pairs didn’t do great on the twist and would not be good in today’s standards for sure. I would say the Russian team was not necessarily better I see that it was more swirly around the ice
And the Canadian team was faster and covered the ice
Differently. I think Pelletier was a lot stronger on the lifts. Really hard to say what is better. If S/p had not messed up at the end of the short they may have won I think

 

[VGThuy]

I’m on episode two right now and Paul Martini is just has this arrogant and annoying personality that makes me want to slap him. And they had so many Canadian commentators and former skaters adding with Scott and Sandra to make the commentary so biased towards Sale/Pelletier whereas Elena and Anton only have themselves and Moskvina to speak for them. They could have gotten other commentators from Russia and then maybe some other ones from different countries to give their take as well.

One thing that sticks out to me is that Jamie had no idea how Elena and Anton really skated but she was super sure she was robbed. She’s later validated by the shenanigans and I guess the crowd was on her side for her to think that, but at least David acknowledged the possibility that Elena and Anton could have been better than what he and Jamie thought. One line was telling and it was that Jamie and David were expecting 6.0s and I do think they were conditioned to think that way ever since 2001 Worlds made them think they were invincible if they skated cleanly.

 

[misskarne]

There are so many qualified judges. Sending the same ones over and over, and refusing to ban the "bad apples" (most definitely including Jean Senft and Benoie Lavoie), is inexcusable. I'd like to see lifetime limits - e.g., two Olympics and ten World Championships, with no judge able to serve on consecutive World panels. This "old boys (and girls) club" leads to a lot of the cheating. Mix it up. Incent countries to train more judges.

Lifetime limits like the one you propose would absolutely kill off international judges coming out of smaller skating countries. Incentivise countries to train more judges? Exactly where are smaller countries supposed to be pulling these judges from? Seems like you want to make rules that will result in panels full of the big skating country elite.

 

[Deleted member 221]

Lifetime limits like the one you propose would absolutely kill off international judges coming out of smaller skating countries. Incentivise countries to train more judges? Exactly where are smaller countries supposed to be pulling these judges from? Seems like you want to make rules that will result in panels full of the big skating country elite.

I'm open to ideas. At minimum, there's no reason for countries like Russia, the U.S., Canada, Japan, etc. to be sending the likes of Tatiana Danilenko to judge Worlds/Olympics for decades.

And I really don't think it's much to ask a country like Australia to train one or two new World / Olympic judges every decade. This would open up more opportunities for national judges to become international judges. In this new virtual-everything world, the training can become much easier with less in-person travel required.

I don't think World / Olympic judging is as different or as difficult as some paint it to be, and based on some of the comments (and cheating) we've seen from the current crop, I'm not convinced we have any higher of a caliber already. Open it up, make it easier, and more representative.

Let's be honest: the big countries (and sometimes the small ones) send the same judges over and over because they're the most political and achieve the best results through lobbying, networking, and cheating (including giving the highest marks to their own skater they believe they can get away with, regardless of performance). This has to stop.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

I’m on episode two right now and Paul Martini is just has this arrogant and annoying personality that makes me want to slap him. And they had so many Canadian commentators and former skaters adding with Scott and Sandra to make the commentary so biased towards Sale/Pelletier whereas Elena and Anton only have themselves and Moskvina to speak for them. They could have gotten other commentators from Russia and then maybe some other ones from different countries to give their take as well.

One thing that sticks out to me is that Jamie had no idea how Elena and Anton really skated but she was super sure she was robbed. She’s later validated by the shenanigans and I guess the crowd was on her side for her to think that, but at least David acknowledged the possibility that Elena and Anton could have been better than what he and Jamie thought. One line was telling and it was that Jamie and David were expecting 6.0s and I do think they were conditioned to think that way ever since 2001 Worlds made them think they were invincible if they skated cleanly.

I watched the fourth episode late last night, oh my gosh I wish there was four more episodes. This was so well done.

A couple things I ended up not caring for Tamara as much as I have before.

It was quite nice to see Jaime and David skating at the end of this episode together

It was interesting to see James Covey Director of the FBI because in my opinion he is forever tainted for saying that lie about Hillary Clinton in 2016 destroying her chance but we don’t have to get into that here at all

I just thought this was well done, and I agree with Sally Stapleton, if the French judge could just take accountability like she did at the very beginning and then completely backtracked I just can’t have any empathy for her. We all make mistakes in life. we all make big mistakes in life. But it’s acknowledging it is what makes us grow I believe

 

[screech]

I remember when the event happened, a few peers and I were saying that if it had happened anywhere but in North America, there would have been very little outcry and likely no investigation. But because it was a North American team robbed in North America where they could have the media go crazy, and go on talk shows, they had the public support in a way they wouldn't have if the Games were in, for example, an Asian country.

 

[sadya]

I think there would still have been a big outcry if the Olympics were in a different country, because this time a judge allegedly admitted to cheating, but I don't think they would have handed out 2 sets of gold medals.

I've downloaded all episodes of Meddling from fsvids.net, the episodes are still available there for those who can't watch them on other platforms. This documentary series was better than the previous ones about this scandal, imho. They gave everyone more time and explained all viewpoints, there was still bias though towards the Canadians.

The French judge is still saying she's innocent and that she didn't really admit to any wrongdoing etc. She even wants to return to the sport and says that she's not a dishonest person. I have wondered about that sometimes, did she really admit cheating and then later backtrack after the criticism or was she misunderstood or did people blame her on purpose? The balance often tips more to cheating. Since there are a lot of dishonest people working in this sport and making careers, I think the most realistic words she said were that perhaps she could return to figure skating.

I'm a bit disappointed in Moskvina, I always adored her, loved her interviews and persona. As a coach she helps pairs to get along so they skate well. So why not help Bereznaiah out of that abusive relationship? She didn't know everything, but if so many people saw the extent of the abuse, she at least must have known how terrible it was. I'm trying to understand her point about this, but it's difficult.

The more I listen to Sale, the less I like her. And since there was something wrong going on behind the scenes, she's the one you'd naturally feel strongly for. Yet, the more time passes, the less sympathetic she seems (even without reading her Tweets).

And those tapes of that friend of Anissina's Dad, did we really hear about deal making of the results? Or was it just a lot of big talk? You could interpret those either way. I'm not sure if those tapes are 100% evidence of deal making.

Anyway, a lot to think about and I'll probably change my mind again on some points, when I rewatch this on a boring afternoon (no, not to punish myself, I have the 2006 Olympic Men's and Ice Dance events for that).

How sad that they can make an interesting documentary about a scandal but I haven't seen a documentary about 'just' figure skating without the emphasis on scandals lately. Was it around the last Olympics that another scandal received 2 documentaries or was that in 2014? I'd like to watch a new exciting documentary about the beauty and difficulty of figure skating and the efforts and sacrifices of athletes. There have been some great documentaries about that before.

 

[tylersf]

Everyone knows about the political deals.
Why don't they make it part of the scoring just they do on reality/game shows?
For example, they could say something like, "The Russians and the Chinese have made a deal to put their skaters on the podium.
Then they can score the performance correctly and factor in political points.

 

[Amantide]

The biggest scandal for me is how B&S didn't get all 5.9 and 6.0 for artistic impression after that SP which was a masterpiece and skated to perfection. B&S and S&P basically were tied going into the long program, which was a travesty. lol

As for the series, I never heard about it until now. I would like to watch it (if I can find it) if there is Moskvina in it.

 

[VGThuy]

The biggest scandal form he is how B&S didn't get all 5.9 and 6.0 for artistic impression after that SP which was a masterpiece and skated to perfection. B&S and S&P basically were tied going into the long program, which was a travesty. lol

As for the series, I never heard about it until now. I would like to watch it (if I can find it) if there is Moskvina in it.

If B/S skated later they probably would have. They skated second in the SP out of the entire field.

 

[bcash]

Just watched several donated interviews on TSL's YT channel. Interviews done in 2005-06 with (former) ISU officials, long-time council members and judges. Interesting that all of their (recounted) reaction from inside the arena was that the Canadians won. Joyce Hisey served as a technical delegate that night and had the job of "shepherding" the athletes through the event; she mentioned that B/S also appeared a little bit in shock backstage. Joe Inman said when he later rewatched it on TV, he felt that there could have been legitimate argument for placing the Russians first, even though his own preference didn't change.

It's also interesting that the consensus on skating forums is that B/S had the more sophisticated and complex choreography and would have won under IJS, whereas some of these interviewees expressed the view that S/P had a more cohesive program with nicely linked elements. I went back and rewatched those performances again. Indeed S/P had some nice entries and exits in and out of elements. But they also had a lot of side-by-side and two-foot skating in between. B/S had vastly superior lines and carriage, and beautiful choreographic moments, but they appeared a little disconnected from the performance. And even though that program was new, most of the choreographic content was carried over from the Chaplin LP.

As to the confessions of the French judge. It sounds like she made those to several people within hours after the competition ended, but was not willing to put anything down in writing when urged to do so. So three of those who heard her confession and who had official capacity in the ISU wrote it down and delivered it to the ISU president. It appears that Cinquanta had by then received quite a bit information, a lot of which in writing, re. questionable behaviors from Didier and the Russian Federation. Why there was never an independent investigation and why the Russians were never investigated was never answered. Some cited ISU internal politics, and Sonia Bianchetti alluded to some other speculations but wouldn't say more.

 

[Japanfan]

Just watched several donated interviews on TSL's YT channel. Interviews done in 2005-06 with (former) ISU officials, long-time council members and judges. Interesting that all of their (recounted) reaction from inside the arena was that the Canadians won. Joyce Hisey served as a technical delegate that night and had the job of "shepherding" the athletes through the event; she mentioned that B/S also appeared a little bit in shock backstage. Joe Inman said when he later rewatched it on TV, he felt that there could have been legitimate argument for placing the Russians first, even though his own preference didn't change.

It's also interesting that the consensus on skating forums is that B/S had the more sophisticated and complex choreography and would have won under IJS, whereas some of these interviewees expressed the view that S/P had a more cohesive program with nicely linked elements. I went back and rewatched those performances again. Indeed S/P had some nice entries and exits in and out of elements. But they also had a lot of side-by-side and two-foot skating in between. B/S had vastly superior lines and carriage, and beautiful choreographic moments, but they appeared a little disconnected from the performance. And even though that program was new, most of the choreographic content was carried over from the Chaplin LP.

Not to mention, B/S made a mistake and B had a few wobbly landings, whereas S/P were clean as clean canbe.

I agree that B/S would have won under IJS, but that's a moot point, as they were competing under 6.0.

 

[Fadeevfanboy]

Not to mention, B/S made a mistake and B had a few wobbly landings, whereas S/P were clean as clean canbe.

I agree that B/S would have won under IJS, but that's a moot point, as they were competing under 6.0.

You probably had no problems at all with the 2001 worlds Jamie Sale missed almost all her jumps in both programs (per usual for her) and still magically won over a clean B/S. In Canada of course no less.

 

[Japanfan]

You probably had no problems at all with the 2001 worlds Jamie Sale missed almost all her jumps in both programs (per usual for her) and still magically won over a clean B/S. In Canada of course no less.

What bitterness. I just stated facts.

You probably had no problems at all with the 2001 worlds Jamie Sale missed almost all her jumps in both programs (per usual for her) and still magically won over a clean B/S. In Canada of course no less.

I don't root for skaters from my country just because they are from my country.

No, I would not have agreed with S missing all of her jumps in both programs and beating a clean B/S.

SFAIK, however, she missed just one jump in the free. I don't know about other errors. I haven't rewatched the comp and didn't care that much at the time, I was new to figure skating.

Sure there was bias involved - and not only on the North American side. At SLC, it was the first time a non-Russian team had the chance to beat a Russian team in 40 years. I saw the two pairs as equal and thought that if one went clean, and the other didn't, the clean pair would win.

It was all a long time ago, and the judging system has changed. But still is not without bias.

 

[Pink Cats]

For God's sake Jamie Sale missed jump in the free was not some great conspiracy to defraud anyone. The judges said afterward they where at a bad angle and could not see Jamie single the double axel, at least one judge said they would have put B&S first if they had seen it. The judges did not have replay cameras then, which contributed judging mistakes. It’s why skaters who fludzed would do their “Lutzs” where the judges had a bad view.

 

[Sylvia]

Bumping up this thread 14+ months later (guess it's time for me to watch this on Peacock ) ...

Logan Fulton was nominated for a Sports Emmy award in Long Form Cinematography for Meddling last month and he won: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq6dZ4jvrBR/

Tara Lipinski's photos from the Sports Emmy Awards ceremony (her co-producer/director husband & Logan are in the 2nd pic): https://www.instagram.com/p/CslcxbQOPri/

 

[LilJen]

Meddling is now available on Peacock.

 

[caseyedwards]

It’s not time for rehashing the old lies and myths! It’s time for truth. Extreme sore losers went to outrageous lengths to get a gold along with nbc desperate for ratings and then they destroyed skating popularity! Hamilton, bezic, Sale and Pelletier are worst ever. If the true horrific villains weren’t Americans and Canadians I’m sure the truth would be forefront

I was totally right in every way!! lol lol!!

 

[deegee]

Honestly, I think the judging of the ice dance event, and maybe even the ladies SP in SLC was more than the Pairs freeskate.

I doubt there will be anything new. This is just NBC trying to revisit their ratings boom from 20 years ago.

wait... jog my memory about the ladies sp judging, would you? i am drawing a complete blank.

 

[kwanfan1818]

One thing was that Sarah Hughes' ordinals were all over the place, and many didn't think she should have been in 4th after the SP which gave her a shot at gold. Many thought that Slutskaya should have been in 1st after the SP, and that Suguri and Butyrskaya were robbed, which ties to Hughes' placement.

Hughes' SP ordinals:

4	HUGHES Sarah	USA	2.0	5.2	5.1	5.6	5.3	5.3	5.5	5.2	5.6	5.5	#5
				5.7	5.5	5.7	5.5	5.5	5.7	5.6	5.7	5.7
				10.9	10.6	11.3	10.8	10.8	11.2	10.8	11.3	11.2
				6	10	4	5	5	5	5	4	4