Why harp on the commentators? I was in the audience and the majority cheered loudly for the teamI refused to watch ice dancing at Worlds due to this (at least their routines) so I missed the commentators downplaying it. This is very shocking
There were some fairly knowledgeable fans in my section. A few left, and most of the rest gave them golf claps. I was very conflicted. Lolo had nothing to do with the situation and I had the same feelings as I did about Vanessa James.
I guess my point is there is a fine line to draw as to who we are supposed to boo for showing him support before the decision came out.
I would give the audience the benefit of thinking that the majority had no clue about the situation.
The victim specifically mentioned the commentators in her statement.
(vendetta, mon cul !) That stopped our discussion short. From last January to this day, we haven't mentionned FB/S in our articles and reports. For 4 CC, I even specified in the header of my dance report that, as long as a procedure was pending, we would not mention them anywhere. For those of you who speak French --->[Note Ć nos lecteurs : en raison de la procĆ©dure d'investigation en cours concernant Nikolaj Sƶrensen, Skate Info Glace a pris la dĆ©cision collĆ©giale et unanime de ne pas faire mention du couple Fournier-Beaudry/Sƶrensen dans ses articles, ni de publier de photos, quel que soit leur classement. Merci de votre comprĆ©hension.] I expected some people to criticize this decision and to post inflammatory comments, especially some skaters and coaches who read us and who, at the time, were clearly supportive of Sƶrensen. Fortunately they had the grace to shut up, all we got was thank yous for our concern. We hold ourselves as far as possible from all politiks but, to us, it was strictly impossible to report about FB/S' skating as if nothing had happened. We talked about it only once and we all immediately agreed. I don't blame TV commentators for doing their job, i.e. commenting on FB/S's programs as they hadn't much choice since the couple was competing (which, if you ask me, should never have happened). But showing them support by feeling openly sorry for the "sad situation" they were in was hugely dispensable, i.e. totally out of the line, outrageous, infuriating + all the words and their synonyms that can exist to describe the feeling. I can't even begin to imagine what survivors felt, and I really admire Sƶrensen's victim for speaking out. I also feel bad and sad for Laurence who clearly worships her husband and who is collateral damage.
Who is Mark? I could only watch through CBC streaming but I donāt remember the commentatorās name. I never saw/heard Cdn commentators, U.S. etc. I doubt I even knew his name.
Mark Hanretty. Heās one of my favorite commentators, but he really fumbled that one. Again, he apologized, but casual fans may not have seen it.
That is not a real apology. "I am deeply upset for this upset" is not "I screwed up and will do better next time" since "this upset" could be anything. And "upset" is not really an adequate word for what happened.
I might have missed it honestly. What did he say? I didnāt watch the RD just FD or parts of it I think. I remember their fd which was kinda blah but I donāt remember anything controversial.
Mark may know the identity of the survivor. Remember, he trained in the US with his partner before retiring in 2010, so he likely has many contacts who know exactly who she is or a pretty good guess given how small the elite skating community really is.
Agreed. Talking about an "upset" is minimizing what he did, and kind of putting it on her and her feelings instead. And he only talks about apologizing to the survivor, does he not realize his words hurt many people and were harmful in general?
Not really. I'm much older than Mark and I certainly do believe that apologizing to someone you've hurt directly is the correct action. And while Mark is reacting in that way directly to the survivor, he is failing to acknowledge & recognize the wider harm and hurt he caused to any other survivor who was listening to his comments on that broadcast. Basically - he's apologizing to one recipient of his harmful words - the survivor herself - but he's not apologizing to the other recipient of his harmful words - the general public.I feel like we're dealing with a bit of a generation gap here. Mark, I expect, was brought up with the idea: "If you hurt someone, you go to them and tell them you're sorry." The zeitgeist since then has shifted to the place where, if you hurt someone, you don't burden them with having to face you; you can make a public apology and they can respond to you if they choose.
I'm not saying that's a bad shift at all; for instance, a lot of churches have had the bright idea that they should bring together abusers and victims to talk things out, which is about 47 million different kinds of wrong.
But if Mark isn't really aware of that cultural shift and isn't used to it, that could explain what we're hearing here.
Some fans would have known for sure.
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