Naturally, at any Olympics, there is bound to be questioning of judging. Certainly, that was the case with American snowboarder Chloe Kim. Altogether, some fans say she was robbed of a gold medal in Milan-Cortina.
In Figure Skating, those perceptions existed in the pairs competition. Recently, a French judge rewarded the French pair Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron with the gold medal. Ultimately, they defeated the American pair of Madison Chock and Evan Bates by eight points.
However, Chock and Bates would have won the gold if those eight points hadn't allowed.
On Friday, the International Skating Union stood by the judge, Jezabel Dabouis, per ESPN/Associated Press.
“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.”
How the American skaters responded
In response, Chock spoke about how the perplexity surrounding judging compromises the integrity of the sport.
“Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport,” said Chock, who along with Bates won a second straight team gold medal earlier in the Games. “I think it's hard to retain fans when it's difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.
“People need to understand what they're cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they're supporting.”
Nevertheless, Bates maintained that he and Chock gave it their all without apology.
“We did speak to our coach, and we did talk to each other, and we know how we felt on center ice after we skated,” Bates said. “We felt like we delivered our absolute best performance that we could have. It was our Olympic moment. It felt like a winning skate to us, and that's what we're going to hold on to.”
Historically, the most notorious figure skating judging scandal came at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. At first, Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won the gold medal over the Canadian pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.
However, an investigation revealed that French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne was found guilty of misconduct for vote swapping.
The Olympics will conclude on Feb. 22.
