- Joined
- Feb 24, 2012
And a controversy because one of the judges admitted to cheating in favour of the Russians.
It was also a controversy because the Canadians were clean and the Russians had a visible error in their FS. The two teams were seen as pretty much on par with each other (edge to the Russians choreographically, edge to the Canadians emotionally, IMO), so it came down to who was cleaner. Had Anton not messed up the landing of his double axel, the technical scores for the Russians would have likely given them gold without the 5-4 split and the ensuing scandal. I am in agreement that their programs as a whole were better constructed than the Canadians' programs, but the elements of the Canadians were cleaner. There were other super minor errors on the part of the Russians too - the catch of the twist being awkward, and the throws could have had better flow with balance checks on both of the landings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-ZuJfOz7g8
But Anton's obvious error was viewed by most people as the Russians having "left the door open", so long as the Canadians skated clean - which they did (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjY_LtNtVDc - you can hear Scott's commentary throughout... e.g. "throw triple loop and the gold is theirs" - and I don't think it was North American bias -- he probably legitimately assumed that a clean skate would beat a flawed skate ).
Too close to call. Using the 6.0 system give the edge to the Canadians and give the edge artistically to russia. Tie - goes to Russia - artistry wins. Not so clear cut.