You knew the evening would turn weird when NBC's cameras momentarily losttrack of Hungarian figure skater Julia Sebestyen. With the eyes of everyone onthe planet, with the apparent exception of the network's director, trained onthe "long program," NBC appeared for agonizing seconds not to realizethat Sebestyen had skated out of the picture, then searched frantically for thelone athlete, whose bright red costume somehow eluded a succession of shots.
Too bad. While not a favorite for a medal, Sebestyen is plenty good enough to beworth watching even if she wasn't mighty easy on the eyes.
It's one thing to show a head shot when the skater is doing intricate footwork,or to focus on feet just when pairs skaters are doing a dramatic overhead lift."Even Homer nods," as Alexander Pope reminds us. And no one reallyfrets when NBC zooms in on the faces of skaters when they've just finish theirprograms and are trying to catch their breath, with snot dripping from theirnoses. That goes with the territory.
But video-taped shots of empty ice as backdrop for voice-over narration whilethe action continues off camera, italicized by the word "Live"displayed onscreen, hours after the fact, are a bit over the top.
One could imagine the screams coming through the snakes of wire running from thetruck parked outside the venue. "She was alone in the goddamn arena, forGod's sake. Dressed in sparkles and glitter. Where the hell did she GO? Did shefall through the fucking ICE?"
All was forgiven, of course, as soon as Sarah Hughes came out for her program.The instant she finished her routine, it was clear to everyone that unlessMichelle Kwan or Irina Slutskaya skated blindfolded and with their hair on fire,the gold was going to Hughes, even if she had sucked eggs on her short routine acouple of nights earlier. No way could the judges permit blatant perfection tofinish second (or third) behind people who turned in visibly inferiorperformances, especially not after what had happened earlier in the pairscompetition -- although, granted, awarding a second Gold Medal to Canada's Salesand Pelletier merely for not stumbling was a little like giving half the NobelPrize for Literature to the survivor of a spelling bee.
It took the judges a while to work out the math so that Slutskaya would beatKwan, but not by enough to put her ahead of Hughes. (If that's not what theydid, it was a reasonable facsimile thereof.) Had Slutskaya won the shortprogram, as many people indeed thought she had, the math challenge for thejudges would have been more complex but not impossible.
Never mind the rules and the Byzantine scoring procedures. The fact is, whoeverwon the long program was going to win the gold.
Until about 10 or 12 years ago, I am reliably informed, the skaters wererequired to perform something called "school figures" that countedheavily in the overall score. The skaters had to skate around slowly, makesomething like a "figure 8" on the ice, then skate over it again. Ajudge on skates would determine whether they "stayed inside the lines"and give them a mark. Since this was only a little less boring than watchingpaint dry, it was seldom shown on TV.
The end result was that a skater might stumble into a 4th or 5th place finish inthe long program -- and skate away with the gold medal because of herperformance in the "school figures." Something like having thenational championship in football decided by a written test taken by theathletes before the game.
Imagine, if you can, the scandal of waiting (and remember, this tape-delayedthing ended at 11:30 p.m. on the West Coast) breathlessly for Slutskaya'sscores, then watching Hughes squeal in amazement, only to be dryly informed thatscores in the "school figures" had vaulted someone who had just landedon her butt three times into first place.
At least we were spared THAT.
One can only hope the powers-that-be succeed in putting some transparency intothis process of selecting winners. These 5-4 votes are too hard on our nerves.Think of the chaos if we conducted presidential elections this way!
Advertisement
(David Vestis a regular writer for CounterPunch,where this piece first appeared, as well as a poet and piano-player for thePacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs)
