Skate Protests Are Nothing New

According to David Wallechinsky’s “The Complete Book of the Olympics,” controversy in figure skating judging has been with us from the start.

In the 1908 Olympic Games at London, Russia’s Nicolai Panin, who had upset world champion Ulrich Salchow of Sweden earlier in the year, withdrew in protest after the compulsories, claiming the judging was stacked against him.

In the 1927 world championships at Oslo, there was one judge from Germany, one from Austria and three from Norway. The German and Austrian judges voted for Herma Planck-Szabo of Austria, the defending Olympic champion. The three Norwegian judges voted for Sonja Henie of Norway.

The ensuing uproar prompted the International Skating Union to institute a rule, still in existence, allowing only one judge per country.

Add Henie: She won her third Olympic gold medal in 1936, but it wasn’t easy. After the compulsories, she had only a narrow lead over Britain’s Cecilia Colledge.

Wallechinsky: “When Henie was told of the results, she tore the offending sheet of paper off the announcements board and ripped it to shreds, stating that it was a misrepresentation.”

Add Colledge: The British skater delighted the crowd at Garmisch-Partenkirchen by giving the Nazi salute when she came onto the ice, but she suffered a setback when it was discovered that somebody had put on the wrong music. Shaken by the delay until they found the right music, she almost fell during the first minute of her routine.

Telling-it-like-it-is dept.: Cross-country skier Raisa Smetanina of the Soviet Union, winner of a record nine medals in her career, said this would be her last Winter Games.

Asked what she will do in retirement, she said: “I’m going to drink a lot.”

Trivia Time: What two countries have taken part in every Winter and Summer Olympics? (Answer below.)

Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, on the biathlon: “Competitors ski awhile and shoot awhile, ski awhile and shoot awhile. From this sport, ski masks first became popular in liquor store holdups.”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: In 1946, the Soviet Union had no hockey players. Since entering the Olympics in 1956, it has won seven gold medals, one silver and one bronze in hockey.

Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, on Alberto Tomba of Italy: “In slalom racing today, there is only Tomba. He’s way above . . . the best overall and maybe the best slalom skier ever . . . He is better than I was at Lake Placid.”

Stenmark won two gold medals at Lake Placid in 1980 and 10 World Cup giant slaloms in a year.

Trivia Answer: England and France.

Quotebook

Dan Dierdorf, asked if his sudden success as a TV announcer has changed him: “Naw, I’ve always been an egomaniac.”