There’s No Waltzing Around Judging Controversy

The ice charade known as Olympic ice dancing opened its Nagano session Friday night with two compulsory dances and more compulsory accusations of competition-rigging and behind-the-scenes deal-making.

This time, the most explosive volleys were fired by the Canadian team of Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz and their coach, Natalia Dubova, who charged the Russian and the French judges with conspiring to vote in blocs at the expense of the North Americans.

“It’s a joke,” Dubova said. “I don’t know what else to call it. The judges had a lot of time in Milan, at the European championships [in January], to discuss what to do here, to discuss how beautiful the Russians and the French are skating, to decide who must be on the podium.

“They think they need to put us down to make sure they have a third place to give. I saw this from the Russian judge. I saw this from the French judge. I knew they would do this.”

Friday, the judges kept reigning Olympic champions Pasha Grishuk and Evgeny Platov in first place despite a glaring mistake by Grishuk in their first compulsory dance, followed by another Russian pair, Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov, in second place.

Third place went to the French tandem of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, to the surprise of no one in the North American contingent.

Bourne and Kraatz, world bronze medalists in 1996 and 1997, were dropped to fourth and five-time United States champions Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow were seventh.

The ice dance event continues Sunday with original dance and concludes Monday with freestyle dance.

Dubova, who once coached Grishuk and Platov, was asked if she believed the competition was rigged.

“Oh yes, oh yes,” she replied. “They did this all before the competition. . . . It was prepared before by the Russians and the French.”

Dubova’s eyes were red as she spoke emotionally about Friday’s judging, visibly upset over the fifth-place score Bourne and Kraatz received for their first compulsory dance, the Golden Waltz.

Bourne’s voice, too, cracked as she railed against the judging.

“I’m a little disappointed, but I also expected that this could happen,” Bourne said. “It’s frustrating because it’s out of our control. It has nothing to do with how we skate this week--it has to do with what goes on outside the sport. It’s out of our hands, so far beyond our control.”

Grishuk admitted she made a mistake during the first dance on a circular skating move involving a fast change from one blade edge to the other, a maneuver that is called--remember, this is ice dancing--a “twizzle.”

Grishuk lost her edge during the twizzle--it was a fizzled twizzle--but a picket fence of first-place marks by the judges did not reflect the miscue.

“I think you saw all the mistakes,” Dubova told reporters. “That was almost foul, what Grishuk and Platov did. The other Russians, they did not skate close together, and same with the French. The first partner was much faster--they could not hold the same speed.

“I can tell you Bourne and Kraatz had the [most complex] program, skated the closest to the other partner, had equal speed and had great positioning. . . .

“But the judges, they so wanted to show that North Americans cannot have more than the bronze medal. They know North America has many good skaters now, and they want to keep them down. I think Punsalan-Swallow is a very good couple. I think the second Canadian couple [Chantal Lefebvre and Michel Brunet] should not be 19th--they should be higher than that.

“I don’t know what to tell our skaters.”

Peizerat disputed the contention of a prearranged deal between the Russian and French judges.

“All this political stuff with the Russians is not our stuff,” Peizerat said. “Our stuff is the skating side. We are really out of the political side.

“At Munich [at the Champions Series Final in December], we won four judges to five for the Canadians. Every competition is close. That’s what happened tonight.”

Punsalan and Swallow seemed resigned to their fate, accepting the rigid class system of ice dancing for what it is--treating their seventh-place grades as almost a form of apprenticeship dues-paying.

“The sport has been like this from the beginning,” Swallow said. “You see only glacial-speed changes. I don’t know where it’s headed as far as the judges go.

“Of course, it’s frustrating. But all skaters are put in this position at a certain point in their career. It’s always going to be like that. The successful skaters are ones who put it behind them.”

Dubova, however, believes the best tactic is to confront the system head-on.

“We need to explain what they are doing to us,” Dubova said. “We are not happy with the bronze medal. We are ready to fight for gold.”