Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Brassard sympathizes with jilted skaters
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports
DEER VALLEY, Utah - Jean-Luc Brassard stood at the bottom of the moguls course Tuesday, his Olympic dream over, caught in a tumble of emotions.
But though the freestyle skier had failed to advance to the final in what is surely his last Olympic Games, his greatest disappointment and much of his passion were reserved for fellow Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who were jobbed out of a gold medal in on one of the greatest injustices in figure skating, a sport known for its great injustices.
Brassard went on a three minute rant about corrupt judging in figure skating and the failure of anyone to be able to do anything about.
"What makes me angry is they have a judge take the Olympic sermon (oath) in the Opening Ceremonies, same as everybody else," Brassard told SLAM! Sports. "But they don't respect it. If they are not going to respect it, put this guy out of there. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
"If I was John Hancock (the insurance company) or some other company sponsoring that, I would have to ask, do I want to be affiliated with such a crappy thing as this where athletes perform their best and don't get what they deserve?"
Brassard watched Sale and Pelletier skate on television in the company of other members of the Canadian delegation Tuesday night. He said the mood swung from elation after seeing the Canadian pair skate a flawless performance to outrage when the marks were posted. It was probably the same scenario that played out in living rooms across Canada.
"I am very disappointed for them," he said, "I was with the Canadian delegation watching it and everbody booed the marks. Everybody who watched it, everybody who was there, all know they deserved the gold medal. Every Canadian, we all know it's very bad.
"Those guys did a tremendous program. It was amazing. Everybody is angry at the judges because they didn't get the gold medal. They deserved the gold medal. That's the bottom line. I was talking to some French people this morning and they said they stole the gold (from Sale and Pelletier). They got the wrong medal and the world knows it."
Brassard, one of the pioneers of his sport, helped bring it from the fringes of the sporting conciousness to the Olympics. He knows the kind of examination to which freestyle skiing was subjected to become accepted. Judging in his events was one of things looked at closely.
"That thing that is wrong what it would be like, I know we (freestyle skiing) would be judged hard by weirdo scoring like this...The thing that makes me really angry is if we had a bad panel of judges in halfpipe (snowboarding) or freestyle or short track (speed skating), if the judges made a big mistake like (Monday) night, we would be criticized around the world. We'd be treated like a Mickey Mouse sport.
"But in figure skating, through the years, these situations happen on and on and on. Nothing changes. It thought the Cold War was over now. What's this about the Eastern Bloc giving extra points to others?"
Brassard said the quality of judging in freestyle skiing is high. It is a new sport, he said, with no establishment ties or big money influencing decisions.
"Why it's good is there is so much pressure (on the judges). They know they people are going to come after them, turn on them if they do weirdo stuff. Figures skating judges, you never see them on TV. They never put the camera on them. Put the camera on the Russian judge who gave such a stupid score."
Jean-Luc Brassard might not have had a great day on the bumps. But when it came to putting a voice to what many Canadians were feeling in the wake of the Sale-Pelletier embarrassment, he turned in a gold-medal performance.
2002 Games Columnists
