Judging is hardest to figure
Friday, January 11, 2002

Judging is hardest to figure 
LOS ANGELES -- Were you left shaking your head Thursday night 
after watching the top male figure skaters in the U.S. 
audition for next month's Salt Lake City Olympics in front of 
a live television audience? 
Us too. 
For a change, it wasn't because the men's sequined spandex 
outfits were so outrageous they might as well have been 
designed by the singer Bjork. It was because the judging was 
harder to understand than Bjork's singing in I've Seen It All. 

We thought we'd seen it all in sports. Then Michael Weiss 
performed a shaky long program from beginning to end, yet 
leapfrogged Matt Savoie, who was steadier though quad-less, to 
snare the third and final U.S. Olympic team berth. 
"The judges know what I'm capable of doing," Weiss explained. 
Yes, and the Marlins will sign the next batting practice 
phenom to a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract. 
It doesn't make any sense to us. Apparently we're in good 
company. 
"I find it hard to watch skating competitions because I'm 
yelling at the TV all the time," said Debi Thomas. 
Coming from Thomas, that's saying something. 
The third-year resident at a local hospital was the Olympic 
bronze medalist in the ladies singles in Calgary in 1988. When 
Thomas talks, the judges should listen. 
"I sometimes feel like (screaming at the judges) `What are you 
looking at?' " Figure skating gives sporting purists much to 
dislike. I mean, if other sports operated the way figure 
skating did, Dan O'Brien would have made the 1992 Summer 
Olympic team despite no-heighting in the pole vault at the 
U.S. Trials; the St. Louis Rams would have been shepherded 
into last year's Super Bowl instead of the New York Giants; 
and the Americans never would have been allowed to play the 
Soviet Union in hockey at the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid 
in 1980. 
"Technically, anyone who enters this event should have a 
chance to make the Olympics," Thomas said. "But it doesn't 
work out that way." 
Speaking before the ladies short program Thursday afternoon at 
Staples Center, Thomas said, "Now that I'm retired and I hear 
things about what's going on behind the scenes, I've come to 
realize the politics are so much more profound than I could 
have ever imagined. I don't even try to figure it out anymore. 
It's why I tell skaters you've got to skate from your heart, 
for yourself and for those who've supported you. And if you're 
lucky, you'll actually get what you deserve." 
Thomas' words were hanging in the air as if enclosed in one of 
those cartoon bubbles when Sarah Hughes took the ice for her 
short program. 
The 16-year-old skated into view a few minutes after reigning 
U.S. and world champion Michelle Kwan had completed a crisp, 
clean but emotionally ascetic program. From high above the 
ice, it was almost as if you could see into Kwan's mind as she 
thought her way through the 2-minute, 40-second performance, 
which accounts for one-third of the final score. 
From her opening double axel to her closing combination spin, 
Hughes not only skated cleanly, she skated so seamlessly that 
it was hard to tell where her music ended and her movements 
began. 
Kwan's program was lovely. Hughes' was lovelier. Sasha Cohen's 
program 10 skaters later was the loveliest of all. 
The judges were the only ones not to see it that way. They 
placed Cohen second -- a half-point behind Kwan. Hughes was 
third, a full point behind the skater she had appeared to 
defeat as cleanly as the October day in Colorado Springs when 
she outshone Kwan in every way save the scoring. 
Skating fans aren't stupid. They very ones who had risen from 
their lower bowl seats at Staples Center to give Kwan's 
performance a standing ovation booed when Hughes' marks 
flashed on the scoreboard. 
There was even more head scratching when Cohen floated across 
the ice like a cloud skidding across the sky. Toward the end 
of her program she unfurled a layback spin that was hypnotic 
in its beauty. 
"I don't think really I could have done much better," Cohen 
said. A pity, because she probably will have to do better to 
budge the judges. 
Cohen, 17, has landed a quadruple jump in practice and three 
times this season she has tried to become the first woman to 
land a quadruple salchow in competition. She probably needs to 
make history to have any hopes of taking the U.S. title from 
Kwan. 
After Cohen's scores were tallied and trumpeted, her coach 
John Nicks raised her right arm as a boxing manager might that 
of his prize fighter. The image is apt; Cohen and Hughes 
aren't going to unseat the sport's heavyweight in a decision. 
"Anything's possible," Thomas said, "but you do kind of go 
through this understanding that this is probably not going to 
be my year." 
Until upsets truly are possible, skating's credibility is on 
thin ice.