A review of Russian newspapers.

Ilya Averbuch (2002 Olympic vice-champion in ice dancing): I think if the judgement had been objective, the Bulgarians Albena Denkova and Maxim Stavissky should have been the first, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin - the second, and the french pair - only the third. But everybody was so happy that for the first time in the last 20 years Russia wouldn't get a single gold medal at the Europeans and the French pair wa=ere definitely helped in getting the gold.

http://other.sport.com.ua/news.phtml?id=20570

(Well, we should confess, Ilya may be having something against French figure skating - taking into consideration his ex-partner Marina Anissina winning the gold in Salt-Lake-City).

Alexey Gorshkov about Oksana and Maxim: "The guys got noticed too early. It's three more years till the Olympics.
That's very long. Everything may happen, taking into consideration the fact that there are a lot of talented pairs who are longing fot the podium.
And the skaters, having reached the top, may stop and the attitute of judges is a very unstable thing".

Tatyana Tarasova said about the French that this season they have managed to show their best. This is the most balanced FD of all they have ever shown and it was skated brilliantly.

A&M's Free should have been put higher than third.

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y.html?docId=737704&issueId=36187

Domnina and Shabalin got the silver. The only thing which surprizes is that they lost not to the running world champions
A&M, but to the French whom they have been beating through out the season. The judges seem to play cat-and-mouse again. Though the new system of judgement led to some
objective criteria, there still is a possibility to drag somebody to the podium or to push them out of it.

http://www.newizv.ru/news/2007-01-29/62091/

The judges seemed to "kill" the bulgarian pair openly. They are unlikely to skate till the next Olympics.
But last year the judges "let" the Bulgarians to become the World champions at last and must have thought that they got enough/.

http://www.vremya.ru/2007/14/11/170381.html

The dance of the running World champions deserved more than the third place. The judges didn't forgive them the OD mistakes and put them down to the ground...

(from a belorussian article).

(Let me know when you are sick and tired of all these translations - I seem to be getting obsessed with finding all these proofs of A&M being underscored )

wow thank you, these are very intresting interviews.... and i believed only the bulgarians though there was something strange in the judging

Thanks for the article, Vala it is quite interesting to know what the Russian skaters, journalists and others think about the judging.

Well, I think it's quite interesting to know what people write about the event. It would be wonderful to learn what non-involved journalists say - I mean those from the countries which don't have any medal plans.

Great job, Vala!!!!!!!!

Our American commentator Terry Gannon (I think? Can't remember? ) pretty much got Susie Wynn to admit that there was a conspiracy behind this all, with Domina/Shabalin and Delobel/Schoenfelder beating Albena and Max. Susie said she didn't want to start a conspiracy, but with her comments Terry pretty much said, "Well forget about starting a conspiracy. We all know there is one...keep on feeding it!!" I thought I would share this? He seems to be good at convincing her to say things or admit them? Such as the Americans fd at CoC. being terrible.

-Dasha

Haha. I must also add that my European history teacher is really ticked off right now. She is Bulgarian...and has a dartboard she uses to relieve her stress. Last I checked, she had a picture of a judges panel on it and it was full of holes. Well, just though I might share that as well!

Dasha wrote:

Haha. I must also add that my European history teacher is really ticked off right now. She is Bulgarian...and has a dartboard she uses to relieve her stress. Last I checked, she had a picture of a judges panel on it and it was full of holes.

Nice joke, Dasha!

*MAGic diable* wrote:

Dasha wrote:

Haha. I must also add that my European history teacher is really ticked off right now. She is Bulgarian...and has a dartboard she uses to relieve her stress. Last I checked, she had a picture of a judges panel on it and it was full of holes.

Nice joke, Dasha!

Thank you, thank you! I'm here until next Tuesday!

Elfaria wrote:

Dasha, where are you from? Which state?

I like the story about the Bulgarian teacher! We are always together in important causes. And btw, in Bulgarian there is such name - Dasha - it is old and the sister of my grandma is called like that. How did you get this name?

Ah yes...my European history teacher!! She is great fun! The first thing she asked us after we walked in on the first day? How to pronounce her name! That was veeery amusing I must say!! She also has a Bulgarian flag above her desk and she wears a pin with the flag on it in honor of the medics in Libya.

My name...my name...well, let's see! It all started when I was born on a small farm in the woods of Siberia, because the government hated us and all we had to eat were purple potatoes and pineapples!! Haha! No, I was born in Moscow, actually! Because Moscow is the best! I am from Georgia...north of Florida, east of Alabama, south of Tennessee, and west of the crazy sharks in the Atlantic! And about 10000 (plus or minus a few (hundred, thousand, million?) kilometers from my home planet of Mars! And too far from where it actually snows. Well, my real name is Daria...but I usually only hear that if I'm being yelled at! But I am called Dasha most of the time! So I am carrying name of your grandmum's sister? Yay!! Ha! She stole it from me!! Or maybe I stole it from her? In that case, Haha...no! She stole it from me! And now I shall finish this little rant of mine! (Maybe! I shall keep on later? Who knows! ) Oh, and in case you didn't know, I am slightly affiliated with the girl called Lyra on this board. I'm slightly her bestest friend and she is slightly my bestest friend. And we pretend to be German or each other or someone else at times when we happen to have a substitute in a class...slightly. And together, we shall take over the world and we shall make figure skating the national sport! And all of you dear girls will be rewarded with highly regarded position in the government!

Good night my dears! Sleep well for tomorrow we shall take over the world and force all the bad judges out! And accidentally duct tape them to burning poles.

-Dasha