Posted on 04/07/2002 11:12:03 AM PDT by Hildy
Just what figure skating needs – another international judging scandal.
This one happened in ice dancing last month at the World Championships in Nagano, Japan, and hardly anyone outside the skating world noticed because hardly any media outside Japan covered the event.
But shortly after an Israeli team finished third and a Lithuanian team was dropped to fourth, accusations and allegations and petitions and protests were flying around the upper floors of a Nagano hotel.
Toss in a death threat to a U.S. judge at 2:30 a.m. and a skater's father angrily confronting a group of coaches, and you have all the elements of a juicy controversy that only figure skating seems capable of concocting.
It's hard to know what to make of this latest scandal. Some say it surely is the death knell for ice dancing in the Olympics, where the sport already was on thin ice because of a string of questionable judging decisions. Others say it is little more than rugstus vynuoges, which is Lithuanian for sour grapes.
"It's definitely just as bad as any of the other (judging controversies)," says U.S. ice dancer Naomi Lang, who finished ninth with partner Peter Tchernyshev at the worlds.
"It's been going on in dancing for I don't know how long, probably since the sport started . . . Something needs to be done. Otherwise, why bother skating? What's the point of us skating anymore if we know beforehand that the results have been wheeled and dealed?"
The ice dancing competition in Nagano ended on a Friday night, and in a matter of hours the tornado of controversy was in full fury.
Galit Chait and Sergei Sakhnovski were in fourth place after the compulsory and the original dance, then jumped ahead of Lithuania's Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas in Friday's free dance. It was Israel's first figure skating medal at an Olympics or World Championships, and it was met with a standing ovation in the athletes' dining area at the hotel – for the Lithuanians.
Drobiazko and Vanagas walked in, and the spontaneous applause lasted several minutes.
The Lithuanian federation had filed a protest at the Salt Lake Olympics after Drobiazko and Vanagas finished fifth, even though two couples ahead of them fell in the free dance. The federation quickly filed another protest in Nagano, noting that its team had finished ahead of the Israelis in all but one competition this season and saying "we felt the result for third place was clear for our team."
Third place was decided by a 5-4 judging split that roughly fell along geopolitical lines. Judges from Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Israel and Italy put the Israelis third. The U.S., German, French and British judges had them fourth or lower.
Outraged, Bulgaria's Albena Denkova gathered the other ice dancers in the dining hall and together began composing an unprecedented petition supporting the Lithuanian protest as well as demanding a formal explanation from the International Skating Union, the sport's world governing body. By the next morning, close to 40 ice dancers and coaches had signed it, including Lang and the other three U.S. skaters.
"We just felt, you know, we've had enough," Lang says. "We want judging to be fair. We want the placements that we deserve. The competition needs to be judged that night, not a month in advance . . . The skaters finally decided to do something about it."
What happened next is unclear.
Boris Chait, Galit's father, says his daughter was twice "harassed by other athletes" after the event, once in the locker room and again in the dining hall. Both times, he says, they asked Galit: "How much (did) you pay for the medal?"
Lang flatly denied that anyone would say that.
"She came to me and she was going into shock," Boris Chait says of his daughter. "The doctor had to calm her down and give her something to drink to prevent her from going into shock."
Boris then learned that several skaters were circulating a petition supporting the Lithuanian protest. Lang is coached by former Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zhulin, and Boris immediately set out to find him.
"I knew that (Zhulin) and other coaches were drinking in a hotel room, so I went there," Boris says. "I said, 'Talk to your athletes. They have no right to harass my daughter.' "
Toronto's The Globe and Mail, the only North American newspaper with a staff reporter in Nagano, quoted anonymous sources indicating the confrontation was extremely heated, that Boris kicked open the door and unleashed a tirade, including physical threats, on the half-dozen coaches in the room.
"He was screaming and his wife was trying to hold him back," a source told the newspaper. "He said a lot of bad things. I never saw anything like that."
Boris, who owns a computer company in New Jersey, denies making any threats.
"Let me ask you a question," he says. "If it was your daughter, how would you react? Definitely I was angry, but I wasn't overly angry."
The allegations of threats didn't end there. U.S. judge Sharon Rogers, who had ranked the Lithuanians second and the Israelis fourth, told The Globe and Mail that between 2:30 and 3 a.m. she received a phone call in her hotel room and a male voice said he would cut her head off. She hung up and went back to sleep.
Rogers could not be reached for comment, and a U.S. Figure Skating Association spokesman said, "We did not receive any report from Sharon."
The next day, Vanagas held a news conference in which he tore into Chait and the ISU, essentially announcing that he and Drobiazko were retiring from competitive ice dancing because the system is crooked.
"Everything is being decided by which judges are on the panel," Vanagas told reporters. "It's just unfortunate that the system kills the competitive nature of the sport . . . It seems like (Chait) and some of the ISU think they are 'The Godfather.' . . . All the skaters talk about that, all the coaches, but nobody can fight big money, which is involved in the move (upward) of the Israeli couple."
Another ice dancer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says: "It's been apparent for years, to us and a lot of other skaters, that they've been buying their placement at worlds."
Boris Chait bristles at the suggestion.
"I'm still laughing at all the stuff they are saying," he says. "Mafia, bribery, threats – it's all nonsense."
In the eye of the storm sits Boris Chait's 27-year-old daughter.
Galit Chair was born in Israel and grew up in New Jersey. She initially skated as an American, finishing sixth at the 1994 U.S. nationals with partner Maxim Sevostianov. The next year she dumped Sevostianov and began skating with Sakhnovski, the 1993 world junior champion.
Sakhnovski, who is Jewish, quickly became an Israeli citizen, and now they skate under the Israeli flag. Chait's father, a Russian Jew who emigrated to Israel, is said to bankroll the partnership, which by his estimation costs more than $100,000 a year in coaching, ice time, costumes and travel.
The duo has steadily moved up in the standings, from 23rd at the 1996 worlds to 18th to 14th to 13th to sixth. And now third.
"In my opinion, the results were exactly right," says Fallbrook resident Morry Stillwell, the former USFSA president who was in Nagano for the worlds. "I haven't been favorably impressed with the Israeli dance team this year. However, in their free program at Nagano they had the skate of their life.
"And I did think the Lithuanians ran out of gas. That was the consensus of the judges I spoke to."
And the petition supporting the Lithuanian protest?
"Laughable," Stillwell says, noting that skaters generally do not see their competitors perform live because they are backstage at the arena. "How many of those who signed the petition actually saw the performances? Were they by the rail watching? Did they see the mistakes of the Lithuanian team? Did they notice the speed of the Israelis?"
Stillwell is still an active ISU member and oversees the six Grand Prix events each fall. Last year he noticed a reluctance to include Chait and Sakhnovski. Seeded teams are guaranteed spots in three Grand Prix events; the Israelis initially could gain entry into only one.
"I'm well aware that there is animosity toward the Israelis," Stillwell says. "I don't know why."
One skating expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Israeli skaters past and present are sometimes resented because "they tend to wear their religion on their sleeve."
Which Chait did this season, literally. Her free dance costume was adorned with a large star of David. Their music: Jewish folk songs.
Asked if anti-Semitism might be responsible for the allegations, Boris Chait says: "At this point, I don't want to say yes or no. I want to leave it open. I really don't want to say yes. But after seeing what happened and how we were treated, I reserve the right to say yes."
So what happens next?
Later this month, the ISU council is scheduled to meet in Switzerland to sort out the pairs judging scandal from the Olympics. In June in Kyoto, Japan, it will tackle the issue in general at its annual congress.
ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta has proposed sweeping changes in the judging system. Because the proposal came after the agenda deadline, Cinquanta needs four-fifths approval from the 100-odd ISU members to bring it to a vote in Kyoko. Otherwise, they have to wait a full year.
"We certainly cannot ignore that a problem exists, and . . . it is becoming graver and more frequent," Cinquanta wrote in a recent letter to ISU members. "The situation for the ISU is becoming very critical."
Influential IOC member Dick Pound of Canada said last December that if ice dancing didn't clean up its act, and fast, its days in the Olympics could be numbered. The IOC likely will wait to see what changes, if any, the ISU enacts itself before considering the issue. But the incident in Nagano, particularly the skaters' petition, certainly did not help ice dancing's cause.
"In some ways, I wish they would do something like that," Lang says of removing the sport from the Olympics, "just to prove a point and get it back on the right track."
Boris Chait doesn't agree. His daughter likely would be a gold-medal contender at the 2006 Winter Games.
"The judging is not perfect, but nothing in life is perfect," he says. "If they want to get rid of ice dancing, I can give them three or four other sports they should look at. How about pairs skating? Let's get rid of that. And there are a couple other sports where people take drugs. Let's get rid of those, too, if that's the way you want to go."
Can you imagine if they said that about any other religion? Do they complain when a young male makes the Cross of Jesus when he's finished his routine. Every day, more and more of this, and we sit back and we accept it.
Chile's Jews, Palestinians clash over soccer club
By Reuters, April 3, 2002
SANTIAGO - More than 10,000 miles from the Middle East, Jews and Arabs are at odds in Chile over a professional soccer club's support for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.
Acting on a complaint by Chile's Jewish community, soccer authorities summoned the chairman of First Division club Palestino for talks on Tuesday after he refused to stop holding a minute's silence for Palestinian "martyrs" before games.
The club, founded by Arab immigrants, is also in trouble for flying a Palestinian flag at half-staff at its ground in Santiago in apparent defiance of a national ban on displaying political symbols at stadiums.
Some 300,000 of Chile's 15 million population claim Palestinian family ties.
Community leaders say the Middle East violence has heightened their sense of identity as Palestinians.
"We have family members -- aunts, cousins, friends -- who are being killed. That is our people, our family there," Nicolas Abuawad, chairman of Palestino, told Reuters.
Unlike the mostly Muslim Palestinian diaspora in the Middle East, many of Chile's Palestinians are Christians whose ancestors fled conscription into the Ottoman army in the early 19th century.They maintain close ties to Christian Palestinians in and around Bethlehem.
Abuawad was defiant ahead of Tuesday's meeting with the National Association of Professional Football although the club could be sent to a disciplinary hearing and later fined.
"I have every right to hold these protests in my stadium," he said. "They shouldn't be so critical because in the most recent minutes of silence we have also been remembering the Israeli dead," Abuawad said.
Palestino, which plays in the Palestinian national colors of red, white, green and black, won the national championship once in 1978 and is regarded as a middle-of-the-table team.
Jewish leaders complained to the football association after a Palestino home game last month with league champions Santiago Wanderers.
"There were banners carrying political propaganda such as 'Palestine Resists' and a minute's silence for martyrs of the intifada," said Marcos Levy, deputy head of the Committee of Jewish Representatives, which complained to the football association.
Both sides say relations between Chile's Palestinians and the small Jewish community of 18,000 people had become worse in recent months as the Middle East violence escalates. "It is not the Jewish community in Chile which has caused the tension. Our position is that the conflict should be resolved, or not as the case may be, in the Middle East itself but the Palestinian campaign has brought the conflict to Chile to a certain degree," Levy said.
The South American nation plays no role in Middle East diplomacy.
The Chilean Palestinians were part of a wave of Arab immigrants to Latin America that reached its peak in early 20th century. Former Argentine President Carlos Menem has a Syrian ethnic background and Ecuador'sex-leader Abdala Bucaram also has Arab roots.
Where in the hell is the map with these lines?
No that's not the point of this article, but it's true. Ice dancing is no fun. They never fall on their arses. ;-o
It is estimated that between 200,000 and 240,000 people were murdered. Approximately 175,000 Jews were murdered between 22 June 1941 (the start of operation Barbarossa) and November 1941. Most of the Jews in well over 200 towns had been killed by that time regardless of age, gender, occupation, and suitability for work. Approximately 45,000 Jews were still living at that date in four ghettos: 20,000 in Vilna; 17,500 in Kovno; 5,000 in Shavli; and 500 in Swieciany. (The Jager report of Einsatzkommando 3, dated 1 December 1941, states 15,000 Jews remained in Vilna and in Kovno, 4,000 in Shavli.) Although the main locations are well known, and concern the three largest cities, little has been recorded about those killed in other areas. Many were killed on roads and in forests. Some were taken to work camps in Latvia, Byelorussia and Estonia. Some were transported to, and killed in camps such as Stutthof. Many Jews from other countries were brought to Lithuania and killed. Some died in the Partisan resistance movement and in the Red Army. Many died from starvation and disease.
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/memfound.htm
Europeans have to stick up with each other. I suppose they just hate losing to a couple of Jews. Got it now?
So much for subtlety on Free Republic. LOL!
It was Tim Gebel who crossed himself before and after his performances. His presentations were awesome.
Regarding the Israeli ice dancers, their costumes sucked and their program sucked. It was a big mistake to dance to cheesy bar mitzvah music. It reminded me of a Mel Brooks movie.
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