<p>Probably. It was still the official Olympic rule and many countries did abide by it as well as the US. But then of course there were those that managed to play the rules. So the current system is probably better.</p>
<p>I’m not sure when exactly it changed. I remember Torville and Dean, the British skaters, going professional after their Gold medal (1980s sometime) and not being eligible, then at some point becoming eligible again and competing again. I was puzzled as I had missed the rule change news</p>
<p>The Soviet Union, as it was then, skirted the rules on amateurism in the Olympics by supporting some athletes by putting them in the Red Army. Their “job” was their sport. The Soviet hockey team that the US beat in the Miracle on Ice was entirely composed of hockey players who trained together. Later, some of those players came to North America and became NHL players.</p>
<p>coureur thanks for the clarification, I knew it involved Hammil and Fratiani, but couldn’t remember the scenario clear enough…will say it is not senility, but I was young than and did not play attention like I did with Kerrigan and Tonya Harding back in 94.</p>
<p>Now the 64K question, does anyone remember the name of the pair couple that when she did the death spiral his skate cut her face open?</p>
<p>Show your true age and love for the winter Olympics… name me the brothers that were from the US who both won medals in skiing…hints: one carried the torch for these games and they are twins.</p>
<p>Cardinal to this day I still remember the morning after they won. Am the only person who now is wondering how old is Al Michael? It was 30 yrs ago and this guy looks like he hasn’t age…not a wrinkle on his forehead…Thank God for Botox!</p>
<p>That being said I saw Dick Button, help me here with the math, he won in 1948, that is 62 yrs ago, let’s say he was 16, this means he is nearing 80. MAN he looks great!</p>
<p>I guess I should spend less time on CC more on wiki to find out how old these people are ;)</p>
<p>I think most countries skirted the rule in some way. The Soviet Union had athletes who trained on a full-timed basis much like the Chinese today. I remember the Japanese athletes were in theory working for their multi-nationals, but spent their entire days in training. The Americans used the university system as a training ground for their Olympic athletes through the use of athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>We Canucks played by the rule and our universities did not offer athletic scholarships. The result was that we did poorly in the medal standings.</p>
<p>My earliest recollection was that the American IOC president, Avery Brundage, opposed professionalism of sports. He had the Austrian ski star, Karl Schanz, excluded from the 72 games. I remember seeing a cartoon mocking his decision, showing a ski jumper rolling down the ski slope in a giant snowball, with two Olympic officials below, one saying to the other, “but Mr. Brundage insists on amateurs”.</p>
<p>Putin? What did the evil man have to say? If he wants his athletes to win, he should shut up and invest some money into the infrastructure and support for the athletes to be able to train and perform at the world-class level! Why do Russian national champions compete in holey swimsuites and spend their parents’ money to train in the US (because their hometown pool’s roof has collapsed and never got fixed)?</p>
<p>Hmm, b&p, I don’t know about the death spiral accident… but Dube & Davison (Canadians) had an accident doing side by side camels a couple of years ago when his blade hit her face.</p>
<p>And the skiers are easy, guess this shows my age! Phil & Steve Mahre.</p>
<p>I think the best way to get back at them would be for Evan to continue to compete, and go to Sochi and win again! He said today he doesn’t plan to retire now (yay!), but that they might not want to give him a visa to Russia He also said that if the quad was all the judges wanted, they would give the skaters 10 seconds and no music.</p>
<p>BS, biggest BS ever! Evan’s program was cleaner than Plushenko’s, and he had more elements in the second half to grab the points (not that I was personally impressed by either skater). What Plushenko deserved a medal in was his ability to land the jumps that even the commentators deemed “unlandable” (“He is a cat! He is past vertical - I do not know how anyone can land this jump!” or something like that), but sorry, there are no medals for that. Of course, if I were giving out the medals last night, I would have given them all to Johnny, but that’s just my personal preference :)</p>
<p>Oh, thanks for the spoilers! Not a Bode fan, but if he won anything, that’s great :)</p>
<p>There is a lot of irony here. Evan & his coach made a decision not to attempt the quad because the downside of not landing it cleanly isn’t worth it in the new scoring system. And… why do we have the new scoring system? Because the Russians were caught cheating (along with the French judge) at the 2002 Olympics. If the Russians don’t like the way the scoring is set up, they can lobby for changes to the scoring system, instead of bashing Evan. I think it is a lot of sour grapes. They lost in pairs (finally), too, this year.</p>
<p>The skiers were the Mahre brothers…Phil (I swooned for him) and…ummmm…Phil’s twin brother. Did the twin medal? Or maybe there’s another set of skiing twins.</p>
<p>No, it involved Hamill and Dianne De Leuuw. Dorothy Hamill and Linda Fratianne did not skate in the same Olympics. Hamill = 1976. Fratianne = 1980.</p>
<p>Okay… if anyone has read the Perfect BF/GF thread, you know I adore D’s boyfriend. But I think she needs to dump him for Evan… That was a really classy interview.</p>
<p>Evan’s interview with Costas was pure class. He refused to take the bait - and Costas baited him several times - to bash Pleshenko. Perfect 10 - or perfect whatever the scoring system is - on that.</p>
<p>Do you guys remember this figure skater? Plushenko won in Torino only because this guy, his biggest rival, was forced into early retirement by health problems:</p>
He also said that if the quad was all the judges wanted, they would give the skaters 10 seconds and no music.</p>