At the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, the figure skating competition was the source of much controversy and one of the immediate causes for the revamp of scoring in figure skating.
The competition
In the pairs competition, Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia had won the short program over Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada. In the free skate, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze made a minor (but obvious) technical error when Sikharulidze stepped out of a double axel. Meanwhile, Salé and Pelletier skated a flawless program, albeit one that many experts considered to be of lesser difficulty than that of the Russians.
The Canadians were the clear crowd favorite; they left the ice to a round of stormy applause. Former Olympic champion Scott Hamilton and Canadian former pair skater Sandra Bezic, who called the competition for NBC along with Tom Hammond, were certain that the Canadians would win the gold. When Salé and Pelletier started a throw triple loop toward the end of their routine, Hamilton said, "The gold is theirs." At the end of the routine, Bezic cried "Simply perfect!" As the Canadians left the ice, Hammond said, "And the Russian domination, nearly four decades, perhaps ended again by Canadians."
The CBC Television announcer, former pair skater Paul Martini, was almost as certain that his countrymen had ended the long run of Russian dominance. At the end of Salé and Pelletier's routine, Martini exclaimed, "Gold dust all over it – one of the great skates in Olympic history!"
Guess Again!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Olympic_Winter_Games_figure_skating_scandal
