Attempt to making one more "scandal"
Russian officials shortsighted to pull Plushenko tape from judgeshttp://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver...?urn=oly,219095Educational videos of skater Evgeni Plushenko raise Russian irewww.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/b...ko-videos_N.htm.... and offical answer by ISU
www.latimes.com/sports/nationworld/...0,3990200.storyFebruary 11, 2010 | 1:56 p.m.ISU official: Plushenko program was edited from judges' video out of fairness, not pressureVANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Evgeni Plushenko's gold-medal performance at the 2006 Olympics was removed from an instructional video for judges because the Russian was returning to competition, not because of pressure from his federation, an International Skating Union official said Thursday.
The Turin Games program and critical comments about it were removed out of fairness to Plushenko, International Skating Union event director Peter Krick told The Associated Press.
"The video is made for educational purposes and at the moment the video was made, Plushenko was not back competing," Krick said. "When he came back, we discussed it with the Russian federation and removed it.
"The examples were not very positive. For a person coming back it isn't fair, so we changed it," added Krick, who has great input into the judging system.
Though Krick did not mention other names, he said the decision was routine and had occurred with other skaters, dismissing any suggestion of controversy. Once Plushenko passed his doping tests and entered a Grand Prix event, his performance was deleted from the video.
"It's the right of a member federation to say, 'Hey, wait a minute,'" Krick said. "Our policy is to not use current skaters for examples ... it is not fair."
Plushenko's free skate from Turin, which earned 13 points more than Canada's Jeff Buttle, was to be used as an example to help judges better assess component scores — the old artistic marks. He was included in the video because he retired after the 2006 Games.
But Plushenko is back and won all three events in which he competed this season. To have a current skater's routine dissected in a video distributed to judges throughout the world — some of whom could be judging him in the coming months — could have been damaging to Plushenko.
ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta took interest in the case, Krick added.
"Our president was very concerned that the video is properly done, and that we must be very careful not to have a current skater," Krick said. "We discussed with him Plushenko's involvement."
Remaking the video delayed its distribution for 1½ months, which Krick said was not a problem.