After being the victims of a controversial scoring decision, American figure skating couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates would “consider” an appeal following their silver medal performance in the ice dancing final at the Winter Games in Milan, when they lost to a French duo.
“I suppose we would consider it,’’ Chock said in an interview with Access Hollywood.
“I think skating is such a subjective sport, but I do think that for fairness it is good when the judges are reviewed for their work. Not just after this competition but every competition to just make sure there’s a fair and even playing field for all athletes.”
Still, it doesn’t seem like they have much of a chance at a reversal, despite the outcry regarding the questionable scoring by a French judge, Jezabel Dabouis, who favored the winning pair from France by a wide margin, while the other judges gave the two pairs much closer scores.
The International Skating Union has so far declined to look into the matter.
“It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations,” the union said, per ESPN.
The ISU also added it has “full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”
Another obstacle could be the timing, The Court of Arbitration said before the Olympics that the hope is these matters get resolved “within hours” of the event.
Without the French judge’s lopsided scoring, Chock and Bates would have won the gold instead of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
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Afterwards, Chock called for judges’ performances to be reviewed, telling CBS News, “It would definitely be helpful if it’s more understandable for the viewers, to just see more transparent judging and understand … what’s really going on.”
Chock added: “Because there’s a lot on the line for the skaters when they’re out there giving it their all, and we deserve to have the judges also giving us their all and for it to be a fair and even playing field.”
In the meantime, the American pair is trying to make the best of the situation.
“We felt like we delivered our absolute best performance that we could have. It was our Olympic moment,” Bates told USA Today. “It felt like a winning skate to us, and that’s what we’re going to hold on to.”