Skating on Thin Ice :: essays research papers

Skating on Thin Ice     The Olympic Games present been around for hundreds of yrs. They atomic number 18 something that heap everywhere around the world look forward to each course long. Athlete or non, every wholeness knows what the Olympics ar. With the extreme popularity comes extreme broadcasting. Millions of people turned on their televisions and radios, read newspapers and magazines, and searched the web to hear the results and news about the games this winter. Broadcasting feeds people. They desire to hear the latest scandal, see footage of the most recent event, and be advised of what is going on in the world that they live in. This year the contour skate competition drew a particularly enormous audience. Because a scandal was involved, figure skating received special attention, which left the fun with a new reputation. Media is a powerful thing this was proven this year during the winter Olympic games.      A lot was heard , and learned, about figure skating during the past month of Olympic coverage. This year, a problem with judging and mystery story deals caused two gold medals to be given out one to the Russians and one to the Canadians. What happened off the ice seemed juicier than the actual competition, according to umteen sources of media. What is interesting, is that controversy is not uncommon to the sport of figure skating. A Newsweek article, The Sleazy Side of Skating, gives many examples of past figure skating scandals. In 1908, at the London Olympics, Russian Nicolai Panin withdrew from competition, saying the try ons were stacked against him. At the 1936 Games, a Hungarian decide placed the Hungarian skaters second and third, which stood out when no other judge had placed them higher than seventh. In 1927 at the World Championships in Oslo, a Norwegian skater placed first, thanks to three Norwegian judges. That led the foreign Skating Union to restrict each country to one judge. Al though these are significant examples of figure skating trickery, they were not really important until now. Journalists are researching the history of figure skating, and making known scandals that had occurred in the past. In 1993, Tonya Hardings husband paid $6,500 to have Nancy Kerrigan injured so his wife could have an advantage. The Harding-Kerrigan scandal was this countrys first real taste of the swordplay that goes on with figure skating. Because a scandal involving money and crime took place, it was shown all over television, and talked about on the radio.