VANCOUVER — Members of the Australian Olympic contingent believe their moguls skier, the Vancouver born Dale Begg-Smith, got shafted by the judges Sunday night and that the historic winner, Montreal’s Alex Bilodeau, may have been undeserving of the gold.
“I thought Dale won,” Australian coach Steve Desovich told the Aussie media after Sunday’s moguls race. “Alex is a good kid. I just thought Dale won.”
The Aussie camp felt that Bilodeau, the first Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal on home soil, was given turn scores from two judges that were too high. Three of the five judges awarded Begg-Smith, the 2006 Olympic champion, superior scores for his turns, but two judges, the Finn Pipsa Pohjavirta and a Norwegian, Morten Skarpaas, awarded Bilodeau higher scores of 4.8 and 4.9.
Turns are traditionally not Bilodeau’s strength. Ironically, the Canadian judge, Susan Verdier, gave the Australian a higher scorer, a 4.7, and only a 4.6 to Bilodeau.
“My own opinion is probably that Alex is not capable of a 4.8 or 4.9 for turns,” said Australian team high-performance director Geoff Lipshut. “He’s just not capable.”
The Australians felt the pro-Canadian crowd may have swayed the judges to some degree.
For his part, Bilodeau took the high road when asked about the Australian’s concerns.
“Sometimes you’re in the good graces of the judges, sometimes you’re not,” Bilodeau said. “Judged sports can’t be perfect. It can be a bad part of my sport. I see it. But everybody is going to be equal in the end.”
Lipshut believes Bilodeau was overscored for his turns, which make up about 50% of the final mark. Bilodeau scored 26.75 points to win the gold, followed by Begg-Smith in second with a score of 26.58. Bilodeau had a much faster time down the Cypress Mountain course, crossing the finish line in 23.17 seconds, to 23.72 for Begg-Smith and the Aussie camp acknowledged that Begg-Smith may have ultimately lost the gold on speed.
“Dale could have been quicker,” Lipshut told reporters. “That’s the bottom line, if Dale is three 10ths of a second quicker, Dale wins.”
Canadian Freestyle Association CEO Peter Judge was not overly concerned with the Australian complaints, but said Bilodeau won fair and square, as he was faster and his jumps were more difficult.
“That’s part of the drama of sport. It’s WWE. It’s whatever. If you have controversy, you have the drama, and the drama is what makes things great,” said Judge. “If there’s a (different) opinion out there, that’s great. We can sit and debate and have beer about it afterwords.
“It doesn’t have to spin into some holy war. It’s opinions about sport and it’s passionate opinions about something we love.”
Bilodeau added: “The only thing I control when I’m on top of the hill is my performance, what I can do. The same thing for Dale. He did the best he could. I did the best I could. And the rest was in the judges’ hands.”
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