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American Morning

Interview with Scott Hamilton

Aired August 01, 2002 - 08:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And if you thought the Skategate scandal at the 2002 Winter Olympics couldn't get any stranger, wait until you hear this. Federal prosecutors have charged that an alleged Russian mobster was trying to fix the pairs and ice dance results at the Salt Lake City Games.

He has been arrested in Italy and the U.S. wants him returned to this country to stand trial for bribery and wire fraud, among other things. You might remember that a French judge was suspended after she gave the Russian pairs team a gold medal, even though the Canadian pairs' performance was better, in fact, flawless, some people said. She said she was pressured by her federation.

For his reaction, we are joined now by Olympic gold medal skater Scott Hamilton, who joins us from Denver.

Good to see you again, Scotty.

How are you doing?

SCOTT HAMILTON, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I'm doing just fine. But it's August. Why are we talking about figure skating?

ZAHN: Yes, I guess it's...

HAMILTON: It's so unreal, isn't it?

ZAHN: Yes, I guess as you tried to restore faith in the skating federation, this is not what you want to hear. If these charges are true, walk us through how this guy did what he did.

HAMILTON: Well, I can only guess, I guess, that, you know, the biggest problem with the judging system of, you know, world championships and the Olympic Games is that the judges are sent as members of their country's delegation, which means that the country chooses which judge is going to judge the competition. Which to me says they're compromised the second they step on the plane.

If you have a corrupt president of a skating federation, if you have somebody that's going to want to try to finesse a result, he can hand pick the judge and instruct them what to do. And I think that's really unfair.

It would be like the New York Yankees picking an umpire for the World Series. You know, it's just wrong.

So I think that you need to take the judges away from the member federations, give them their own organization and really allow them to police themselves with people of great integrity in the positions of authority.

Right now, you know, the way it's structured is every country sends their judge to judge the competitions. And in this case, if this man had a relationship with somebody high up in different figure skating federations, he could influence the result of a competition by making sure that the judge is handpicked and, you know, pretty much forced or inspired to give a result that would be the one that they want.

So I think if you take the judging out of it, as they've done in many major sports, you know, the officiating is done separate. The rules are given by the governing bodies, but those referees, those umpires, those officials are in a separate entity where they can police themselves and they could put people of great integrity in there and reward excellence, not just put people in there because they've spent their time.

ZAHN: So, Scott, I mean this is a long time tradition of countries picking their own delegation. If these changes aren't made, does that mean that those of us that watch these games should just accept the fact that they're tainted going in?

HAMILTON: Well, I think that skating is going to be under such scrutiny in the next Olympics, and in the next four years. I think that, you know, you'll see some, you know, great results. I never really debated too many results in skating. You know, there's nine judges, there's nine opinions, there's nine cultures, there's nine tastes being presented.

But what's being presented right now to fix the skating scoring system and the way that these performances are evaluated is like, I call it treating a broken arm with Novocain. You're really not treating the problem, you're trying to get around the problem. They're not trying to put good judges in place, but they're pretty much admitting by what's been proposed that every judge is going to be comprised. So we need to find a way to take the score pretty much away from the judge, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I know a lot of people in skating. You know, I'd say a vast majority are people of great quality and integrity. Give them an opportunity to do what they know is right and they'll do it. You know, it's right now if, let's say, Gailhaguet, the French figure skating president who has been reelected even though he's been suspended by the ISU, if he wants to influence a judge, right now he can because his federation picks the judge that goes to the world championships and the Olympic Games.

If you take that away from a federation president and just give them the opportunity to govern their sport and to be involved in trying to build grassroots programs and give every skater the highest quality place to skate and the greatest sport they can be in, that's their job.

To be involved in the judging, I think, is a mistake, to give that federation president or those nation governing bodies the opportunity to present their judges, to pick their judges and to influence their judges, I think, is the root of the problem.

ZAHN: So in the meantime then what?

HAMILTON: Well, I think in the meantime, I can't wait to hear what this guy has to say. I hope they extradite him soon. This is, you know, a scandal and people are interested in that and I think that's why it's on the front page of the newspaper right now.

I think it's a tragedy for the sport. Again, there's so many wonderful people that give up all of their free time to volunteer to make sure that these young athletes, who work so hard, have a place to go where they could be evaluated, where they can find out just how much they're improving, how good they are compared to other skaters.

The competitive nature of the sport is something that really is of great interest to a lot of people and I want to protect that. I don't think changing scoring systems is going to really help a great deal. I think you can adjust scoring systems to make it more equitable and fair, but -- to take it away from one person, let's say. But, you know, to say that you earn points by what you do, I think that takes the personality out of this sport.

And I really have felt from, you know, from day one, I always wondered why speed skating and figure skating were in the same house, why they are the same governing body. I don't think it's good for skating. I don't think it's good for either, actually. I think figure skating pays a lot of speed skating's bills and I appreciate that. I think that's a good thing that figure skating does.

But to have speed skating officials controlling figure skating when they don't know the intricacies and the complexities of figure skating I think is a huge mistake and I think that you get bogged down in bureaucracy and I don't think the sport can reform itself quickly enough.

So I'd like to see figure skating be a separate entity. I'd like to see speed skating be their separate entity. Because right now the president of the International Skating Union is a short track speed skating official and expert and not really skilled to be a figure skating president. So I would say remove that and I think you can start reform.

ZAHN: Scott, we've got 15 seconds left. I worked a number of Winter Olympics with you, as you remember.

HAMILTON: Yes.

ZAHN: I hope you remember.

HAMILTON: Of course. ZAHN: Yes, we were up 24 hours a day for seven weeks, I think. I have never seen you as outraged as you were when the Russian pairs won the award over the Canadians. At that time, did you suspect...

HAMILTON: Well, you know...

ZAHN: ... it could have been something like this, where a deal was brokered with a middleman?

HAMILTON: Well, Anton and Elaina are phenomenal skaters. They're great talents and they are, arguably, the best pair team in the world. Not on the night, OK? But, you know, you hate to think that anything like this can happen. I was upset. I try not to make judgments. I try to make observations. But in that particular case, it was like pulling somebody over for a speeding ticket, finding out that they just robbed a bank and then finding out later on that it's much bigger than that.

ZAHN: Right.

HAMILTON: It's just, it's unbelievable. It's just, to me it's mind boggling and it hasn't shaken my love of the sport. It hasn't shaken, you know, my appreciation of the integrity and the quality of the sport. I just think there needs to be some serious reforms and hopefully this will inspire those reforms.

ZAHN: Well, you were a good man to join us before the sun comes up there in Denver.

HAMILTON: My pleasure.

ZAHN: As always, great to see you, Scotty.

HAMILTON: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Appreciate your perspective.

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