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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Ice Skating Coach Kathy Casey

Aired February 17, 2002 - 18:19   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, after a week of controversy, Canadian skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier will finally have their golden moment. The gold medal will be awarded to them in a ceremony this evening. And joining me now to talk more about this, is professional ice skating coach Kathy Casey. Thank you for being with us, Kathy.

KATHY CASEY, ICE SKATING COACH: Oh, it's great to be here. Thank you.

CALLAWAY: First, tell me what do you think about this second gold being awarded?

CASEY: Well, I think first of all, it was deserved. Second of all, it's very unprecedented. It would be sort of like having the Super Bowl and declaring the champion and giving them the trophy, and then the next day saying, oh, the referees were wrong, you're both champions. So certainly -- yes?

CALLAWAY: Go ahead, I'm sorry to interrupt. But to top all that off, they're having a second ceremony, too. That's interesting.

CASEY: Yes, second ceremony with the anthems being played and the flags being raised again.

CALLAWAY: Do you think that's necessary?

CASEY: Well, I think that's what the Canadians wanted. I'm not sure it's necessary. But perhaps.

I feel sorry for my very good friend Tamara Moskvina, who is the coach of the Russian team. You know, when you take a skater to the Olympic Games, you try to leave any stone unturned that you can and be prepared for everything, and I'm sure she was not prepared for her athletes to endure this. And I'm very good friends with the Canadians, too. I think that the Russians were far superior in the short program, but the Canadians were better in the long.

CALLAWAY: Kathy, is all this really going to change anything in the skating industry?

CASEY: Well, hopefully it does, hopefully they will take a very close look at our scoring system and our judging system and make it a little bit more fairer. CALLAWAY: Let's look at some of the suggestions that Carol Schulman (ph), the executive director of the Professional Skaters Association has suggested. She said that this is subjective, certainly, but should these judges be allowed to come back and judge again? Shouldn't they be banned for life after being reprimanded for perhaps cheating?

CASEY: Well, if it was blatantly cheating, yes. If it was a mistake, perhaps no. But how do you know? You know, we coaches, I've been coaching skating for 30 years, and we've been trying to figure out the judges for 30 years and still haven't figured them out.

CALLAWAY: But indeed this judge has been disciplined. Should she be allowed to come back after a year?

CASEY: I don't believe so, no.

CALLAWAY: What other changes would you like to see? What about the use of instant replay?

CASEY: They're using that. We have instant replay now. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) has an instant replay.

CALLAWAY: But is it being used accurately? I mean, in this situation, it took quite a long time for it to be straightened out, and here we are seeing things that have never been done before being done, so certainly the scoring system and all of that needs to be changed?

CASEY: It did take a long time. And perhaps we should have one panel of judges do the short program and one panel of judges do the long program. That would help. Throwing out the highs and lows would help. Having a lot of judges and not knowing until right before which judges are being used. Maybe have 15 judges and only use nine. There are some remedies.

CALLAWAY: Yeah. Tara Lipinski, a gold medal winner, I believe she was the one who suggested that perhaps there'd be a group of judges, and that right before the competition the judges that would participate would be selected?

CASEY: I agree with Tara. I think that's a great idea.

CALLAWAY: What's the biggest thing that's going to come out of this? Do you think -- what's the biggest change that's going to come out of this controversy?

CASEY: Well, the biggest change will hopefully be the judging system reevaluated. And I certainly hope that this kind of mess doesn't happen to our sport again. While it's put us on the map again, like Tanya and Nancy did, I would like to see our judging system fair and honest and above board.

CALLAWAY: Do you think it's affecting the skaters?

CASEY: No, I don't. I don't think at all. They came here to do their job, and they're going out to do it. No, I sure don't.

CALLAWAY: All right, Kathy, thank you very much for being with us. I hope you're having fun out there in Utah.

CASEY: I'm having a great time. Just watching the ladies, U.S. ladies practice today. They were great. So I'm having a good time.

CALLAWAY: We look forward to watching them as well. Thank you, Kathy.

CASEY: Thank you very much.

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