Figure skating needs scandals to make it popular

Judging controversies and a baffling scoring system have left figure skating struggling to pull in the fans,and Olympic champion...

Judging controversies and a baffling scoring system have left figure skating struggling to pull in the fans,and Olympic champion Jamie Sale believes there is one good way to regain its popularity more scandals. We need some fights! That scandal involving Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding made skating popular. We need some fist fighting, said Sale as she burst into laughter. Its silly. Im just kidding. But every sport has got its problems. TV figures and live attendance is down.

Whereas once a mesmerising performance could turn competitors such as Britains Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean into household names,over the past two decades the only skaters to have left a lasting legacy are those who have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Few can forget the Kerrigan-Harding saga that overshadowed the 1994 Olympics.

Kerrigan gained worldwide sympathy when,weeks before the Games,she was hit in the knee with a baton in an assault planned by Hardings ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. The ploy to sideline her backfired and the American became the story of the event when she won silver.

Similarly Sale and her now husband David Pelletier were thrust into the spotlight at the 2002 Games when a judging controversy erupted and they were belatedly awarded duplicate gold medals in the pairs competition after a French official admitted she had been ordered to mark them down.

We became household names. People still talk about it today and that wouldnt have happened if we won the gold outright, said Sale.

That incident led to a major scoring overhaul,with the old 6.0 system replaced by an accumulative scoring system that has bewildered fans and pundits alike.

There was so much pressure to make changes that they felt that they needed to do something, said Sale. So they thought,if we make the scoring system a little different,it seems more fair. People always felt it was biased but now I dont understand it. It totally hurt our sport. Everyone I know is fed up with skating.