Scott Hamilton Talks With Brian Boitano 

Both class acts.

Brian my name is tab. I'm one of your many fans. Number one. Your home in San Fran is beautiful. Secondly I watched your cooking shows, and I would love the opportunity to cook with you At the church i used to attend I was mentored by a great lady who ended up being a pastry chief we made things such as chocolate covered peanut butter balls, a deiicasy cookie made up of dark chocolate chip, white chocolate chips and some butterscotch chips to give the cookie that flavor. One my own my mom has taught me well, but I would love to learn more from you such ad how to use pinapple juice when cooking, and what meats are good to use with the pineapple juice

@Philip Alumbo WTF are you talking about? My comment was about the 1988 Olympics, NOT Nationals, Jill Trenary or Debi Thomas...and NONE of that has anything to do with the collusion between skating federations at the international level.

@Philip Alumbo Boitano's "favortism in scoring" is your opinion and FAR different from a verified and ADMITTED judging scheme to throw the '88 Olympic gold to Orser no matter how he skated. You seem to imply that because you were unhappy with the 1988 U.S. Nationals scoring, that perceived unfairness would have justified Orser getting an unearned Olympic gold medal. I couldn't disagree more. Even if you could prove there was favortism in the '88 Nationals scoring, it wouldn't make the scheme to push Orser to the top of the Olympic podium any less deplorable or criminal. So, I don't know what your hang up is with '88 Nationals. You seem to be more anti-Boitano than concerned about judging ethics. At the same time, what happens at Nationals among judges who are fellow countrymen is nothing compared to the levels of collusion and corruption required to coordinate multiple international skating federations into a judging scheme to award the gold medal to one skater at the most important competition in the entire sport, the Olympics. That's far more than "having an agenda" so your favorite skater wins. That's power, and most likely money, changing hands at the highest levels of the sporting institutions we're supposed to trust. So no, it's not quite the same, even if you could prove your claim about Nationals was true.

@Philip Alumbo No, you're conflating an issue at nationals with a multi-national conspiracy to gift Orser the Olympic gold. Sorry, they're just NOT the same thing. One is admitted FACT by a co-conspirator, and the other is your opinion. There is NO way either Boitano or Orser would NOT have made the '88 Olympic team of their home countries even if they'd bombed or gotten sick and withdrawn from their respective national competitions. Skating federations make their own decisions about Olympic teams regardless of the way nationals turn out. Many times top skaters have a bad Nationals or miss Nationals and are still appointed to the team because federations can make exceptions for skaters, and that's exactly what would have happened for Bointano anyway...and even Orser had he had a bad day at Canadian Nationals. No padded scoring necessary. At 1992 U.S. Nationals, Mark Mitchell placed third. The U.S. had three spots for men at the 1992 Olympics one month later but the USFSA chose to make an exception for Todd Eldridge who was out for medical reasons, and placed him on the team instead. So, there is NO way Boitano would not have been in Calgary in '88. Federations can do that, and they certainly would have with or without score padding. So, your point is mute.

@Philip Alumbo Politics and collusion didn't come into play with the decision to leave Mitchell off the Olympic team in 1992. It was a matter of strategy and USFSA putting the best possible team together with the greatest odds of winning a medal. It was a matter at looking at each skater's overall accomplishments and potential versus a single competition because the greatest predictor of future performance is past performance.

In 1988 it was the Soviet Union.