Albertville, FRANCE - 1992 Winter Games, Figure Skating, Men's Free Skate - Viktor Petrenko of the Unified Team won the Gold Medal here despite having an uneven skate.
The technical errors took away from the overall presentation, much more than Wylie or even Bowman. The 3Axel 3-toe was not a secure landing...too many mistakes... I would have had a very hard time giving him the victory in the long program. Call me crazy but I might have placed Bowman and even Stojko ahead of this performance. Wylie should have won the gold... This competition really shows the issues with the 6.0 system. They had to hold back marks for Bowman in the previous group for the medal contenders, yet so many of the men in the final group underperformed that it seems by the time Stojko performed, they had run out of marks to give him. What a mess. At least Wylie got a medal. That was the best story of Albertville I think.
This was the sloppiest men's event ever, especially after so many of these guys skated lights out aggressive at 91 Worlds in Munich. Viktor won here on name, reputation, and past performance. Some say he was exhausted the last minute. To me, he looked exhausted after the 3 lutz in the first minute, his back crossovers very laboured already. This program turned to hot trash quickly. Wylie was not clean technically either, but his program stayed competent, stylish, and energetic right til the end. The scores for viktor were an absolute joke. He received basically the same scores in Munich the year prior with a clean skate. Hell, he couldve simply skated to center ice and done a compulsory figure for 4 minutes and he would've gotten the same scores, clearly. What a farce.
5 clean triples/1 clean double axel | 3 missed triples and 1 singled double axel. I would have given him a 5.4 & 5.7. Very lucky to win gold. The judges completely hoisted him up, especially artistically considering he used this program 3 seasons in a row!!!
how was he able to win the olympics with such performance ? can one combination jump justify a totally messed up programe ? this doesn't make sense to me , at all ...
I remember watching this live, and loving Viktor... and seeing the comments, I STILL get annoyed with everyone yelling about how Wylie should've won. Wylie WAS incredible, I loved him as much as Petrenko. But keeping in mind that he came from nowhere, after doing poorly then blasting out like a hero, and the silver was a brilliant comeback. Wylie was THRILLED to get where he did, why are we still bitching about it? I loved this entire era and credit it with making my teenage years a whole lot brighter... my parents would take me to a skating exhibition tour almost every year when they'd come through our area, and saw soooo many skating greats, including Grinkov and Gordeeva right before he passed. That's what I take from these memories; brilliance and beauty.
Sooooooooooooo lucky to get a gold medal. Doubled two triples, single a double axel, AND a fall on a triple And the slowing down near the end of the program. eesh
RachelDavisMatthews And the same program for 3 straight years. One of those doubled triples wasn’t even a double, he completely opened up on it and landed on it with 2 feet.
I don't know if any of you have seen Petrenko skate live, but his jumps were very high and the judges rewarded him for the speed he skated with across the ice.... 3axel/3toe was also uncommon in 1992!
Besides, i think judges might have recognized Viktor's previous achivements. He was one of the best skaters of that time. I know it isn't fair, but it's the way judging system in figure skating worked (or works)
I think reputation played a big part. 1992 was a weak year and Browning and Petrenko were the two most accomplished skaters in the field (Bowman too, but you never knew with him). Wylie had never come close to winning a medal at Worlds or the Olympics and was almost never in contention. So I'm sure that played a part in how the judges saw things.
Interesting that Petrenko won his Olympic gold medal with a program that he'd skated to for 3 years in a row. Oksana Baiul won her 1994 gold with an old program as well. Yet, in 2002 when Sale and Pelletier used their program from a year before, the judges that voted against them cited that as one of the reasons not to award them the gold. Some skaters can use an old program and not be penalized, but others cannot.
I still think Paul Wylie should have won the long and the gold. He really pulled it together, where Viktor had numerous significant errors. Neither skated clean, but Paul was cleaner.
Yes. And so did Elvis, Dmitriev, Torvill in 1994, and Yuna and Manley, but they're all foreigners so most Americans don't complain about those "robberies."
Petrenko overscored, Wylie underscored.. Still can't believe he won the Gold here. Both skaters had their problems but Wylie's performance was simply the better of the two. The judges had already decided the outcome prior to the skating. Judging has changed a bit, but its still a "who's your favorite" situation. Wylie -GOLD, Petrenko the Silver if judging had been fair.
I'm with you. That program fell apart in the second half so, it's difficult to remember that he did five triples, same as Wylie. Both had a couple of shaky landings, so they come out even in terms of jumps. But everything else Wylie did was way better. Petrenko looked like he was ready to pass out in the last 90 seconds, whereas Wylie finished with a bang. How could the judges not notice that? I love Petrenko but he was way overmarked here and Wylie was badly underscored.
Victor at least had a clean triple axel - triple toe combination and Paul had no triple triples and didn't even attempt the triple loop. Victor had more content planned as far as jumps. I think the judges rewarded him for what he had planned and not what he actually accomplished, however. Even if you give Victor the edge in jumps, I don't see how it makes up for the spins and footwork Paul had. I think the second mark should go to Paul, but I may be biased because I find Paul's style so appealing and thought the program was well choreographed. As usual, I think Scott's commentary was heavily biased, but I do think Paul should have taken the gold. The pair's results were worse in my opinion.
fong03 I'd give it to Paul on a broken tie for better second marks. Viktor had a much more difficult program. More obvious mistakes, but still five clean triples to Paul's four. So I'd say Petrenko 5.6, 5.8 and Wylie 5.5, 5.9.
Even the USA judge voted for Petrenko over Wylie. USA gave Wylie 5.9 for Tech and 5.8 for Artistic. Gave Petrenko 5.8 for Tech and 5.9 for Artistic...for a program he had skated for THREE years. Vomit. Say what you will about the Eastern judges -- but they take care of their own.
Of all the Olympic gold medal winning performances by men, nobody remembers this downgrade-flop-and-fall-fest by Petrenko. Paul Wylie should have won the gold medal. Period. His short program was absolutely flawless, but the judges held him back terribly with outrageous 5.3/5.4 scores for technical and not much better for artistic. He should easily have gone into the LP in first or second place, and there should never have been so much scoring distance between him and Petrenko. Unfortunately, Petrenko was clearly "favored", as it was his time to "take his turn". Even with a few minor errors, Paul's gorgeous LP was easily better both technically and artistically than Petrenko, who over-rotated, downgraded, fell on or fell out of SIX jumps here. If Paul hadn't been held back in the SP, and the LP scored fairly, he easily would have won gold, but the judges weren't about to award the Olympic gold medal to a skater who'd never won a national title and held no world medals of any color, regardless of the fact that he had the skate of his life in both programs at the Olympic games. They judged Paul based on his reputation of inconsistency and NOT how he skated at those games. It should have been a true Cinderella story, but corrupt eastern block judging took care of that. Of all the Olympic winning free skates, nobody remembers this performance. It's one of the most egregious examples of judging corruption in figure skating history, right up there with the Sotnikova/Kim debacle.
I agree that Wylie should have been second after the short program... but even being third after the short, if he had won the long program (which he should have) that would have been good enough to win the gold medal... this judging panel judged on reputation instead of reality, maybe you could justify tying them technically but Wylie should have won on the strength of his second mark...
@@anyas9223 Shocking, isn't it? Considering both he and Paul Wylie had perfect short programs, the only real difference in that portion of the competition being Petrenko did a triple axel-triple toe, and Paul did a triple axel-double toe, and the fact that Paul had no falls and far fewer mistakes (none serious) in his LP (not to mention superior choreography and performance quality) this LP from Petrenko should have had him finishing no higher than third at best and most likely off the podium. The insult added to the injury of Paul's inexplicable loss at those Olympics was that he didn't even win the LP. Petrenko won the LP portion of the competition with THAT performance, too. But, as they used to say back in those days to explain away what was obvious cheating/collusion among the judges, "That's figure skating." I'm so glad the 6.0 system is gone forever. I also don't think it's a coincidence that Petrenko's fellow Ukrainian, Oksana Baiul, won the ladies Olympic gold two years later with a LP that had a couple two-foot landings, a downgraded triple toeloop to a double, a few bobbles, and no jump combination until she tacked on a double axel with a very wobbly double toeloop with a wide swinging leg in the last five seconds of her program. After Bauil's "win" in 1994, Ukraine was again involved in a figure skating judging controversy when the Ukrainian judge and Russian judge were caught on videotape tapping out their scores for the skaters with their feet as they sat next to each other at the 1999 World Championships. Yes, that was figure skating.
Look, I get the comments that Wylie should have won over Petrenko. I agree that Wylie was underscored compared to Viktor, but people need to stop with the personal attacks on Viktor. He didn't do anything to warrant these mean comments. All he did was skate the best he had that night. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at the judges. Don't take it out on Viktor. But I still think Paul should have won over Viktor. But I love both of these guys!
I thought Urmanov was bad, but this is way worse. This is why I like the current scoring system, all those mistakes would've been reflected in the score.
This is not really accurate. Back then they operated with factored placements to determine the standings. It didn't matter how much somebody beat someone else by in the short, it just mattered what place you came in. If Wylie had won the long program (like he should have in my opinion) he would have won the gold.
@@mikeg8375Correct. Viktor did win the short program convincingly , but it didn’t really matter going into the long. He, Barna and Wylie all had an equal shot to win gold had they won the long program, which was weighted more heavily. So I’m case of a tied factored placement, whoever won the long got the edge. I agree that Wylie should have won the long, but reputation meant they were never going to give him the edge over Petrenko without a way better program technically
Lol I was so confused by that. He did crossovers around the curve and I thought, "OK here comes the first jump." But then he skates to the other side of the rink and does more crossovers around the other curve 😐
No one had a longer set up to a triple axel than Petrenko. The only other person who took as long to set that up was Eldridge. I haven’t counted the number of crossovers but it’s got to be around 11 because he had an insanely long pattern that went across the rink and back to finally do the jump
I actually think that Urmanov was stronger technically than Petrenko. With all those mistakes, I'd have given this a 5.5 or maybe a 5.6. Artistically, no, he wasn't as strong as Browning. Therefore, I'd have judged Petrenko: 5.5 and 5.7, but that's me.
the judging was just ridiculous! What marks would have they given to him if he had nailed all the elements? 7.0? The weakest Olympic champion in the history of the sport as far as I can remember.
will74lsn yeah I was unimpressed to say the least. On top of all the visible errors, it just came off rather sloppy, which makes me question his artistic impression mark just as much as his technical elements mark. I was actually stunned at the end of the video when Scott Hamilton mentions that he had been skating this program for 3 years, that's just nuts for how sloppy it comes off. Paul Wylie really was robbed, though I know Paul doesn't feel this way as you can see how happy he was with a silver after peter barna's skate. I suppose a lot of that owes to the fact that no one was expecting him to be a contender, so silver really was a personal victory.
Horrible jumps, horrible spins, boring choreography and he got marks from 5.6 to 5.8 in the Technical Merit?? Overscored, this program deserved the same marks as Browning's, at least, if not less! Really not a gold medal performance...
How did this piece of shit win? I don't care that he did two combinations - one was two footed & most of the other jumps were two-footed, doubled, popped or not complete. I would have scored it Wylie, Barna, Bowman, Elvis & then Petreko. The worst gold medal performance of all time - helped, no doubt, by some generous & idiotic judging. Awful. Just awful.