When I was in the arena, it really felt like Madi and Evan would take the top spot. Regardless of all of the personal issues of the French team—and there's obviously a lot of emotional baggage that goes along with them—they're both fantastic skaters, if not the two best skaters in the ice dance competition. But I felt like in the free dance, we were watching two incredible skaters skate together.
With Madi and Evan, it felt like one couple skating together. It was just seamless. I just feel like the best free dance of the night of those top two was the cleaner one, which was Madi and Evan. And that was my feeling, and it was the feeling of a lot of people.
Obviously, I have a bias. I'm American. I've known them forever. It can be frustrating as a skater that regardless of how talented or amazing they are, that two people skate [together] for one year and they waltz right in and they win Olympic gold.
There was talk about appealing the ruling. I think ultimately the US team decided not to do it. Do you think they should have?
The free dance is the most subjective of all of the skating disciplines. It is its own beast. As a single skater, I know that—in an effort to strive toward fairness—it's really stripped away at skaters that can put together something unique, special, and different because the rules are geared toward only a few elements that really work to get to the highest levels.
It takes some of the magic out of it. If everybody's going out and trying to do the same thing, it all starts to look a little bit similar. When you look at the programs in isolation and you take each one element by element, there's an argument for both teams. I think there were a few visible errors from the French team and some of the grades of execution are a bit high. But like, what are we going to do, just have a computer do everything?
There was a lot of back-and-forth about the judges’ scores.
So that's where I don't really think it's worth filing a petition, because at the end of the day, Madi and Evan skated four perfect programs. They were pivotal and key members of the US team and their clinching of the gold medal. As an athlete, the medals are amazing. I won't lie. They're great to have. Love to have one. But they get put in a drawer. They get put in a box, you let a museum hold onto them. You lose track of where it even is, and what you really hold onto are the moments that you have there. Yes, the results can sometimes sting. Sometimes they can fucking suck. But at the end of the day, they have that moment. I don't see their silver medal as something to be upset about.
In 2004, the Olympics changed how skaters are judged. Now, it seems to be more about athletes trying to execute a specific set of moves and jumps, rather than put together a whole performance. During Amber Glenn’s short program she missed one jump and it pretty much cost her everything because she got zero points for it. What do you make of the way the scoring is done now?