The Olympics are always a great resource for articles, insights, stories, and controversy. However, the high drama and controversy over the judging of this year’s competition in pairs figure skating has taken the drama to a new level. Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier seemed to clearly out-skate the Russian pair of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze. Rumors of scandal surfaced almost immediately, would not go away, and were later confirmed. Detailed analysis showing each of the major jumps by the skaters clearly showed the Canadian’s superiority in skating elements, while stylistic assessments remained mixed, but generally favored the Russians.

    Sunday night, in a feel-good ceremony, both pairs appeared together as both were presented gold medals in a revised award ceremony. The resolution of this whole mess ended with a poster moment for our era of political correctness.

    What I most appreciated about the whole incident was the character displayed by the athletes.

• Scott Hamilton, former Olympic gold medalist, firmly came down on the side of the Canadians, but when Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were awarded the gold medal, he openly hoped that the crowd would not boo the Russian pair for the judges’ horrendous error.
• The Canadian pair never asked that the Russian pair be stripped of their gold medals and openly remarked that they didn’t want the joy of the Russians to be compromised by the moment.
• The Russians volunteered to have the Canadians come to a celebration party at the Russia house after the decision to award the Canadians gold medals was announced. They also volunteered to gladly participate in the a second award ceremony where Sale and Pelletier would receive their gold medals.
• While coaches, teammates, and judges at times displayed the worst of things, these competitors displayed the best.

    While I know skeptics can find all sorts of reasons for this, under the brutal scrutiny of the world media spotlight, the key players acted honorably. Their demeanor and character during this ordeal made resolution easier and more palatable. At the most important moment of their careers, these two figure skating pairs faced great disappointment with dignity and class, even though what happened to each of them was unfair. Both pairs have had to overcome real hardships to make it to their Olympic moment, and then had that moment of triumph tarnished.

Life is just unfair sometimes.

    The real lesson for me in all of this is not about the corruption of figure skating judges. I guess I’ve cynically assumed that for years. The real lesson is that life is not fair. Even worse, once life has been unfair, there is simply no way to erase that unfairness — at least not on this side of glory. Unfairness in this life can seldom be mitigated. Attempts can be made to right a wrong, and they should be, but once unfairness has been unleashed, fairness cannot be completely restored.

    Life is just unfair sometimes. The issue is not the unfairness, but our character in the moment of unfairness. Only character can bring redemption out of unfairness. Peter wrote a letter to Christians in Asia Minor to address the problem of unfairness (1 Peter). This unfairness, however, involved life and death, persecution and freedom, not sports. His words remind us that fairness in this life is not nearly as important as the character displayed by the people living during the moments of unfairness. Surely we can take the poster moment of Sunday night, throw away our cynicism, and put in its place the reminder of Jesus’ lead apostle:

Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t be afraid and don’t worry. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong! (1 Peter 3:13-17 NLT)

Title: "Unfair!"
Author: Phil Ware
Publication Date: February 18, 2002

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