Olympic Gold losing status

Olympic pairs figure skating finally ended -- four days later than it should have. \nCanadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded a gold medal Friday afternoon, after a French judge admitted to being pressured by her own federation to give the gold to Russia. The Russians, however, were allowed to keep their own medal.\nWith the French judge's vote cast out, the vote was split four to four between Russia and Canada.\nUnfortunately, giving the gold medal to two sets of athletes takes the glory out of being number one. Most people seem happy with the decision, but it's easy to be happy when the International Olympic Committee is giving out gold medals left and right.\nAn Olympic gold medal is something only a few can ever dream to win. Giving out two makes a mockery of the award. Instead of giving the gold to both pairs of skaters, it should have gone to the pair with the best performance. Giving out two medals makes the IOC look indecisive and takes away from the honor of receiving Olympic gold.\nIt's true that the judging was controversial and that the IOC needs to examine its procedures. Still, the Committee should either have stood by its original position or stripped the Russians of their gold medal and given it to the Canadians. Only four times in Olympic history has a gold medal ever been awarded to more than one person or team, simply because doing so takes away from the integrity of the Games.\nFocus for the past few days has shined the spotlight on the controversy rather than on the athletes of the other various sports competing in this year's winter games. Each athlete present has worked to get where he is and do not deserve to be overshadowed by controversy.\nIf the Olympics are to be successful, a gold medal has to mean something. Giving it out more than once for the same event means the gold medal doesn't stand for anything. It's regrettable that such a scandal took place at the Olympics, but giving out two gold medals only makes the situation worse by bringing even more controversy to a situation that is already questionable.\nStaff vote: 9 - 1 - 0\nyes - no - abstain