1989 European Figure Skating Championships Costume Skandals!

[mlc2005]

Yeah, but Riley and Stapleford were rather mediocre skaters, so it's a bit infuriating that they were able to judge great skaters so harshly. Perhaps they were jealous.

[premierrules]

VANESSA RILEY was a legend! Her and Sally Stapleford did not suffer fools gladly and were ruthless with their marking. Low but fair - as it should be.

[mlc2005]

Actually, I was sort of making a joke. One the one hand I think it's fabulous that Vanessa R. stuck to the rules, but the rules shouldn't be there to begin with! It's just funny that the Brit judge was the one who caught it!

[mlc2005]

How pompous and uptight to the British people want to be?  Talk about confirming a stereotype!

[floskate]

@mlc2005 As a Brit myself, I can totally see the funny side and laugh at our own quirks. Shame you can't.

[MadZiggyStardust]

Hahaha, this is hilarious. :D

[ccfcrule223]

Joan looks so different now...wow, i spoke to her the other day but i never thought she would have changed so much since then :)

[belle19822000]

Well, it looks silly now. Thank God times have changed!

[spenceAMS]

oooh what fun - figure skating doesn't make 'em like that anymore! Just hilarious

[zilam98]

oh there are worse costumes. ;)

[funindc]

Wow! In all the times that I've seen Fadeev's free skate from this event over the years, I never noticed his costume issue. Of course, I've only ever seen the CBS (US) version. They never brought it up. Pretty silly stuff twenty years later.

Still it's interesting how much more accessible the sport was back then.

[bardtoob]

I can't tell if Surya was just patching or if was during actual figures competition, but at 3:25 she looses control and runs into another skater

[premierrules]

Vanessa Riley - what a woman! I remember booing at the telly when her marks were shown on more than one occasion. However, this broad knew what she was talking about. Her and Sally Stapleford were notorious with their marking but they both stood their ground. The new scoring system has eradicated all this and it has killed the sport. We used to love seeing the Soviet judges killing the American skaters and vice versa. Bring back the old 6.0 and introduction of judges and countries. PLEEEEASE!!

[dylanvalente]

I agree. The 6.0 system with the judges identified by country made the sport more interesting and generally produced the correct results. Ms. Riley made good points in this interview. The number wasn't as important as the ordinal. And it was interesting to see the face behind those often notoriously low marks.