Sarajevo 1984 Women | Witt edges Sumners out for Gold

Australian/American coverage (commentators: Dick Button, Peggy Fleming, Jim Lampley, Al Michaels)
1984 Sarajevo Ladies/Women's Figure Skating Short & Long Programs (starts at 0:42:58), and a couple of exhibition performances.
Rank Name Nation CF SP* FS^ TFP
1 Katarina Witt East Germany 3 1* 1^ 3.2 (plus exhibition, sorry audio had to be partially muted for the short program due to copyright and to reach a wider audience. You can find it on SydFigSka channel on Daily Motion)
2 Rosalynn Sumners United States 1 5* 2^ 4.6 (plus exhibition)
3 Kira Ivanova Soviet Union 5 3* 5^ 9.2
4 Tiffany Chin United States 12 2* 3^ 11.0
5 Anna Kondrashova Soviet Union 7 4* 6^ 11.8 (Anna Levandi)
6 Elaine Zayak United States 13 6* 4^ 14.2
7 Manuela Ruben West Germany 6 11 7^ 15.0
8 Elena Vodorezova Soviet Union 2 8* 11^ 15.4
9 Claudia Leistner West Germany 9 10* 8^ 17.4
10 Sanda Dubravčić Yugoslavia 8 9 9^ 17.4
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12 Kay Thomson Canada 10 12 10^ 20.8
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[N.Y. Times] MISS SUMNERS EDGED OUT FOR GOLD
February 19, 1984
In a free-skating event so close that if either of two judges had given the second-place finisher a tenth of a point more, the outcome would have been reversed, Katarina Witt of East Germany won the gold medal tonight in women's figure skating at the XIV Winter Games. Rosalynn Sumners of Edmonds, Wash., earned second place and the silver medal.
The victory by the 18-year-old Miss Witt was notable in several respects. For one, she became the second straight East German to win this championship. Anett Poetzsch, her teammate and friend in Karl-Marx-Stadt, won in 1980 in Lake Placid, N.Y.
The three days of competition ended with the most exciting part of the sport, the four minutes of free skating known as the long program. For that phase, Miss Witt placed first, Miss Sumners second, Miss Chin third and Miss Zayak fourth.
Miss Chin thus climbed from a sixth-place tie to fourth place over all, just behind the bronze medalist, Kira Ivanova of the Soviet Union. Miss Zayak, who started the night in 11th place, finished sixth over all. It was a proud achievement because she had lost so much training time while recovering from a stress fracture of the right ankle in last year's world championships.
The complex scoring system in this sport awarded 30 percent of the final score to Wednesday's compulsory figures, 20 percent to Thursday's short program and 50 percent to tonight's free skating. The standing was so close at the start of the night that Miss Sumners would have won the gold medal had she outscored Miss Witt.
The leaders, as always, skated at the end. The drama was heightened for the capacity crowd of 8,500 at the downtown Zetra ice arena because Miss Witt skated next to last, Miss Sumners last.
Clean, Exciting Performance
Miss Witt, 5 feet 5 inches tall and 112 pounds and smooth in a raspberry costume, skated to ''Embraceable You,'' ''Mona Lisa'' and ''I Got Rhythm.'' Except for a slight stumble coming out of a double flip, her skating was clean and exciting.
Her scores were exciting, too. She received mostly 5.8's for technical merit (assessing the difficulty of her program) and 5.8's and 5.9's for artistic impression (assessing how well she skated that program).
Don Laws of Denver, who coached Scott Hamilton to the men's gold medal Thursday night, watched from rinkside and did some mathematics.
''Five judges have left enough room for Rosalynn to win,'' he said, ''but she has to skate a perfect program.''
Then the 19-year-old Miss Sumners was on the ice, in white with light blue trim. She started strongly with her jumps. Her triple salchow was solid. Her triple loop was the same.
Falters Slightly
Then she faltered slightly. Late in her program, she had planned to do a combination of a split jump and triple toe loop. Instead, she did a split jump and double toe loop, which was less difficult. She had planned a double axel, but did a single axel instead.
''I think if I had landed that triple,'' she said later, ''I would have won the gold medal.''
She was not required to do any specific jumps, but difficult jumps mean higher scores for technical merit. And the judges watch practices to become familiar with the skaters and their programs, so when a difficult jump is left out or a lesser jump substituted, the judges know and take note.
Miss Sumners finished to huge cheers from the many Americans in the crowd. At rinkside, Laws said he thought Miss Witt would win because she had done more of what she intended to do.
One Judge Gives a 6.0
When the scores for Miss Sumners were posted, it worked out the way Laws had predicted. Among Miss Sumners's 18 scores were seven 5.8's and six 5.9's. The Italian judge gave her a 6.0, the only one of the men's or women's singles competition, for artistic impression.
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#figureskating #フィギュアスケート #eiskunstlauf #фигурноекатание #pattinaggioartistico #patinageartistique
thanks to Kim!