According to Lori Ewing of the Canadian Press, there was a new term developed on Saturday from the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships in London.
The term is "Chanflation" and occurs when the three-time world men's figure skating champion Patrick Chan of Ottawa "receives high marks that critics believe he doesn't deserve". According to the Los Angeles Times, "Chanflation" was the primary reason why Chan was able to defend his gold medal on Friday night.
There is no doubt there is merit to the term because it remains shocking throughout the international figure skating community that Chan won the gold medal. However, the term seems to directly point the finger toward Chan as an isolated case, and minimize the major widespread problem in figure skating judging as a whole.
The Chicago Tribune called the judging "ridiculously unjustifiable", which is more of an accurate description. Unlike Chan, Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford did not receive home ice advantage by the judges, and only received the bronze medal when they clearly outskated the four-time world champions, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany in the pairs competition.
The Canadian figure skating pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Olympic champion hometown darlings from London, also got on the podium on the weekend by winning a silver medal in the ice dance.
With the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, 11 months away, Canada has an excellent chance of winning a medal in the team figure skating competition, which will be making its Olympic debut next year. Whether or not the judging will be cleaned up by then remains to be seen.
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