Nagging question re Scott Hamilton's 1984 Olympic Gold

[dcden]

Consider:

Scott Hamilton says on p. 173 of his autobio "Landing It": "...it would take a fifth-place finish or worse in the long for me to lose the gold medal."

Also in Dick Schaap's "1984 Olympic Games" he writes: "[Hamilton] could lose the gold medal only if he failed to finish among the top four in the freeskating..."

However, looking at the results after the short program, this doesn't appear to be the case:
C SP Total after SP
Hamilton 1 2 1.4
Simond 2 4 2.8
Cerne 3 6 4.2
Sabovcik 4 5 4.4
Orser 7 1 4.6
Boitano 8 3 6
Fadeev 5 8 6.2
Kotin 11 9 10.2

Hamilton could clinch the gold by finishing 1st or 2nd in the LP. But had he finished 3rd in the LP, he could have lost the gold to Simond if Simond had won the freeskate (4.4 factored placements for Hamilton vs. 3.8 for Simond).

I know that I've read this "fact" in other places before as well. Now while this wouldn't be the first time that figure skating scoring rules were reported erroneously in the press, I'm surprised the error was repeated as fact in Hamilton's own autobio!

Has anyone ever noticed this? Are my numbers and reasoning correct? Thoughts?

[KDSk8BU06]

dcden- You're forgetting the 'school figures' element of the competition. Scott was in first place after figures, which, at the time, were worth 30% of the total score. My math skills aren't what they used to be, so I won't attempt to calculate the factored placements, but that's why he had a lot of lee-way going into the long program.

[A.H.Black]

KDSk8BU06 is right. The percentages were different then and they had gradually changed since the 50's. You need to know what the percentages were for that particular Olympics in order to do the math.

The other, realistic, factors to take into account are that Neither Simond or Cerne were at all likely to be able to skate well enough to beat Scott, or several of the others, in the free program. The only reason they were that high after the short is because of their strength in figure. The skaters likely to be able to beat Scott in the free were Sabocik and Orser - maybe Boitano. None of them had good enough school figures so Scott had a pretty firm grip on the gold unless he absolutely bombed in the free.

[dcden]

Maybe my post wasn't formatted clearly, but I was indeed factoring in compulsory figures. I used the formula 0.6 x compulsory rank, plus 0.4 x SP rank, plus 1.0 x LP rank. This reflects a breakdown of 30% for compulsories, 20% for short program, and 50% for long program, which I believe was the case in 1984.

So Scott Hamilton had after the short program:
rank in compulsory = 1, for 0.6 factored placements
rank in SP = 2, for 0.8 factored placements
1.4 going into long.

Simond had:
rank in compulsory = 2, for 1.2 factored placements
rank in SP = 4, for 1.6 factored placements
2.8 going into long, etc.

So Simond could have beaten Hamilton if he'd won the freeskate and Hamilton finished 3rd in the freeskate. Yes, the scenarios were probably fudged in the press because Simond & Cerne were not considered likely to outrank Hamilton in the free skate, but nonetheless it was a possibility.