Did the right couple win Dancing with the Stars: Athletes?

DANCING WITH THE STARS: ATHLETES – “Episode 2604” – After three weeks of stunning competitive dancing, the final three couples advance to the finals of “Dancing with the Stars: Athletes,” live on MONDAY, MAY 21 (8:00-9:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network. (ABC/Kelsey McNeal)

CARRIE ANN INABA, LEN GOODMAN, BRUNO TONIOLI

Dancing with the Stars: Athletes has crowned a winner. But did the right couple take the victory, or did others make a more complete case?

Dancing with the Stars: Athletes had to wrap things up quickly because of a certain singing show also having its finale last night, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a little drama. Three couples and rounds of competition resulted in one winner.

Let’s get right to it: The reunion dance came at the end of the night, mostly to fill some time up while the votes were tabulated. Honestly, that felt a little wrong, but it was fun to see everyone back, even if things were really short.

At the end of the night, Adam Rippon and Jenna Johnson came away as the champions of Dancing with the Stars: Athletes. But were they the right winners?

Going solely by the scoreboard, yes, they were. Even with a stumble in the freestyle, the two of them had the highest scores of the night.

The first round scores are as follows, in order of appearance:

• Tonya Harding and Sasha Farber (Viennese waltz): 26 (8, 9, 9)
• Josh Norman and Sharna Burgess (foxtrot): 27 (9, 9, 9)
• Adam Rippon and Jenna Johnson (jazz): 30 (10, 10, 10)

The freestyle round scores are as follows:

• Tonya Harding and Sasha Farber: 30 (10, 10, 10)
• Josh Norman and Sharna Burgess: 30 (10, 10, 10)
• Adam Rippon and Jenna Johnson: 28 (9, 9, 10)

So yes, by points alone, Adam and Jenna deserved the crown of this shortened season — by exactly one point. And I’d argue that both Josh and Sharna as well as Tonya and Sasha danced a more impressive program.

Carrie Ann picked up on this in her critique of the freestyle Adam and Jenna danced, saying she thought that she had “missed something” in their freestyle. To be fair, Adam dubbed this a really “quirky” freestyle in the package pre-dance. Whoo boy, he was not wrong.

He had a really terrible straight black hair wig on, and it made it hard to tough to focus on the dancing. In fact, the styling didn’t really seem to fit “Scooby Doo Pa Pa” as a song, even if the dancing seemed to fit a little more.

This isn’t to detract from the skill he displayed in both numbers. His and Jenna’s jazz routine nailed the song, styling and choreography, which only made the oddness of the freestyle more apparent. If we were judging only on the jazz number, then we probably wouldn’t feel quite so conflicted about this win.