Chepálova and Medvedéva

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Here we go again.
Not only Russian tennis players suffer, but Winter Olympic athletes as well.

I'm not asking you (non-Russian native speakers only!) which one of the names of Russian female skiers (see the subject) is pronounced correctly (the first one is correct, the second one is incorrect), but I'm asking you - why?

What made NBC and CBC sports commentators believe that Chepálova is Chepálova, but Medvédeva is Medvedéva?
What's the difference, to the English native speaker, between these two names?

Comments

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also have such an idea, but never was able to express exact form of this system -- memorizing was actually easier. ^_^