The French judge at the center of the Olympic pairs figure skating controversy never was told to vote for a particular pair, according to the head of the French Ice Sports Federation.
Federation President Didier Gailhaguet said Thursday the pressure felt by judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne was nothing unusual in the “figure skating game.” He denied any collusion between the French and “any other country” to trade votes in one event for votes in another.
“In skating, everyone talks with everyone,” Gailhaguet said in an interview with the Tribune. “Judges, officials, they go to practices and predict who is going to win.
“One person will say, `Doesn’t that skater do a good jump?’ and another will say, `Don’t you think that skater looks good?’ This isn’t done to influence the results but to persuade that something is the best. It has always been part of the skating game.
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“Of course, all this is more difficult to handle in the special atmosphere of the Olympics. More people are talking to the judges. Marie-Reine felt very strong emotional stress that had lasted for several months. Perhaps she overreacted a little.”
Gailhaguet was referring to Le Gougne’s telling other judges she felt “extreme pressure” to vote in a certain way during a competition that ended Monday night in a 5-4 decision giving Russians Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze the gold over Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. Le Gougne was among the five judges who voted for the Russians.
The Associated Press had reported Wednesday that Gailhaguet said the judge was pressured to “act in a certain way.” Many understood that to mean the judge had been ordered to vote for the Russians as part of an alleged deal in which Russia’s ice dance judge would vote for French couple Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, gold-medal contenders in an event that begins Friday.
“I told some French reporters there was a lot of pressure on the judges,” Gailhaguet said. “I never said Marie-Reine was ordered to act in a certain way. I reject any notion there was any collusion with a country from Eastern Europe or any other country.”
The French Olympic Committee released a statement Thursday in which Gailhaguet said, “I totally reject the interpretation placed on words attributed to me.”
Gailhaguet reiterated that in his Tribune interview.
He also corroborated that Le Gougne had said: “You don’t understand the pressure I’m under from my federation. It came from my federation president.”
“She confirmed to me she had said that,” Gailhaguet said, “but then she asked me to excuse her for having said it. She told me she said it because she had been [verbally] attacked by others during the event review meeting.
“I talked to Marie-Reine for a long time. She said, `I judged according to my soul and my conscience. What I said about [pressure from] Didier is not true.”‘
Le Gougne first made her comments about pressure Monday night to fellow judges in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying. She made them again during the event review meeting Tuesday.
A source familiar with the situation said the atmosphere in the review meeting “was tense and perhaps a little argumentative, but not hostile.”
Gailhaguet has several roles at this Olympics. He also is team leader of the entire French Olympic team and a member of the International Skating Union council that will discuss the pairs situation at a meeting Monday. The Canadian Olympic Association is trying to have a second gold medal awarded to Sale and Pelletier.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge asked the ISU on Wednesday “to take adequate action as quickly as possible.”
That request was repeated Thursday by U.S. Figure Skating Association President Phyllis Howard.
“I am sure you agree that it is not desirable for this situation to go unresolved,” Howard wrote to ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta.
Cinquanta said Thursday the organization would not advance the date of the planned hearing.
Some fear results in the two remaining Olympic figure skating events, dance and women’s singles, could be compromised because judges will feel pressured to come down hard on French or Russian skaters and be lenient to Canadians because of the uproar the pairs decision has caused in North America. It has been called the biggest scandal in the history of figure skating, a sport long buffeted by allegations of backroom deals.
“I feel it is a scandal to call this a scandal,” Gailhaguet said.
“I sincerely hope this exaggerated polemic doesn’t affect the events that will follow. The athletes should not have their achievements diminished by all this.”
Le Gougne, from Strasbourg in eastern France, finished third in singles at her national championships in 1975 and 1977. She judged the men’s competition at the 1998 Olympics.
Le Gougne admitted to being intimidated by the reaction of the sellout crowd at the Salt Lake Ice Center, which booed lustily when the scores were announced. The public and media outcry over the decision further unnerved her.
“The atmosphere here is very particular,” Gailhaguet said. “To have 15,000 people around you, mainly people from North America, the judges are not used to this, especially the European judges. Marie-Reine told me she was leaving with her head up. A judge is like a skater. They can make a mistake. The press should not be so tough on Marie-Reine.”
Gailhaguet said Thursday he would favor choosing judges much closer to the start of competition, to minimize the chances for any wheeling and dealing. With the exception of ice dancing, a list of countries with judges for all the Olympic events was published Sept. 4. The countries differ by event.
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Each country can select its own judge. From the 10 countries with judges on the original list for each event, one country’s judge was eliminated.
Gailhaguet has been a proponent of a computerized judges review system that fell two votes short of the two-thirds necessary for approval at the last ISU Congress in 2000.
“We judge the skaters,” he said. “Why shouldn’t we judge the judges?”