David Pelletier had no idea what was going to happen when his agent, Craig Fenech, told him to come to the agent’s room to watch a Friday news conference featuring the presidents of the International Olympic Committee and International Skating Union.
Once IOC President Jacques Rogge announced Pelletier and his pairs partner Jamie Sale were to receive a second gold medal for the event that had ended Monday in controversy, Pelletier heard nothing else that was said in the 45-minute news conference.
“It was amazing and unbelievable when we saw him say it,” Pelletier said.
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Thus began a celebration the Canadian pair thought should have occurred four days earlier, when their compelling free skate drew only four of nine first-place votes from the judging panel. That decision had given the gold medal to Russians Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze.
The result was amended after evidence surfaced that French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne, one of the five who voted for the Russians, had failed to report that she had received overtures intended to influence her vote. Such failure is regarded as misconduct under the rules of the International Skating Union.
“I am happy justice was done,” Pelletier said. “This isn’t about taking anything away from Elena and Anton. This wasn’t something against them. It was something against sport.”
Canadian Olympic and figure skating officials turned what they saw as gross injustice to their team into a national crusade, using the media to make their case. Canadian team leader Sally Rehorek thanked the media for supporting them.
The Canadians first asked for an independent investigation of alleged judging improprieties and then took their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which had scheduled a Friday hearing.
“We were not told the medal was contingent on us dropping the arbitration,” said Mike Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic Association. “We climbed a mountain here and, lo and behold, we’re at the top.”
Said Fenech: “Our mission was something David said to me this morning: `I don’t have to have a gold medal, but I want the truth to come out.”‘
Pelletier, 27, of Sayabec, Quebec, and Sale, 24, of Red Deer, Alberta, would have been able to turn the silver medal into financial gold because of the way they handled the fallout from the situation.
“We became a bigger silver-medal story than any other, and I say that without any pretention,” Pelletier said.
He and Sale, who have a romantic relationship, won the world championship last year in Vancouver. From that point on, they felt tremendous pressure to win the Olympic gold.
“The last six months have been the worst of my life,” Pelletier said Monday after the free skate.
“Olympic dreams sometimes turn into Olympic nightmares. I’m glad mine stayed an Olympic dream.”
Friday’s medal decision did not make up for what Sale felt she had lost by not being able to receive the gold medal Monday in the Salt Lake Ice Arena, where the applause for their performance seemed to shake the building and the boos for their second-place scores resonated from the walls.
“It is what every Olympic dream is about,” Sale said of the medal ceremony.
There is a proposal to have another medal ceremony at the ice center Thursday night, when the women skate their final. There may also be a ceremony Saturday at the Olympic medals plaza.
Pelletier apologized for having all the attention on them detract from what other athletes were doing.
“The athletes around the world were not getting the attention they deserved for their accomplishments,” he said.
Bereznaia and Sikharulidze’s gold had become tarnished through no fault of their own.
“I feel really bad for them, but at the same time, it wasn’t my fault,” Pelletier said.