As accusations and denials of corrupt judging in the week-old pairs figure-skating controversy continued, the sport dealt with the Lithuanian ice-dance team’s protest Tuesday that its chances to win a medal had been eliminated by predetermined results.
Such charges are nothing new in ice dancing, but they undoubtedly will have more resonance in the Olympic media frenzy over questionable practices in the sport.
Lithuanians Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas, who finished fifth after Monday night’s free dance final, took their long-standing and previously expressed complaints about judging in their discipline to a large audience. They have not asked for a change in the results.
“We don’t want medals to be put over our heads,” Vanagas said. “We want somehow to improve judging and the system for those coming after us. This doesn’t give a good image for the International Skating Union and the Olympics. It’s really sad, really bad for the future.”
John Domanskis, a plastic surgeon from Newport Beach, Calif., acting as Olympic attache to the Lithuanian team, said the Lithuanian Olympic Committee and Lithuanian Figure Skating Federation had filed a letter of protest with the ISU Monday night. The protest is based on the judges’ failure to apply rules that called for deductions from the marks of the third- and fourth-place teams because of falls in their free-dance programs. Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy won the bronze medal and Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz of Canada were fourth.
“The required deductions as described by the [ISU] were not applied as they should have been and consequently deprived the Lithuanian ice-dance couple the chance to win an Olympic medal,” Domanskis said. The ISU acknowledged receipt of the protest letter.
There also were developments in the pairs controversy, which led to the award of the second gold to Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier six days after Russians Elena Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze won the first gold on a 5-4 judges’ decision in the free skate.
– French Olympic Committee President Henri Serandour said he “could not be certain” the French judge at the center of the tempest was telling the truth when she denied to a French newspaper there was a deal to trade her pairs vote for a Russian vote in ice dance.
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“I hope it’s the truth,” said Serandour, who did not hear the denial from judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne.
– San Francisco attorney Jon Jackson, a international-level judge who is not working here, testified Tuesday before ISU investigators that he had heard Le Gougne talk about a deal with the Russians in the hotel where the judges were staying about one hour after the pairs event ended Feb. 11.
Jackson told ISU Vice President Gerhard Zimmermann of Germany and ISU attorney Gerhardt Bubnik of the Czech Republic that he had heard Le Gougne say: “Ice dancing is ruining our sport. I did this for our [French] ice dancers. There was a deal with the Russians: our [dance] first place for their [pairs] first place.”
While Le Gougne did not say she was pressured into making a deal by the French federation, “the implication was clear,” according to Jackson.
“I left the interview with confidence about the investigation,” Jackson said.
– Marina Sanaia, the Russian judge in the pairs event, declined to comment on a report made to the ISU by Canadian judge Benoit Lavoie that Sanaia had approached Le Gougne about such a deal at the Skate America Grand Prix event in November.
“I do not know what Benoit Lavoie said,” Sanaia said Tuesday. “I regret very much that according to the rules of the ISU I am not allowed to answer any questions.”
– Le Gougne, who has been suspended indefinitely, has not received a response to her request for a hearing before the investigators, according to French Ice Sports Federation President Didier Gailhaguet.
“No one wants to listen to her,” Gailhaguet said.
– Serandour reaffirmed confidence in Gailhaguet, whose actions are under scrutiny.
“The more one learns about the world of figure skating, the more one understands that people talk to each other,” Serandour said. “[Federation] presidents talk with judges. Didier did only what others do. You can call that pressure, but I would call it something else. In the business world, it would be called lobbying.”
Even before the recent allegations of influence peddling and vote trading in the pairs event, ice dance was looked at with a jaundiced eye because its results were predictable. The discipline’s credibility is so minimal that International Olympic Committee member Richard Pound of Canada said in December it should be eliminated from the Olympics if its judging could not be made believable.
Domanskis said the Lithuanians were encouraged after the success of the Canadian appeal in pairs (“You see public opinion does matter”) but concerned that the similar efforts of a small country like Lithuania won’t carry as much weight.
“When you’re a small country of 3.5 million, under the Soviet Union for so long, it’s difficult to get a fair hearing,” he said.