Second gold medal criticized in France

OLYMPIAN NEWS SERVICES

Originally published Wednesday, February 27, 2002

PARIS -- The president of the French skating federation called the decision to award a second Olympic gold medal to Canada in the pairs competition "total nonsense."

Didier Gailhaguet, returning from the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, also insisted Tuesday that there was no wrongdoing on the part of either French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne or the French skating federation.

"We were dirtied in a media affair without precedent," Gailhaguet said.

Le Gougne sparked one of the biggest controversies in Olympic skating history this month when she cast a crucial vote in favor of Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze over Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. The Russians won 5-4 despite an obvious technical error.

Le Gougne at first said she'd been pressured into voting for the Russians by Gailhaguet -- apparently in a vote-swapping deal to assure a victory in ice dancing for the French couple, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat. But then she recanted that story.

Canadian judge Benoit Lavoie was quoted in Tuesday's editions of Le Journal de Montreal as saying that Le Gougne "confessed to not having had a choice in favoring the Russian couple."

Lavoie added that Le Gougne also "implicated Didier Gailhaguet as the source of this pressure."

- MUEHLEGG'S WOES: Johann Muehlegg, the cross-country skier stripped of a gold medal for doping, learned Tuesday that the "B" sample of his urine test had also proved positive.

The German-born skier was stripped of his 50-kilometer gold medal Sunday -- his third gold of the Salt Lake City Olympics -- after testing positive for darbepoetin, which boosts production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

- RUSSIA TURNS UP HEAT: Russia's Olympic team returned home to cheering fans and a military band Tuesday amid increasing criticism of the country's sports officials.

Anger over a series of Olympic decisions affecting Russia boiled over last week when skiing star Larissa Lazutina was disqualified from the 4x5-kilometer cross-country relay for having high levels of hemoglobin in her blood.

Lazutina was stripped of her gold medal in the 30-kilometer classic-style race after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug darbepoetin.

At first, much of the wrath was directed at the International Olympic Committee and U.S. news media accused of creating an anti-Russian bias.

But the anger now appears to be turning toward Russia's own sports officials after President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian Olympic Committee had not done enough to defend the athletes.

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