Saturday, February 16, 2002
Agent: Judge the judges
By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- Saying "the search for truth has just begun," the agent for Jamie Sale and David Pelletier is urging the International Skating Union to be vigilant in its investigation of figure skating judges.
While thrilled to have been awarded gold medals in pairs skating, Sale and Pelletier are hoping the controversy that engulfed their lives the past five days will result in serious reform for the sport they love.
"We need reform so this can never happen again," said Craig Fenech, their lawyer and agent. "This can't all be laid on the one French judge. There has to be serious reform ... We don't want any one person to be scape-goated.
"This is the beginning, not the end."
While skating judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne has been suspended indefinitely by the ISU, the investigation into the judging ordeal in the pairs competition has not ended.
ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta was quite clear in saying yesterday that he would not get into specific details of this case because there is further investigating to be done.
"It is a very delicate and difficult position for us," Cinquanta said.
For Sale and Pelletier, however, it is far more clear. They came up with what they call a mission statement after the disappointment of not winning gold had sunk in.
The statement was: "I don't have the gold medal but I want the truth to come out."
Truth and figure skating often have little in common.
"But you cannot argue that something was going on with the judges. That's a fact," Pelletier said.
There is, at this time, no evidence to suggest that there was any Russian involvement in the scandal, Cinquanta said. It is the French judge, under pressure from her own federation, who was found guilty of misconduct.
Judge Le Gougne signed an apparent confession, claiming she was in violation of ISU rules. But her confession had little to do with how she scored the pairs event. She was not sanctioned for voting against the Canadians, but was caught on an ISU technicality -- not reporting pre-event pressure to the event referee and the ISU president.
"This is not a human error," said Francois Carrard, director general of the IOC. "The misconduct had nothing to do with the actual vote. It had to her failure to disclose the pressure and her violation of the rules."
2002 Games Figure Skating Coverage
