Word: goldings
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...after the first round of jumps. Valenta needed something spectacular to win. Indeed, the five-twist jump he executed was spectacular. Also decisive. He took the lead. Bergoust went all out on his jump - a difficult one, but no five-twister - and he fell on landing. Valenta won the gold. Bergoust placed last. "You need a little bit of luck. It's part of the sport," said Valenta. And perhaps a bit of madness as well. Said American Joe Pack, who won the silver, "Ales's a bit psycho." In the world of aerials, that's the highest praise...
...final outcome of the figure-skating fiasco at the Winter Games, especially from the Canadians. Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who had been forcing smiles all week, flashed real ones when they heard that their silver medals in the ferociously disputed pairs skating event would be traded in for gold. But what made the biggest difference last week were tears...
Early on Tuesday morning, just hours after the gold medal had gone to the Russians, Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, the nine judges of the pairs event and two referees convened in a windowless basement room of the Salt Lake Ice Center. The door was sealed with thick tape that kept prying reporters from eavesdropping on the deliberations. It also prevented them from hearing the weeping of the French judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne. Ron Pfenning is the U.S. referee who would bring Le Gougne's accusations to Ottavio Cinquanta, president of the International Skating Union. Last week he told...
Until last week, only real fans of the sport knew the extent to which skate judging can involve intrigue, deceit and shady arithmetic. For them it was just mildly surprising that a flawless performance by the Canadians could get a silver medal while the gold went to a bumpier routine by the Russians. What was truly surprising was that the matter exploded. For that, credit is due to Jacques Rogge, the new president of the International Olympic Committee. It was Rogge who pressed on Cinquanta the idea to award a second set of gold medals to Sale and Pelletier...
...vote in their camp. Sale and Pelletier looked briefly stunned. The crowd of some 16,000 at the Salt Lake Ice Center exploded in boos. The possibility of a judge's deal was in the air immediately. The Russians were eager to sustain a long tradition of winning the gold medal for pairs skating--10 Olympic Games in a row. The French wanted just as badly to win gold in the ice dance, in which Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, the World silver medalists in that discipline, represented France's only real shot at a first place in skating...