Word: medal
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...draft its plan. Le Gougne, an international judge for 15 years, would be suspended indefinitely for failing to tell the skating union immediately that she had been approached by people seeking to sway her vote. The only equitable solution would be to award a second set of gold medals to Sale and Pelletier while allowing Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze to keep theirs. For the first time, an Olympic medal decision would be changed as a result of a judge's misconduct...
...that time Rogge and the other members of the Olympic committee were aware that the Canadian Olympic Association had filed an application before the court of Arbitration for Sport, a non-Olympic body, asking the court to hear its request for a second gold medal and to compel the pairs judges to testify. The court agreed to hear the case on Friday. That threatened to carry the dispute to a forum beyond the control of the committee and the I.S.U. On Friday morning the nine-member I.O.C. board ratified the I.S.U. plan by a 7-1 vote. China opposed...