Tuesday, August 06, 2002
French, Russian skaters speak up
Olympic pairs, ice dance champions defend victories
By SAMUEL PETREQUIN
Associated Press Writer
![[img]](http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/06/fig_150x200.jpg)
French ice dancers Gwendal Peizerat, left, and Marina Anissina, second left, and (click ZOOM to view) Russian pair skaters Elena Berezhnaya, right, and Anton Sikharulidze listen to Didier Gailhaguet, center, president of the French Skating Federation, at a press conference in Arles, France, Monday.
(AP photo)
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ARLES, France — Four Olympic champions embroiled in an ice skating scandal denied allegations that the results were fixed to ensure their victories.
French ice dancers Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat and the Russian pairs champions, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, on Monday defended themselves against charges that a Russian mobster arranged a vote-swapping deal to ensure the two couples won their events at the Salt Lake City Games.
The skaters held a news conference to clear their names while in the southern city of Arles for an exhibition.
Anissina said she knew the Russian man in question, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, but did not speak to him after the Olympics. She called the vote-fixing claims “ridiculous.”
“This situation has perturbed me. I am certain it is something that is a complete fabrication,” she said. “It's a ridiculous affair. I've only seen things like this in American movies.”
Anissina said she met Tokhtakhounov in 1999 at a reception and kept in occasional contact with him.
Prosecutors contend they have a recording of a post-Olympics conversation between the winning female ice dancer — Anissina — and Tokhtakhounov.
The woman, who is not identified in court papers, tells Tokhtakhounov she and her partner could have won without his help, the complaint says. In an earlier phone conversation, the woman's mother spoke to the suspect, prosecutors contend.
“We spoke on the telephone from time to time,” Anissina said. “But I never asked him for anything. It's not true at all.
“I never telephoned him (after the Olympics). I am sure that that is not my voice. I don't know who my mother called, but I am sure that she didn't do that either.”
Peizerat, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Not Guilty,” bristled at suggestions that he could lose his medal. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, has said he would not rule out changing the figure skating medals if the United States proves its case against Tokhtakhounov.
“You can't take the medal away from us, it's in our hearts,” Peizerat said.
Didier Gailhaguet, the president of the French Skating Federation, defended the athletes and said each team “won their medal on the ice.”
Gailhaguet acknowledged meeting Tokhtakhounov — and he said French authorities had cautioned him against getting to know the Russian.
In 2000, Tokhtakhounov asked to meet with Gailhaguet about financing the formation of a Paris hockey team. The two spoke for a half-hour, Gailhaguet said.
A few weeks later, Gailhaguet received a call asking if he could help in securing Tokhtakhounov a visa. Gailhaguet ignored the request, but Tokhtakhounov's secretary called back.
Gailhaguet said he eventually contacted authorities to find out what problems the Russian might be facing.
A few months later, French officials told him not to pursue contacts with Tokhtakhounov, according to Gailhaguet.
“I have never spoken to or seen Mr. Tokhtakhounov since then,” Gailhaguet said.
In a criminal complaint based on wiretaps, U.S. authorities charged Tokhtakhounov with arranging a vote-swapping deal between French and Russian judges in pairs and ice dancing at the Winter Games in February.
Prosecutors contend Tokhtakhounov cut a deal to obtain a visa to return to France. Italian police, who arrested Tokhtakhounov at a resort and are holding him in a Venice jail, said he might have contacted up to six judges to help secure a gold medal for the Russians in the pairs competition in exchange for a victory by the French ice dancing team.
Gailhaguet said the scenario that prosecutors have come up with doesn't make sense because the Russian judge voted for a Russian couple in ice dancing.
“The Russian judge voted against the French skaters, so where's the alliance?” Gailhaguet said. “There is no Franco-Russian axis.”
The scandal erupted the day after the pairs competition, when French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne said she had been pressured to vote for the Russians. She later recanted.
As a result, duplicate gold medals were awarded to Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who finished second to Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze.
The Russian team and Anissina threatened on Friday to take legal action for what they called “defamation” against them in the case. However, Gailhaguet said at the press conference that the French skaters would not take action.
Le Gougne and Gailhaguet were suspended from the International Skating Union for three years in April and banned from the 2006 Winter Games in connection with the controversy between the Russian and Canadian pairs.
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![[img]](http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/06/fig_zoom.jpg)
French, Russian skaters speak up