They got the gold! The Canadian figure skating pair was awarded the gold medal today after the sport’s top officials uncovered judging misconduct in the contoversial skate which has been the talk of the 2002 games. The International Skating Union has indefinately suspended Marie-Reine Le Gougne, the French judge in the middle of the dispute, who has since high tailed it home.
The French judge told the ISU she had been “submitted to a certain pressure” from her own skating federation and had signed a statement about how she reached her vote, Cinquanta said. There was no evidence of Russian involvement, he added.
The IOC executive committee voted 7-1, with one abstention, to accept the gold medal recommendation from the skating union.
Canadian officials said all along they didn’t want the Russians stripped of the gold medal, but they believed Sale and Pelletier also should be rewarded if evidence of wrongdoing was uncovered.
In 1993, the IOC awarded a second gold medal in synchronized swimming from the Barcelona Games to Canada’s Sylvie Frechette. The IOC’s executive board agreed that Frechette was placed second because of a judging error and should be awarded a gold.
Why does this stuff have to happen to Canada?
In better Olympic news, Coldtraina LeMaie-Doan is the first Canadian to defend a gold medal. Perhaps the extra funding from Daimler Chrysler helped her out?
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