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American Morning

Judging Controversy in Olympic Pairs Skating

Aired February 12, 2002 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We have been telling you about two big stories at the Olympics. The first is the clean sweep by the U.S. men's snowboarders of all three medals. The other is a controversy about the pairs figure skating gold. It is not the first time the East and the West actually clashed about how the judges awarded the gold.

For more on that, let's go to Carol Lin, in Salt Lake City.

Are they still talking about it this morning, Carol? Good morning..

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, again, Paula. You peeked my interest in this story when were talking about it earlier, so I did some reporting, and it turns out when you look at Jamie Sale and David Pelletier and what happened last night -- they got the silver, the Russians got the gold as of a 5-4 decision. Three judges were of the Eastern block: Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland.

Apparently, this controversy actually between the Canadians and the Russians goes back prior to Nagano. There was a controversy leading up to Nagano with allegations made by a Canadian judge who said she saw a pattern of collusion between the Eastern Block judges in predetermining the placement of skaters. She went to the technical director of the a special committee and complained about this, and the director of the committee said, Look, you've got to show me some proof. So she decided to take some audio equipment to Nagano, and what she claims happened is that she recorded a conversation with the Ukrainian judge who called her in hotel room to discuss placement. This is discussing placements of specific skating teams prior to the competition.

So what she did is claimed she had auto tape. In the meantime, the International Skating Union came back at her and accused her of bias in her votes for the Canadian skaters. They then suspended her. And she believes that this was the first time that an Olympic judge suspended during competition.

She received a six-month suspension. She continued to appeal. That appeal still in process. But as a result of that controversy at Nagano, There's a new procedure which is going to take place today as a result of what happened last night. The judges will have to go before a referee this morning, Paula, and they are going to have to justify the decision they made between the Canadian skaters and the Russians, and I understand it could be a pretty brutal session.

ZAHN: Yes, you look at the videotape, and they've got the evidence right there.

Carol Lin, we are going to have to leave it there. Thanks for doing some of that reporting for us.

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