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CNN Live Sunday

Melee Breaks Out in Salt Lake City

Aired February 24, 2002 - 11:07   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: On now to the Olympics, where athletes are packing their bags. Today is the last day of the games in Salt Lake City, but there seems to be no end to the excitement and controversy.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is covering the games for us and she joins us now from Salt Lake this morning. Hi there, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, as you know controversy has been the name of these games all along, protests, federations threatening to pull out before the end of the games, but there hadn't been any violent confrontations, not until last night.

Now, last night was sort of a final night of partying in the streets here in downtown Salt Lake City, and about 2,500 of them had jammed into an area near the Budweiser pavilion, known as Bud World, and folks were trying to get in to get that final call, that last beer before they shut down at midnight.

Well, apparently too many of them were trying to crowd into the security area and they were spilling out onto the streets. Folks tried to climb fences to get in and that's when riot police moved in, about 75 of them. Apparently then, the revelers started throwing bottles at police. There was some property damage done to businesses in there, bottles thrown through windows, that sort of thing.

Police also began firing non-lethal bullets into the crow. Now about 30 people were arrested, but apparently no one was injured in that melee.

Now switching gears a little bit. Of course, the biggest controversy of the games that will always be remembered is the Skate Gate, the controversy between the Canadian pairs and the Russian pairs, the second gold medal being awarded.

Now the person who is sort of at the center of that scandal is the French judge, Marie LeGougne. Now apparently, she was suspended by the International Skating Union for misconduct, because she had signed a statement saying that she had been pressured by her own French Federation to vote for the Russians.

But she is now recanting on that story, she did last week to the French press, and now in a New York Times interview, she's also claiming that that's not what happened. She claims it was a result of an intense lobbying effort by the Canadians. She said that she was stuck in the middle of a very intense lobbying effort, that it was a close call, that there was a lot of pressure put upon her.

Now also, there have been allegations that she had been trading votes with the Russian judges in the ice dancing event. She also told the New York Times that she never dealt with the Russian judges at all during the entire event.

So what will happen now is the investigation by the International Skating Union. Apparently, LeGougne will testify sometime in April, but what folks have said that were present right after the event was that LeGougne had said that she broke down and said that she had been upset by, that she had this pressure by the French. Of course now, she's telling a different story. It remains to be seen what that truth will be. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks a lot Rusty.

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