A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On Feb. 9, 2002, the figure skating pairs competition began smoothly enough at the Salt Lake Ice Center, but two days later, the Salt Lake Winter Games had an Olympic-size scandal on its hands.
The saga focuses on two skating couples: Canada’s Jamie Salé and David Pelletier and Russia’s Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze. Russia had won the past 10 pairs skating gold medals but the Canadian team was a force to be reckoned with.
On the first night of competition, at the Salt Lake Ice Center — the Delta Center was rebranded for the Olympics — the Canadian pair fell at the end the short program, but it did not warrant a deduction. Still, Salé and Pelletier were in second place.
Two nights later, Salé and Pelletier gave a flawless and crowd-moving free skate performance to “Love Story.” And according to reports, they felt like they could win. The Russian Sikharulidze had a small stumble coming out of the axel jump during the long program. The Canadians received great technical marks from the judges but were ranked second in artistic marks. This meant that they won the silver medal, while Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze won the gold medal.
Medals were awarded that night.
But the crowd disagreed, and so did the media and many of the experts. Daily Deseret News coverage was robust and entertaining.
Later that evening, the French judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne, had reportedly admitted to being pressured by her federation to rank the Russians first in pairs skating. This was part of a vote-trading scheme that involved the Russians ranking the French first in the ice dancing events.
On Feb. 12, the International Skating Union began an investigation. On Feb. 15, the ISU and IOC, in a joint press conference, announced that the French judge was guilty of misconduct and was suspended effective immediately. Within 48 hours, the Canadians had received gold medals, while the Russian pair was allowed to keep their gold medals.
Soon, the Olympics moved on ... to snowboarding, to skiing, to hockey, to speedskating. The Canadians enjoyed their newfound celebrity, and the Russians fumed about everything.
“Gosh! Heck! Utahans angry about skating,” wrote columnist Dave Berry, in Utah for the Games.
The Deseret News produced a daily Olympics special section throughout the Games. Here are selected articles from that section and Deseret News archives:
“IOC wants fast resolution; skaters union says wait”
“Gold medal pairs recall Salt Lake City 4 years later”
“Ceremony for duplicate gold moved up to Sunday”
“Rogge gets high marks for boosting IOC’s image during ‘Skategate’”
“Russians criticize media influence”
