Scandal Appalls Rogge

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, proclaiming himself appalled that a reputed Russian mobster allegedly conspired to fix the pairs and ice dance competitions at the Salt Lake City Games, left an opening for the ice dance results to be recalculated if U.S. and Italian authorities uncover evidence that warrants dramatic remedies.

“I will rule out nothing,” Rogge said Friday from Manchester, England, where he was attending the Commonwealth Games. “Everything is possible. We will act with our partner, the International Skating Union, in the best interest of the sport and the athletes. But I don’t rule out such a possibility.”

Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov, described by Italian police as the kingpin of a Moscow-based crime organization, was charged Wednesday with leading a vote-swapping scheme to give the ice dance gold medal to Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat. The duo competed for France even though Anissina is a native of Russia.

Tokhtakhunov, linked by U.S. prosecutors to drug distribution, illegal arms sales and beauty-pageant fixing, allegedly plotted to have a French judge vote for a Russian couple in the pairs event in exchange for a Russian judge’s vote for Anissina and Peizerat in the ice dance finale. However, the Russian judge, Alla Shekhovtseva, ranked Anissina and Peizerat second to Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh, who won the silver medal.

Tokhtakhunov, who was arrested in Italy and is awaiting extradition to the U.S. at Santa Maria Maggiore jail in Venice, asserted his innocence through his attorney, Luca Saldarelli. He also disputed the meaning of wiretapped conversations cited in the FBI complaint against him.

“He knows nothing about this matter, absolutely nothing,” Saldarelli said. “He was never interested in sport. As far as the Olympic Games are concerned, he has never had anything to do with skating.... These conversations could reveal themselves as absolutely innocent from a telephonic point of view. They could have other meanings, they could either just not exist or be illegitimate, and we do not know.”

In announcing the ISU will conduct its own investigation and that he asked the IOC ethics committee to follow suit, Rogge identified Anissina by name for the first time.

The complaint refers to “the female ice dancer” and quotes an unidentified member of the Russian figure skating federation as saying to Tokhtakhunov during a wiretapped phone conversation, “She [the ice dancer] is a Russian girl and we will feel good about it.” The complaint also says a woman identified as “the female ice dancer’s mother” was heard on the tape.

However, Rogge was specific. “I would ask the French national Olympic committee to make an inquiry and present us a report on the allegations against Anissina,” he said.

Anissina said in a statement released by the French figure skating federation she will consider suing those who have linked her to the alleged fix.

“Gwendal and myself never needed anybody to help us win our gold medal in Salt Lake City,” she said. “I categorically denounce all the slanderous, unjust and disgraceful allegations that were made against me after the arrest of Mr. Tokhtakhunov.”

Although Tokhtakhunov has also been charged with trying to influence the outcome of the pairs event, Rogge indicated those results are not likely to change.

Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won the pairs gold medal in a controversial 5-4 decision over Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, after which French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne said she had been pressured to vote for the Russians. She recanted, but she and Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French ice sports federation, were suspended for three years and banned from the 2006 Olympics as the result of an ISU investigation.

To silence an international clamor, the ISU recommended awarding duplicate gold medals to Sale and Pelletier. Rogge, eager to dissipate the cloud hanging over the Games, endorsed the unprecedented move.

Rogge said that decision was appropriate based on evidence then available. The charges against Tokhtakhunov, he said, are “a stronger confirmation that the decision we’ve taken was a good one.”

He added, “I think it’s quite clear the [pair skaters] were not part of the process. The athletes were innocent. They skated at their full ability and I believe no one will dispute that those two pairs were the best two pairs in the world.”

He also said no consideration has been given to decertifying the ISU or removing figure skating--the premier event of the Games--from the Olympic program.

“We have to clean up the sport,” he said. “That’s what the ISU is doing both with its hearings in Lausanne [into Le Gougne and Gailhaguet’s actions] and in changing the [judging] system in its general assembly in Kyoto....

“We cannot penalize hundreds of thousands of athletes that train very hard every day and deserve to participate in competitions. We know that there are problems in the judgment. The ISU knows that. We are working hard to improve that.”

However, Ron Pfenning, referee of the pairs judging panel at Salt Lake City, expressed doubt the ISU can conduct a thorough investigation.

“I would have some reservations,” he said. “I would like to think that they could get to the bottom of it, but I’m not sure they have the resources. They have a small office staff, whereas the FBI and other agencies have a lot more manpower....

“I did think after the Lausanne hearings and Didier and Marie-Reine dropped their appeals that it was over. But we knew all along the French didn’t do this by themselves. The first night [after the pairs finale], I wasn’t present, but [judges] Walburga Grimm and Sally Stapleford were, and Marie-Reine did say to them that it was ice dancing that was going to bring the whole thing down.”

Grimm, of Germany, and Stapleford, of Britain, could not be reached for comment.

Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze said during TV interviews in Russia they will sue U.S. TV networks that used pictures of them to illustrate stories about the charges against Tokhtakhunov. The Russian Olympic Committee vowed to back them.

According to the Moscow Times, Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets told Russia’s NTV network Russian Olympic officials don’t know Tokhtakhunov and doubted he could have fixed Olympic events.

“He has a delusion of grandeur,” Svets said.

However, Tokhtakhunov has socialized with athletes. A picture of him with tennis players Andrei Medvedev of Ukraine and Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia was recently removed from Medvedev’s Web site, and Anissina and Pavel Bure of the NHL’s New York Rangers were reported to be guests at a 1999 party thrown for Tokhtakhunov in Paris.

Bure’s presence is noteworthy because Russian crime figures have long been rumored to have menaced Russian-born NHL players. An NHL source said Tokhtakhunov is known to the league’s security officials, most of whom have law enforcement backgrounds. “Everybody who’s ever been a New York policeman or in the FBI knows him,” the source said.

However, the source said Tokhtakhunov’s name never came up during NHL investigations of instances in which players were approached for money.

Bernadette Mansur, group vice president of communications for the NHL, said no connection between Bure and Tokhtakhunov had been found. “Not that the league is aware of and not that we came upon in any investigation,” she said.

Rogge acknowledged he is concerned about possible infiltration of sports by crime figures, and said he asked IOC lawyers to request the organization be made an interested party to the FBI case in order to gain access to information gathered against Tokhtakhunov and other unnamed co-conspirators.

He said U.S. law forbids the granting of that request but hoped IOC lawyers in Italy will get access to information gathered there.

“This is something we will have to examine,” Rogge said.

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Maria de Cristofaro of The Times’ Rome bureau contributed to this report.