Fallout From Scandal May Spark Reform

The pairs figure skating scandal that consumed the first week of the Winter Games may finally provide the momentum needed to reform a sport that even high-ranking Olympic leaders call “completely irredeemable and corrupt.”

While the International Skating Union continues its investigation into the biggest judging scandal in the sport’s history, ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta of Italy said he will raise the issue of reform at a meeting Monday of the executive council, and will propose using a computer to analyze judges’ scoring over time to detect potential bias.

“This is for giving this sport discipline, maybe a more adequate system,” Cinquanta said. “We are trying very hard constantly and very hard . . . to improve.”

Attempts at change have been introduced over the years, but not approved. Cinquanta’s computer-tracking proposal, in fact, was presented before but rejected.

Richard Pound, an IOC member from Canada, called figure skating’s judging practices “completely irredeemable and corrupt” and expressed frustration that more hasn’t been done to improve the system.

“We’ve had blowups in other judgment sports like gymnastics and diving and synchronized swimming and those sports have responded,” he said. “For whatever reason, that has not happened in figure skating. It is a separate little fiefdom that now has been exposed in an international forum like the Olympics.”

The sport was rocked last week when the ISU determined a French judge acted improperly by failing to report she had cast her vote under “pressure” from an unspecified outside source. She cast her gold medal vote for the Russian pair.

Deciding the ethics breach had created an uneven playing field, the International Olympic Committee on Friday accepted the ISU’s recommendation to raise silver medalists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada to co-gold medalist status, with Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia. An ISU investigation continues.

The latest controversy came to light when judge Marie Reine Le Gougne of France allegedly told the referee of the pairs panel on which she served last week that she had been pressured to vote against her conscience--and resisted. French Figure Skating President Didier Gailhaguet, meanwhile, denies any pressure came from his organization.

But contrary to his assertions, The Times has confirmed that the ISU received five reports on the pairs incident, including two that allege the Russian and French federations colluded in an attempt to manipulate Le Gougne’s vote for reasons that remain murky.

One of the documents is from Ron Pfenning, the referee of pairs judges whose initial report to the ISU helped uncover the scandal.

Pfenning, back home in Hyannis, Mass., has not returned phone calls seeking comment.

But he told the Chicago Tribune on Saturday he was caught off guard by the media attention given the controversy.

“I never thought this would be such a big story. I was just fulfilling my responsibility,” he said. “If it will help the integrity of our sport, I hope the process goes forward. I would be proud about it.”

Another report to the ISU came from Benoit Lavoie, a judge from Canada, who told the ISU that he had been approached by Le Gougne at the Skate Canada Grand Prix event in November to discuss the outcome of the Olympic pairs event.

Lavoie’s report also said Le Gougne had told him Russian judge Marina Sanaia had asked Le Gougne at Skate Canada to favor the Russian pair in Salt Lake City. Sanaia placed the Russians first in the pairs event Monday.

Unlike sports in which athletes’ efforts are timed or measured, figure skating is virtually impossible to quantify.

One competitor might do more jumps than another, but the number means little unless balanced by the difficulty of the jumps and the quality of their execution.

Each of the sport’s four disciplines--men’s singles, women’s singles, pairs and ice dancing--includes a mark for technique or technical merit, and another set of marks for presentation.

And that’s where the biggest problem lies: the subjectivity of judges raised in the varied cultural influences of Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia or North America.

“You’re never going to get the human element completely out of it--that subjectivity is one of the hazards of judging sports,” said Kevin Wamsley, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

Figure skating’s judging process has long been viewed with suspicions about back-room trades among judges promising to favor each other’s skaters, with coaches openly lobbying judges.

In one of the more recent cases, a one-year suspension was handed down to Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov, who was caught on tape telling a Canadian judge the order of finish at the 1998 Nagano Olympic ice dance competition before skating had even begun. Balkov is back judging ice dancing at the Salt Lake Games.

In another case, Russian judge Irina Absalimova was suspended in the early 1990s for exhibiting “extraordinary national bias.” The French sports magazine L’Equipe, in an extensive story on judging done after the 1998 Olympics, said Russian Figure Skating President Valentin Piseev told judges, “You will judge the way I want or you will stay at home.”

Ice dancer Isabelle Duchesnay said she wasn’t surprised by last week’s scandal because she and her brother were told by ice dance officials before the final phase of the 1992 Albertville Olympic competition they had no chance to win gold.

“All the titles are decided ahead of time,” said Duchesnay, who shared the 1992 ice dance silver medal with her brother, Paul, in those Games. She told the French newspaper Le Parisien: “The corruption is so institutionalized that it had to break out some time.”

“They said, ‘We’re sorry, but you’ll only get the silver medal,’ ” she said. “When you’re in this environment, you think it’s normal.”

National bias is perhaps the most difficult element to eliminate.

A former U.S. Figure Skating Assn. official candidly recalled last week the advice he gave U.S. judges as they prepared to officiate at international competitions.

Call it like you see it, he would tell them, don’t cheat, and never do anything to compromise your integrity. But when asked what to do in instances when two skaters had performed at an equal level, the official said he told judges: “Remember who is paying your way.”

Even if judges were to be chosen from countries that aren’t represented in a particular competition, or if judges were to be paid for their services instead of merely getting reimbursed for travel expenses and meals, a judge’s birthplace will often determine his musical tastes, experts said.

John Nicks, a two-time Olympic pairs skater and 10-time Olympic coach, laughed when asked about instituting reforms that would bolster the integrity of judging.

“I have faith in reform,” Nicks said, but he is adamant that figure skating can never be stripped of the subjectivity that international judges inevitably bring to their jobs.

“They’re used to their own nation’s skaters and their styles. That’s why you have nine judges, so you have some balance.”

The nationalities of the judges for the men’s, women’s and pairs competitions at the Salt Lake City Games were determined last fall. The ice dance panel, according to reforms introduced in response to the Nagano shenanigans, was not determined until the day of the compulsory dances, the first part of the competition.

Opportunities to make deals might be minimized if judges in the men’s, women’s and pairs events were also assigned shortly before the competition, said Frank Carroll, coach of Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel.

“They should find out 15 minutes before,” he said. “You can’t give them time to know which panel they’re going to be on.”

The women’s competition, which begins Tuesday and is traditionally the showcase event of the Winter Olympics, is sure to be analyzed microscopically to determine the fairness of each decision.

Michelle Kwan, the six-time U.S. champion and 1998 silver medalist, is like most competitors who accept the capricious nature of judging.

“People ask me if I get nervous, but it’s out of my hands,” she said.

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Times staff writer Randy Harvey and Tribune Olympic Bureau staff writer Philip Hersh contributed to this report.