Lithuanian Pair Files Protest Over Free-Dance Judging

Another day, another accusation about unfair judging in figure skating.

Lithuanian ice dancers Margarita Drobiazko and Pavlas Vanagas filed a letter of protest with the International Skating Union Tuesday about Monday’s free dance judging, saying the panel didn’t follow ISU rules regarding mandatory deductions for specific errors.

Third-place finishers Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy and fourth-place finishers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz of Canada took nasty falls but lost no ground in the standings, remaining ahead of the fifth-place Lithuanians. Saying they felt “dumped down,” Drobiazko and Vanagas decided to capitalize on their moment in the international spotlight to discuss problems they feel have been rampant in ice dancing for years.

“We really don’t want any results to be reestablished,” Vanagas said, referring to the ISU’s decision to declare co-gold medalists in the disputed pairs competition. “We really don’t want medals to be put over our heads, because I think what happened at the Olympic Games didn’t have a good image for the ISU or a good image for the Olympic Games....

“Those who come to the rink [for competitions] know their place before the competition, plus or minus one place. This is sad, especially for young couples.”

They also said reforms introduced in ice dancing after the 1998 Nagano Games had done nothing to clean up the sport and contended that bloc judging was still very much a factor.

Vanagas also described the victory at last year’s World Championships of Fusar-Poli and Margaglio--favorites of ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta of Italy--as “a controversial thing. That’s one of the things most coaches and athletes were thinking about.”

The Grand Prix Final two months ago, he said, was little more than a tease. Bourne and Kraatz won, followed by Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France. Drobiazko and Vanagas were third, followed by Fusar-Poli and Margaglio.

“The Grand Prix Final was a great competition, and it was really one of those that give athletes fresh [hope],” he said. “You felt if you skate good, you will be judged good. If you fell, you would be judged bad.

“At the Grand Prix Final there was no former Soviet Union dominance of the judges, which usually takes place when there are former Soviet Union judges on the panel.... There are dirty-game situations.”

Drobiazko also said she had been told not to discuss pressure put on judges at previous competitions. “We didn’t ask anybody to change something,” she said. “People feel just like sorry and say, ‘Please don’t say anything.’”

Said Vanagas: “All this pressure in the judges’ stand is going on before competitions and it is a pity.”

John Domanskis, a Newport Beach plastic surgeon who is serving as Lithuania’s Olympic attache, said the ISU’s decision in the pairs competition “added to our impetus to do something.”

He added, “We feel our athletes were deprived of a fair chance to win a medal.”

In the meantime, the ISU began its investigation of improprieties in the pairs judging by interviewing Jon Jackson of San Francisco, a judge who was witness to a conversation in a Salt Lake City hotel lobby in which French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne allegedly said she had made a vote-swapping deal with the Russians.

Jackson said he heard an emotional Le Gougne tell Sally Stapleford, chairwoman of the ISU’s technical committee, the deal was she would vote for the Russian pair of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze over Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier and the Russian ice dance judge would vote for the French duo of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat.

However, Le Gougne told the French sports newspaper L’Equipe she had made no deals, and voted her conscience.

Le Gougne also told L’Equipe that Stapleford had physically threatened her, which Stapleford denied.

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Commissioner Gary Bettman isn’t ready to commit the NHL to a third shutdown for the 2006 Olympics.

Bettman, in Utah to watch his league’s best players compete for gold, said the NHL will evaluate the public’s reaction to the Salt Lake City Games and the players’ opinions before formulating the NHL’s strategy for the next Olympics in Turin, Italy.

“While this has been so far an excellent experience, I don’t know what the future is going to hold,” Bettman said. “We’re going to have to sit back and digest what happens here a little bit.”

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Wayne Gretzky, the executive director of Canada’s hockey team, held a news conference Tuesday in which the primary topic was ... his news conference the previous day.

In Monday’s memorable talk session he said the Czech Republic’s Roman Hamrlik should be suspended for the rest of the tournament for his cross-check against Canada’s Theo Fleury; that everyone in the world wants to beat Canada; excessive criticism of his team’s performance was unwarranted; and that any reports of dissension between his players and Coach Pat Quinn are strictly “American propaganda.”

“I have no regrets about what I said,” Gretzky said Tuesday, adding the reason he came to the podium was “I had had pretty much enough with what I heard said about our hockey team.

“I felt like our team was getting bombarded. I just tried to stand up for our hockey club.”

That American propaganda charge still seemed odd.

“My kids asked me about it today,” Gretzky said. “I said, ‘I don’t know, I just said it.’ They said, ‘You know, we’re American. What does that mean?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

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A short-track speedskater from Belarus has left the Games after a drug test found a steroid level nearly 400 times the legal limit in the athlete’s body.

The athlete vanished from Olympic Village housing Monday after failing to show up for a second test.

Officials barred the athlete from the Games pending an investigation and punished the Belarus Olympic Committee for allegedly helping the athlete avoid another exam.

The Salt Lake City Games, however, remain free of a doping case because the bag carrying the athlete’s urine sample was not properly sealed. It was broken by a lab courier in an apparent accident.

For that reason, officials decided the athlete had not technically flunked a drug test, International Olympic Committee Executive Director Francois Carrard said.

The skater was identified Tuesday by Belarussian Sports and Tourism Minister Yevgeny Vorsin as Yulia Pavlovich. He said she had been sent home by team leadership “at her coach’s suggestion,” and that the test results may have been produced by “medical help” received from team personnel last weekend.

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Times staff writers Helene Elliott, J.A. Adande and Randy Harvey and the Associated Press contributed to this report.