Sale, Pelletier Turning Pro

Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian pair skaters who were at the center of the judging firestorm at the Salt Lake City Winter Games, announced Tuesday that they had left Olympic-eligible competition to skate in shows and professional competitions.

They said, however, that their move was not related to the International Skating Union’s decision earlier in the day to suspend French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne and French skating federation President Didier Gailhaguet and ban the two officials from the 2006 Turin Games.

“I’m very content with what I achieved in amateur skating,” Sale said during a conference call with reporters. “And I’m ready to move on.”

Both declined to comment on the sanctions against Le Gougne and Gailhaguet.

Sale, 25, and Pelletier, 27, won the 2001 world pairs championship and were favored at Salt Lake City. Despite a smooth finale performed to “Love Story,” they were declared the silver medalists, behind Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who won a 5-4 judges’ split despite several missteps.

Sale and Pelletier were awarded duplicate gold medals by the International Olympic Committee after the ISU determined that Le Gougne had acted improperly in not reporting alleged pressure from Gailhaguet. They skipped the subsequent World Championships, as did Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze.