French skating judge, federation chief suspended three years

Associated Press WriterLAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- The French judge and federation chief at the center of the Olympic figure skating scandal were banned from the sport for three years each for misconduct.

The rulings against judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne and French skating head Didier Gailhaguet were announced Tuesday after a two-day hearing of the International Skating Union council.

Lawyers for the French pair said they planned to appeal.

Le Gougne and Gailhaguet will be banned from the next Winter Olympics, in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

They were accused of manipulating the scoring of the pairs skating competition at the Salt Lake City Games, a controversy which led to the unprecedented awarding of duplicate gold medals.

Le Gougne was suspended indefinitely by the skating union in Salt Lake City after initially declaring that she voted for Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze under pressure from Gailhaguet.

Le Gougne later recanted the accusations, saying she had been under emotional distress and was harassed by ISU officials into making false claims against Gailhaguet.

Based on Le Gougne's alleged misconduct, the ISU threw out the judges' marks and gave duplicate golds to Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.

The suspensions, effective immediately, end April 30, 2005.

ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said the council found Le Gougne guilty of misconduct on two counts -- voting for the Russian pair on Gailhaguet's orders and not reporting Gailhaguet to the ISU for his pressure tactics.

Gailhaguet was sanctioned on the charge of instructing Le Gougne to give first place to the Russians.

Le Gougne and Gailhaguet both denied any wrongdoing and sought to clear their names. But they claimed they didn't get a fair hearing, maintaining the ISU stacked the case against them to justify the decision to give second gold medals.

Le Gougne and Gailhaguet have 28 days to file an appeal. They first have to go through the ISU's internal appeals process. After that, the case could go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.

The ISU heard testimony from 13 witnesses, almost all of whom had made allegations against Le Gougne or Gailhaguet.

"This hearing was arranged in a totally biased way," Le Gougne said as she awaited the ruling. "It was totally unfair. The ISU only wanted to justify the awarding of the second gold medals. I've been the scapegoat from the beginning."

She, Gailhaguet and their lawyers complained the ISU did not call the other four judges who voted for the Russian pair as witnesses. The only two event judges who testified were Canada's Bernard Lavoie and Germany's Sissy Krik, both of whom voted for the Canadians.

Gailhaguet's lawyer, Alexander Brabant, called the proceedings a "kangaroo court."

On Tuesday, the council heard testimony from two judges, Switzerland's Christine Blanc and France's Alain Miquel, who have accused Le Gougne and Gailhaguet of improprieties, and from Gailhaguet's American driver during the Salt Lake Games.