Bad Sport (2021) s01e04 Episode Script
Gold War
[Christine Brennan]
Figure skating is unique.
It is sport, but it is also art.
The music and the gliding on the ice,
that takes you
to a completely different place.
[airy music playing]
But as long as
I've covered figure skating,
I have never seen anything
like what I saw in Salt Lake City.
[announcer]
The 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
Representing Canada
was a dream come true for me.
[announcer] Let's welcome
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
We're at the Olympics for the first time,
playing with the big guys.
[announcer] And from Russia,
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
The Olympics is not only
competition between skaters,
but this is competition between countries.
[Christine] This really was a battle
of North America against Russia.
Frankly, it was the Cold War on ice.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Oh! How did that happen?
No!
The Russians hadn't lost a gold medal
in that event in 40 years
and they weren't about to start now.
[reporter] The pairs skating
becomes the unlikely site of controversy.
The judge ran over to me
and said, "You've got to help me."
"I had to do it."
That's when the shit got real.
If she was pressured,
was she also influenced?
What?
Have you received
any proof of impropriety?
that the long arm of organized crime
has reached across the globe.
This is one of the biggest scandals
in Olympic history.
[theme music playing]
[Jamie] I grew up in a small town
in the middle of Alberta in Canada.
My parents divorced
when I was a young child.
My mom raised me as a single mom.
We didn't have a lot of money.
A lot of the kids
would make fun of me because of that.
It was hard.
And I always felt like an outsider.
So my outlet, my
My escape was skating.
[announcer] Jamie Salé.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Jamie] It's exhilarating.
Like just the feeling of flying like that,
lifting up in the air.
[Patti Salé] Like most Canadian kids,
Jamie was born on ice, raised on ice.
There were ice rinks
in every neighborhood.
But from a young age,
she definitely stood out.
[Jamie] In 1988,
the Olympic Games came to Canada.
It was just extremely magical for me.
There was so much excitement and energy
and I knew the world was watching.
[announcer] Oh, she did it!
I just remember thinking,
"Oh, my gosh, I wanna feel that."
[Patti] She would say to me,
"When I go to the Olympics."
It was never, "If." It was always, "When."
[announcer] Jamie Salé and Jason Turner
see themselves
as the team of the future
in Canadian and world figure skating.
[Jamie] If you're a strong single skater,
you're selected to be a pair skater.
- Just do a two-hander.
- Just two hands.
And then it's down to chemistry.
My partner and I got to Nationals.
And then we qualified
for the World Championships.
I want my mom!
I was 16 years old, just a baby.
And I'm I'm going to represent Canada.
[hopeful music playing]
[announcer] Let's look to Canada's
Jamie Salé and Jason Turner
at their first World Championships.
[announcer 2] Here are the double axels.
And Jason touched down with his hand.
[Jamie] We ended up
not having a great skate there.
[Patti] She and her partner Jason
finished sixteenth.
She comes home and said to me,
"Mom, I'm breaking up with Jason
because I don't think that I can be
a world champion with him."
[Jamie] So then I was on the hunt
for a new partner,
someone that could take me
to the next level,
which was to win gold
at the Olympics.
That was hard because
the Russians were really good.
Really good.
[Christine] There are very few dynasties
in sport like Russian pair skating.
It's that beautiful,
lyrical quality of the Bolshoi Ballet
embodied on the ice.
And they're unbeatable.
[tense music playing]
[speaking Russian]
To skate for Russia at the Olympics,
just the idea of getting there
was beyond my wildest dreams.
I was born in the city of Nevinnomyssk.
There is not much there.
My father liked his drink.
He drank a lot,
and that's why my parents separated.
My mother found
skates that were three sizes too big,
because there were
no smaller ones in the Soviet Union.
I was six years old,
coaches came to our town.
I was singled out
as the best one in the group,
so I was sent to Moscow.
It was a 36-hour train ride away.
Of course it was hard
for my mother to let me go.
[Tamara Moskvina] Talented young skaters
were brought to the central school
in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
And they were taught by coach like me.
Tamara Moskvina is a genius.
She's a mastermind.
She is one of the great coaches
in the history of sports.
Over the years, she has produced
Olympic gold medalist
after Olympic gold medalist.
[Tamara] We take normal people
and make stars out of them.
But the Olympics
is not only competition between skaters,
but this is competition between countries.
[Christine] The Communist system,
uh, decided early on
that Olympic gold medals would be
part of the story of their success.
It's really intertwined
with the fact of beating North America.
And they were gonna dominate,
whatever it takes.
[crowd cheering]
[Tamara] When Elena came to Moscow,
she was very shy.
Didn't talk much.
But she was, uh,
technically very talented.
Very talented.
[reporter]
Elena Berezhnaya is 18 years old
and wants to meet
Arnold Schwarzenegger someday.
Her partner, Oleg Shliakhov, is 22.
[Elena] I was small and skinny,
so the coaches thought
I would work well in pairs skating.
I was assigned a partner.
Oleg was a very tempermental guy.
[announcer] The throw triple loop.
She has beautiful, tight legs in the air,
but is simply unable to hold the landing
and this is a particularly bad
[Elena] He expected perfection,
and his negative outbursts
were directed at me.
[announcer] He wants out of there.
Tamara is saying under her breath,
"You stay right there."
He's been known to be
rather aggressive with his partners.
[Tamara] When there was some mistakes,
he cannot control his anger.
And he could hit her.
[man translating]
"I can only answer in one way."
"What happened between us
was strictly our own business."
[Tamara] His abuses never stopped.
Never stopped.
And then one day there was an accident.
It happened so fast.
We were doing spinning,
doing parallel spins.
We came very close to each other
and his skate hit my head.
Elena Berezhnaya's career
and life were nearly ended.
[reporter 2] The two were practicing when,
in a tragic accident,
Shliakhov's skate pierced Elena's skull,
sending bone fragments into her brain.
[Elena] I couldn't speak.
I didn't know why.
I could understand everything,
but I couldn't respond.
[Tamara] I went to the hospital,
visited Elena, and she was laying in bed,
pale
thin,
motionless.
[Elena] The doctors told me
I needed an operation.
No one knew
what was going to happen to me,
how it would go, how long it would take.
[interviewer] Was it likely
she might not skate again?
Of course.
[Jamie] I was still
on the hunt for a partner.
I was back to doing singles,
which was not my passion at all.
I didn't really know of any other skaters
that were even available
that were at that level that could compete
with me at the Olympics.
[Patti] I think she was depressed.
And it was painful to watch
um, because everything was falling apart.
[Jamie] And then someone said,
"What about David Pelletier?"
[audience applauding]
[announcer] In the last couple of years,
David Pelletier has been skating
with Allison Gaylor and Caroline Roy.
[David] Pairs skating
is the same thing as dating.
You're together for four years,
and then it doesn't work anymore.
[crowd cheering]
In 1998,
I told my partner at the time,
"You know, I think I want to try out
to skate with other people."
So I need someone
that wants it as bad as me.
And here comes Jamie.
[announcer] But of all the skaters here,
she's probably one of the best.
[Jamie] I reached out to him,
and asked him
if he'd be willing to do a tryout.
I remember being incredibly nervous.
But then I put my hand out,
and he put his hand out
without even looking and they touched.
We did a lift together,
and it was just effortless.
Everything was so easy with him.
[David] There was so much, so much joy
in her skating.
Timing, like anything else in life
is a big deal in sport.
The stars have to align.
[Elena] I spent months in the hospital.
They wanted me to rest,
but I was ready to start training again.
[Tamara] She started slowly
to recover physically.
So the doctor
allowed her to come to the ice rink.
She decided that she will leave Oleg.
And so I put her with a new partner,
Anton Sikharulidze.
[Anton speaking Russian] I've dedicated
my life to figure skating,
and all I want is to reach the top.
[Elena] It's rare to find
such a perfect partnership,
and life is short, so you have to seize
the opportunity while you can.
[Tamara] When you just watch them
doing simple elements,
you were amazed by their quality
and beauty of their movements.
Repeat after me.
The Russians are coming.
The Russians are coming.
The Russians are coming.
[grand, dramatic music playing]
[Christine] If Tamara has a great,
young new pair, you want to watch them.
And at 1998, in the World Championships,
I got a chance to see
Anton and Elena on the ice.
[announcer] From Russia,
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
["Dark Eyes" playing]
[crowd cheering]
[announcer 2] Magnificent height.
[David] We watched Anton and Elena.
I remember saying,
"That's our competition
for the next four years."
["Dark Eyes" continues playing]
[crowd cheering]
[announcer 2]
They are sensitive, they're elegant,
they are really a very dramatic pair.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Christine] They get the gold medal.
And then they just blew the doors off
of the competition the next few years.
The Russian juggernaut really unstoppable.
[Jamie] Russians are known
to have a lot of ballet training.
We have a very,
very different style of skating.
We have more of like
a sort of a powerhouse kind of style.
And we could be playful and have fun.
[announcer] Wow, they sizzle.
[Jamie] We started
competing internationally
and we started winning.
[announcer] She's 22 years old, he's 25.
They've been together only 18 months.
[David] We're playing with the big guys.
We're part of the conversation.
They've had an amazing year.
They've won everything in sight.
Preparing for the 2002 Olympics,
we of course watched
David and Jamie carefully.
And we were considering
this couple as a strong rivalry.
[Christine] It's becoming the battle
of the West versus the East.
Jamie and David are now
North America's greatest pair.
I mean, they're the All-American kids
except they're the all Canadian kids.
How could you not fall in love with them?
I think a bit of the allure
of Jamie and David
is people wondering,
"Are they a couple, are they not?"
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Craig Fenech] I remember exactly
what I thought when I saw Jamie and David,
which was, "Wow."
They are an "it" couple.
I knew they had star power about them,
that was clear.
And I thought,
"I could definitely monetize them."
[Jamie] Craig is a big businessman.
He didn't really have
a skating background,
which made us a little bit nervous.
But he had big plans for David and I.
I don't know shit about figure skating.
I mostly made my career representing
professional baseball players.
But I knew the Olympics,
it's a multi-billion-dollar business.
There are sponsorship opportunities
depending on how well you do.
And I decided that
we would bet our marketing strategy
on winning the gold medal.
[Francis Lai's
"Theme from Love Story" playing]
[Jamie] The Olympics was gonna be held
in Salt Lake City.
And so the piece of music
that we chose to skate to
was from the American movie Love Story.
Hey! What is it, Barrett?
What is this?
I'll tell you
after we cross the threshold.
[Jamie] It's an iconic movie
that everybody knew of.
I need you.
[Christine] This was all part of the plan.
I need you too.
It's not cheating. It's just
It's just smart figure skating.
To say, "Hey, we're on US ice."
"Let's come back with a program
that Americans know."
It's a very
fairy tale love story.
The skaters that they're watching
look like they're in love.
And so the fact that David and I were,
made it even better for the audience.
[David] About a year
after we started skating together,
that's when my feelings changed for Jamie.
[Jamie] What transpired over time,
was the connection that we had
was really special.
- [laughing]
- [David] We were in love.
We had fun together.
But on ice, it was business.
[announcer] The 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
[crowd cheering]
[Christine] Now, this is the moment
that everyone's been waiting for.
[announcer] The United States of America.
[Christine] The Olympics were going to be
a proud moment for the United States.
It occurred a very interesting time.
Just several months after 9/11.
It's the United States hosting the world.
[announcer 2] Canada.
[Jamie] To walk out, representing Canada
in a North American Olympics
was so amazing.
It really did feel like
we were on home soil.
I was like, "This is my Olympics."
[announcer] Russian Federation.
[Elena] We knew who we had to beat.
It was just us and them.
We were singing,
[singing] "We are waiting for battle"
[laughing] Russians would know it.
[Tamara] President Vladimir Putin
encouraged skaters to skate well.
But nobody's sent to the prison
if they don't win gold.
We don't say, "Oh, you must be first,
otherwise I kill you!"
I think Tamara was supremely confident
that Anton and Elena would win
the Olympic gold medal. I am sure of that.
This is as good as it's gonna get
in terms of a competition between
two of the greatest figure skating nations
in the world.
[announcer] We are just moments away
from the final warm-up.
There are the Canadians,
Jamie Salé, David Pelletier.
And behind them Elena Berezhnaya,
Anton Sikharulidze.
And in a moment,
they will open the gate for six minutes
to try and dispel some
of the Olympic butterflies.
So the warm-up,
you got six minutes to get ready.
You can literally feel the heat coming off
each other's body because of the nerves.
The tension that went into that rink,
at that moment, it was unbelievable.
[Jamie] David and I do a specific lift,
we do one throw,
and we do two jumps side by side.
And at the end,
when there's one minute remaining,
I would always leave on my own
and go do a double toe.
I started to skate around the ice
and I saw the Russians coming
and I assumed they were gonna go
diagonally down the ice and do a lift.
[Patti] Jamie's coming down the ice,
and the Russians are coming
from the other side.
And it's just like a split second,
but it was like
I wanted to scream, you know, "Look out!"
The whole arena went silent.
Like, I couldn't hear anything
and I was just stunned.
[announcer]
It is Anton Sikharulidze and Jamie Salé.
This is unbelievable.
[Jamie]
I couldn't really breathe very well.
And I also didn't know how injured
I really was because I was in such shock.
[Patti] I'm like,
"She's gonna be injured, for sure."
"For sure she's gonna be injured."
I remember thinking,
"Uh-oh. This is the last thing we needed."
And I I'll be honest with you,
I wasn't sure it wasn't deliberate.
I mean
I saw the Nancy and Tonya thing, right?
It's unbelievable that they collided,
but the music is starting,
you have to put it behind you and perform.
[announcer]
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
It's the moment of truth.
I sit in my place,
and I'm nervous as hell.
Because it's the ultimate event
of all time for everyone.
Here we go.
The Russians.
[Massenet's "Méditation" playing]
[Elena] You have tunnel vision,
and that's it.
At that moment,
I just remembered everything
that Tamara taught me.
[announcer] This couple is exquisite.
[Patti] It is a beautiful program.
And the Russians were magnificent.
[Jamie] David and I were backstage,
but we chose not to look.
We chose to stay focused on us.
And I remember hearing
the audience react to something.
I immediately thought,
"Okay. They've made a mistake."
[Tamara] It was not a mistake.
It was little details.
That was a mistake, and it was
easily recognizable as a mistake.
They were still very good.
They stayed in the program,
and they skated so well.
[Patti] Their costumes are beautiful.
Their performance was polished
and such high-caliber skating.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
They finish.
And I'm sure they're thinking,
"A little stumble isn't gonna
cost us the Olympic gold medal."
[announcer] There won't be anyone close
so far in the evening.
And now what do the judges say?
[Stapleford] In figure skating,
the top countries
send a judge to the Olympic Games.
But you got to be
completely neutral and unbiased.
You're not there
representing your country.
You're there representing skating.
[Benoit] Judging figure skating
is so subjective.
Everything influences a judge,
the package, the look,
the fit, the costume.
Anything that will catch my attention
will have an influence on the result.
[Sally] There are two marks out of six.
One for technical merit
and the second one for presentation.
[Benoit] Overall, they skated well,
but they do one major mistake
that I knew everybody was gonna see
in the combination jump.
But there are two other mistakes as well,
one, landing in a throw
and the catch on the twist.
So, for me, it was three major mistakes
that could not be awarded the top marks.
[announcer] The marks for technical merit.
Five-eight, five-eight, five-seven
[Patti] When the Russians marks came up,
I remember thinking,
"Well, those are fairly high marks."
[announcer] Their marks for presentation.
Mostly five-nines.
[announcer 2]
The program is the most difficult
because the choreography weaves,
and that was given credit.
[Tamara] For four years we were preparing.
That's why when they showed the results,
I was happy.
They're winning scores,
gold-medal-winning scores.
There's no doubt about it,
and it was a surprise,
because the judges
did not really mark down for a mistake.
[Elena] We were just waiting.
Our fate was being decided in heaven.
Something was being decided somewhere.
Now we just had to wait and see.
[announcer] And skating next,
their pursuers,
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada.
She crashed with Anton in the warm-up,
but gave us the thumbs up backstage
that she's okay.
[Jamie] It was really important
not to focus on the accident.
And knowing that they had made a mistake,
I just kept telling myself,
"Focus on you."
"I'm going for gold today."
[Francis Lai's "For Me Alone"
from Love Story playing]
[David] They put the music on.
You go into a zone
that's very hard to explain.
The crowds become blurry.
You don't see faces.
[crowd cheering]
The smells are
stronger.
The music plays louder.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
We went jump, lift, twist, throw.
No problem.
First-and-half minute's done.
And then [chuckles]
I think I started to get
colors in my face again.
[music swells and soars]
I felt like
those parties I didn't go to,
the booze I didn't drink,
the money I didn't have,
it was kind of worth it.
[crowd cheering]
[Benoit]
All the transitions were seamless,
that you felt
that they were skating on velvet.
[Patti] There we go.
There we go with each element.
There we go.
[Craig] There was a truth
that came through their performance.
They were performing
to the song "Love Story"
and they were in love and you felt it.
[David] We went into a last risky element,
the throw.
[announcer] Throw a triple loop
and the gold is theirs.
[crowd cheering]
[Lai's "For Me Alone" soaring]
[Jamie] I said to him, "We did it."
And he said to me, "We're not done yet."
We had three elements to go.
But I knew that these elements
we had left were not difficult for us.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Christine] It was terrific.
They nailed it.
They could not have done better.
[David] We finish with a spin.
We're spinning.
I remember, "I don't want this to end."
[crowd roaring]
[Jamie] I looked up in the audience
and I saw people standing,
and I heard people screaming.
There were smiles on everybody's faces.
[announcer]
Well, the crowd has made its choice.
A standing ovation.
[Patti] We knew it was perfect.
They hadn't made a mistake.
We knew it was
an inspired performance, and
[voice breaks]
I was just so incredibly proud.
[Elena] It was impossible
not to hear the roar, the shouting.
The stands were shaking;
the building nearly collapsed.
[Jamie] I think it's what
every athlete dreams of.
Getting to the Olympics.
And and being perfect.
[fans cheering]
[Jamie] We skated back to what we call
the kiss-and-cry area,
and we were all so excited,
and we figured we've got this in the bag.
[Benoit] I enter my marks
for Jamie and David.
And I'm convinced,
they were gonna be Olympic champion.
[announcer] The marks for Jamie Salé
and David Pelletier, Canada.
Here are the marks.
[fans cheering]
[Jamie and David chuckling]
[announcer] Prolonging the suspense.
And they go up.
And they're big!
That's a little closer than I thought
it was gonna be, though.
[David] Technical mark came out.
"It's good. That's good. It's cool."
And then the artistic impression marks
came up.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer 2] A little bit ahead,
but look at this presentation mark.
[announcer 1] The placements,
look at the placements. Look at this!
- [announcer 3] How did that happen?
- [announcer 2] No!
[announcer 1] They won!
I hear that big sound like
[imitates angry crowd]
[crowd reacting]
I said, "What? Second?"
I hear they're second. I said, "What?"
[Jamie] At first,
I was just sitting there
confused.
[David] She kept going, "It's gonna
switch, right? It's gonna switch?"
[chuckling] I had no idea
what she was talking about.
"It's not gonna switch.
It's on the screen. It's on TV."
[announcer] They won that program.
There's not a doubt to anyone in the place
except for maybe a few judges.
[Benoit]
Four judges went with first place.
And five judges went with second place.
It it it was unbelievable.
The real shock just swept over the arena.
That what you'd just seen on the ice,
what you thought
was a gold medal performance,
what the crowd is going crazy for,
is not a gold medal performance,
it's a silver medal performance.
[melancholic music playing]
The moments before we had
to go out for the medal ceremony
it was really hard for me
to get myself together.
I remember putting my head
in David's shoulder
and just saying, like,
"I can't believe this."
[announcer] Winner of the silver medal,
representing Canada,
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
Captured the hearts of the crowd,
after it appeared to be
a foregone conclusion
they would win the gold medal.
[David] We went to get our medal.
I remember thinking,
"You're gonna hold your head high."
[announcer]
A little tough to smile, maybe.
But the crowd helps.
And the gold.
[Elena] The podium
and everything was great.
We were proud to be Russian.
We were the happiest people in the world.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please rise for the national anthem
of the gold medalist,
the Russian Federation.
[Jamie] It was hard.
I felt like I was missing my moment that
I had always visualized and dreamed of.
Not only getting
the gold medal around my neck,
but seeing our flag in the middle
and singing "O, Canada."
[announcer] So the Russian domination
of Olympic pairs skating
continues here in Salt Lake City.
[David] At the press conference,
you could feel tension in the air.
You could feel that the result
didn't sit well with people.
[Christine] So many journalists
were hearing from their offices
or hearing from family members,
saying it was wrong.
We're sad to come second, but nothing will
ever take away the performance we did.
And that's the way it is.
Our silver medal is worth a gold to us.
We kept our answers short and as much as
I was feeling sorry for myself,
I really didn't wanna portray that I was
being a poor sport about this whole thing.
Paul Martini,
whom you know well and respect,
said, one, you were robbed,
and two, the judges are cowards.
[voice breaks] Nothing to say I guess.
The mark the judges give is not objective
because it's not measured by
seconds, meters, kilograms, or whatever.
They judge because of their taste.
I explain, somebody likes meat,
somebody likes fish.
So who is
who is right?
Sometimes, we can understand why somebody
would maybe have that skater first,
or pair And you would have it second.
It was so close, but
on the night with those two performances
it wasn't close.
[Craig] That night, the Olympic Village
was buzzing with rumors about the result.
I was talking to all kinds of people,
and I'm thinking,
"Holy smokes, maybe there's
there's something to this," you know?
[foreboding music playing]
[phone ringing]
[Christine]
So it's about one in the morning.
And my cell phone rings.
And it's certainly
one of the most interesting phone calls
I've ever received in my career.
The source tells me,
"You will not believe what just happened
in the lobby of the judges' hotel."
[tense music builds]
[Sally] I was at the hotel
and the French judge, Marie Le Gougne,
ran over to me.
I'd known her for a few years,
'cause she's been on the judging scene
internationally for quite a long time.
And she said,
"Sally, Sally you've got to help me."
"You don't understand. I had to do it."
"It was a deal with the Russians."
It's just streaming out of her.
I don't know what to make of it.
Never seen a judge so
wrought up and tense and emotional.
Oh. My. God.
[reporter]
As we've been reporting all morning,
a major controversy has erupted
at the Salt Lake Ice Center last night.
Was the French judge pressured?
And if she was pressured,
was she also influenced?
[Jamie] And the next day, when we woke up,
journalists were saying
that one of the judges
had potentially been involved in a fix.
I just remember sitting back with Dave
going, "What?" Like, "What?"
It was all speculation and rumors
and it was like massive wildfire.
This needs to be sorted out, you know,
if something happened
with the panel of judges,
it it definitely needs to be sorted out.
The judging appeared to be a return
to the Cold War era.
Former Eastern Bloc countries
voting for the Russians,
Western Bloc countries
voting for the Canadians.
[Christine]
And so you're looking at the scores,
four judges for the Russians.
Russia, Ukraine, China, Poland.
The four for the Canadians
are the US and Canada,
Germany and Japan.
Four to four.
Looks like it's East and West.
But there is no doubt, as you look at it,
that the ninth vote,
the one that decides it
is the French judge,
Marie-Reine Le Gougne.
[David] Surprised. Shocked. Confused.
What does that mean?
Robbed. We're talking about the decision
to give the Russian figure skating pair
the gold medal last night.
[Elena] We watching
everything unfold on TV.
We were shocked
by what they were saying about us.
All the TV say French judge
came everywhere saying,
"Listen, I fixed my marks."
How?
Who forced her to fix?
Who? How it happened?
The morning after the event,
we were all in a state of shock.
The nine judges
have to meet with the referee.
And we all have to justify our marks.
As soon as the elevator open
the press, the media,
all the microphones,
they were following each of us.
They had to tape the door to make sure
no microphone was gonna come in the room.
I felt like it were what we see in movies.
Then I saw Marie-Reine.
[Christine] Now, all eyes are on this,
and if there's one meeting room
I ever wanted to be in, it was that one.
It was very tense,
very tense in that room.
[tense music playing]
The referee asked Marie-Reine,
"Why did you give such a mark?"
And then Marie-Reine right away said
she had not done what was right.
You could hear a pin drop.
People were crying.
People didn't know what to say.
People felt betrayed.
And then Marie-Reine said these words,
"It's all Didier's fault."
She was blaming Didier Gailhaguet,
the president of the federation,
who was her boss.
[chuckling] This is This is a big deal.
This is a very, very big deal.
In this small world of figure skating,
Didier Gailhaguet is just as powerful
as anyone could be.
Kind of like a puppeteer.
He can control what judges
to send to what events.
The French are denying any pressure
was exerted, but make no mistake,
this continues to explode
around these Winter games.
There was so much being unraveled.
The onion layers were coming off.
[Christine]
Didier Gailhaguet is denying everything.
[Didier] I don't see
why the French Federation
would press the French judge,
Marie-Reine Le Gougne,
first of all, because we have
no athletes in this competition.
I am sure that
the French Skating Association
will be Will not be charged of anything.
This sport is amazing to me.
I have defended this sport,
and defended this sport,
and defended this sport.
I cannot defend it this morning.
[Jamie] This isn't the first time
there's been corruption in figure skating.
And it's a tough one to live with.
It's a tough one to deal with.
[reporter]
Skating has historically been plagued
by criticism of biased judging.
These two judges
at the 1999 World Championships
were caught signaling each other
and accused of rigging the results.
[reporter 2]
The Russian judge on the right
is moving his foot with intent
while the Ukrainian judge is watching.
[Jamie] We've grown up with this.
It's a bias sport where I've seen
wrongful judging and cheating.
But this was the Olympics.
It took on a whole other level.
[Bill McCausland] I'm a huge sports fan.
And I particularly like the Olympics.
February of 2002, I was watching
the Winter Olympic Games,
watching the pair figure skating,
And it was quite clear
something had gone amiss.
We made contact
with the Salt Lake City office of the FBI.
They interviewed Didier Gailhaguet.
He denied that he pressured
Le Gougne, obviously.
But he said he had been contacted
two years earlier
about a different matter
by a Russian mafia figure.
And it was brought to my attention
because I'm one of the experts
in Russian Eurasian organized crime.
So while the media circus was going on,
we were able to work discreetly
behind the scenes
and assemble our investigation.
Are there crimes that took place,
and what can we do?
[Craig] The media loved a juicy story
and this was about as juicy as it got.
I really felt that we should do
every conceivable
media appearance we could.
To get them
what I considered to be justice.
[Jamie] Craig blew it up.
We went from doing maybe
two or three interviews to doing 20.
We would be lying
if we said we weren't disappointed.
I mean, we're human beings too,
and we went out there
and poured our hearts out into our
performance, and we skated fabulous.
And the Americans
really adopted us as their own.
- And I'm going to wear Canada.
- [man] Good.
Something Canadian until they give
those two kids the gold medal.
- [audience cheering]
- [man] Excellent!
I'm so angry!
[Jamie] We became overnight, you know,
not just Canada's sweethearts,
but America's sweethearts
and like household names.
You'll go down in history.
You'll be the most famous thing
that occurred in this Olympics.
[Jamie] Our faces were everywhere.
And then Jay Leno sends his jet.
I'm on The Tonight Show
with Charlie Sheen.
From Canada, please welcome
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
[David] It was surreal.
I mean, I know biker guys going
"They got screwed!"
Guys that never watch figure skating
who essentially, you know
I mean, Harley guys
are watching figure skating now
because because, you know,
they feel for you guys.
We felt disgusted. "Why aren't
the media coming to talk to us?"
We hear stuff like, "The Russians put
the medals around their own necks,"
and "They stole the gold."
Let's go, let's go, let's go.
[Elena] Well, of course
we feel like complete shit.
[reporter] Do you feel
you deserved to win the gold?
Yes. Sure.
[Tamara] We now need to defend ourselves,
because we cannot accept
those accusations.
I never gave any
anybody, anybody
any money or whatever.
This, I can give you my hand
to be cut if I am saying a lie.
- [reporter] Will you keep the gold?
- Yes, because we are Olympic champions.
There was a couple of times
when we're skating, how we think, better
and they was first, and we were second.
But we never go somewhere and said,
"Okay, let's do the big scandal."
The Russians hadn't lost the gold medal
in that event in 40 40 years,
and they weren't about to start now.
[speaking Russian]
[translator] "These are simply people
who don't know how to lose gracefully."
[speaking Russian]
[translator 2]
"Our pair was simply more artistic,
and that's why
they were given more points."
As for the allegations of a deal between
the French and Russian judges,
well, nobody here really believes that.
If anything, the feeling is that it is
the West that is ganging up on Russia
to deny it what it won fair and square.
Is it good for the sport?
And isn't it the beginning
of the Cold War?
[Christine] This controversy is exploding.
It's becoming one of the biggest scandals
in Olympic history.
[Tom Brokaw] In Salt Lake City tonight,
the allegations of cheating
and the judging of pairs figure skating
is a story with more twists and turns
than the routines of the competitors.
The judge at the center
of the pairs scandal went public today
and changed her story.
At first, she said she voted for
the Russians because she was pressured.
Now she said she voted for them
because they were the best.
I have judged with my soul
and my conscious, and why have
When I have decided to have
the Russian couple on the first place,
I was quite aware at that moment
I am still aware of that,
that they were the best that night.
[Craig] She clearly was a pawn in it.
No question about it in my mind.
She recanted her confession.
But by then, cat was out of the bag
and and the wheels were turning.
[reporters clamoring]
[Christine] The president
of the International Skating Union
is Ottavio Cinquanta,
so now he's thrown into this mess.
What is this?
Is an ambush?
[Christine] He runs the sport.
And if this is gonna be investigated,
he's gonna be the one investigating it.
He calls this press conference
where everyone
is just firing questions left and right.
Have you received
any verbal or written proof
that indicates that there
was a possibility of impropriety?
It's a very simple question.
It takes a "yes" or "no."
I have received not proof,
but allegation, accusation, not proof.
But I do not have the power
to change the result.
[Christine] This is quite a spot
that Ottavio Cinquanta is in.
You don't want cheating going on
and scandal going on in your sport.
But Didier Gailhaguet is one
of his colleagues, his friends.
This is a very incestuous group.
I mean, this is a European boys' club,
old, white men running figure skating.
I am not in a condition
for taking a prompt investigation.
[Christine] It's kind of unbelievable
that you've got
Cinquanta saying he's gonna wait
before he starts that investigation.
Why wouldn't you wanna sweep it
under the rug? Because it looks bad.
It's better just to hide it.
Let's hide this, right?
[Craig]
All institutions protect themselves.
I think it was getting a little too hot
for them in the kitchen,
and they wanted to tamp that down
and get back to their Olympics.
But I wanted to keep that pressure on.
[reporter] This afternoon,
Canada's Olympic delegation
asked for an official investigation.
[David] We're not saying
we deserved the the gold,
or we should've got the gold.
What we're saying is
this is wrong because there is word
that somebody cheated.
[Craig] And then suddenly we get a call
[ringing]
from somebody that had Russian accent.
And, uh, the voice said,
"Tell those Canadians
to accept the silver medal and shut up."
It was like [gasps]
"Oh, my gosh, okay, now now it's gotten
to a level that I feel unsafe."
[Bill] During the investigation,
we picked up some interesting
conversations on a wiretap
of a well-known Russian
organized crime figure
named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.
Tokhtakhounov is involved
in human trafficking,
arms dealing, drug trafficking,
all types of grifts across Europe.
And there were conversations
with a Russian co-conspirator
that were a bit unusual.
Tokhtakhounov seemed to have some sway
in how the votes went down
in the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Armed with those phone calls,
we were able to identify
that bribery had taken place there.
A crime that sort of strikes at the heart
of, like, the integrity of sports.
Today, a new figure entered
the great skating drama of 2002,
a man thought to be a Russian mobster.
[reporter] Investigators charged
that Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov
and others were involved
in a quid pro quo.
In return for the French judge's vote
for the Russian pairs team,
the Russians would ensure
that the French ice dancing team
would win the gold medal
in that competition.
[Christine] Ice dancing is the other pairs
skating competition at the Olympics.
The difference between
pairs figure skating and ice dancing
is in ice dancing they don't jump.
It's dancing on the ice.
The French needed
that Russian vote for ice dancing.
And the Russians needed
the French vote for pairs.
You vote for ours, we'll vote for yours.
It was corrupt, it was wrong,
it was terrible, but it was simple.
that the long arm
of Russian organized crime
reached across the globe
this past February.
[Bill] Tokhtakhounov was charged with
tampering with a gold medal event.
If convicted of those charges,
he was facing years in prison.
But he probably fled back to Russia.
I'll never believe it's possible
as long as I live.
How could something like this even happen?
Somebody tried to make
our names close with some mafia.
- Crime.
- It's not right.
Who? Mafia?
Now we're talking about Russian mafia.
Where is it?
[inhales and sighs loudly]
Where is it?
[Craig] Five days after the competition,
I got a call from the Olympic Committee
saying it had made a decision.
Craig said, "We're sending a car
at the Olympic Village,
you're gonna come to my hotel room."
[reporter] Right, we're going to pick up
live coverage of the news conference now.
As the principles take the dais.
We sat there
and watched this press conference.
We have suspended with immediate effect
the judge of figure skating,
Ms. Marie-Reine Le Gougne,
and Mr. Didier Gailhaguet
for a period of three years.
[Jamie] You thought
you would get away with it.
But you didn't.
Like, you know, karma. [chuckles]
I think this French judge, Peter,
we will never see her judge again.
[inaudible]
[Jamie] And then there was
another announcement.
We received an official proposal
from the International Skating Union
and a gold medal will be awarded
to the Canadian pair.
[all cheering]
[reporter]
Well, after a week of controversy,
Canadian skaters Jamie Salé
and David Pelletier
will finally have their golden moment.
[Jamie] They announced that we'd share
the gold medal position
with Anton and Elena.
It was just like my head was spinning.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[hopeful music playing]
[reporter 2]
And so silver medals turn to gold,
not by the alchemist's magic,
but by decree.
[Jamie] There were rumors
and speculation, but truthfully,
I don't know if Anton and Elena
were involved in the fix.
[crowd cheering]
We were all smiling,
and everybody was doing
the best that we could
with the situation that we were in.
But it was just really uncomfortable.
The last thing on my list would've had
Ottavio Cinquanta giving me my medal.
But that's what they decided.
[Elena] They tried to make things right
saying everyone can have a gold medal.
Hooray!
World peace! [chuckling]
[David] Sport is full of corrupt people.
And the West is
just as guilty as the East.
It's a political game.
[reporter 2] Now they walk away
both champions, both winners,
and now some serious reform
in figure skating judging.
[somber music playing]
Figure skating is unique.
It is sport, but it is also art.
The music and the gliding on the ice,
that takes you
to a completely different place.
[airy music playing]
But as long as
I've covered figure skating,
I have never seen anything
like what I saw in Salt Lake City.
[announcer]
The 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
Representing Canada
was a dream come true for me.
[announcer] Let's welcome
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
We're at the Olympics for the first time,
playing with the big guys.
[announcer] And from Russia,
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
The Olympics is not only
competition between skaters,
but this is competition between countries.
[Christine] This really was a battle
of North America against Russia.
Frankly, it was the Cold War on ice.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Oh! How did that happen?
No!
The Russians hadn't lost a gold medal
in that event in 40 years
and they weren't about to start now.
[reporter] The pairs skating
becomes the unlikely site of controversy.
The judge ran over to me
and said, "You've got to help me."
"I had to do it."
That's when the shit got real.
If she was pressured,
was she also influenced?
What?
Have you received
any proof of impropriety?
that the long arm of organized crime
has reached across the globe.
This is one of the biggest scandals
in Olympic history.
[theme music playing]
[Jamie] I grew up in a small town
in the middle of Alberta in Canada.
My parents divorced
when I was a young child.
My mom raised me as a single mom.
We didn't have a lot of money.
A lot of the kids
would make fun of me because of that.
It was hard.
And I always felt like an outsider.
So my outlet, my
My escape was skating.
[announcer] Jamie Salé.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Jamie] It's exhilarating.
Like just the feeling of flying like that,
lifting up in the air.
[Patti Salé] Like most Canadian kids,
Jamie was born on ice, raised on ice.
There were ice rinks
in every neighborhood.
But from a young age,
she definitely stood out.
[Jamie] In 1988,
the Olympic Games came to Canada.
It was just extremely magical for me.
There was so much excitement and energy
and I knew the world was watching.
[announcer] Oh, she did it!
I just remember thinking,
"Oh, my gosh, I wanna feel that."
[Patti] She would say to me,
"When I go to the Olympics."
It was never, "If." It was always, "When."
[announcer] Jamie Salé and Jason Turner
see themselves
as the team of the future
in Canadian and world figure skating.
[Jamie] If you're a strong single skater,
you're selected to be a pair skater.
- Just do a two-hander.
- Just two hands.
And then it's down to chemistry.
My partner and I got to Nationals.
And then we qualified
for the World Championships.
I want my mom!
I was 16 years old, just a baby.
And I'm I'm going to represent Canada.
[hopeful music playing]
[announcer] Let's look to Canada's
Jamie Salé and Jason Turner
at their first World Championships.
[announcer 2] Here are the double axels.
And Jason touched down with his hand.
[Jamie] We ended up
not having a great skate there.
[Patti] She and her partner Jason
finished sixteenth.
She comes home and said to me,
"Mom, I'm breaking up with Jason
because I don't think that I can be
a world champion with him."
[Jamie] So then I was on the hunt
for a new partner,
someone that could take me
to the next level,
which was to win gold
at the Olympics.
That was hard because
the Russians were really good.
Really good.
[Christine] There are very few dynasties
in sport like Russian pair skating.
It's that beautiful,
lyrical quality of the Bolshoi Ballet
embodied on the ice.
And they're unbeatable.
[tense music playing]
[speaking Russian]
To skate for Russia at the Olympics,
just the idea of getting there
was beyond my wildest dreams.
I was born in the city of Nevinnomyssk.
There is not much there.
My father liked his drink.
He drank a lot,
and that's why my parents separated.
My mother found
skates that were three sizes too big,
because there were
no smaller ones in the Soviet Union.
I was six years old,
coaches came to our town.
I was singled out
as the best one in the group,
so I was sent to Moscow.
It was a 36-hour train ride away.
Of course it was hard
for my mother to let me go.
[Tamara Moskvina] Talented young skaters
were brought to the central school
in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
And they were taught by coach like me.
Tamara Moskvina is a genius.
She's a mastermind.
She is one of the great coaches
in the history of sports.
Over the years, she has produced
Olympic gold medalist
after Olympic gold medalist.
[Tamara] We take normal people
and make stars out of them.
But the Olympics
is not only competition between skaters,
but this is competition between countries.
[Christine] The Communist system,
uh, decided early on
that Olympic gold medals would be
part of the story of their success.
It's really intertwined
with the fact of beating North America.
And they were gonna dominate,
whatever it takes.
[crowd cheering]
[Tamara] When Elena came to Moscow,
she was very shy.
Didn't talk much.
But she was, uh,
technically very talented.
Very talented.
[reporter]
Elena Berezhnaya is 18 years old
and wants to meet
Arnold Schwarzenegger someday.
Her partner, Oleg Shliakhov, is 22.
[Elena] I was small and skinny,
so the coaches thought
I would work well in pairs skating.
I was assigned a partner.
Oleg was a very tempermental guy.
[announcer] The throw triple loop.
She has beautiful, tight legs in the air,
but is simply unable to hold the landing
and this is a particularly bad
[Elena] He expected perfection,
and his negative outbursts
were directed at me.
[announcer] He wants out of there.
Tamara is saying under her breath,
"You stay right there."
He's been known to be
rather aggressive with his partners.
[Tamara] When there was some mistakes,
he cannot control his anger.
And he could hit her.
[man translating]
"I can only answer in one way."
"What happened between us
was strictly our own business."
[Tamara] His abuses never stopped.
Never stopped.
And then one day there was an accident.
It happened so fast.
We were doing spinning,
doing parallel spins.
We came very close to each other
and his skate hit my head.
Elena Berezhnaya's career
and life were nearly ended.
[reporter 2] The two were practicing when,
in a tragic accident,
Shliakhov's skate pierced Elena's skull,
sending bone fragments into her brain.
[Elena] I couldn't speak.
I didn't know why.
I could understand everything,
but I couldn't respond.
[Tamara] I went to the hospital,
visited Elena, and she was laying in bed,
pale
thin,
motionless.
[Elena] The doctors told me
I needed an operation.
No one knew
what was going to happen to me,
how it would go, how long it would take.
[interviewer] Was it likely
she might not skate again?
Of course.
[Jamie] I was still
on the hunt for a partner.
I was back to doing singles,
which was not my passion at all.
I didn't really know of any other skaters
that were even available
that were at that level that could compete
with me at the Olympics.
[Patti] I think she was depressed.
And it was painful to watch
um, because everything was falling apart.
[Jamie] And then someone said,
"What about David Pelletier?"
[audience applauding]
[announcer] In the last couple of years,
David Pelletier has been skating
with Allison Gaylor and Caroline Roy.
[David] Pairs skating
is the same thing as dating.
You're together for four years,
and then it doesn't work anymore.
[crowd cheering]
In 1998,
I told my partner at the time,
"You know, I think I want to try out
to skate with other people."
So I need someone
that wants it as bad as me.
And here comes Jamie.
[announcer] But of all the skaters here,
she's probably one of the best.
[Jamie] I reached out to him,
and asked him
if he'd be willing to do a tryout.
I remember being incredibly nervous.
But then I put my hand out,
and he put his hand out
without even looking and they touched.
We did a lift together,
and it was just effortless.
Everything was so easy with him.
[David] There was so much, so much joy
in her skating.
Timing, like anything else in life
is a big deal in sport.
The stars have to align.
[Elena] I spent months in the hospital.
They wanted me to rest,
but I was ready to start training again.
[Tamara] She started slowly
to recover physically.
So the doctor
allowed her to come to the ice rink.
She decided that she will leave Oleg.
And so I put her with a new partner,
Anton Sikharulidze.
[Anton speaking Russian] I've dedicated
my life to figure skating,
and all I want is to reach the top.
[Elena] It's rare to find
such a perfect partnership,
and life is short, so you have to seize
the opportunity while you can.
[Tamara] When you just watch them
doing simple elements,
you were amazed by their quality
and beauty of their movements.
Repeat after me.
The Russians are coming.
The Russians are coming.
The Russians are coming.
[grand, dramatic music playing]
[Christine] If Tamara has a great,
young new pair, you want to watch them.
And at 1998, in the World Championships,
I got a chance to see
Anton and Elena on the ice.
[announcer] From Russia,
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
["Dark Eyes" playing]
[crowd cheering]
[announcer 2] Magnificent height.
[David] We watched Anton and Elena.
I remember saying,
"That's our competition
for the next four years."
["Dark Eyes" continues playing]
[crowd cheering]
[announcer 2]
They are sensitive, they're elegant,
they are really a very dramatic pair.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Christine] They get the gold medal.
And then they just blew the doors off
of the competition the next few years.
The Russian juggernaut really unstoppable.
[Jamie] Russians are known
to have a lot of ballet training.
We have a very,
very different style of skating.
We have more of like
a sort of a powerhouse kind of style.
And we could be playful and have fun.
[announcer] Wow, they sizzle.
[Jamie] We started
competing internationally
and we started winning.
[announcer] She's 22 years old, he's 25.
They've been together only 18 months.
[David] We're playing with the big guys.
We're part of the conversation.
They've had an amazing year.
They've won everything in sight.
Preparing for the 2002 Olympics,
we of course watched
David and Jamie carefully.
And we were considering
this couple as a strong rivalry.
[Christine] It's becoming the battle
of the West versus the East.
Jamie and David are now
North America's greatest pair.
I mean, they're the All-American kids
except they're the all Canadian kids.
How could you not fall in love with them?
I think a bit of the allure
of Jamie and David
is people wondering,
"Are they a couple, are they not?"
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Craig Fenech] I remember exactly
what I thought when I saw Jamie and David,
which was, "Wow."
They are an "it" couple.
I knew they had star power about them,
that was clear.
And I thought,
"I could definitely monetize them."
[Jamie] Craig is a big businessman.
He didn't really have
a skating background,
which made us a little bit nervous.
But he had big plans for David and I.
I don't know shit about figure skating.
I mostly made my career representing
professional baseball players.
But I knew the Olympics,
it's a multi-billion-dollar business.
There are sponsorship opportunities
depending on how well you do.
And I decided that
we would bet our marketing strategy
on winning the gold medal.
[Francis Lai's
"Theme from Love Story" playing]
[Jamie] The Olympics was gonna be held
in Salt Lake City.
And so the piece of music
that we chose to skate to
was from the American movie Love Story.
Hey! What is it, Barrett?
What is this?
I'll tell you
after we cross the threshold.
[Jamie] It's an iconic movie
that everybody knew of.
I need you.
[Christine] This was all part of the plan.
I need you too.
It's not cheating. It's just
It's just smart figure skating.
To say, "Hey, we're on US ice."
"Let's come back with a program
that Americans know."
It's a very
fairy tale love story.
The skaters that they're watching
look like they're in love.
And so the fact that David and I were,
made it even better for the audience.
[David] About a year
after we started skating together,
that's when my feelings changed for Jamie.
[Jamie] What transpired over time,
was the connection that we had
was really special.
- [laughing]
- [David] We were in love.
We had fun together.
But on ice, it was business.
[announcer] The 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
[crowd cheering]
[Christine] Now, this is the moment
that everyone's been waiting for.
[announcer] The United States of America.
[Christine] The Olympics were going to be
a proud moment for the United States.
It occurred a very interesting time.
Just several months after 9/11.
It's the United States hosting the world.
[announcer 2] Canada.
[Jamie] To walk out, representing Canada
in a North American Olympics
was so amazing.
It really did feel like
we were on home soil.
I was like, "This is my Olympics."
[announcer] Russian Federation.
[Elena] We knew who we had to beat.
It was just us and them.
We were singing,
[singing] "We are waiting for battle"
[laughing] Russians would know it.
[Tamara] President Vladimir Putin
encouraged skaters to skate well.
But nobody's sent to the prison
if they don't win gold.
We don't say, "Oh, you must be first,
otherwise I kill you!"
I think Tamara was supremely confident
that Anton and Elena would win
the Olympic gold medal. I am sure of that.
This is as good as it's gonna get
in terms of a competition between
two of the greatest figure skating nations
in the world.
[announcer] We are just moments away
from the final warm-up.
There are the Canadians,
Jamie Salé, David Pelletier.
And behind them Elena Berezhnaya,
Anton Sikharulidze.
And in a moment,
they will open the gate for six minutes
to try and dispel some
of the Olympic butterflies.
So the warm-up,
you got six minutes to get ready.
You can literally feel the heat coming off
each other's body because of the nerves.
The tension that went into that rink,
at that moment, it was unbelievable.
[Jamie] David and I do a specific lift,
we do one throw,
and we do two jumps side by side.
And at the end,
when there's one minute remaining,
I would always leave on my own
and go do a double toe.
I started to skate around the ice
and I saw the Russians coming
and I assumed they were gonna go
diagonally down the ice and do a lift.
[Patti] Jamie's coming down the ice,
and the Russians are coming
from the other side.
And it's just like a split second,
but it was like
I wanted to scream, you know, "Look out!"
The whole arena went silent.
Like, I couldn't hear anything
and I was just stunned.
[announcer]
It is Anton Sikharulidze and Jamie Salé.
This is unbelievable.
[Jamie]
I couldn't really breathe very well.
And I also didn't know how injured
I really was because I was in such shock.
[Patti] I'm like,
"She's gonna be injured, for sure."
"For sure she's gonna be injured."
I remember thinking,
"Uh-oh. This is the last thing we needed."
And I I'll be honest with you,
I wasn't sure it wasn't deliberate.
I mean
I saw the Nancy and Tonya thing, right?
It's unbelievable that they collided,
but the music is starting,
you have to put it behind you and perform.
[announcer]
Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.
It's the moment of truth.
I sit in my place,
and I'm nervous as hell.
Because it's the ultimate event
of all time for everyone.
Here we go.
The Russians.
[Massenet's "Méditation" playing]
[Elena] You have tunnel vision,
and that's it.
At that moment,
I just remembered everything
that Tamara taught me.
[announcer] This couple is exquisite.
[Patti] It is a beautiful program.
And the Russians were magnificent.
[Jamie] David and I were backstage,
but we chose not to look.
We chose to stay focused on us.
And I remember hearing
the audience react to something.
I immediately thought,
"Okay. They've made a mistake."
[Tamara] It was not a mistake.
It was little details.
That was a mistake, and it was
easily recognizable as a mistake.
They were still very good.
They stayed in the program,
and they skated so well.
[Patti] Their costumes are beautiful.
Their performance was polished
and such high-caliber skating.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
They finish.
And I'm sure they're thinking,
"A little stumble isn't gonna
cost us the Olympic gold medal."
[announcer] There won't be anyone close
so far in the evening.
And now what do the judges say?
[Stapleford] In figure skating,
the top countries
send a judge to the Olympic Games.
But you got to be
completely neutral and unbiased.
You're not there
representing your country.
You're there representing skating.
[Benoit] Judging figure skating
is so subjective.
Everything influences a judge,
the package, the look,
the fit, the costume.
Anything that will catch my attention
will have an influence on the result.
[Sally] There are two marks out of six.
One for technical merit
and the second one for presentation.
[Benoit] Overall, they skated well,
but they do one major mistake
that I knew everybody was gonna see
in the combination jump.
But there are two other mistakes as well,
one, landing in a throw
and the catch on the twist.
So, for me, it was three major mistakes
that could not be awarded the top marks.
[announcer] The marks for technical merit.
Five-eight, five-eight, five-seven
[Patti] When the Russians marks came up,
I remember thinking,
"Well, those are fairly high marks."
[announcer] Their marks for presentation.
Mostly five-nines.
[announcer 2]
The program is the most difficult
because the choreography weaves,
and that was given credit.
[Tamara] For four years we were preparing.
That's why when they showed the results,
I was happy.
They're winning scores,
gold-medal-winning scores.
There's no doubt about it,
and it was a surprise,
because the judges
did not really mark down for a mistake.
[Elena] We were just waiting.
Our fate was being decided in heaven.
Something was being decided somewhere.
Now we just had to wait and see.
[announcer] And skating next,
their pursuers,
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada.
She crashed with Anton in the warm-up,
but gave us the thumbs up backstage
that she's okay.
[Jamie] It was really important
not to focus on the accident.
And knowing that they had made a mistake,
I just kept telling myself,
"Focus on you."
"I'm going for gold today."
[Francis Lai's "For Me Alone"
from Love Story playing]
[David] They put the music on.
You go into a zone
that's very hard to explain.
The crowds become blurry.
You don't see faces.
[crowd cheering]
The smells are
stronger.
The music plays louder.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
We went jump, lift, twist, throw.
No problem.
First-and-half minute's done.
And then [chuckles]
I think I started to get
colors in my face again.
[music swells and soars]
I felt like
those parties I didn't go to,
the booze I didn't drink,
the money I didn't have,
it was kind of worth it.
[crowd cheering]
[Benoit]
All the transitions were seamless,
that you felt
that they were skating on velvet.
[Patti] There we go.
There we go with each element.
There we go.
[Craig] There was a truth
that came through their performance.
They were performing
to the song "Love Story"
and they were in love and you felt it.
[David] We went into a last risky element,
the throw.
[announcer] Throw a triple loop
and the gold is theirs.
[crowd cheering]
[Lai's "For Me Alone" soaring]
[Jamie] I said to him, "We did it."
And he said to me, "We're not done yet."
We had three elements to go.
But I knew that these elements
we had left were not difficult for us.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Christine] It was terrific.
They nailed it.
They could not have done better.
[David] We finish with a spin.
We're spinning.
I remember, "I don't want this to end."
[crowd roaring]
[Jamie] I looked up in the audience
and I saw people standing,
and I heard people screaming.
There were smiles on everybody's faces.
[announcer]
Well, the crowd has made its choice.
A standing ovation.
[Patti] We knew it was perfect.
They hadn't made a mistake.
We knew it was
an inspired performance, and
[voice breaks]
I was just so incredibly proud.
[Elena] It was impossible
not to hear the roar, the shouting.
The stands were shaking;
the building nearly collapsed.
[Jamie] I think it's what
every athlete dreams of.
Getting to the Olympics.
And and being perfect.
[fans cheering]
[Jamie] We skated back to what we call
the kiss-and-cry area,
and we were all so excited,
and we figured we've got this in the bag.
[Benoit] I enter my marks
for Jamie and David.
And I'm convinced,
they were gonna be Olympic champion.
[announcer] The marks for Jamie Salé
and David Pelletier, Canada.
Here are the marks.
[fans cheering]
[Jamie and David chuckling]
[announcer] Prolonging the suspense.
And they go up.
And they're big!
That's a little closer than I thought
it was gonna be, though.
[David] Technical mark came out.
"It's good. That's good. It's cool."
And then the artistic impression marks
came up.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer 2] A little bit ahead,
but look at this presentation mark.
[announcer 1] The placements,
look at the placements. Look at this!
- [announcer 3] How did that happen?
- [announcer 2] No!
[announcer 1] They won!
I hear that big sound like
[imitates angry crowd]
[crowd reacting]
I said, "What? Second?"
I hear they're second. I said, "What?"
[Jamie] At first,
I was just sitting there
confused.
[David] She kept going, "It's gonna
switch, right? It's gonna switch?"
[chuckling] I had no idea
what she was talking about.
"It's not gonna switch.
It's on the screen. It's on TV."
[announcer] They won that program.
There's not a doubt to anyone in the place
except for maybe a few judges.
[Benoit]
Four judges went with first place.
And five judges went with second place.
It it it was unbelievable.
The real shock just swept over the arena.
That what you'd just seen on the ice,
what you thought
was a gold medal performance,
what the crowd is going crazy for,
is not a gold medal performance,
it's a silver medal performance.
[melancholic music playing]
The moments before we had
to go out for the medal ceremony
it was really hard for me
to get myself together.
I remember putting my head
in David's shoulder
and just saying, like,
"I can't believe this."
[announcer] Winner of the silver medal,
representing Canada,
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
Captured the hearts of the crowd,
after it appeared to be
a foregone conclusion
they would win the gold medal.
[David] We went to get our medal.
I remember thinking,
"You're gonna hold your head high."
[announcer]
A little tough to smile, maybe.
But the crowd helps.
And the gold.
[Elena] The podium
and everything was great.
We were proud to be Russian.
We were the happiest people in the world.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please rise for the national anthem
of the gold medalist,
the Russian Federation.
[Jamie] It was hard.
I felt like I was missing my moment that
I had always visualized and dreamed of.
Not only getting
the gold medal around my neck,
but seeing our flag in the middle
and singing "O, Canada."
[announcer] So the Russian domination
of Olympic pairs skating
continues here in Salt Lake City.
[David] At the press conference,
you could feel tension in the air.
You could feel that the result
didn't sit well with people.
[Christine] So many journalists
were hearing from their offices
or hearing from family members,
saying it was wrong.
We're sad to come second, but nothing will
ever take away the performance we did.
And that's the way it is.
Our silver medal is worth a gold to us.
We kept our answers short and as much as
I was feeling sorry for myself,
I really didn't wanna portray that I was
being a poor sport about this whole thing.
Paul Martini,
whom you know well and respect,
said, one, you were robbed,
and two, the judges are cowards.
[voice breaks] Nothing to say I guess.
The mark the judges give is not objective
because it's not measured by
seconds, meters, kilograms, or whatever.
They judge because of their taste.
I explain, somebody likes meat,
somebody likes fish.
So who is
who is right?
Sometimes, we can understand why somebody
would maybe have that skater first,
or pair And you would have it second.
It was so close, but
on the night with those two performances
it wasn't close.
[Craig] That night, the Olympic Village
was buzzing with rumors about the result.
I was talking to all kinds of people,
and I'm thinking,
"Holy smokes, maybe there's
there's something to this," you know?
[foreboding music playing]
[phone ringing]
[Christine]
So it's about one in the morning.
And my cell phone rings.
And it's certainly
one of the most interesting phone calls
I've ever received in my career.
The source tells me,
"You will not believe what just happened
in the lobby of the judges' hotel."
[tense music builds]
[Sally] I was at the hotel
and the French judge, Marie Le Gougne,
ran over to me.
I'd known her for a few years,
'cause she's been on the judging scene
internationally for quite a long time.
And she said,
"Sally, Sally you've got to help me."
"You don't understand. I had to do it."
"It was a deal with the Russians."
It's just streaming out of her.
I don't know what to make of it.
Never seen a judge so
wrought up and tense and emotional.
Oh. My. God.
[reporter]
As we've been reporting all morning,
a major controversy has erupted
at the Salt Lake Ice Center last night.
Was the French judge pressured?
And if she was pressured,
was she also influenced?
[Jamie] And the next day, when we woke up,
journalists were saying
that one of the judges
had potentially been involved in a fix.
I just remember sitting back with Dave
going, "What?" Like, "What?"
It was all speculation and rumors
and it was like massive wildfire.
This needs to be sorted out, you know,
if something happened
with the panel of judges,
it it definitely needs to be sorted out.
The judging appeared to be a return
to the Cold War era.
Former Eastern Bloc countries
voting for the Russians,
Western Bloc countries
voting for the Canadians.
[Christine]
And so you're looking at the scores,
four judges for the Russians.
Russia, Ukraine, China, Poland.
The four for the Canadians
are the US and Canada,
Germany and Japan.
Four to four.
Looks like it's East and West.
But there is no doubt, as you look at it,
that the ninth vote,
the one that decides it
is the French judge,
Marie-Reine Le Gougne.
[David] Surprised. Shocked. Confused.
What does that mean?
Robbed. We're talking about the decision
to give the Russian figure skating pair
the gold medal last night.
[Elena] We watching
everything unfold on TV.
We were shocked
by what they were saying about us.
All the TV say French judge
came everywhere saying,
"Listen, I fixed my marks."
How?
Who forced her to fix?
Who? How it happened?
The morning after the event,
we were all in a state of shock.
The nine judges
have to meet with the referee.
And we all have to justify our marks.
As soon as the elevator open
the press, the media,
all the microphones,
they were following each of us.
They had to tape the door to make sure
no microphone was gonna come in the room.
I felt like it were what we see in movies.
Then I saw Marie-Reine.
[Christine] Now, all eyes are on this,
and if there's one meeting room
I ever wanted to be in, it was that one.
It was very tense,
very tense in that room.
[tense music playing]
The referee asked Marie-Reine,
"Why did you give such a mark?"
And then Marie-Reine right away said
she had not done what was right.
You could hear a pin drop.
People were crying.
People didn't know what to say.
People felt betrayed.
And then Marie-Reine said these words,
"It's all Didier's fault."
She was blaming Didier Gailhaguet,
the president of the federation,
who was her boss.
[chuckling] This is This is a big deal.
This is a very, very big deal.
In this small world of figure skating,
Didier Gailhaguet is just as powerful
as anyone could be.
Kind of like a puppeteer.
He can control what judges
to send to what events.
The French are denying any pressure
was exerted, but make no mistake,
this continues to explode
around these Winter games.
There was so much being unraveled.
The onion layers were coming off.
[Christine]
Didier Gailhaguet is denying everything.
[Didier] I don't see
why the French Federation
would press the French judge,
Marie-Reine Le Gougne,
first of all, because we have
no athletes in this competition.
I am sure that
the French Skating Association
will be Will not be charged of anything.
This sport is amazing to me.
I have defended this sport,
and defended this sport,
and defended this sport.
I cannot defend it this morning.
[Jamie] This isn't the first time
there's been corruption in figure skating.
And it's a tough one to live with.
It's a tough one to deal with.
[reporter]
Skating has historically been plagued
by criticism of biased judging.
These two judges
at the 1999 World Championships
were caught signaling each other
and accused of rigging the results.
[reporter 2]
The Russian judge on the right
is moving his foot with intent
while the Ukrainian judge is watching.
[Jamie] We've grown up with this.
It's a bias sport where I've seen
wrongful judging and cheating.
But this was the Olympics.
It took on a whole other level.
[Bill McCausland] I'm a huge sports fan.
And I particularly like the Olympics.
February of 2002, I was watching
the Winter Olympic Games,
watching the pair figure skating,
And it was quite clear
something had gone amiss.
We made contact
with the Salt Lake City office of the FBI.
They interviewed Didier Gailhaguet.
He denied that he pressured
Le Gougne, obviously.
But he said he had been contacted
two years earlier
about a different matter
by a Russian mafia figure.
And it was brought to my attention
because I'm one of the experts
in Russian Eurasian organized crime.
So while the media circus was going on,
we were able to work discreetly
behind the scenes
and assemble our investigation.
Are there crimes that took place,
and what can we do?
[Craig] The media loved a juicy story
and this was about as juicy as it got.
I really felt that we should do
every conceivable
media appearance we could.
To get them
what I considered to be justice.
[Jamie] Craig blew it up.
We went from doing maybe
two or three interviews to doing 20.
We would be lying
if we said we weren't disappointed.
I mean, we're human beings too,
and we went out there
and poured our hearts out into our
performance, and we skated fabulous.
And the Americans
really adopted us as their own.
- And I'm going to wear Canada.
- [man] Good.
Something Canadian until they give
those two kids the gold medal.
- [audience cheering]
- [man] Excellent!
I'm so angry!
[Jamie] We became overnight, you know,
not just Canada's sweethearts,
but America's sweethearts
and like household names.
You'll go down in history.
You'll be the most famous thing
that occurred in this Olympics.
[Jamie] Our faces were everywhere.
And then Jay Leno sends his jet.
I'm on The Tonight Show
with Charlie Sheen.
From Canada, please welcome
Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.
[David] It was surreal.
I mean, I know biker guys going
"They got screwed!"
Guys that never watch figure skating
who essentially, you know
I mean, Harley guys
are watching figure skating now
because because, you know,
they feel for you guys.
We felt disgusted. "Why aren't
the media coming to talk to us?"
We hear stuff like, "The Russians put
the medals around their own necks,"
and "They stole the gold."
Let's go, let's go, let's go.
[Elena] Well, of course
we feel like complete shit.
[reporter] Do you feel
you deserved to win the gold?
Yes. Sure.
[Tamara] We now need to defend ourselves,
because we cannot accept
those accusations.
I never gave any
anybody, anybody
any money or whatever.
This, I can give you my hand
to be cut if I am saying a lie.
- [reporter] Will you keep the gold?
- Yes, because we are Olympic champions.
There was a couple of times
when we're skating, how we think, better
and they was first, and we were second.
But we never go somewhere and said,
"Okay, let's do the big scandal."
The Russians hadn't lost the gold medal
in that event in 40 40 years,
and they weren't about to start now.
[speaking Russian]
[translator] "These are simply people
who don't know how to lose gracefully."
[speaking Russian]
[translator 2]
"Our pair was simply more artistic,
and that's why
they were given more points."
As for the allegations of a deal between
the French and Russian judges,
well, nobody here really believes that.
If anything, the feeling is that it is
the West that is ganging up on Russia
to deny it what it won fair and square.
Is it good for the sport?
And isn't it the beginning
of the Cold War?
[Christine] This controversy is exploding.
It's becoming one of the biggest scandals
in Olympic history.
[Tom Brokaw] In Salt Lake City tonight,
the allegations of cheating
and the judging of pairs figure skating
is a story with more twists and turns
than the routines of the competitors.
The judge at the center
of the pairs scandal went public today
and changed her story.
At first, she said she voted for
the Russians because she was pressured.
Now she said she voted for them
because they were the best.
I have judged with my soul
and my conscious, and why have
When I have decided to have
the Russian couple on the first place,
I was quite aware at that moment
I am still aware of that,
that they were the best that night.
[Craig] She clearly was a pawn in it.
No question about it in my mind.
She recanted her confession.
But by then, cat was out of the bag
and and the wheels were turning.
[reporters clamoring]
[Christine] The president
of the International Skating Union
is Ottavio Cinquanta,
so now he's thrown into this mess.
What is this?
Is an ambush?
[Christine] He runs the sport.
And if this is gonna be investigated,
he's gonna be the one investigating it.
He calls this press conference
where everyone
is just firing questions left and right.
Have you received
any verbal or written proof
that indicates that there
was a possibility of impropriety?
It's a very simple question.
It takes a "yes" or "no."
I have received not proof,
but allegation, accusation, not proof.
But I do not have the power
to change the result.
[Christine] This is quite a spot
that Ottavio Cinquanta is in.
You don't want cheating going on
and scandal going on in your sport.
But Didier Gailhaguet is one
of his colleagues, his friends.
This is a very incestuous group.
I mean, this is a European boys' club,
old, white men running figure skating.
I am not in a condition
for taking a prompt investigation.
[Christine] It's kind of unbelievable
that you've got
Cinquanta saying he's gonna wait
before he starts that investigation.
Why wouldn't you wanna sweep it
under the rug? Because it looks bad.
It's better just to hide it.
Let's hide this, right?
[Craig]
All institutions protect themselves.
I think it was getting a little too hot
for them in the kitchen,
and they wanted to tamp that down
and get back to their Olympics.
But I wanted to keep that pressure on.
[reporter] This afternoon,
Canada's Olympic delegation
asked for an official investigation.
[David] We're not saying
we deserved the the gold,
or we should've got the gold.
What we're saying is
this is wrong because there is word
that somebody cheated.
[Craig] And then suddenly we get a call
[ringing]
from somebody that had Russian accent.
And, uh, the voice said,
"Tell those Canadians
to accept the silver medal and shut up."
It was like [gasps]
"Oh, my gosh, okay, now now it's gotten
to a level that I feel unsafe."
[Bill] During the investigation,
we picked up some interesting
conversations on a wiretap
of a well-known Russian
organized crime figure
named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.
Tokhtakhounov is involved
in human trafficking,
arms dealing, drug trafficking,
all types of grifts across Europe.
And there were conversations
with a Russian co-conspirator
that were a bit unusual.
Tokhtakhounov seemed to have some sway
in how the votes went down
in the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Armed with those phone calls,
we were able to identify
that bribery had taken place there.
A crime that sort of strikes at the heart
of, like, the integrity of sports.
Today, a new figure entered
the great skating drama of 2002,
a man thought to be a Russian mobster.
[reporter] Investigators charged
that Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov
and others were involved
in a quid pro quo.
In return for the French judge's vote
for the Russian pairs team,
the Russians would ensure
that the French ice dancing team
would win the gold medal
in that competition.
[Christine] Ice dancing is the other pairs
skating competition at the Olympics.
The difference between
pairs figure skating and ice dancing
is in ice dancing they don't jump.
It's dancing on the ice.
The French needed
that Russian vote for ice dancing.
And the Russians needed
the French vote for pairs.
You vote for ours, we'll vote for yours.
It was corrupt, it was wrong,
it was terrible, but it was simple.
that the long arm
of Russian organized crime
reached across the globe
this past February.
[Bill] Tokhtakhounov was charged with
tampering with a gold medal event.
If convicted of those charges,
he was facing years in prison.
But he probably fled back to Russia.
I'll never believe it's possible
as long as I live.
How could something like this even happen?
Somebody tried to make
our names close with some mafia.
- Crime.
- It's not right.
Who? Mafia?
Now we're talking about Russian mafia.
Where is it?
[inhales and sighs loudly]
Where is it?
[Craig] Five days after the competition,
I got a call from the Olympic Committee
saying it had made a decision.
Craig said, "We're sending a car
at the Olympic Village,
you're gonna come to my hotel room."
[reporter] Right, we're going to pick up
live coverage of the news conference now.
As the principles take the dais.
We sat there
and watched this press conference.
We have suspended with immediate effect
the judge of figure skating,
Ms. Marie-Reine Le Gougne,
and Mr. Didier Gailhaguet
for a period of three years.
[Jamie] You thought
you would get away with it.
But you didn't.
Like, you know, karma. [chuckles]
I think this French judge, Peter,
we will never see her judge again.
[inaudible]
[Jamie] And then there was
another announcement.
We received an official proposal
from the International Skating Union
and a gold medal will be awarded
to the Canadian pair.
[all cheering]
[reporter]
Well, after a week of controversy,
Canadian skaters Jamie Salé
and David Pelletier
will finally have their golden moment.
[Jamie] They announced that we'd share
the gold medal position
with Anton and Elena.
It was just like my head was spinning.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[hopeful music playing]
[reporter 2]
And so silver medals turn to gold,
not by the alchemist's magic,
but by decree.
[Jamie] There were rumors
and speculation, but truthfully,
I don't know if Anton and Elena
were involved in the fix.
[crowd cheering]
We were all smiling,
and everybody was doing
the best that we could
with the situation that we were in.
But it was just really uncomfortable.
The last thing on my list would've had
Ottavio Cinquanta giving me my medal.
But that's what they decided.
[Elena] They tried to make things right
saying everyone can have a gold medal.
Hooray!
World peace! [chuckling]
[David] Sport is full of corrupt people.
And the West is
just as guilty as the East.
It's a political game.
[reporter 2] Now they walk away
both champions, both winners,
and now some serious reform
in figure skating judging.
[somber music playing]