PARIS, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- French skating champions Gwendel Peizerat and Marina Anissina Monday denied any involvement in a suspected Olympic skating scandal, and said their knowledge of an alleged Russian gangster was purely superficial.
"Of course, we know Mr. Tokhtakhounov, and we spoke to him by telephone from
time to time," said Anissina, a Russian skater, whose ice dancing performance with Peizerat scored a gold medal in the Salt Lake Olympic Games.
The couple, along with French Federation head, Didier Gailhaguet, spoke during a
noontime news conference in Arles, France, and their remarks were broadcast on
French radio.
But Anissina said many Russian skaters held conversations with Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, and denied any talk of payoff, or of rigging the Olympic skating results.
"Everything that's written, that I've heard from the United States through the paper
has nothing to do with our victory in the Olympic games," she said. "I think it's really
ridiculous because I never asked for anything."
The ice dancing couple are the latest to denounce suspicions of a complicated deal to
rig the skating results which has implicated judges, Olympic officials and Tokhtakhounov, among others.
Italian police arrested Tokhtakhounov last week in Venice, on U.S. conspiracy charges. He is expected to plead innocent.
In interviews last week, French Olympic judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne, also denied
any wrongdoing or knowledge of Tokhtakhounov. Le Gougne earlier admitted she
had been pressured into voting for a Russian couple who won the pairs figure skating.
She later recanted, but was suspended nonetheless.
Like Anissina, Gailhaguet said he had spoken with Tokhtakhounov, but only about
the possibility of establishing an ice-hockey club in Paris. Gailhaguet, who was also suspended from his post, said he never spoke to the Russian again. He, too, has
denied any wrongdoing.
But Gailhaguet reportedly gave the FBI a different account of his conversation with
Tokhtakhounov. According to media accounts, he said in an affidavit that the Russian
had contacted him for help in renewing his French visa, which was about to expire.
