Assignment America: Remember Ice Skating?

NEW YORK, April 1 (UPI) -- Quick. For ten points. Who is Marie Reine Le Gougne?

a) The new chef at Le Cirque.

b) The 14th-century patron saint of Lyon.

c) The bipolar French ice skating judge.

If you said "the bipolar French ice skating judge," then you're either an extremely astute reader of agate type or you live in Europe. This confused lady dropped off the media radar after the International Skating Union took the historic step of publicly suspending her and then awarding a second gold medal in the Olympics pairs skating competition back in February.

The reason I bring up her name now is that she hasn't been quiet and she hasn't been idle, but even NBC - the TV network that was so livid over the judging that they hammered her reputation into dust for a full week - hasn't seen fit to follow up the story.

The first odd twist in the Marie Reine Le Gougne saga occurred exactly one week after the Canadians were awarded their gold medal for whining and complaining. The New York Times, which had been way ahead on this story throughout the controversy, published a front-page interview with Le Gougne on the very day of the Olympic closing ceremonies. The article by Selena Roberts and Michael Janofsky was based on a two-hour session with Le Gougne and her lawyer in which she told her story in detail for the first time.

Did you see this amazing interview discussed on NBC's final-night coverage? You did not. Did any of the Canadian-loving columnists who had cried "foul" alter their opinions after this interview was published? They did not.

But Le Gougne was suddenly quite adamant in her telling of the story.

"Marie Reine Le Gougne," wrote the Times, "said the pressure she felt was unlike any in her 14 years of judging, that it intensified as the Olympics drew near and that it came from only one country, Canada." The Times went on to say that the reporters had interviewed two other figure skating officials who, "speaking on condition of anonymity," believed Le Gougne's version of events.

Fast-forward another week to Le Gougne's press conference in Paris, details of which dribbled back to America because apparently none of our networks sent a camera crew. She told her story again, this time backed up by Didier Gailhaguet, President of the French Federation.

Add this to an extensive interview she gave to L'Equipe, the French sports newspaper, and you end up with what is not a COMPLETE version of events, but one that is about one THOUSAND times more complete than what was used to decide the awarding of the second medal.

If you recall, Ottavio Cinquanta, president of the International Skating Union, had initially refused to do anything to change the results until his full committee had a chance to meet and investigate. But a media frenzy pursued him everywhere, with reporters basically saying "You need to act NOW, so that we can get back to the other Olympic events" - why they couldn't just WAIT was unclear -and eventually International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge told Cinquanta that he couldn't wait, he had to act.

Does anybody in North America care whether they acted CORRECTLY or not? Probably not, at this point, but it IS possible now to string together a sort of what-if version of events that, at the very least, ought to make more than a few Olympic officials ashamed of themselves.

There's another chapter yet to come, on April 29 and 30, when the ISU will have a formal hearing to decide whether Le Gougne's suspension will become permanent. (Note that the purpose of the hearing is NOT to determine whether the awarding of the second medal was the correct call. That would be WAY too dangerous. It's the equivalent of an ice-skating court martial for Le Gougne, after a two-month investigation, and the sole charge is that she "failed to report pressure." In other words, she's a goner.)

But here's the background of the case. First, there are so many international skating competitions that the judges see the same performers over and over again, not just during competition, but at rehearsals too. There are usually AT MOST four contenders for any gold medal at any given time, and the jockeying among those four determines the shape of the politics.

In last year's pairs figure skating, it was obvious that the two heavyweight teams were the Canadians and Russians. They were a cut above everyone else. And heading into the Olympics, France was considered the "swing" country in the voting. This had nothing to do with Le Gougne. France simply has historic ties to both Canada AND Russia.

In September 2001, the Olympic judges were named, and Le Gougne's name turned up on the list. Suddenly she was popular with Canadian ice skating officials who had never even spoken to her before. Is that pressure? Probably not. But the interesting thing about her story is that there were NO Russians trying to influence her.

Partly that's because the Canadians are more powerful than the Russians, so they're just around more. The most powerful ISU body, the technical committee, is run by Sally Stapleford, a British citizen who's the daughter of a famous Canadian hockey player, Red Stapleford. The official ISU seminars on how to judge "presentation" - the key mark in judging - are led by Anne Schelter, a Canadian choreographer, and Lori Nichol, an American who works with Sale and Pelletier, the Canadian team.

In other words, Le Gougne says there are Canadians and friends of Canadians everywhere you turn in skating. So she got smiles from Canadians, pats on the back from Canadians, hugs from Canadians, and apparently she's one of those super-sensitive nervous types who was AGONIZING about it. Did it mean something? Do they want my vote or do they just like me? All of this in a context of dealing with the people who have power to determine whether she gets judging jobs in the future - and this lady was CRAZY about being a skating judge.

The key moment, she says, was the night before the pairs competition began. The Canadian judge, Benoit Lavoie, invited her to a birthday party for a Polish judge of ice dancing who was a close friend of the Polish judge of pairs. (Are you following this?) The Canadians proceeded to shower the ice dancing judge with gifts, which made Le Gougne not only uncomfortable but nervous about her own position. If they're that determined to get votes, she thought, what will happen if I don't vote for them?

All this time, Le Gougne is sharing her misgivings with her "boss," French Federation president Didier Gailhaguet. Gailhaguet's personality is the opposite of Le Gougne's. He's a worldly Frenchman with typical Continental cynicism and he said things to her to comfort her. We don't know what he said, but it was probably something like, "Screw the Canadians. Just do your job."

Now this can be interpreted in two ways. It can be interpreted as, "Punish the Canadians," and it can be interpreted as, "The Canadians are being silly." But saying it brusquely to a woman like Le Gougne could set off another agonizing period of sleepless nights. This is the kind of woman who constantly asks herself, "I wonder what he means. I wonder what they're thinking."

Nevertheless, when it came time for the final vote, Le Gougne cast her vote for the Russians - very narrowly, one-tenth of a point - and felt, "Okay, thank God, that's over." She even said she had a "warm" feeling, because she'd done the right thing.

But it wasn't over. Before she even left the arena, she was physically attacked. Not enough to harm her, but she was grabbed. It wasn't a fellow judge, thank God. It was probably just some crazed ice-skating fan. But she was obviously shaken.

She got on the shuttle bus to return to her hotel. Walburga Grimm, a member of the technical committee, then verbally abused her for her voting, implying that there was something dishonest about it.

When she got to the hotel, she was accosted again, this time by Sally Stapleford, the aforementioned head of the powerful technical committee. In the lobby, Stapleford "aggressively approached" Le Gougne - who had just been attacked twice, once physically and once verbally - and said, "Marie, you're a very, very good judge. Why did you score the Russians first?"

It's just the kind of question you're not supposed to ask. Le Gougne broke into tears. Stapleford was horrified by the tears and thought it was a tacit admission of guilt. She then started peppering Le Gougne with scenarios of why she might have voted that way. Who pressured her? Obviously she's upset, she's crying, she knows something, there had to have been pressure. Was it the French Federation? Did they make a deal with the Russians so they would get a favorable vote in ice dancing?

Then two other people joined the emotional dog pile. Walburga Grimm, the accuser on the bus, showed up in the lobby along with Britta Lindgren, another member of the technical committee. Stapleford told them the scenario of the French-Russian conspiracy while Le Gougne continued to blubber.

The next morning Le Gougne, already emotionally worn out, turns on the TV and sees herself on CNN. "How can this be?" she said, horrified. Then she goes to one of the regular meetings of judges. Halfway through that meeting, Ron Pfenning, an American who is the referee in the pairs competition, passes a note to the nine judges, suggesting that there was "dishonesty" in the previous evening's judging and calling for them to come clean. (Pfenning got his information from Stapleford.)

"That word, dishonest, destroyed me," said Le Gougne, and once again she broke down in tears.

At this point the story gets murky. This is where Pfenning supposedly got the "confession" that was the basis for changing the judges' decision and awarding the second medal. But the essence of it is that Pfenning demanded to know whether she had been pressured to vote a certain way, and she said that yes, she had been pressured. That was all he needed. He had her sign a statement to that effect, and her fate was sealed.

"I was so mixed up in my mind," she told the Times, "I had trouble thinking properly."

When she finally DID start defending herself-with the help of an outraged Gailhaguet - it was too late. The Olympic officials had already made up their minds. They had their smoking gun. And if you ask Gailhaguet what he thinks about it, he'll tell you that some "very bad people" browbeat a fragile woman until they got what they wanted. It was the first time in the whole history of ice skating that a decision has been reversed or amended.

But not the last. America didn't much notice, because NBC wasn't there, but the World Championships were held in Nagano, Japan, just three weeks after the Olympics. When the bronze medal in ice dancing went to Israel, almost ALL the other skaters signed a petition protesting the decision, and Lithuania, the fourth-place team, filed a formal protest - two MORE firsts in international skating competition.

It was the Marie Reine La Gougne legacy, already at work.

(John Bloom writes several columns for UPI. He can be reached at [email protected].)