An anonymous Russian coach has reportedly told the French newspaper L’Equipe that the Russian and United States figure skating teams have conspired to fix figure skating competitions at this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The deal between the countries will allegedly help Russia win gold in the pairs and team competition. In exchange the United States’ Charlie White and Meryl Davis would win gold in ice dancing.
Collusion between the two countries would essentially take out the Canadian team who’ve felt like they’ve been targeted with an excessive amount of drug testing.
U.S. Figure Skating and adamantly denied such claims.
Of course this brings back memories of Marie-Reine La Gougne, a French judge who said she was pressured by the French federation to vote for the Russian team over the Canadian team during the 2002 Salt Lake City games. Her vote would ultimately help the French team in the competition in the very thin voting margins however the scores were eventually thrown out with the gold medals awarded to both the Russian and Canadian teams.
In a sport that relies on judging and what seems to be an increasingly corrupt Olympic committee it’s not surprising that we hear about something like this from time-to-time. Not saying that the claims are true or false but it may be important to note that this same French newspaper was also the one of the first to report the Lance Armstrong doping allegations which turned out to disappointingly true.
h/t: The Big Lead