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Comments by: YACCS
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Thursday, August 01, 2002
Revelations abound in today's newspapers about the Russian mob connection to skating. The most telling quote attributed to Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov bragging on February 12th about the French vote: "our Sikharulidze fell, the Canadians were 10 times better, and in spite of that, the French with their vote gave us first place." Marina Annissina, one of the French ice dancing gold medalists, is also implicated, apparently appearing on the taped conversations. [This isn't the first time Annissina has been implicated in such things. Before, she advocated replacing a French judge on the panel with someone who favored their team rather than the former champions Maniotte and Lavanchy.] Bless Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post for speaking for all the idiotic sports journalists who look their nose down at figure skating. He has continually derided skating saying a purely judged event like skating cannot be a real sport, period. Christine Brennan revealed that this lunacy really does reach the top level of ISU; Ottavio Cinquanta revealed that the Russians were never investigated during the whole judging scandal. Never. The deal was reportedly between the Russians and the French and you didn't bother to investigate one half of them. Right. Personally I'm seeing an editorial cartoon in some newspaper showing a jail cell with various mobsters. Someone asks our Russian mobster -- "Hey, buddy, what are you in for? Racketeering, fraud, drugs?" The response: "Fixing Olympic figure skating." Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Just when I thought skating couldn't get any weirder... the Italian police have arrested a suspected member of the Russian mob on charges that he openly bragged about fixing the Olympic ice dancing and pairs events at Salt Lake City. While the arrest surprised the heck out of me, the Russian mob connections didn't really. Of the ones that moved to the United States, the Russian skaters usually mentioned in interviews that personal safety was an issue. Suddenly they're making a lot of money from competitions and tours and the wrong people notice. Friends and family are threatened and money is demanded for protection. Other skaters, like Maria Butyrskaya, have steadfastly remained in Russia, despite the dangers and the training conditions. I'm just wondering how skating will recover from all this. Everyone is now pointing their fingers and saying "See, I told you it was fixed." |
