Featured Article Summary #228

The pairs figure skating competition at the 2002 Winter Olympics took place on February 9 and 11 at the Salt Lake Ice Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Initially, Russia’s Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won gold, Canada’s Jamie Salé and David Pelletier won silver, and China’s Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won bronze. After the event, allegations of vote swapping led to one judge’s scores being thrown out, and Salé and Pelletier were upgraded to gold, while Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze kept their medals. On February 15, the ISU and the International Olympic Committee announced that the French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne was guilty of misconduct and was suspended immediately. In 2004, the ISU replaced the old 6.0 system with the ISU Judging System, which scores teams based on the technical execution of required elements to reduce subjectivity. Pair skating was one of the four figure skating events at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, held at the Salt Lake Ice Center over two nights, with the short program on February 9 and the free skating on February 11. The competition was expected to be especially strong, described as possibly the greatest collection of pair skating talent ever assembled. Top contenders included Canadian champions Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, and Chinese skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, all with major world, continental, and national titles. Twenty teams could compete in the pairs event. Sixteen teams qualified through results from the 2001 World Figure Skating Championships, while four more spots were earned at the 2001 Golden Spin of Zagreb, including an extra spot freed when Poland entered only one team. Sarah Abitbol and Stéphane Bernadis won a place at the Golden Spin but had to withdraw after Abitbol injured her Achilles tendon, so their spot was given to Armenia’s Maria Krasiltseva and Artem Znachkov. After the short program at the 2002 Winter Olympics pairs event, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze led, with Jamie Salé and David Pelletier second and Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo third. In the free skate, Salé and Pelletier had an earlier stumble in warm-up and then skated their “Love Story” routine with very strong results, but there were some concerns it was less difficult than the Russian program. Using the 6.0 scoring system, the Russians scored better on presentation despite a small technical mistake, so Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze won gold, Salé and Pelletier took silver, and Shen and Zhao won bronze. The International Skating Union officially removed the scores given by French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne. Her scores were not counted in the final results.