Canadians awarded gold after skating furore

Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were belatedly awarded gold medals on Friday after Olympic officials took tough action to end four days of controversy souring the Winter Games.

IOC president Jacques Rogge told a news conference the Canadian duo would be given the second gold of the pairs event following a decision by the International Skating Union (ISU) to suspend a French judge in Monday's final.

ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said Marie-Reine Le Gougne had been accused of misconduct and investigations would continue into the biggest scandal at a Winter Games for 30 years.

"The case is solved for us. The case is not solved for skating," Pelletier declared.

Le Gougne voted for the Russian winners Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze in a 5-4 split decision which triggered widespread disbelief. The Russians retain their gold medals.

"We are happy justice has been done," Pelletier said. "We had a gold medal performance and now I own a gold medal."

"It does not take anything away from Yelena and Anton. This was not something against them, it was something against the system.

But Russian Olympic Committee official Rudolf Nezvegsky said that Rogge had given a clear signal competitions could be determined in courtrooms, not the sporting arena.

"By doing this, they just struck a huge blow not only to the Olympic spirit of fair competition, but also to the whole nature of sport," he said.

MIXED DAY

In the ice dance event, alleged to be involved in any possible trade-off, French former world champions Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat were comfortable winners of the opening compulsory section.

But the couple could not shake off Russia's Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh, and Italy's Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio, who deposed the French as world champions last year, were in third place.

In the mountains, Olga Danilova led a Russian 1-2 on the cross-country course while Canada's day was one of more medals mixed with pain, both on the ice and on the slopes.

Danilova added the combined pursuit gold to the silver she won in the women's 10 km classical and her two golds from Nagano four years ago. Larisa Lazutina claimed her second silver of these Games and Canada's Beckie Scott won bronze.

In the luge, Germans Patric-Fritz Leitner and Alexander Resch, the overall World Cup champions, dashed American title hopes with victory over Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin.

U.S. pair Chris Thorpe and Clay Ives took bronze and the host nation already have 14 medals, their best tally at a Winter Games.

Isabelle Blanc won an all-French final to relegate favourite Karine Ruby to silver in the debut Olympic parallel giant slalom snowboarding event.

Ruby, the 1998 giant slalom champion, had run a fever all night and left herself too much to do after finishing 1.8 seconds behind in the first run.

Rank outsider Philipp Schoch of Switzerland, who finished 15th out of 16 in qualification, snatched a shock gold in the men's snowboarding parallel giant slalom.

The 32-year-old kept upright as the favourites slipped up, beating 1999 world champion Richard Richardsson of Sweden in the two-run face-to-face final.

Canadian David Anderson was taken to hospital after a crash during free skiing for Saturday's men's Olympic super-G but, despite earlier fears, escaped serious injuries.

In the ice hockey competition, Sweden beat Canada 5-2, titleholders the Czech Republic thrashed Germany 8-2 and the U.S. breezed past Finland 6-0.