France win first ice dance gold

Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat earned France their first Olympic gold medal in ice dancing on Monday on an evening of celebration and bitter tears.

While French joy was echoed by Russia's Irina Lobacheva, who celebrated her 29th birthday in style by winning silver with husband Ilia Averbukh after their free dance, Italy's reigning world champions Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio were left with tearful regret.

They remained in third after Margaglio fell in a footwork sequence in their "I Will Survive" disco-themed programme.

Fusar Poli burst into tears at the end and also wept bitterly as the scores were announced before managing to compose herself for the medal ceremony.

Coming into these Olympics, Russia had won six of seven ice dance golds since the discipline was added to the Olympic programme in 1976. Britain's Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won in 1984.

Anissina and Peizerat, the Olympic bronze medallists in 1998, were the leaders coming into the event finale.

They delivered an assured performance to "Non Merci" which was overlayed with excerpts of Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

In a programme which they titled Liberta, the 2000 world champions drew loud applause for their tradition-breaking move in which she lifts and carries him in an inverted position on her hip.

"We skated really well and this was the best programme we ever did," said Peizerat.

Monday's event was set against the backdrop of a judging scandal sparked off by the pairs event earlier in the Games which led to a French judge being suspended and the Canadian silver medallists upgraded to joint gold.

Monday's competition was likely to be the last Winter Olympics ice dance judged under the current rules, with the International Skating Union responding to the scandal by announcing plans for a total overhaul to try rule out the chance of rigged results.

In second place heading into the medal round, Lobacheva and Averbukh performed to a combination of harpsichord music and a rendition of "Turn, Turn, Turn", the song originally recorded by the 1960s rock group The Byrds.

Their performance was themed a remembrance of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Fusar Poli and Margaglio, who stood third throughout the three-part competition, stuck with "I Will Survive", the disco tune sung by Gloria Gaynor, as their free dance music.

The choice had met with mixed reviews all season and did not fare much better here with the Olympic panel.

Despite their funky, crowd-pleasing free dance set to a medley of Michael Jackson tunes, Canadians Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz finished just off the podium, the same spot they held in 1998.

The couple, who received a huge ovation from the crowd, fell on their final lift, drawing a costly 0.3 deduction on their technical mark.

Their placing in Nagano, behind Anissina and Peizerat, created a controversy over alleged bloc judging. Ukraine's judge Yuri Balkoz was suspended for a year as a result, but he was back on the Olympic ice dance panel here this week and actually ranked the Canadians ahead of the Italians on Monday.

Because the four-minute freedance finale was worth 50 percent of the total score, either one of the two leading couples could have claimed the Olympic gold medal.