Ice Skating: French champion admits she talked to 'mobster'

The Olympic ice dancing champion Marina Anissina has acknowledged that she talked "from time to time" with a reputed Russian mobster accused of fixing two figure skating events at this year's Winter Games in Salt Lake City, including the competition she won. But she insisted that being an acquaintance of Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who was arrested 31 July on US charges of scheming to corrupt Olympic judges, had nothing to do with winning the gold medal in ice dancing with her partner, Gwendal Peizerat.

"It's a ridiculous affair, I've only seen things like this in American movies," Anissina said here, where the couple were skating in an exhibition. Wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a "Not Guilty" slogan, Peizerat rejected suggestions that they could lose their medal if the case against the 53-year-old Tokhtakhounov is proved.

The French couple, along with the Russian pairs champions, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, spoke at a news conference to defend themselves against accusations in a US criminal complaint that their figure skating competitions were fixed.

US authorities last week charged Tokhtakhounov with arranging a deal between French and Russian judges in pairs and ice dancing at last February's games. Italian police, who are holding Tokhtakhounov in a Venice jail, said he may have contacted up to six judges to help secure a gold medal for the Russians in exchange for a victory by the French ice dancing team. Both teams won. Papers filed in US federal court say wiretaps caught him talking by phone with the mother of a French ice dancer and bragging he would influence the judging.

The Russian-born Anissina, who has French nationality, said she met Tokhtakhounov in 1999 at a reception. "We spoke on the telephone from time to time." she said.

The scandal erupted the day after the pairs competition, when the French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne said she had been pressured to vote for the Russians. Although she later recanted, duplicate gold medals were awarded to Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, the Canadians who finished second. Le Gougne was suspended for three years.

The FBI has requested an interview with Le Gougne about Tokhtakhounov.