French Skategate Pair Frozen Out
The French judge at the center of the Olympic figure skating scandal was found guilty Tuesday of misconduct and banned from all competitions for three years.
The president of French skating received the same punishment.
The verdicts against judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne and federation chief Didier Gailhaguet were announced after a two-day hearing of the International Skating Union council.
The suspensions start on April 30, 2002.
Lawyers for the French pair said they planned to appeal.
In addition to the three-year suspensions, the ISU said Le Gougne and Gailhaguet would be banned from next Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, in 2006.
The ISU inquiry heard about 12 hours of evidence from 13 witnesses. The council deliberated for five hours before announcing the rulings.
Le Gougne and Gailhaguet were accused of manipulating the scoring of the pairs skating competition at the Salt Lake City Games, a controversy which led to the unprecedented awarding of duplicate gold medals.
Le Gougne was suspended indefinitely by the ISU in Salt Lake City after initially declaring that she voted for Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze under pressure from Gailhaguet. This was allegedly part of a vote-swapping deal with Russia to favor the French team in ice dancing.
Le Gougne later recanted the accusations, saying she had been under emotional distress and was harassed by ISU officials into making false claims against Gailhaguet.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) expressed concern during the Games that the furor surrounding the pairs competition was affecting the Olympics' reputation and duplicate gold medals were awarded to Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, widely thought to have been the better pair.
ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta said the council found Le Gougne guilty of misconduct on two counts — voting for the Russian pair on Gailhaguet's orders and not reporting Gailhaguet to the ISU for his pressure tactics.
Gailhaguet was sanctioned on the charge of instructing Le Gougne to give first place to the Russians.
Le Gougne and Gailhaguet both denied any wrongdoing and sought to clear their names.
Before the decision Le Gougne had said she was denied a fair hearing by the ISU and had been made a scapegoat from the start of the furor and would launch an immediate appeal.
"I have been condemned from the very beginning. I did not get a fair hearing," Le Gougne told reporters before the ISU decision.
"My first objective is to clear my name and have my dignity and honour restored. My name has been dragged through the mud. I just told the truth."
Le Gougne and Gailhaguet have 28 days to file an appeal. They first have to go through the ISU's internal appeals process. After that, the case could go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.