Interesting, how different and sometimes misleading newspaper accounts can be.

Kat has cited AP: The head of the French Olympic team said Wednesday night that a judge from his country was pressured to "act in a certain way" before she voted to give the gold to the Russians over the Canadians.

From that sentence you would gather that the pressure was to vote for the Russians though it isn't printed explicitely but left to you to guess.

In her interview with L'Equipe yesterday the French judge said she was pressured by the ISU (International Skating Union) to vote for the Canadians. Since she mentioned Ms. Stapleford from England as one putting pressure on her it is clear why the folks putting the pressure on her will not be condemned in the same way. Ms. Stapleford is the chairwoman of the ISU commission.

Since the French judge, Ms. Le Gougne, said immediately after the day of judgement that the French skating Union had put pressure on her to vote for the Russians we may conclude that either she doesn't know what she's talking about for telling very different stories on different days or that there was pressure on her from many sides having different intentions.

I hate figure skating.

Wolfgang