The French hold on for ice dance gold

No one makes a move to overtake pair in the final free dance portion, resulting in a slim victory.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 19, 2002

[AP photo] Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France compete Monday in the ice dancing free program.

SALT LAKE CITY -- They honored America as the Land of Liberty, and France's Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat got something in return -- a gold medal.

It helped that the couple stayed on their feet throughout the four-minute ice dancing routine, something two contenders couldn't do Monday night.

Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh of Russia finished second by a 5-4 judging split, followed by world champions Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy.

The French, Russians and Italians finished in the same position at the end of each of the phases.

In fact, the top eight couples didn't move from the first compulsory dance through the original and free dances.

That normally is the way in ice dancing, and whether ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta's proposals for sweeping changes in the judging system will affect the dance is anyone's guess.

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

Stellar performances were rare, however. Margaglio fell about halfway through the Italians' routine. Canada's Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz tumbled to the ice at the end of their program.

Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev, winners of the last four American championships, finished 11th. Still, their first Games were a thrill for Lang, the first female American Indian in the Winter Olympics, and Tchernyshev, a native of Russia who became a U.S. citizen last year.

"This is probably the highlight of our career," Lang said. "We never skated better, and the marks don't matter."

Ah, but they do matter, and Lang knows it. She took a shot at the current judging system, too.

"It seems like there is a ranking order, and without a (U.S.) judge on the panel, we kind of have no chance," Lang said. "We have to wait our turn, like the speed skater from Australia. He just stole the moment."

Nobody could steal the moment from Anissina and Peizerat in the free dance, worth 50 percent of the total score.

Peizerat began the program lying flat on the ice, with Anissina pointing skyward as if she were Lady Liberty herself. Among their moves: She carried him while he was upside down.

With Martin Luther King Jr.'s famed freedom speech mixed into the music, the French couple finished with arms extended upward as if holding torches.

And with one fan yelling "Vive La France," Anissina, who was born in Russia, and Peizerat collected six 5.9s for presentation.

That left plenty of room with the judges, however.

Fusar Poli and Margaglio couldn't skate through the opening. He fell in simple footwork in center ice during the I Will Survive portion of their program, and the Italians wound up third partly because the Canadians also fell.

While Bourne and Kraatz tried to cover it up by lying on the ice together as the music stopped, then kissing each other and the rink surface, their medal shot was gone.

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