Russian officials deride Olympic fixing allegation

Russian sports officials today derided allegations against a reputed mobster charged with conspiring to fix figure skating results at the Salt Lake City Olympics.

One calling the allegations a "funny fantasy" that belonged in a Hollywood film script, not US court papers.

The charges against Alimzan Tokhtakhounov "cannot be serious," said Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets.

He said he had known Tokhtakhounov for a decade and said there was no way he could have done what he is accused of - using influence with Russian and French skating officials to fix results.

"He is not involved with figure skating, and this is a closed world," Shvets said, arguing that the charges may have been a result of the suspect’s propensity for boasting.

"He may be a fan, but the fact that he could not have influenced results is absolutely certain."

Tokhtakhounov, known in Russia as "the Taiwanese" for his Asiatic-looking features, was arrested yesterday in Italy on US conspiracy charges.

He is accused of scheming to persuade a French judge to vote for the Russian pairs team and a Russian judge to vote in turn for the French ice dancing team at the Winter Olympics, according to a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.

In the pairs skating, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze narrowly beat Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, but a French judge said the next day that she had been pressured to vote for the Russians, who slipped during their routine while the Canadians were virtually flawless.

The judging flap resulted in a duplicate set of gold medals being awarded later to the Canadian pairs team.

Russian Olympic officials, politicians and sports fans were incensed by the decision, saying the Russians had skated with more passion and deserved the gold.

Shvets also argued that the Russians had won fairly and suggested the allegations were part of an effort to justify the decision to award a second gold. "Now this funny fantasy appears," he said.

"It is more like a cinematic subject, a synopsis of a film script," he said of the charges.

Shvets said the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian Figure Skating Federation had nothing to do with Tokhtakhounov.

He said Olympic committee chief Leonid Tyagachev and Valentin Piseyev, the president of the skating federation, also dismissed the charges as not serious.

The criminal complaint identified Tokhtakhounov as a "major figure in international Eurasian Organised Crime" who has been involved in "drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles".