Russia wants no commission to verify figure skating refereeing at former Olympics

In a RIA Novosti interview, Valentin Piseyev, president of the Russian figure skating federation, made it clear that it is senseless to set up any commission to appraise the quality of refereeing figure skating competitions at the former Olympics. The day before, Russia's Sports Committee chairman Vyacheslav Fetisov had commented on the umpiring scandal with figure skaters, suggesting that a special commission should be set up to reveal the umpires' bias.

According to Piseyev, any results of the work of such a commission can be appealed against by the international skating union (ISU) or any other national federation of figure skaters that can offer establishing such a commission, the more so as an ISU commission was formed after the Olympics to consider the figure skaters tournament. Its conclusions were regarded by the ISU council which took certain measures against some of the referees, including the notorious Frenchwoman Marie-Reine Le Gougne-so the ISU will hardly return to the issue again, said Piseyev.

Besides, he continued, ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta has claimed that the Russian figure skating federation had nothing to do with pressure upon the referees.