Canadians get their gold in figure skating event alongside Russian co-champions

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Jamie Sale and David Pelletier lingered on the ice with their co-champions, tossing their bouquets of yellow roses into the crowd like good-bye kisses. <br><br>This was a golden moment

Monday, February 18th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Jamie Sale and David Pelletier lingered on the ice with their co-champions, tossing their bouquets of yellow roses into the crowd like good-bye kisses.

This was a golden moment not likely to be seen again. Sale-Pelletier and Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze savored it, enjoying a newfound friendship born of scandal.

``It was kind of a moment to be the four of us,'' Sale said Sunday night. ``We know what the whole reasoning was behind it, and the four of us wanted to make the best of it and enjoy it and move on.''

Sale and Pelletier lost to the Russians 5-4 in last week's free skate for the pairs gold despite an obvious technical error. The International Olympic Committee awarded a second gold to the Canadians on Friday, an extraordinary move that ended days of bitterness, turmoil and tears.

``I am so happy because I think now it is finished for all this kind of problems,'' Sikharulidze said.

For the skaters, maybe. For the sport of figure skating, it is just beginning.

International skating officials were scheduled to meet Monday in hopes of finding a way to keep the fiasco that pitted Sale-Pelletier against Berezhnaya-Sikharulidze from happening again.

French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne admitted to skating officials the day after the event that she had been pressured to put the Russians first, and the biggest judging scandal the sport has seen erupted.

Acknowledging a wrong had been done, the IOC awarded a second gold medal to Sale and Pelletier, at the request of the International Skating Union.

``It is an exit out of a situation there isn't really an exit out of,'' Valentin Piseyev, chairman of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, said before the ceremony.

The scenario had the potential to be awkward _ medals ordinarily won by one couple shared between two. But Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze accepted their co-champions gracefully, a gift Sale and Pelletier acknowledged.

``Anton and Elena were involved in this against their will, and so were we,'' Sale said. ``Just to appreciate the sportsmanship about the entire thing, we thought it was nice to give them a little something from us.''

While the Olympic anthem played, Pelletier and Sikharulidze chatted like schoolboys in the back of the room. As the couples were introduced _ ``Welcome to the gold medalists!'' _ Berezhnaya and Sale smiled at each other and climbed the podium hand-in-hand.

Sale and Pelletier accepted their medals from ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta, who made the recommendation to award the duplicate golds and suspended the judge for misconduct.

But the magnitude of the moment didn't seem to sink in for Sale and Pelletier until ``O Canada'' was played after the Russian anthem. As the Canadian flag rose beside the Russian flag, tears filled Sale's eyes and Pelletier began blinking rapidly, as if to keep from crying.

``Nothing but great things,'' Sale said of what went through her mind. ``I was thinking it was a very, very proud moment for us.''

When the anthem finished, the couples turned to the cheering crowd and waved their yellow roses. Pelletier and Sikharulidze hugged; Berezhnaya and Sale did, too.

Then Pelletier put his arms around Berezhnaya as if they were best friends.

``This was better than I expected,'' Pelletier said. ``The four of us were part of history. It was a tough few days, but now we're happy to put some closure to it and we can go on and be happy with our gold medal.''