Canadian skating pair to get golds Sunday; Russians considering participating

Sunday, February 17th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SALT LAKE CITY (CP) _ Bone-weary skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier will receive their newly minted gold medals Sunday during a podium ceremony at the same arena where they were originally cheated of a first-place finish.

Olympic organizers moved up the presentation of their medal to 10:45 p.m. EST Sunday after the ice-dancing competition, originally scheduled for Feb. 21, to shift attention away from the controversy and onto the final week of the Winter Games.

The silver medals originally awarded to the Canadians, meanwhile, have been returned ``to the coffers of the IOC,'' International Olympic Committee director general Francois Carrard said Saturday.

The Canadian skaters, who are a romantic pair off the ice as well as on, are only too happy to shrink from the spotlight.

No more wall-to-wall face time on all-news networks, Pelletier said Saturday, during what he insisted would be his last news conference of the Olympics.

The pair did a few more network interviews, had their pictures taken with Canada's hockey team during a practice and promised to disappear after the medals ceremony.

``I was beginning to feel like O.J. Simpson,'' he told francophone reporters.

``I just want to go to the cinema, go for a beer with my friends or go to my parents' place without it turning into a carnival.''

Co-winners Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze will take part, with both the Russian and Canadian anthems played, according to Russian Olympic Committee official Sasha Rattner.

Rattner said Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze would participate ``since it is an official medal ceremony.'' He also said his committee was unconcerned with the order in which the anthems are played.

It would mark the first time the skaters have seen each other since their competition became the source of a controversy that threatened to swamp these Olympics.

It was not known if bronze medallists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China would attend the ceremony.

Sale and Pelletier were awarded a second skating pairs gold medal by the International Olympic Committee after a French judge at last Monday's competition admitted misconduct.

A furor began from the moment Sale and Pelletier were awarded the silver medal despite skating a flawless program. The Russian pair given the gold in a 5-4 decision by the judges committed two technical errors during their long program.

Pelletier bristled after being asked several times Saturday why he hadn't contacted his Russian rivals since Monday.

Their problem was with the judges, not the skaters, he said.

``Don't create a situation that doesn't exist,'' he said. ``Anton and Elena are our friends. They're good people, they're good skaters, and yes, I will talk to them if I see them, but I have to see them. I go on with my life, they go on with theirs.''

Said Sale: ``As far as our relationship with Elena and Anton has been in the past, we've always wished them good luck before we stepped on the ice, we've always said congratulations.

``I'm not going to feel awkward,'' said Sale. ``Again, we didn't do anything wrong, they didn't do anything wrong. This is not about the skaters.''

Some were trying to make it about the skaters and turn the skaters' relationship into a grudge match.

Craig Fenech, the agent now weighed down by sudden offers for Sale and Pelletier, rebuffed a reported Russian plan to call for a ``skate-off'' between the two pairs.

They will not be caught up in the creation of a skating version of the Cold War, he said.

``The Russians are proving to be very adept capitalists, that's the real reason they're interested in a skate-off,'' he said.

Fenech took the microphone several times Saturday after his skaters faced repeated questions over why they hadn't offered a commiserative telephone call to their Russian rivals.

Any forced sympathy would be insincere, he said.

``Their relationship with Anton and Elena is exactly what it was before, and suddenly to embrace in some phony `Oh we love each other, isn't this wonderful that we all have a gold medal' would be phony,'' said Fenech.

``This isn't going to become a lovefest and it isn't going to become Nancy-and-Tonya,'' Fenech said, referring the 1994 debacle that turned figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding into a circus at the Lillehammer Games.

It's time for the skaters to get some sleep and begin considering the lucrative deals being presented to them, he said.

They've already begun considering joining a skating tour or going out on their own tour as individual headliners.

A wealthy West Coast millionaire has offered the couple the use of his yacht for a holiday, Fenech said, without identifying the potential benefactor. They wouldn't likely be accepting that offer, he said.