Gold-medal pairs skaters Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Bereznaia returned to Russia on Sunday and played down the flap over their victory, the first in a series of controversies that angered Russians during the Games.
“If everything were to go quietly, nobody would watch the Games; there would not be enough interest with the general public,” Sikharulidze said at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport. “It is cool the way it is.”
The Russians, of course, were awarded the gold over Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier in a close decision that was widely unpopular with the audience. Sale and Pelletier were later awarded their own gold after a French judge said she had come under pressure to vote for the Russians.
But Sikharulidze was unruffled.
“No one has asked me to cut off a piece of my well-earned medal and give it away,” he said. “Even if six more gold medals were awarded, it would not have decreased the value of my victory. Myself, I feel great.”
BLAME IT ON BEER
For all the anxiety over terrorists and rabid protesters, a melee erupted in downtown Salt Lake City early Sunday, not over civil rights or global imperialism, but beer.
The brouhaha began when a drunken and unruly crowd was told that an outdoor beer garden was shutting off the taps. A few hundred young people who had been standing in line for hours went on a rampage, throwing bottles and breaking some windows at the federal courthouse on Main Street, police said.
The crowd was dispersed with rubber bullets, police said. There were no reported injuries, and 20 people were arrested and charged with failure to disperse.
“This one was started by a few young drunk guys,” said Craig Gleason, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Police Department.
LOOK WHAT I FOUND!
Salt Lake City area prison inmates sorting glass from trash at a recycling plant for $1 an hour didn’t expect to get to get in on the Olympics. But then a cardboard box of those coveted blue berets–the American team’s being scalped for up to $120 each–rolled across the conveyor belt.
Larry Redmond, knowing he’d struck gold, snatched them up and stuffed them away.
“You feel like now you’ve been in the Olympics,” said Redmond, 36. “When I get out, I’ll say that I was a waste engineer, helping recycle things for the Olympics.”
