Jamie Sale and David Pelletier

But on the evening of Monday, February 11, the Russian pair "did not skate their best," according to Lacayo. Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze "had as many as six flaws in their program, notably Sikharulidze's stumble on the side-by-side double Axel." By comparison, Sale and Pelletier were "a miracle of unity." Then, wrote Lacayo, "came the astonishing scores. While the Canadians posted high technical scores, the Russians beat them in the presentation category, and were placed first by five of the nine judges. "Sale and Pelletier looked briefly stunned," wrote Lacayo. "The crowd of some 16,000 at the Salt Lake Ice Center exploded in boos."

Even while the Russians were accepting the gold medal and the Canadians silver, the suspicion of fixed judging was raised. The spotlight in particular shone on the French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne, who seemed to own the deciding vote between the Russia-China-Poland-Ukraine bloc who favored the Russians, and the U.S.-Canada-Germany-Japan judges who placed Sale and Pelletier as the winners. "Skategate" read the headlines as an investigation into judging began. In a matter of days Le Gougne admitted that she had been pressured by her sport's national federation to favor the Russian pair in exchange for the Russian judge's vote in favor of France's ice-dancing finalists. It was a world-class scandal that eventually forced a promise from the International Skating Union (ISU) to clean up their sport's judging practices.

In the midst of the controversy, both pairs strove to maintain a sense of camaraderie and sportsmanship. "We are not the bad guys, and we don't steal anything from anybody," Sikharulidze said in a People piece. "We have a good relationship with Jamie and David." "Anton and Yelena are our friends," Pelletier maintained in the same article. Six days after the controversy erupted, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge announced the suspension of Le Gouge and said that Sale and Pelletier would be awarded co-gold medals with Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze in a special medals ceremony.

On February 17, the Canadians and the Russians shared the podium; the two sets of friends exchanged small talk and gifts as 700 journalists and a worldwide television audience tuned in to see the dual gold medalists. But while Sale and Pelletier maintained a professional face during the Olympic uproar, there was some underlying resentment. Pelletier said he was "ready to go down the skeleton run without a helmet," according to Deacon. When Sale was asked whether the vote-tampering had denied the pair a rightful place at the top, she "left no doubt that she felt a terrible loss," Deacon added. She told him that a gold medal was "what I have dreamed for, well, for my whole life. You bet I feel cheated out of that. Big-time."