Russian President Vladimir Putin today branded the Winter Games "a flop" as his sports delegation escalated its complaints, filing a protest alleging that the judges were biased in Thursday night's figure skating finals and demanding a duplicate gold medal for Irina Slutskaya, who finished second. But in the end, the protest was denied and the Russians did not quit the Games as threatened.
That was not the only disappointment of the day for the Russians. Instead, 22 years to the day after perhaps the greatest Olympic hockey upset in history -- the United States' 1980 "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y. -- the Americans withstood a furious third-period rally by the Russians to win, 3-2.
The Russians were outshot 38-11 and trailed 3-0 after two periods, but scored just 11 seconds into the third period and added their second goal a little more than three minutes later. The game then turned into a desperate effort by the Russians to score that was reminiscent of the game in Lake Placid 22 years ago. But the United States remained unbeaten in 70 years in Olympic play on home ice, and the Russians move into the bronze medal game Saturday against Belarus.
Jacques Rogge, the new Belgian president of the International Olympic Committee, today took "multiple meetings" with Russian officials, who agreed to remain in the Winter Games and who will submit a list of their concerns about judging and other matters. Francois Carrard, director general of the IOC, said that this "list of grievances" will be studied and that Rogge will press the various sporting federations, which oversee the actual judging of events, to respond later this year.
"The national team will stay," said Vitaly Smirnov, Russia's member of the IOC's executive board, who on Thursday warned that his country's entire team would pull out if its grievances were not addressed.
The threats marked a return to a kind of Cold War rhetoric, with lots of shouting about wounded national pride.
The Russian delegation this morning filed a formal protest with the International Skating Union contesting the gold medal awarded to American Sarah Hughes in Thursday night's figure skating final over Slutskaya.
The Russian protest charged that the judges were biased against Slutskaya and requested that the Russian skater receive her own gold medal, as Canadian pairs skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier did after the ISU found evidence of judicial misconduct by a French judge whose vote gave the gold to Russians Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya.
"We don't want to take the gold medal away from the American skater, but our skater deserved a gold medal," said Russian team spokesman Rudolf Nezvegsky.
But late in the day, the ISU rejected the Russian appeal. The Russians could pursue the matter before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"We were impressed by the American figure skaters," Leonid Tyagachev, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee, told Reuters television today before the protest was rejected. "But two of them made small mistakes and, of course, Slutskaya was the best, better than the young American skater."
In the women's long program Thursday night, the Russian judge awarded Hughes a fourth-place finish, while five judges gave Hughes a first-place finish. The 16-year-old is the first woman in Olympic history to perform two triple-triple combination jumps in the same program.
The Russian delegation's frustration with its treatment at the Winter Games first boiled over at a raucous news conference Thursday night, when Russian officials accused referees in ice hockey and judges in figure skating of unfairly penalizing their athletes and favoring those of other nations.
The Russians were also upset because one of their women cross-country skiers, nine-time Olympic medalist Larissa Lazutina, was disqualified from the 20-kilometer relay Thursday morning after a pre-race blood test showed high amounts of hemoglobin.
At a news conference today in Moscow, Putin, calling the Salt Lake games "a flop," reprimanded Russian officials for swallowing what he said were too many biased decisions against the country's athletes. But both Putin and the Russian legislature stopped short of calling for the team pack up in protest and forgo competition in the remaining events.
"Let's see how the Olympic Games end," Putin told reporters at the Kremlin. Putin singled out Rogge for blame. "The first attempt was a flop for the new IOC leadership," he said.
From the Russian parliament to day-care centers, Putin's views were widely echoed today across the Russian nation. Despite a growing consensus that the cards are stacked against their teams, most Russians say it would be wrong to withdraw. A call-in poll conducted today by RTR state television found that 65 percent of respondents wanted the Russians to stay in Salt Lake City.
Television commentators suggested Russia has not suffered so many bad calls in the Olympics since the Cold War.
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, said the Games smacked of an earlier era when sports competition was viewed as "a confrontation of two worlds."
"These people praise us when it's in their interests," Margelov said. "They pinch us in the nose when we are in the way."
In an angry session, the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 417-0 on a nonbinding resolution to boycott the Closing Ceremonies of the Games unless the IOC apologized.
Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said Putin received a letter today from Rogge that indicated the committee's disregard for Russia's concerns. The letter, in which Rogge defended the decisions against Russian athletes, was addressed to A. Putin, according to Yastrzhembsky. "Mr. Rogge should know that our president's name is not Antoine," he said.
Alexei Volin, Putin's deputy chief of staff, said the number of disqualified Russian athletes was too high to be just an accident, and pointed to a deliberate campaign to discredit the entire Russian team.
Russian Aluminum, a firm sponsoring the Russian team, announced it would hire one of the world's leading law firms to defend Russian competitors because "the Olympic organizers are engaged in real warfare."
The issue of bias has captured the Russian public's attention like few other topics in recent months. An estimated 92 percent of Moscow residents are watching the Games on a state-controlled channel.
One looming concern to the Russian government was the referees for tonight's U.S.-Russia hockey game, all of whom were provided by the National Hockey League.
"I find it hard to imagine how you can guarantee quality and objectivity in the officiating, given that the referees live and work in North America," Putin said. That amounts to "a clear advantage" for the Americans, even if the referees try to be fair, he said.
But Putin did not mention that 21 of Russia's 22 men's hockey players and all of the United States' play in the NHL.
Russia has also complained of unfair refereeing during its team's quarterfinal hockey match against the Czech Republic, and protested what it called biased judging in the women's freestyle aerials event.
Today's hockey match against the United States was expected to draw a huge television audience in Russia, even though the live broadcast did not begin until 2:15 a.m. On Moscow's subway this morning, riders made plans to pick up beer after work and stay up all night. Owners of bars with big-screen television sets prepared for crowds.
LaFraniere reported from Moscow.