Russians and SKorean team complaints

(22 Feb 2002) Salt Lake City - 21 Feb 2002 1. Wide shot of Russian Olympic Committee press briefing on Thursday evening 2. Mid shot of briefing Salt Lake City - 15 Feb 2002 3. Mid shot of photographers at Russia House 4. Mid shot of Russian National Olympic Committee President Leonid Tyagachev with members of Russian team 5. Pan from Russian Olympic Committee flag to athletes and officials 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Anatoly Smirnov, former Russian Olympic Committee president: "Well, the obvious problems in so-called sports is where human error is involved - we cannot avoid mistakes, we cannot avoid attempts of putting pressure on the referees." Salt Lake City - 21 Feb 2002 7. Wide shot of Korean Olympic Committee press briefing 8. Mid shot Korean briefing 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Yoon Kang-Ro, South Korean delegation member: "Gold medals should be awarded to the athlete that finishes first, not to the athlete who is considered to be a crowd favourite." 10. Mid shot of former US Olympians with US speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno 11. Close shot of Ohno's gold medal 12. Wide shot of International Olympic Committee briefing 13. Mid shot of briefing 14. SOUNDBITE (English) Francois Carrard, IOC Director General: "We can understand this emotion - judgement calls. On the other hand the Russian delegation, the Russian athletes and the Russian people have shown a long, long commitment and first class commitment to the Olympic movement and we trust that they will keep this full dedication and commitment." 15. Wide shot of briefing STORYLINE: Top Russian Olympic officials say it's not likely they'll be pulling out of the 2002 Winter Olympic games. But the head of the Russian Olympic team, Leonid Tyagachev, says they're still concerned that Russian athletes aren't being fairly judged. Russian officials protested the women's Olympic figure skating final on Friday, saying silver medalist Irina Slutskaya should get her own gold medal because of biased judging. The protest, announced a day after Russia threatened to pull its team out of the Games, was signed by the president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, Valentin Piseyev, and sent to the referee of Thursday night's long program after American Sarah Hughes won the gold. The protest follows a pair of Thursday evening news briefings by Russian and Korean olympic officials. They're angered by disqualifications of team athletes in cross country skiing and speed skating respectively. Russian officials say they understand that judges will make mistakes due to the subjective nature of judging. But they're following the lead of Canadian team officials who last week protested the results of the pairs figure skating finals, which resulted in the awarding of a second set of gold medals for the Canadian pairs team of David Pelletier and Jamie Sale. International Olympic Committee official Francois Carrard said Olympic officials understand the emotional nature of the reaction by the Russians and Koreans. He said I-O-C officials hope the Russians will continue their strong commitment to the Olympic movement. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e2e4c96467c02b4819062032948eb681