A Gold for a Gold...and a Visa Too?

How the biggest Olympic vote-fixing scandal may turn out to be a Mob job

Somewhere, the ghost of Boris Badenov is snickering with malevolent glee. Rocky and Bullwinkle's cartoon nemesis must be grateful that Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov is carrying on the great tradition of Russian nogoodnik.

Italian and U.S. officials last week fingered Tokhtakhounov, 53, a bull-headed Uzbek long linked with the Russian Mafia, as the mind behind the skating scandal at last winter's Salt Lake City Olympics, when tumble-down Russian pairs skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won gold over Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian duo who gave a demonstrably superior performance. Now implicated in the mess are the gold-winning French ice-dance...

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