Russians threaten Olympic walkout

The Russians today threatened to pull out of the Winter Olympics.

In a new sport cold war, President Vladimir Putin said Russian athletes had been cheated out of Olympic gold medals and urged his team to be "forceful" in demanding justice.

It now appears possible that Russia may even decide to boycott the 2004 Athens summer Olympics in protest.

The threat to quit Salt Lake City seems to stem from the Kremlin itself. Russian Sports Minister Pavel Rozhkov said Mr Putin had told him: "We must be more forceful and make a much stronger stand in defending our athletes."

The row erupted as the BBC claimed it had drawn nearly six million viewers for last night's curling final, in which the British team became the first for 18 years to win a winter gold.

Today's war of words was threatening to eclipse that achievement as Mr Putin said openly that judging of his countrymen had been "biased". The Russians claim they have been "humiliated" by unfair judging in cross-country skiing and figure skating.

They say they also believe judges deliberately tried to make their team lose Wednesday's ice hockey quarter-final against world champions Czech Republic, which the Russians eventually won 1-0. Mr Putin blamed " exceptional commercialisation", saying this was against the spirit of the Olympics.

Russian Olympic Committee president Leonid Tyagachev told International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge that his nation was "greatly unappreciated" in the Games and warned that if Russia left Salt Lake City, it probably would not compete in Athens either.

The row revived memories of the depths of sport's cold war when US athletes boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics over Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.

Mr Rogge today tried to talk the Russians out of drastic action after the country's Olympic bosses threatened the walkout unless he addressed their concerns within 24 hours.

He had earlier insisted he was hopeful a crisis could be averted, having written directly to Mr Putin. "I hope common sense in the interests of the athletes will prevail," said Mr Rogge.

Russia's figure skating pair won gold in Utah but after a protest by the second-placed Canadians, were awarded duplicate golds. Russian cross-country skier Larissa Lazutina was disqualified from the women's relay when pre-race tests showed abnormally high haemoglobin.

Are the Russians bad losers?