April 5, 2000 7:16 AM Reuters

MOSCOW, April 5 (Reuters) - Russian figure skating chief Valentin Piseyev on Wednesday blasted the ISU, the sport's world governing body, for what he called biased treatment of his skaters at last week's world championships.

"There has been a deliberate campaign aimed at preventing our skaters from winning," Piseyev, president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, said. "I understand the problem, no one wants one country to win all the gold medals."

Russia won only two golds in Nice after claiming all four titles at last year's world championships in Helsinki.

"Actually, this campaign started right after last year's world championships when one of our judges, Svyatoslav Babenko, was suddenly banned by the ISU for three years," Piseyev said.

"At the same time, it seems that judges from other countries are often left unpunished after they mark our skaters down."

Babenko was suspended for misconduct after he communicated with his Ukrainian counterpart Albert Korytek, exchanging information on the performances of the Chinese and Polish pairs, the silver and bronze medallists in the event in Helsinki.

Last month, the ISU reduced the ban on Babenko to 18 months.

Piseyev said the worst situation, when it comes to judging, was in ice dancing, singling out Britain's Courtney Jones, who was chief referee during the ice dancing competition in Nice.

"At the end he couldn't explain to the judges when they got together to review the competition why they should discuss the mistakes of only some of the couples rather than all skaters," the Russian chief said.

"Obviously he picked our couple, Irina Lobacheva and Ilya Averbukh, and began dissecting their mistakes but when our judge asked to look at the skating of the French and Italian dancers, he simply refused to discuss their performances," he said.

"As a whole I feel the ice dancing competition needs a lot of changes and restructuring," Piseyev added.

"As it is, it is just too subjective, up to the judges, who they like or dislike. You need very concrete rules on how to judge every element, every specific move, otherwise it's always going to be open to controversy."

Piseyev said that the dancing competition in Nice turned into a battle off the ice as much as on it.

"There was so much pressure on the judges that the final outcome was almost predetermined by the skaters' previous rankings," he said.

In the end, Piseyev said he knows only one way to beat biased officiating.

"I always tell our skaters: 'You have to be twice as better as your closest rivals, that way no one can take the gold from you'," he said.

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