Jamie Salé

Jamie Salé, figure skater (born 21 April 1977 in Calgary, Alberta). She and her partner, David Pelletier, formed an exceptional figure-skating pair in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A resident of Red Deer, Alberta, Salé began skating at the age of 5. In 1994, she and her partner at the time, Jason Turner, skated in the pairs competition at the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. For the next few years, she pursued a solo career. In 1998, she tried pairs skating again with a new partner—Pelletier—and quickly recognized their great potential as a figure-skating pair. In 2002, Salé and Pelletier moved to Edmonton to work with coach Jan Ullmark and choreographer Lori Nichol.

The couple began competing officially in 1998, but Salé had to have an operation for tendinitis, and in 1999, Pelletier suffered a back injury, which kept them out of the World Championships. In their first pairs competition, at Skate Canada in 1998, Pelletier and Salé came in third against stiff competition. The next year, they won the Skate America pairs competition. In 2000, the young, attractive couple swept first place at Skate Canada, Skate America and the International Skating Union (ISU) Four Continents Championship and came in fourth at the World Championships. In 2001, they won the ISU Four Continents Championship, the ISU Grand Prix Final Championship, Skate Canada and the World Championship in Vancouver, where they enthralled the public with their near-perfect performances, dominated by their spectacular throw triple loop. In 2001-2002, after having defeated the best skaters in the world at Skate America, Skate Canada and the ISU Grand Prix Final, Pelletier and Salé took their third Canadian championship in a row while preparing for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games.

Their victory at Salt Lake City was bitter, however. The controversy surrounding the loss of their medal to the Russian couple Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze made headlines around the world and was quickly dubbed “Skategate”. In the days following the event, media coverage of the suspected scandal surrounding the pairs judges made Salé and Pelletier superstars and won them the sympathy of the entire world. Four days later, the ISU, under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, found the French judge, Marie-Reine le Gougne, guilty of fraud for having deprived Salé and Pelletier of the gold medal that so many people thought they so richly deserved. As a result, a gold medal was awarded to each of the two couples at a special joint ceremony held after the ice-dancing competition. Shortly after receiving their gold medal, Salé and Pelletier announced that because of the tumultuous circumstances of their Olympic performance, they did not have the mental energy to prepare for another international competition in the near future and hence would not defend their title at the world championships in Nagano, Japan in March 2002. But the two skaters were showered with praise for their gracious reaction to the controversial events and the good sportsmanship that they had shown toward Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze. Salé and Pelletier’s great assets are their youth, their charm, their complementary physiques and, of course, the remarkable athleticism and skill that they display in their spectacular lifts and throw jumps.