Pelletier, Sale still skating on gold ice

It's easy to remember David Pelletier and Jamie Sale only as the unfortunate victims of "Skategate" at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

After all, Pelletier and Sale were the Canadian pair figure skaters who performed flawlessly and were initially denied the gold medal by the judges, one of whom later admitted to improprieties in the voting.

Even casual fans of the sport were outraged by the result and the ensuing controversy, and Pelletier and Sale were cast as the poor Canadians who had been robbed of what should have been their moment of glory.

But there's no need to feel sorry for them.

They eventually were awarded gold medals, sharing first place with Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze. They won millions of fans for the grace and dignity they displayed on and off the ice. And they are the first to admit they benefited financially from the worldwide publicity.

"Everything turned out really great," Sale said in a telephone interview. "We were fortunate to sign a four-year contract with Smucker's and Stars on Ice. We have great corporate sponsors. We have gold medals. Life is good."

Pelletier and Sale are among the brightest stars on the U.S. tour of Smucker's Stars on Ice, which visits Milwaukee in a show at 7 tonight at the Bradley Center.

The show also features Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze, along with men's Olympic gold medal-winner Alexei Yagudin.

Returning to the tour are two-time Olympic champion Katarina Witt, six-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge, four-time world champion Kurt Browning and U.S. pair champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand and Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman.

Even though Sale and Pelletier are skating professionally now, they continue to push themselves athletically and artistically. They skate two solos in the Stars on Ice show, plus numbers with Eldredge and Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze.

"We do some pretty big tricks," Sale said. "You still want to get better every year. It's more the men and ladies who do the big quads (quadruple jumps) and then (don't try them in shows). For us as professionals, our goal is to keep challenging ourselves."

Said Pelletier: "We don't want to just cash in and do the same thing we were doing as amateurs. Right now, it's more fun because we don't have rules."

They also don't have to worry about impressing judges.

"The spectators own the show," Pelletier said. "It's about what they like."

Nearly a year has passed since "Skategate," and Sale and Pelletier are still recognized everywhere they go. They get two distinctly different reactions, depending whether they are in the United States or Canada.

"In Canada, people always come up to us and say, 'We're very proud of the way you handled it and represented our country,' " Pelletier said. "In the U.S., people come up and say, 'You got robbed.'