MILWAUKEE — Olympic speedskating champion Dan Jansen's estranged wife has filed court papers accusing her husband of adultery and abandonment.

Robin Jansen is also seeking custody of the couple's two children and alimony and child support.

Robin Jansen says her husband had an "illicit sexual relationship'' with Christine Rosa, 35, manager of athlete and team relations for Sports Illustrated magazine in New York.

The court papers, filed in Charlotte, N.C., say the relationship began during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta when Robin Jansen was helping to nurse her terminally ill father.

Dan Jansen told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in today's editions that he and Rosa had been dating for five months. Jansen is at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, as a commentator for CBS.

"But we [he and his wife] have been separated for a year and a half. I don't consider that adultery,'' he said. He said he knew Rosa in 1996 in Atlanta but was not in a sexual relationship with her at that time.

Dan Jansen called his wife's claims ludicrous and false. "I'm just very sad for my little girls. I don't know why she would want to do something like this and make it public. When people read things, they believe things,'' he said.

Rosa said she and Dan Jansen were both working at the Atlanta Olympics and that she is friends with him. She, too, denied Robin Jansen's charge. "I book athletes for events,'' Rosa said. "It would not be unusual for me to be friends with athletes since that's part of my job.''

Dan Jansen, 32, filed divorce papers nearly a year ago in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. At the time, he requested joint custody of the couple's daughters. Jansen said lawyers in the divorce case he filed were very close to a settlement.

Robin Jansen, 39, declined to comment on her countersuit.