Friday, June 6, 2014

ISU Dismisses Korean Skating Union Complaints over Sochi Results

So I guess it's official now, the ISU will not entertain any suggestion that the ladies competition in Sochi was rigged. They've rejected all the official complaints from the Korean Skating Union over the results.

The ISU essentially said one complaint was without merit and the other was filed too late after the competition.

The Russian judge at the center of the alleged controversy offered a statement of her behavior - she was seen hugging and congratulating gold medalist Adelina Sotnikova before the awards ceremony - saying  (as per the NBCSports article I read):

“After the end of the Event I walked in the arena and had to stop at the mixed zone because the flower ceremony was going to start and the hall way was blocked by TV crews, ceremony stuff, skaters, and a lot of other people. Adelina Sotnikova was there. She was very excited and she was hugging everybody around whom she knew. This can be seen on the mentioned YouTube piece- that she ran to several people whom she knew. But this YouTube piece shows only 3-4 persons. In reality there were much more. For example, she was whipping of happiness on the shoulder of the Russian Assistant Team 5 leader for more than a minute before she approached me and this episode was shown a lot on TV including the closing ceremony video but was not shown on the mentioned YouTube piece. And as I said the skater was so excited that she was running to everybody whom she knew. She also approached me and embraced me. Of course, I congratulated her with her performance.” 

If you ask me, the judge shouldn't even have been down there, let alone let the girl hug her (though seriously, that doesn't look like a reluctant hug to me). Judges and skaters should not be mingling anywhere. Whether or not there was some rigging, the situation destroys the credibility of the sport.

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