You didn’t think we’d seen the last of the Olympic blunders, did you? It looks like Sven Kramer will now join the ranks of skier Marion Rolland, who crashed coming out of the gate, in making a monumental Olympic goof. At least he can blame his coach for it.
With a gold medal in the 5,000 meter already secured, Kramer was also the favorite to win the 10,000 meter.
In long track speedskating, racers must switch lanes after each backstretch. On the 17th lap of this race, however, Kramer took his coach’s advice and skated the duration of the race in the wrong lane.
“It is pretty hard now, I was on my way to make the right decision and right before the corner I changed my decision because of the advice from the (coach). At the end of the day, it is my responsibility. I am the skater on the ice, I have to do it.”
As a result of the blunder, South Korea’s Lee Seung-hoon won the gold medal, even though his time was 4 seconds behind that of Kramer, whose performance will never even be recorded.
Ivan Skobrev of Russia got the silver, while Dutchman Bob de Jong took the bronze.
Watch the video below for more:
More here: Winter Olympics
Pre-order the Winter Olympics 2010 DVD now
Kramer’s coach agonizes over his costly mistake
Related articles by Zemanta
- Skater Kramer cries tears of golden anguish after disqualification (cnn.com)
- Unlikeliest of errors costs Kramer Olympic gold (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Sven Kramer’s Big Mistake: Who’s Stupid Now? (bleacherreport.com)
- Sven Kramer’s Lane Change Error Costs Him Olympic Gold (huffingtonpost.com)
- Dutchman Loses Gold and a Record (vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com)
Incoming search terms:
Get Blippitt via RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
