Author`s name Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Vancouver: Mutton Dressed as Lamb



We already have the case of a Russian skier being hounded to produce a urine sample after qualifying for a race, and if she had given the sample, she would not have had the possibility of entering the following round. Natalya Korosteleva was asked to provide a urine sample during a half-hour pause between the quarter-finals and semi-finals of a skiing event. “This seems against all the rules,” she stated, as she refused to have the sample taken, alleging that if she did, she would not have had time to continue in the next phase. Why her?


Maybe it is this which makes the Canadians so…retentive, or cowardly. So it is not exactly a huge surprise to have international skating experts from the four corners of the Earth criticising the decision to award the Men’s figure skating Gold medal to the US athlete Evan Lysacekv over the reigning Olympic Champion Evgeny Plushenko, whose superior performance was inexplicably ignored.

As Plushenko explains, “I did a great short program but did not get the marks I deserved. When I asked why, they told me I was skating early and they had to retain top marks for the last group…Then in the free program, I was the last to skate, did everything clean and still didn’t get the marks”.




Russia Today: Cheer Canada, Cry Russia!