The jury makes a fuss with ‘false start’ for Canadian top candidates: ‘Extremely fishy’ Winter Games

All eyes were on Canadian Laurent Dubreuil for the 500 metres. Not only did he crown himself world champion in February 2021, but he also leads the World Cup standings and has been on the podium at every race.

The Olympic medal seemed obvious to the Canadians. China’s Gao Tingyu had set the gold bar high with an Olympic record (34:32), but Dubreuy honed his December best in Calgary to 33:77.

Dubreuil was the last to keep Gao from China’s first gold medal, but was called up again for a false start on a gold throw. There doesn’t seem to be much going on, but the world champion still had to go back to the start.

Did that false start play a trick on Dubreuil? A second false start could in any case lead to disqualification, so caution is advised. In the end, the Canadian was three hundred from standing on the podium with 34:52.

“This is very fishy, ​​in my opinion,” Bart Feldkamp immediately wrote on Twitter. “This didn’t even come close to a false start.”

Former Dutch skater Martin Hirsman also questioned the “false start”. “Dubruy must be frustrated,” Hersmann said after watching the replay.

The fact that there were 9 skaters between winner Gau (34″ 32) and No. 11 Zurik (34″ 74) shows that even the slightest suspicion at first can be fatal to your medal chances.

Dubreuil did not point the finger at the jury. “I’m not going to lie, I’m very frustrated,” he said. “I came for a medal and in the end I fell short by three hundred. I did my best, but it wasn’t enough today.”

This isn’t the first time at the Winter Games that there has been an uproar about the jury’s decisions. The South Koreans went to TAS Court of Sports after two short-track drivers were disqualified in the 1000m semi-finals.

The final was also controversial, because Sandor Liu had to hand his Olympic title to China’s Ziwei Ren after a very surprising maneuver.