Rookie mistake stuns speed skating crowd

By all accounts, Sven Kramer of the Netherlands should have won the gold in today’s 10,000m speed skating event. Distracted, his coach, Gerard Kemkers, directed him to the wrong lane and inadvertently disqualified him.  Speed skaters race in pairs and switch lanes in the backstretch to make sure the distances are even. Kramer says he thought he must have been confused, and trusted his coach to put him in the right spot. It’s an automatic disqualification to miss the switch; Kramer ended up skating 8 pointless laps and finished thinking he’d won.  His coach is crushed with guilt. Ouch.

Seung-Hoon Lee of Korea commented that he felt awful for Kramer, and that the gold he was awarded really wasn’t his. He set a new Olympic record of 12:58.55, but who knows what Kramer would have come in at. Ivan Skobrev of Russia got silver, Bob De Jong of the Netherlands got an unexpected bronze.