Okay, I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about Winter sports, let alone the 3,000 meter women’s short track speedskating  final at the Olympics. But seriously, South Korea was robbed. The women’s relay team from South Korea, the four-time defending champion, crossed the finish line well ahead of China and Canada and left the US for dead. The four-strong team kicked straight into celebration mode, making an ecstatic victory lap wielding their flag proudly overhead, only to have the gold ripped from them minutes later after a referee review decided that a South Korean racer had impeded during the exchange push with a few laps to go.

From what I could tell, watching replays and slow-mos, one of the racers swung her arm back at the Chinese racer on the turn, and frankly if someone were coming that close behind me, I would probably do much more. That probably explains why competitive sports aren’t really my thing. Even so, all the replays made it look like a genuine arm swing, and in my untrained opinion, not worthy of disqualification. Nonetheless, the leading referee, some Aussie bloke according to the commentators, though that’s not the label they used,  made the call, which gave China the gold, Canada silver and brought the US into third place with a bronze medal.

 I don’t know how I feel about everyone scooting around the ice celebrating by default. If you win a medal, be it gold or bronze,  because the team that was faster and better on the day was disqualified, is the victory as sweet? Not to put a damper on things, but I think not.