Team Canada Pulled Cheap Stunt to Keep U.S. Athlete from Winter Olympics

Americans officially now have a reason to blame Canada.

A recent investigation found that the Canadian Olympic team pulled a cheap stunt to keep a U.S. athlete from competing in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.

“American skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender, 41, was competing at the North American Cup in Lake Placid when Team Canada’s coach pulled four athletes out of the competition at the last minute,” according to the New York Post.

“The sudden switcheroo reduced the number of points participants could earn, making it mathematically impossible for Uhlaender to qualify the upcoming games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, according to an investigation by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation,” it added.

Uhlaender has competed in five other Winter Olympic Games and called the move an intentional act of unsportsmanlike conduct.

“The action of the Canadians was intentional and directed to reduce the points available to athletes who slid at the final Lake Placid NAC,” the federation investigators said Thursday.

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton originally said the team withdrew “after careful evaluation of the program’s needs” and “careful consideration of athlete health, safety, and long-term development.”

“It was determined that continuing to race these athletes was not in their best interests, nor in the best interests of the program,” it said.

Those talking points were later drawn into question after one Team Canada’s racers said that the coaches made the withdraw decision in “the best interest for the way points had worked.”

“They had come over and explained to us that it would be in the best interest for the way points had worked for Jane [Channell], so that we as a team can qualify two spots to the Olympics,” Canadian skeleton racer Madeline Parra told The Canadian Press.

Investigators concurred that the decision was a deliberate act of sabotage.

“Substantial evidence supports Ms. Uhlaender’s contention that the move was a deliberate effort by Canada to reduce the points available at the final Lake Placid NAC so as to protect its own Olympic quotas,” the federation said.

The IBSF said it will neither penalize Canada nor give Uhlaender a chance to qualify for the Olympics.

“Although the disqualification of an athlete and cancellation of results may have collateral impacts (other participants moving up in official finishes, for example), the Olympic Movement Code does not set out standards or means by which event records can be changed other than through sanctions,” the announcement read.

Uhlaender told Fox News there should be consequences.

“This was blatant competition manipulation, yet there have been no consequences for the coach involved,” she said.  “I am fighting for what is right. I am fighting for my rightful Olympic opportunity. But more importantly, I am fighting for every athlete who has been harmed by competition manipulation. I am far from the only athlete affected by these actions.”

 

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