Austrians Pee Cleanly

The urine tests on the Austrian biathletes and cross-country skiers conducted during the police raid on their residence last weekend came back negative, but the investigation continues. (Blood tests were not conducted at the time because they would have affected the outcome of their races, but they have been done since.)

See previous entries: Results for Sunday, February 19; Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Austrian Edition; Austrian Doping Scandal Update.

Austrian Doping Scandal Update

The Austrians have fessed up, admitting that the two skiers who bravely turned their tails and fled after the surprise Italian police raid over the weekend "may" have used illegal doping methods. Neither of the athletes in question were on the teams that finished last in the cross-country or biathlon relays, so the DFL standings are unaffected. But that may change: the tests aren't finished yet.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Austrian Edition

The story about the Austrian biathlon/cross-country ski team -- some of whom finished last in the 4×10-km relay yesterday, you'll remember -- and their banned coach keeps getting weirder: Italian police report that they did in fact find doping equipment, two of the 10 athletes tested have been punted from the team for going home without permission, and the banned coach is in custody after crashing a roadblock near the Italy-Austria border. (In other news, the paperwork involving a positive pre-Games test of a biathlete -- not necessarily Austrian -- has mysteriously gone missing.)

Results for Sunday, February 19

Alpine Skiing: Due to bad weather, the women's Super-G has been rescheduled until tomorrow.

Bobsled: The Hungarian team of Márton Gyulai, 26, and Bertalan Pintér, 32, finished 29th in the men's two-man bobsled. Those not in the top 20 apparently did not make a fourth run; their combined time of 2:53.01 was based on three runs -- at that point they were 2.39 seconds back.

Cross-country Skiing: In the men's 4×10-kilometre relay, the Austrian team of Roland Diethart, 32, Johannes Eder, 26, Jürgen Pinter, 26, and Martin Tauber, 29, was lapped during the fourth leg, at which point their race was over; they placed 16th as a result.

Now there's a bit of news behind this last-place finish. The Austrian skiers claim that their race was "ruined" because they were subject to a raid the night before by Italian police looking for evidence of doping, along with late-night doping tests. The raid occurred because of a tip that Walter Mayer was in Torino with the Austrian athletes. Mayer had been banned by the IOC for ten years for being suspected of conducting blood transfusions at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games after equipment was found in a chalet. Despite the controversy surrounding Mayer, however, he's still head of Austria's cross-country skiing and biathlon program. If the Austrians test positive for anything, they will be stripped of their DFL according to precedent.

Speed Skating: 25-year-old Romanian skater Daniela Oltean finished 35th in the women's 1,000-metre with a time of 1:21.70. That was 5.65 seconds behind the gold medallist. There was one DNF.

Standings to date: Austria enters the standings near the back, Hungary moves into eighth place, and, due to a smaller contingent than South Korea's, Romania regains the lead.

Steven Ferguson Update

A few days back I mentioned Steven Ferguson, the New Zealander who deliberately finished last (not what DFL stands for, incidentally) so as to avoid competing in the semifinals and to save his strength for the 1,000-metre K2 final. In the end, though, Ferguson and his partner, Ben Fouhy, finished eighth (out of nine) in that final Friday morning, about three seconds behind the winner. Whether this is just the result of bad karma or an indication that saving his strength may have helped, but not enough, who can say?

Incidentally, this story in yesterday's New Zealand Herald, which highlights the Ferguson story but talks about coming in last in general, is pretty good.

New Zealand Kayaking Controversy

Controversy has erupted in New Zealand as a result of a deliberate last-place finish by one of its athletes. Kayaker Steven Ferguson deliberately paddled slowly to finish last in his K1 500-metre heat earlier today in order to avoid making the semifinals. He was nursing a back injury and wanted to save himself for the K2 1,000-metre final, where he and his teammate are medal hopefuls, but didn't withdraw from the 500-metre K1 because you can't withdraw from just one event: if you pull out, you're disqualified from the entire regatta.

Now this didn't go over well with everyone: New Zealand kayaker Owen Hughes -- not at the Games -- called Ferguson's actions "pathetic" and an "embarrassment," saying that Ferguson's spot in the race could have been occupied by someone who was willing to compete, and alleged that the reason Ferguson had that spot was because his father, Ian Ferguson, was the team's coach.

It's not always sweetness and light at the back of the pack, is it? (Thanks to Alan and Regan for help with this story.)

Last-Place Finisher Disqualified

One thing you don't generally expect is to have a last-place finisher test positive for a banned substance -- fat lot of good the steroids are doing if you use them and you still finish dead fucking last. And yet that's just what has happened: Olga Shchukina of Uzbekistan, who, I reported Wednesday, finished last in the women's shot put, has tested positive for the steroid clenbuterol. At least she denies it like a top athlete: by blaming the cough syrup!

Accordingly, since this blog celebrates last-place finishes, and not DNFs, DQs and drug cheats (at least the ones we know about), the last-place finish goes to Eva Kurti of Hungary, who had the next lowest score of 14.60.

Diving Disruptor Disciplined

Greek justice is evidently swift. The dorkwad who disrupted the men's 3-metre synchronized springboard has already been convicted and fined. We also know who he is: Ron Bensimhon of Montreal. The Toronto Star has the details (via SportsFilter).

Synchronized Diving Torpedoed

A followup to my last post, wherein I mentioned the men's 3-metre springboard synchronized diving event. It turns out that just looking at the results doesn't give you the full story.

The last-place Chinese team was apparently the gold-medal favourite, but, according to the BBC, "a mystery spectator -- dressed in traditional Greek knickerbockers with the name of an internet betting company scrawled on his bare chest -- jumped on to one of the boards not being used for competition and bombed into the pool."

After the competition was delayed and the dorkwad was hauled off, the divers proceeded to botch their last dives. The U.S. team had a terrible landing, one of the Russians touched the board on the way down -- generating a very low score -- and one of the Chinese divers (no one seems to know who's who) hit the water on his back, generating the even lower score of zero. Leaving the expected winners in last place and the actual winners surprised.

All because some web site tried to spam the Olympics with a cannonball-diving fuckwit.