Charles Hamelin claimed Olympic 500 metres short track gold for hosts Canada as race leader Sung Si-Back slipped in the final turn and Apolo Anton Ohno was disqualified.
In a wild final Hamelin got gold, Sung silver and a second Canadian, Francois-Louis Trembley, bronze.
The world champion Hamelin led from the start until South Korea’s Sung moved ahead on the penultimate back straight.
But Sung then slippedg coming out of the final turn and almost took down Hamelin, who just kept his footing to cross the line first.
Ohno followed and Sung slid across the line third, but the referee then ruled that Ohno had impeded Trembley and pushed him out in the last turn.
The 2006 race winner Ohno was disqualified instead of getting an eighth medal, Sung was bumped to silver and Trembley to bronze.
Ohno was disqualified for IMPEDING another skater. From the actual rules of short track “Impeding occurs when a skater hinders another skaters progress. This can happen by bumping or pushing another skater. A tiny bump can throw off another skaters stride, making them slow down in order to regain their balance and rhythm. Touching another skater is not allowed during a race. Usually it’s up to the referees discretion to decide whether a touch was accidental or it impeded another skater progress to the finish line.” Re-run the video. Ohno neither pushed nor bumped Tremblay. Everyone, including the two refs, awere so busy watching what Ohno was doing that they totally missed Charles Hamelin’s hand go up under the leader’s, Korea’s Sung Si-Bak,left side, watch Hamelin’s white gloved hand as he PUSHES Sung Si-Bak and causes him to lose control, then Hamelin trips as he nearly runs over Si-Bak’s left hand. Si-Bak went out of control because Hamelin PUSHED him. We watched the video a number of times and one particular angle undeniably shows Hameli’s white gloved hand go up on Si-Bak’s side then PUSH him to the right, that is the exact point when Si-Bak lost control. Hamelin should have been DQ’ed. Re-run the race.