Canadian skater a victim of U.S. sabotage: report
Olivier Jean of Canada competes in the Men's 500m Preliminaries during day two of the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships at the Oriental Sports Center on March 10, 2012 in Shanghai, China.
Canadian Olympic gold medallist Olivier Jean was the victim in an alleged case of sabotage involving the United States short-track speed skating team.
According to reports, U.S. coach Jae Su Chun ordered skater Simon Cho to tamper with Jean’s blades ahead of the 5,000-metre relay final at the 2011 world team championships in Warsaw, Poland.
“It is my darkest secret and I regret it,” Cho wrote to a teammate, according to court documents filed by 13 American skaters trying to have Chun fired for “unchecked abuse.”
Jean, who won relay gold at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, told Radio-Canada Thursday that he discovered at the start line that his skate blade had been bent.
“At the time we didn’t understand what happened. It was hard to explain,” he said.
“We had (suspicions) that they were tampered with, but we had no proof.”
The allegations, first reported by the Chicago Tribune, surfaced as a result of a request for arbitration filed this week, which includes details of a discussion between Cho and a fellow skater this July.
“I know I have done (expletive) up things. I wish I could take them back. But I can’t. . . . And I’m preparing myself for the consequences to come.”
Earlier, Cho told another skater, “Everyone knew Jae Su was the mastermind behind the situation at the World Teams.”
Cho has not commented publicly on the details in the documents.
Chun — who worked briefly with the Canadian team in the 2006-07 season, Jean’s first at the senior level — was placed on administrative leave Sunday.
In the court documents, the skaters allege Chun told U.S. team members to be “obnoxious” toward the Canadians at the championships, “causing great distress” among the athletes who feared retribution if they didn’t follow the coach’s instructions.
Jean, in his sixth year at the senior international level, told reporters from his training base in Montreal that he’d “always had a good relationship” with Chun.
The Canadian relay team was a medal favourite at the 2011 event, but with Jean unable to compete, Canada finished third. The Americans, though, didn’t even qualify for the final. When asked why a team might sabotage another when they weren’t even going to face each other, Phil Legault, director of communications for Speed Skating Canada, said he didn’t know, but added that Canada and the U.S. shared a dressing room during the competition. Robert Dubreuil, director-general of the Quebec Speed Skating Federation and a former Canadian long-track speed skater, noted that in long-track the skaters are racing against the clock, while in short-track they compete side by side.
Dubreuil said the allegations are “unusual” in the sport.
“I’ve been (involved in speed skating) for 38 years . . . and I’ve never really seen stuff like that before.”
Speed skaters’ blades are thinner than hockey or figure skates.
“For somebody that has sharpened skates before, it takes 10, 15, 20 (minutes), half an hour to make good blades at a world championship level,” Dubrueil said. “But it takes one second to ruin them.”
