Violinist ‘fixed results’ to become Olympian
A 35-year-old Thai violinist who became an Olympic skier has been banned from the sport for four years after being found guilty of manipulating results in order to qualify for the Winter Olympics.
The International Skiing Federation (FIS) concluded that Vanessa Mae’s results were manipulated during trials in Slovenia to enable the 35-year-old violinist, whose real name is Vanessa Mae Vanakorn, to compete at the Sochi Winter Olympics in February.
The FIS report discovered a number of anomalies, including a skier who had fallen being included in the final standings.
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The weather conditions had been so bad that no regular race could be held and “any comparable competition in Slovenia would have been cancelled” according to the competition referee.
“After considering written submissions and testimony at a hearing on 3rd October 2014, the Hearing Panel found to its comfortable satisfaction that the results of the four ladies giant slalom races that took place on 18th and 19th January 18 2014 at Krvavec (SLO) were manipulated, resulting in the calculation of FIS Points that do not reflect the true performance of the competitors that participated in those events and in particular the points awarded to Vanessa Vanakorn (Mae),” the statement added.
“In the event that the results of the competitions are annulled, Vanessa Vanakorn (THA), Federica Selva (RSM) and Ieva Januskeviciute (LTU) would not have achieved the necessary FIS point performance level to be eligible to participate in the Olympic Winter Games.”
FIS also banned a number of officials over the incident.
The federation report at the time documented irregularities ranging from falsified starting lists and rankings and even race dates, but federation president president Jurij Zurej said there was no evidence that “the competitor for whom the races had been fixed knew about these violations”.
“We have no evidence that a bribe was given… there are signs that money was paid but we still do not know for what purpose,” he added.
In Sochi, the Singapore-born British former child prodigy who admitted she had begun training just six months before the Olympics, came 67th and last in the giant slalom, far behind the rest of the field.
Mae, a UK resident, has sold millions of albums around the world featuring her mix of modern and classical violin playing.