{"id":58904,"date":"2018-02-15T07:22:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T07:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=58904"},"modified":"2018-02-15T07:22:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T07:22:08","slug":"2018-winter-olympics-frosty-relations-between-u-s-russian-skeleton-racers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/2018-winter-olympics-frosty-relations-between-u-s-russian-skeleton-racers.html","title":{"rendered":"2018 Winter Olympics: Frosty relations between U.S., Russian skeleton racers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

2018 Winter Olympics: Frosty relations between U.S., Russian skeleton racers?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Olympics are supposed to be a time of unity and sportsmanship, when any pre-existing political strife or conflict is placed aside in favor of pursuit of the Olympic ideal.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that has largely held true at the Winter Games, evidenced most clearly in the slight thaw of relations competition has yielded between South Korea and North Korea. Earlier in the Games, South Korea played host to a North Korean delegation that included Kim Jong Un\u2019s sister, Kim Yo Jong. On Wednesday, the South Korean government agreed to pay $2.64 million to offset the North\u2019s expenses while in Pyeongchang.<\/span><\/p>\n

But not all athletes have fully embraced the Olympic spirit, it seems.<\/span><\/p>\n

A cold war of words \u2014 or, rather, a lack of words \u2014 has broken out on the skeleton track between the USA and a team of Olympic Athletes of Russia, driven by the recent doping scandal that emerged from the Sochi Games and the decision made just before the opening ceremony here that 47 Russian athletes and coaches would be ineligible for competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two Russian sliders at Alpensia Sliding Centre \u2014 Nikita Tregubov and Vladislav Marchenkov \u2014 were not implicated in the investigation into the country\u2019s doping program, allowing the pair to participate under unique circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee granted Russians with no known history of using performance-enhancing drugs the opportunity to compete as neutral, unaffiliated athletes. They are represented by the Olympic flag, and Russian athletes who win gold medals will be serenaded on the medal podium by the Olympic anthem.<\/span><\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t eased the underlying tension between athletes from the two countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo I believe they’ve competed fairly? No, and I’ve been very vocal about that,\u201d the USA\u2019s Matt Antoine said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. \u201cSo I don’t really have a need to have a conversation with those athletes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked by USA TODAY Sports on Thursday to comment on his relationship with the Russian sliders, Antoine declined: \u201cI\u2019ll pass,\u201d he said. Tregubov and Marchenkov also declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Antoine\u2019s teammate, John Daly, struck a more conciliatory tone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m friends with everybody, so I chat with everyone,\u201d Daly said. If there is an issue, he added, \u201cI haven\u2019t found out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAthletes from other countries acknowledged the underlying cause of the dispute \u2014 the doping scandal trails all Russian athletes, even those allowed to race in Pyeongchang \u2014 but said it had no impact on their relationships with Tregubov and Marchenkov, whom New Zealand\u2019s Rhys Thornbury called \u201ctwo great guys.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI say hello to them as much as I say hello to other people, maybe more so than other people,\u201d Thornbury said. \u201cPeople might think it\u2019s bad that they\u2019re here, but if you ask me, if they\u2019re here then it\u2019s because they\u2019re allowed to slide. The athletes that are here haven\u2019t been banned. In my eyes, they haven\u2019t done anything wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re irritated with their inclusion, Thornbury suggested, maybe you should refocus your anger away from the athletes and toward a doping program the IOC believed had conducted a \u201csystematic manipulation\u201d of tests during the Sochi Games. The IOC has stripped Russia of 41 medals \u2014 10 gold, 21 silver and 10 bronze \u2014 since the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re upset that someone\u2019s here sliding, then maybe don\u2019t be upset at the slider. Maybe be upset with how everything works out and how the whole program works.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, better yet, sliders should concentrate on their performance at the Winter Games, said Germany\u2019s Axel Jungk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to do your own stuff and not look too much to the other people,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/winter-olympics-2018\/2018\/02\/15\/2018-winter-olympics-frosty-relations-between-usa-russian-skeleton-racers\/339925002\/<\/span><\/p>\n

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