Just watched her 1500m short track semi final where she crashed out and got disqualified with half a lap to go.  What is it with this girl?  Is she just unlucky ?  I don't think so.  She was lying third with 3 to qualify for the final, with the others miles behind, when she tries to overtake the second placed girl and causes the fall which sees them both knocked out. Why not coast in for the remaining few seconds and get a definite final place?  Doesn't seem that she has learned much from her 3 disqualifications 4 years ago in Socchi.

Having said that, I hope she is not too badly injured (she left the ice on a stretcher), and that she is fit enough for her final event, and last chance for a medal, in a few days time.

Only the first 2 qualified for the final, she had to try and overtake. Those two also won gold and silver. I think she is just very unlucky. The amount of world titles she has proves she can do it when it matters.

3 minutes ago, The_Sponge said:

Only the first 2 qualified for the final, she had to try and overtake. Those two also won gold and silver. I think she is just very unlucky. The amount of world titles she has proves she can do it when it matters.

My mistake. I thought I heard that 3 qualified for final.  Perhaps that was only for semi final qualifying.  Still, 4 disqualifications and one other crash out in her last 5 Olympic races does not sound like just bad luck too me.  Let's see what she can do in her last race next week, assuming she is fit enough.

Great to see our lady  tin tray sliders do so well with gold and bronze.

A VERY long way from being knowledgeable on the subject but it seems to me that, while she probably has the greatest basic speed of anybody, she remains tactically naive in getting herself into positions where she has to take additional risks in what is an intrinsically risky sport.

I understand that there is no serious injury and age will be fit to compete in the 1000 metres on Tuesday which is her favourite distance. I sincerely hope that things fall in place for her in that event. Despite often being the author of her own misfortune, she deserves a bit of good fortune.

She was unlucky in the 1st event where the judges didn't spot her hand being taken out by the other skater's skate but she was the author of her own downfall today.  As her performance in the world championships shows, she clearly has the ability to win, so let's just hope that on the more public stage of the Olympics she can show a bit more tactical maturity next week and finally win an Olympic medal.

I have to say that I'm a it bemused by an event where there's a fairly high probability of being fouled out of a medal by a rival and, although the rival is DQd, your prospects are also at an end.

But, tumbling out of FIVE Olympic events in a row? I really think there has got to be more to it than bad luck and that her tactic of skating so very close to rivals is not only increasing the chances of her falling but also putting her in a position to be caught by someone else. 

My sympathy with her is beginning to evaporate now and there's also one other question. Why on EARTH did the team management allow her to go through with that awful interview after the 500, the consequences of which will probably haunt her for the rest of her life?

It was even more cringeworthy than Alan MacRae's unveiling of Alex McLeish!

Well, there was a certain inevitability about that. I can't decide whether this young woman's "Olympic career' is tragedy or comedy.

She's now saying she'll be back for Beijing in 2022. PLEASE!!...... DON'T!!!!

Why not? Multiple world champion, multiple world record holder and will still be at her peak. Don't recall Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson, Steve Cram etc. getting this much grief when they failed to win Olympic Gold despite being world champion, world record holder.......

56 minutes ago, The_Sponge said:

Why not? Multiple world champion, multiple world record holder and will still be at her peak. Don't recall Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson, Steve Cram etc. getting this much grief when they failed to win Olympic Gold despite being world champion, world record holder.......

I don't think any of that lot crashed out/DQd six times in as many events at two Olympics and came away with absolutely nothing. Notwithstanding that short track speed skating has a relatively large tumble rate, I think the whole manner in which this catastrophe has unfolded has been incredibly bad.

3 events in these games, only one miss has been widely agreed to be her fault - the 1500m. In the 500m her hand was clipped but the referees missed it and blamed her. In the 1000m she was pushed and shoved by another competitor but ended up being the one disqualified. I'll take the ex-skaters opinions over the once every four years armchair experts every time. Too many people in this country seem to revel in relative failure of our elite athletes. Reminds me a lot of the people who turn up at ITC every week waiting for a particular player to make a mistake so they can hurl abuse at them.

And Charles exactly how many Olympic medals from her 4 separate appearances does Paula Radcliffe have? Doesn't lessen her other achievements and Christie should be given the same respect.

Clearly when you are on skates, the effect of physical contact during the race is far greater than in track running.  Most skaters are very disciplined and have a good awareness of when they can slot in when trying to overtake and when they need to give way.  One can't fault Christie's desire or courage, but it does seem to me that the dream of Olympic success has rather clouded her judgement in her last two races.  The "expert" who was in the studio when she was disqualified in the 1000 metres was in no doubt she was a fault in two instances during the race and it certainly seemed pretty clear to my untutored eye.

I have to say that it strikes me as a very unappealing sport though.  If the skaters are evenly matched then there really is no legitimate way to overtake, and unless someone makes a mistake then it just a procession to the finish line.  It just becomes a running race to the first corner.  Excitement ensues only when someone makes a mistake.  Give me a 1500 metres on the track any day!

 

I think there are at least three sources of faults or weaknesses here. I remain in no doubt that Christie herself has to a large extent been the architect of her own downfall, probably because she skates so close to opponents that she puts herself in danger of either falling or being impeded or fouling someone else. Three consecutive "misfortunes" was beginning to stretch credibility just a bit but when that moved on to six out of six, then surely there must be a root cause to this. Six catastrophes in six events just stretches credibility a bit too far.

Then you have to look critically at the nature of the sport, including some of the observations made by DD in the previous post. Clearly the situation is not helped by a scenario which almost creates the temptation to take risks, hence compounding any weaknesses on the part of the competitor.

Finally, Team GB management have at least two big questions to answer - why did they allow her to do that car crash of an interview after the 500 which will haunt her for the rest of her career and her life, and why did they allow her even to take to the ice for the third event, the 1000m, when it was clear that her right ankle was in a pretty bad way?

The second question there also applies broadly to Radcliffe at the 2004 Athens Olympic marathon, and one of the answers is probably related to our medals-driven funding system. There are huge pressures applied to our various sports to produce medals which are, in effect, bought with Lottery money. This tends to run the show and forces governing body officials into making bizarre decisions in order to protect their future funding.

It's not just football that has a very ambiguous relationship with money.