China Fans Asked to Respect Ref Call That Cost Team Olympic Gold

The Japanese coach of a Chinese teenage snowboarder at the center of a Winter Olympics scoring controversy has appealed to the public to go easy on the judges, after a senior official admitted that there was an error in judgment that cost China a gold.

Chinese fans cried foul after 17-year-old Su Yiming finished second in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event on Feb. 7, with Canadian Max Parrot taking gold, despite being the first-ever competitor to pull off an 1800-degree aerial stunt in the Olympics. Iztok Sumatic, head judge for snowboarding at the Beijing Olympics, admitted the following day in an interview with snowboarding publication Whitelines that restricted camera angles meant that the judges missed an error made by Parrot when he grabbed his knee instead of his board. He added the judges did not exercise the right to ask for a video replay.