(CNN) — Dutch speed skating star Sven Kramer was left in tears after confused communication with his coach cost him a gold medal at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday night.
The 23-year-old was hot favorite to add the 10,000-meter title to his 5,000m victory earlier in the Vancouver Games, and he completed the grueling circuit in what would have been an Olympic record time.
However, his dreams of a double gold crumbled when he was disqualified for an incorrect change of lanes, meaning that the man he was paired with — Russia’s Ivan Skobrev — won the silver medal and South Korea’s Lee Seung-Hoon was promoted to first place.
Kramer, the world champion and record-holder at both distances, blamed his coach Gerard Kemkers for the mistake, the Vancouver Sun reported.
“Usually, I don’t want to blame anyone else, I take responsibility as the skater on the ice. But this time I can’t do anything else,” the son of two-time Olympic speed skater Yep Kramer told reporters after the race.
“I wanted to go on the outer lane, then just before the cone Gerard shouted, ‘Inner lane!’ I thought he was probably right. At first I thought my skates passed the cone on the wrong side, and I will be disqualified. Then I noticed in the stadium, something was wrong.
“You have to decide in a split second. I should have gone with my own thoughts but I was brought into doubt. This really sucks. This is a real expensive mistake. This really sucks.”
Kemkers, a former speed skater who won a bronze medal in the 5,000m at Calgary in 1988, was also devastated by the turn of events, the Vancouver Sun reported.
“My world collapsed. This is a disaster. This is the worst moment in my career. Sven was right, I was wrong,” he said.
Kramer will have the chance to bounce back and try to claim a second gold in the team pursuit event on Saturday — and erase another embarrassing Olympic memory.
At the 2006 Turin Games, Kramer stepped on a block and fell during the team pursuit semifinals and meant the Dutch ended up with only a bronze medal.
In such speed skating events, also known as long-track, the athletes race to set the fastest times in staggered starts.
In short-track speed skating, the competitors race against each other, with passing the finish line first after a set number of laps taking precedence over elapsed times.
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Source: CNN
