SOCHI, Russia, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- The website Change.org has a fast-growing petition for the open investigation and re-judgment of women's figure skating at the Sochi Olympics.
When Russian skater Adelina Sotnikova won the gold medal in an upset over South Korean skater Yuna Kim Thursday, it raised a fury of people accusing the judges of being biased toward the Russian skaters. There are also accusations that 15-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya received an inflated score, despite falling during her free skate.
It's worth mentioning that there were no Korean or American judges on the free skate panel, but it did include four from Eastern European countries: Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, and Slovakia. The petition is accusing the judging of being biased, and would like an investigation to restore fairness and end corruption.
"The score in the free program has added on to the unfairness of what's supposed to be the fairest of all competitions -- the Olympics," says the petition. "The corruption needs to be made visible and needs to be corrected."
They also listed several comments from figures in the Olympics to prove their point that the judging was unfair, including German figure skater Katarina Witt, "Shame Gold Medal, Yuna Kim is a real queen." NBC Olympics researcher Alex Goldberger said, "Adelina Sotnikova was excellent tonight, but Yuna Kim was robbed."
The petition has over 1,650,000 signatures as of Friday morning.
[Change.org]
