Korean athlete cheated out of gold medal medal opportunity by faulty clock and bad officiating.
With time running out in one of the two semifinal matches for the women’s individual epee competition, South Korea’s Shin A Lam led Germany’s Britta Heidemann by a single point. Officially, Heidemann had just one second to launch an attack and score a touch, which would advance her on to the gold medal match to face the Ukraine’s Yana Shemyakina, a lack of time which all but ensured that Shin would advance.
Instead, the timing mechanism on the piste became stuck, giving Heidemann extra time to complete her attack and win the bout, which earned her the spot in the gold-medal bout. Officials, unsure what to do without a true, official protocol to follow, eventually decided to award the victory to Heidemann.
As one might expect, Shin and her coaches were enraged with the decision, and launched an immediate appeal. Yet the appeal itself proved to be incredibly lengthy, and also contains a unique bylaw that requires Shin to remain on the piste throughout its duration. Unable to leave the playing surface, Shin bawled uncontrollably for the first 10-15 minutes, often shading her head in a towel while occasionally looking out to the crowd before rubbing her eyes again.
At long last, after more than 30 minutes of a delay that included the Korean federation having to expedite a payment for the use in the official appeal, Shin’s attempt to overturn the result failed, bringing a crushing end to a ridiculously long period marked by piquant discussion between Olympic and Korean officials and occasional announcements trying to explain what was going on to the spectators in the crowd.
http://blog.sfgate.com/olympics/2012/07/30/fencing-controversy-forces-south-korean-to-sit-on-piste-for-ages-eventually-costs-her-medal/
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In a big way. 