America’s favorite Dutch speedskater, Sven Kramer, made the news again yesterday after he was disqualified because of an illegal lane change in the 10,000m race. His coach, Gerard Kemkers, directed him down the wrong lane with nine laps to go, essentially pulling what would have been a gold medal right out of his skater’s hands.

While the three medalists celebrated, Kramer sat alone on a bench along the front straightaway, trying to figure out what went wrong. Kemkers sat nearby, flashing an occasional glance at the skater he had cost gold.

Kramer did not look back.

“It is not supposed to happen and the responsibility is all mine,” Kemkers said. “It all happened in a split second. It is a disastrous error. This is my absolute worst moment.” –NBC Olympics site.

Don’t feel too bad for Kramer; he already won a gold for the 5000m race and he told off NBC. That’s a full Olympics for anybody.

Look, I get that a lot of you are pissed about how NBC is choosing to cover the Vancouver Olympics with this jagged, misinforming one-size-fits-all coverage that’s designed to appeal to everyone except the people that actually want to watch the Games. But how valuable is it to you for me to just rail endlessly on a network that nobody likes anyway? Very little. But when speed skater Sven Kramer of the Nederlands does it, it’s awesome, as evidenced when he was asked for his name and nationality right after he won a fugging gold medal.

“Are you stupid?! Hell no, I’m not gonna do that.”

The video after the jump shows Sven recounting the event with a Dutch journalist. Mmmm, Dutch. Not only are they pretty and unable to speak English, but they also pay their own way. Oh, they do speak English. Eh, two out of three works. Read the rest of this entry »