BBC MUST CUT THE EXCUSES

A LOT of wind about the wind in Pyeongchang. It greatly affected the women’s slopestyle final, apparently, where the usual cheerleaders in the BBC commentary booth never stopped blaming it for Aimee Fuller of Great Britain’s 17th-place finish. And, yes, the conditions were difficult. All 25 competitors fell on at least one of their two runs and one of the favourites, Anna Gasser of Austria, fell twice and came 15th. ‘A total lottery,’ said Jenny Jones (right), who won bronze in the event in 2014. Yet the winner, Jamie Anderson of the United States, was also the Olympic gold medallist in Sochi four years ago, Laurie Blouin in silver medal place won the world title in Sierra Nevada last year, and bronze medallist Enni Rukajarvi took silver in Sochi, gold in the world championships in 2011 and won a silver in Sierra Nevada a year ago. So it wasn’t completely random, was it? Speed skater Semen elistratov became the first Russian to claim a medal at the Winter Olympics, and immediately dedicated it to a bunch of cheats. He didn’t say that of course. He referenced the 200 Russians ‘unfairly excluded’ from the Games having been part of a state-sponsored doping programme. Some would say the opposite. That elistratov and many of the 168 competitors forming the Olympic Athletes from Russia team have been unfairly included, considering what went on in their country. elistratov tested positive for meldonium in 2016, but was cleared as part of a WAdA amnesty for those who recorded a low dosage — because that’s how much cheating there was in Russia. If you were only doing a little bit, that was all right. Imagine what the 200 must have been up to. Wales had 10 penalties to england’s two at Twickenham on saturday, had three try-scoring chances and two clean line breaks. But they’re right, the reason they failed to win, indeed failed to amass more than six points all game, was because of the TMO.