CHRISTIE HAS ONLY HERSELF TO BLAME

IN THE circumstances, a degree of irritation was understandable, but when Elise Christie (below) addressed one of her social media messages to ‘all the short-track experts out there’ she rather missed the point. Crashed, disqualified; crashed, disqualified; disqualified; crashed; crashed, disqualified; disqualified. That is Christie’s record in Olympic races. She may be world champion but, as she admitted, if this week’s 1,000m had been a world championship event, she wouldn’t have raced. The Olympics is where it’s at for speed skaters, the Olympics are remembered. No one claims to be an expert in her field. Nobody is discussing the nuances of technique or tactics, as happens in football. British Olympians are given the gentlest of rides. After her first mishap in Pyeongchang, the official BBC Olympic Twitter feed described Christie as ‘one of the bravest people we’ve seen’ — which must have come as a surprise to those who had just defused an unexploded bomb near London’s City Airport. The fact is, Christie is not failing at the parts of her sport a layman could not comprehend; she is failing at entry level. Staying upright. What befell her was a terrible pity, but it was not bad luck and it does not require 20 years of skating know-how to understand. In Holland, where there are many speed skating specialists, they compare her style to a windmill that has come loose from its central shaft. And while we may not be experts here, we all get what they mean. THE idea that Leicester’s title win is in any way tainted by a £3.1million fine for contravening the Football League’s financial fair play rules on the way up is, frankly, ludicrous. If anything, it reflects well on the owners that they didn’t allow small, safe, provincial thinking to limit their ambition.