Christie’s Olympic misery reaches a new low after disqualification

WINTER OLYMPICS Our Elise summons up the spirit of Scottish sporting failure by fighting back from crash only to get disqualified for FOURTH time

EVEN by her own heroic measure of sporting agony, this was off the scale. But, then, what else could Elise Christie expect?

She is, after all, a 100 per cent, undisputed, bona-fide sporting Scot. Replete with the tendency towards disaster that has become our birthright.

Clutching calamity from the jaws of triumph is just what we do. Better, it sometimes feels, than anyone else on the planet.

Should Christie follow up on her promise to compete at a fourth Winter Olympics, then, she’ll know exactly what she’s letting herself in for.

Rocking up in Beijing in 2022, the short-track speed skater could be forgiven if she was twitching like Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies, sweating in sub-zero temperatures — and treading in terror of a Caledonian curse coming back to inflict another series of on-ice catastrophes. Everything about her performance yesterday reeked of our finest athletic traditions.

From the gutsy decision to compete on one leg and the baffling disqualification call, to her bare-knuckle message of disdain for all those anonymous social media ghouls gathering to feast on human misery, this was Christie fulfilling every stereotype in the book.

What is more Scottish than shrugging off a crippling injury, overcoming all odds, still somehow missing out on qualifying for the next round of a major event… and leaving with a good old-fashioned gripe about one-eyed officials having done us in?

Who better sums up Robert Burns’ lines about best-laid plans and their tendency to gan agley, than the girl from Livingston made to suffer in South Korea?

Now, others may turn to another character from our collective history for inspiration. They will point to the tale of Robert the Bruce and the spider.

Try, try and try again. It’s never less than inspirational. Aye, fine. But then what? Sooner or later, your face is going to get sore from all the falling, strained from the repeated weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nobody would blame Christie, a triple world champion at the age of 27, if she ducked out of her sport — a maddening, truncated stramash that appears closer to roller derby than the long-striding smoothness of long-track speed skating — just before the five rings hove into view three-and-a-bit years down the line.

Because, quite honestly, she has suffered enough in the Olympic uniform of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

After a low-key Games debut in 2010, while still an up-and-coming youngster, Christie arrived in Sochi four years ago ready to take on the world. This was to be her defining moment.

Yet hopes of at least one medal ended in a heap — several, actually — on the ice, as she was disqualified in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 metres events.

The most inglorious of hat-tricks brought, as an afterthought, actual death threats from South Korean fans enraged by one of their favourite skaters being taken down by Christie.

It was, as the Scot has admitted since, quite a shock to the system. And it very nearly caused her to quit.

Speaking earlier this year, Christie confessed that she was ‘really close to giving it all up’, with only the support of friends, family and team-mates — plus the work of an inspired sports psychologist — persuading her to carry on.

It is to be hoped that she has the good doctor on speed dial. Because the emotional aftershocks generated by what we’ve just seen in Pyeongchang may take some very delicate handling.

Disqualified after a crash in the 500m final, the slightly-built but tigerish competitor suffered much worse when she was sent careering into the boards in the semi-final of the 1,500m.

She left the arena on a stretcher, wondering if she’d even be able to step on ice again during this Games. Oh, and she was also disqualified, for good measure.

To yesterday, then. And the stumble, the limp, the slow start and heroic finish, before the long wait that began to feel ominous even before the confirmed result — showing Christie DQ’d in her 1,000m heat — flashed up on the screen.

Now, let’s take a wild punt here. And suggest that fewer than a handful of regular readers will be

au fait with the finer points of short-track speed skating.

We don’t really know if Christie is right or wrong in her complaints about the decision.

If you’ve watched even a bit of the sport in these Games, it’s pretty clear that ‘innocent parties’ — men and women sent tumbling through no apparent fault of their own — are regularly disqualified. VAR isn’t just a disaster in football, it seems.

To many, there will be a suspicion that Christie must be doing

something wrong to accrue so many black marks against her name.

The judgmental Twitter twit with 243 followers feels justified, then, in branding her a whiny baby who brings it all on herself. Well, it kills time before watching Jeremy Kyle, right?

Never less than open and amiable in an out-of-competition setting, it’s fair to say that the pressure of the Games — and possibly the filter of live television — has added a certain defensiveness to Christie as disaster after disaster has befallen her.

Give her a break. Cut her some slack. She was clearly heartbroken yesterday. Utterly bereft.

Yet she fronted up, delivered the expected cry of defiance about bouncing back, made a special point of thanking everyone who had sent messages of support.

So maybe the proud Scot will be in Beijing. After all, when it comes to being gluttons for sporting punishment, wha’s like us, indeed?

Everything about her performance reeked of our finest athletic traditions and stereotypes