Flag bearer choice raises controversy

Itwas a feel-good story for a few hours: Luge veteran Erin Hamlin gets the chance to enter her last Olympics carrying the U.S. flag into the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Games, winning that distinction after a vote by some of her fellow athletes.

And then Shani Davis tweeted.

With that, the entire process was called into controversy. The tweet posted to Davis’ account said the process by which Hamlin won was executed “dishonorably,” and included a reference to Black History Month raising the question of whether the speedskater was suggesting that race played a role in the decision.

Davis is black, Hamlin is white.

“We feel strongly toward Shani, and they felt strongly for Erin,” U.S. speedskater Joey Mantia said. “That’s just that.”

Hamlin and Davis were among eight nominees for the flagbearer role, and athletes from each of the eight winter sports federations bobsled and skeleton, ski and snowboarding, figure skating, curling, biathlon, hockey, speedskating and luge represented those nominees in a balloting that took place Wednesday night.

Eventually, the final vote was deadlocked at 4-4. Hamlin won a coin toss, the predetermined method of picking a winner if all else failed in the athlete-led process. The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed the tie, and that voters knew if the tie couldn’t be broken by them the coin toss would have to occur.

An African-American in a mostly white sport, Davis became the first black athlete to win an individual goldmedal at the Winter Games with his 1,000-meter triumph in 2006. Four years later, he became the first skater of any color to defend his title in that event.

TEAM FIGURE SKATING » Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford made up for teammate Patrick Chan’s shaky short program to give Canada the lead in the team competition after the opening day of figure skating.

The Canadian squad, which is expected to challenge the team of Russians for the gold medal, compiled 17points throughthe first two disciplines. The U.S. teamwas second with 14 points, followed by Japan and the Russians with 13 points apiece.

Nathan Chen was wobbly for the Americans, but the pairs team of Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim bailed him out with a strong performance set to music from “Moulin Rouge.”

The team competition, which debuted four years ago at the Sochi Games, resumes Sunday with ice dance and ladies short programs, after which the top five nations will advance to free skates in each of the disciplines. PERFECT CURLING SCORE » Despite holding a lead heading into the final round of curling’s mixed doubles match, the U.S. lost to reigning world champion Switzerland after the Swiss managed something exceedingly unusual: a perfect score known as a six-ender.

How rare is a six-ender? Think of it as a hole-in-one in golfing, or a perfect game in baseball.

Although Switzerland was behind by one point entering the final round, Jenny Perret and Martin Rios had an advantage: the right to throw the final stone of the game. They managed to get their first five stones into the house. They then promptly knocked the Americans’ lone rock out of the house.

According to the World Curling Federation, no curling team has ever managed a perfect score at the Olympics.