Why is short track speed skating an old foul?

Recently, the phenomenon of multiple fouls in the short track speed skating event at the Beijing Winter Olympics has aroused widespread concern. In fact, for short track speed skating competitions with limited venue and space, it is not surprising that fouls occur from time to time.

First of all, due to the short track and the fact that multiple athletes are gliding on the track at the same time, they can be interspersed at will, so the format allows for physical contact between athletes. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of fouls, one is that any part of the skate is on the starting line or crosses the starting line when the athlete starts; the other is that the behavior of obstructing and interfering with the progress of other athletes by pushing, rushing, getting off the slide, slowing down, kicking people out, etc. during the race is regarded as a foul, and the specific scale is controlled by the referee. Athletes who commit a foul will be disqualified.

Secondly, before the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, there was no set of standard penalty codes in the world, or even a penalty manual, and the short-track speed skating project of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics was also controversial because of multiple penalties. According to Wang Meng, head of the coaching team of China's former speed skating and short track speed skating teams, after 2018, the International Skating Federation began to formulate a more detailed penalty manual, and since then, athletes' foul actions have been "punished".

In 2020, after a trial manual and additional proposals from various sports delegations, the International Skating Federation reconvened its congress to launch a unified revised version of the penalty manual, which has been in use ever since. Wang Meng said: "Everyone sees that the foul action has a reference to the penalty code, and the reason for the penalty is very clear. ”

The International Skating Federation issued a general penalty manual precisely to ensure that the competition is fair and just, to prevent athletes from forcibly colliding dangerously without a clear lead, and to effectively avoid controversial penalties. Of course, if there is a disagreement, athletes who have been found to have fouled and disqualified can file a complaint after the game.