Outraged fans start massive petition to overturn figure-skating gold
FEB 21, 2014 8:26p ET
Ivan Sekretarev / AP
Adelina Sotnikova of Russia, center, Yuna Kim of South Korea, left, and Carolina Kostner of Italy stand on the podium during the flower ceremony for the women's free skate figure skating final at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the 2014 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. Sotnikova placed first, followed by Kim and Kostner.
More than 1.5 million people have signed an online petition to investigate the scoring of the women's figure skating competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The petition was filed on Change.org following Russian figure skater Adelina Sotnikova’s controversial gold medal win over South Korea’s Yuna Kim. In the first six hours, more than 700,000 people signed the petition, and by Friday afternoon in Asia, it was drawing about 15,000 signatures every 10 minutes, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The petition, called ”Open Investigation into Judging Decisions of Women’s Figure Skating and Demand Rejudgement at the Sochi Olympics,” was started by a user named “Justice Seeker.” It attracted such a high volume of users that Change.org crashed around 2 a.m. ET.
Although the majority of the signatures were coming from Kim’s home of South Korea, the Koreans are far from the only ones unhappy with the figure skating judging process in Sochi during the Winter Games. U.S. Olympian Ashley Wagner and others in the figure skating community have voiced their concerns that Russian skaters have been receiving inflated scores because of biased judging from the host nation.
