Skater Kramer cries tears of golden anguish after disqualification

(CNN) -- Dutch speed skating star Sven Kramer was left in tears after confused communication with his coach cost him a gold medal at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday night.
The 23-year-old was hot favorite to add the 10,000-meter title to his 5,000m victory earlier in the Vancouver Games, and he completed the grueling circuit in what would have been an Olympic record time.
However, his dreams of a double gold crumbled when he was disqualified for an incorrect change of lanes, meaning that the man he was paired with -- Russia's Ivan Skobrev -- won the silver medal and South Korea's Lee Seung-Hoon was promoted to first place.
Kramer, the world champion and record-holder at both distances, blamed his coach Gerard Kemkers for the mistake, the Vancouver Sun reported.
"Usually, I don't want to blame anyone else, I take responsibility as the skater on the ice. But this time I can't do anything else,'' the son of two-time Olympic speed skater Yep Kramer told reporters after the race.
"I wanted to go on the outer lane, then just before the cone Gerard shouted, 'Inner lane!' I thought he was probably right. At first I thought my skates passed the cone on the wrong side, and I will be disqualified. Then I noticed in the stadium, something was wrong.
"You have to decide in a split second. I should have gone with my own thoughts but I was brought into doubt. This really sucks. This is a real expensive mistake. This really sucks.''
Kemkers, a former speed skater who won a bronze medal in the 5,000m at Calgary in 1988, was also devastated by the turn of events, the Vancouver Sun reported.
"My world collapsed. This is a disaster. This is the worst moment in my career. Sven was right, I was wrong,'' he said.
Kramer will have the chance to bounce back and try to claim a second gold in the team pursuit event on Saturday -- and erase another embarrassing Olympic memory.
At the 2006 Turin Games, Kramer stepped on a block and fell during the team pursuit semifinals and meant the Dutch ended up with only a bronze medal.
In such speed skating events, also known as long-track, the athletes race to set the fastest times in staggered starts.
In short-track speed skating, the competitors race against each other, with passing the finish line first after a set number of laps taking precedent over elapsed times.

1. Summary
Sven Kramer, a 23-year old skater, was favourite to win the 10,000 km speed skating. He completed the circuit in an Olympic record time. But unfortunately he made a mistake in the change of lanes. Sven Kramer was disqualified and the South Korea’s Lee won the golden medal. Sven Kramer blames his coach, Kemkes, for this mistake. Sven says he never blames someone else, but in this case he does. Kemkes told Sven at the last moment that he had to take the inner lane. Kemkes admits it was his mistake, not Sven’s.

2. Why did you choose this text?
I was watching the Olympic Games, yesterday. I saw the race between Sven Kramer and Ivan Skobrev, as I watched this race I was convinced that Sven Kramer was going to win the golden medal. He was skating a very good race. Then the moment came that Kemkes sent Kramer in the wrong lane. I felt so bad for Sven Kramer! So that’s why I’ve chosen this article.

3. Typical examples of style and vocabulary
This is a news article, based on the speed skater Sven Kramer. There are a lot of quotations made by Sven Kramer, what he said a few minutes after the lost race. Of course there are a lot of quotations, because no one knows what happened at the moment of the change of lanes. What did Kemkes say to Kramer, the only ones who know are Kramer and Kemkes.

4. Type of text
This is a news article, about sports, namely speed skating. This is mass communication, because CNN reaches a lot of people all over the world.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/02/24/olympics.sven.kramer.skating/