Katie Uhlaender reacts to court's ruling on Olympic bid, fires back at Canada's coach
Olympic hopeful Katie Uhlaender reacted to the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after she made a case to join Team USA for the Milan Cortina Winter Games.
The CAS said it had no jurisdiction to consider her case against Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) coach Joe Cecchini and the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) over the results of the IBSF North American Cup Race and Skeleton qualification for a spot in the Winter Olympics.
Uhlaender appeared on Fox News Channel’s "America’s Newsroom" and told anchor Dana Perino that she didn’t necessarily disagree with the ruling but she is now at a crossroads.
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"I don’t know that I disagree that it was out of their jurisdiction to be fair. The dispute happened prior to the 10-day window," she said. "What I want to happen is – something. I don’t know what the solution is at this point because I’ve exhausted all of these pathways within the system and from what I could understand, it will be up to the IOC and potentially the IBSF to allocate an extra spot for extreme circumstances. But we don’t know who should ask for that or exactly how to do it. This is where I’d ask (Vice President) Vance for help."
Uhlaender sought qualification after she missed out on the chance to qualify when Team Canada withdrew athletes from the North American Cup race in early January, reducing the number of points that the event could award. The point reduction made it impossible for Uhlaender to earn enough to qualify.
An investigation by the IBSF found that Team Canada intentionally manipulated the points at the competition in Lake Placid, New York. However, the IBSF also did not revise any of the results or deliver any penalties as a result. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) petitioning to have Uhlaender granted a spot. Fifteen other countries have joined that petition.
"This is all within the rules. There’s nothing wrong with those things. And people can be strategic in the races that they participate. And she was doing that, and other nations were doing that, because you want to put your best foot forward," Cecchini said. "This is a system flaw, if anything. But we were within the rules."
Cecchini also took aim directly at Uhlaender, saying she isn’t a "top-tier athlete."
"I don’t really wanna speak negatively about Katie, but Katie was not on the World Cup team. She wasn’t a top-tier athlete in that program anymore. She was at the end of her career. I would personally would rather race against Katie. She’s not as competitive as the other athletes," he said. "It’s probably really unfair to say and not really where I want to go with this, but that’s where we are with that."
Uhlaender said on Fox News Channel that Cecchini wasn’t really addressing the issue at heart.
"I think that response says it all because he’s not addressing the issue at all, which is that he intentionally tricked all the countries into thinking this race was full points," she said. "He urged me to come race there and then, at the last second, he pulled all of his athletes. He didn’t hide it. He told me, he told another coach that he did it for the points, and he knew he was going to hurt me and he knew he was gonna hurt the Denmark athlete and the Swiss girl might have to retire because of this and he didn’t care. He said he wanted to eliminate any possibilities that could threaten Canada’s second spot even if it was just 1%. And the sad part is, there was no threat.
"At the end of the races, the Korean athlete was not gonna surpass Canada. He hurt all of us just because he wanted to eliminate any possibility, which is not in the spirit of sport. And that’s the point. It’s not that it wasn’t within the rules – you should be able to pull athletes for legitimate reasons. But not to hurt people."
Uhlaender added that she had hoped to be able to compete in her sixth Olympic Games and join Lindsey Vonn as the only two athletes to have competed in 2002 and 2026.
As of now, it doesn’t seem like it will happen.
Fox News' Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
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