Canadian luge coach Wolfgang Staudinger suspects foul play after his relay team finished fourth at the Olympics on Thursday.

In an interview with the Toronto Star, Staudinger implied that officials intentionally tampered with the track to slow down opposing teams after the Russian team had completed their run.

Luge tracks are climate controlled, so you can turn up temperature of the ice to slow it down and turn down the temperature of the ice to speed it up.

Staudinger suggested that they turned up the heat in order to slow down the final five teams in the race. Russia won silver. Medal contenders Canada and Austria missed the podium.

Staudinger smells something fishy:

"Canada was silver at the top but the further we went down the slower we got and that’s a clear sign that the track slowed down dramatically."

"We just couldn’t keep the speed and (the team’s) sliding wasn’t that bad.”

"It's always hard to prove, but I'm long enough in the business that I can tell you when people, especially the Austrians who won silver yesterday, were dropping half a second that’s not normal."

A high-ranking IOC official responded to the allegations on Friday, saying Staudinger should let it go unless he has evidence:

"As you know, in every competition, you always have people believing that people have tricks. And I think they should let it go unless they have proof and someone can bring proof to any wrongdoing."

The track got 0.8 degrees (Celsius) warmer between the start of the competition and time the final sleds went off, according to official IOC data, although that's hardly evidence of wrongdoing.

As Staudinger himself said, it's hard to prove.



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