An FIS panel also banned five officials, including the race
chief, starter and FIS technical delegate, for between one and two
years over the four giant slalom races at Krvavec, Slovenia in
January which were organised at the request of Mae's manager.
The results gave Mae the number of FIS points necessary to be able
to take part in Sochi.
FIS listed a series of irregularities such as official results
including competitors who had not taken part and races staged in
irregular weather conditions.
"The Hearing Panel found to its comfortable satisfaction that the
results of the four ladies giant slalom races that took place on Jan
18 and 19 at Krvavec were manipulated," said the FIS in a statement.
The manipulation resulted in "the calculation of FIS Points that do
not reflect the true performance of the competitors that
participated in those events and in particular the points awarded to
Vanessa Vanakorn (Mae)."
Mae, a British citizen, competed for Thailand at the Games in Russia
in February under her father's surname of Vanakorn, finishing a
distant last of the 67 finishers in the giant slalom.
"The results of two giant slalom races on Jan 19 included a
competitor who was not present at, and did not participate in, the
Krvavec competitions," said FIS.
"Another competitor was placed second in one race despite the fact
she fell. Her time is understood to have been adjusted afterwards by
more than 10 seconds."
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"At least one competitor started away from the starting gate
outside the automatic timing wand that was manually opened by the
starter when she was already on the course."
It went on to list five further irregularities and said "the
competitions were organised at the request of the management of
Vanessa Vanakorn, through the Thai Olympic Committee in its capacity
as the FIS member national ski association".
The panel said it would recommend that the FIS council, which next
meets on Nov. 18, annul the results of the races and eliminate all
points earned by all competitors.
Countries which did not have a skier ranked among the world's top
500 were allowed to send one male and one female skier to the Winter
Olympics if they met a high enough standard.
(Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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