Julia Marino, a U.S. snowboarder, mentioned she pulled out of Monday’s massive air qualifier in Beijing because of the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s demand to cowl the Prada brand on her snowboard, which she says led to her hurting her tailbone.
Marino took to her Instagram story to clarify the controversy and claimed the IOC advised her to cowl the designer image, or be disqualified from the occasion.
“For everybody asking, the evening earlier than the large air (competitors), the IOC advised me they not permitted my board even (although) they permitted it for slope,” Marino, 24, wrote. “They advised me I'd be disqualified if I didn’t cowl the emblem and obligated me to actually draw on the bottom of my board with a sharpie.”
Marino spoke to NBC Connecticut in Beijing after her determination to withdraw.
“The evening earlier than, I get all these calls and texts saying the IOC is disapproving my Prada board — the Prada brand,” she mentioned.
Prada just isn't an official Olympic sponsor. Marino’s Instagram bio says she is a “Prada athlete.”
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Earlier this month, Marino used the identical Prada snowboard when she claimed silver within the ladies’s slopestyle occasion to win Crew USA’s first Olympic medal of the Beijing Video games.
In response to Entrance Workplace Sports activities, earlier than she gained silver, an IOC official confronted Marino at observe and demanded she tape over the Prada brand on her helmet. She complied.
Now, the IOC is reportedly dealing with questions on whether or not its alleged mandates, particular to Marino, brought on her to injure herself in Beijing.
On Monday, Marino mentioned she was practising for ladies’s slopestyle finals together with her Prada board that she lined in pink sharpie and injured her tailbone in a crash attributable to distraction over the problem.
“Anyway I dropped into the soar to see how the tailbone felt after taking a slam the opposite day in observe and after my base being altered. I had no pace for the soar and wasn’t capable of clear it a number of occasions,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Was simply feeling fairly bodily and mentally drained from this distraction and the slam I took. I used to be super-hyped with how I did in slope, my primary occasion, and determined to not threat additional harm even (although) that didn’t seem like the highest precedence of the IOC.”
Marino’s $3,600 Prada snowboard reportedly offered out inside hours after she gained silver for Crew USA, based on FOS.
In a letter to the IOC, obtained by Entrance Workplace Sports activities, the USA Olympic & Paralympic Committee reportedly argued that it was truthful for Marino to compete together with her Prada board, simply as different athletes use Burton and Roxy model snowboards.
“Lastly, protecting the emblem just isn't a possible possibility. The emblem is molded to the board and altering it could trigger drag and interrupt the floor supposed to glide. For these causes, we ask the IOC to rethink its place and permit Julia Marino to make use of the board used throughout the Snowboard Slopestyle competitors,” USOPC vp Dean Nakamura wrote within the letter.
On Tuesday, the IOC launched an announcement to NBC Connecticut:
“The IOC understands the athlete sadly fell throughout observe on Friday and couldn’t compete within the competitors on Monday. There had been no adjustments to the gear or branding when she fell on Friday. Relating to the branding of the snowboard, the athlete was competing with a snowboard with branding of an organization that doesn’t primarily have its enterprise in sporting items, opposite to Olympic promoting guidelines that shield the funding of the Olympic Motion.
“The sports activities gear would usually be permitted by the related NOC within the first occasion, and subsequently by the IF simply earlier than it enters the sector of play. The IOC grew to become conscious of the problem after the athlete had competed, and along with the USOPC an answer with minimal impression was sought together with the potential for protecting the identical gear and eradicating the branding.”
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