On 18 February 2014, Vanakorn finished 67th of 90 skiers, with a time of 1:44.86 on her first run at giant slalom, 26.98 seconds behind the leader and 7.83 seconds to Xia Lina, who finished ahead of her. She started in the 87th position, representing her relative ranking in the world giant slalom rankings.[31] In run 2, she had a time of 1:42.11, 24.21 seconds behind the leader of run 2 and 11:35 seconds behind Xia, also ahead of Vanakorn.[32] She started 74th in run 2, the last starter for run 2.[33] At the end of the event, she had a total time of 3:26.97, 50.10 seconds behind the gold medal winner, Tina Maze of Slovenia. She was last of the 67 racers who finished, although 23 other racers failed to complete the race.[34]
Investigation and appeal
On 10 July 2014 four Slovenian ski competition organisers were reported to have each been given four-year bans on working with Slovenian Ski Union (Smučarska zveza Slovenije) and FIS competitions because of supposedly fixed Sochi Winter Olympics qualifications for the Thai ski team at Krvavec in January 2014[35] – with the only goal to successfully qualify Vanessa Mae.[36] However, no formal bans were ever handed out.
On 11 November 2014, the FIS Hearing Panel issued its own findings about the Krvavec event less than 10 months earlier: The weather was such that no regular race could be held; the competition's referee said that "any comparable competition in Slovenia would have been cancelled". A previously retired competitor took part in the alleged competition solely to lower (improve) the scores of the participants. The official results of "approximately 23 competitors" for the two races on 18 January included results at least two people who in fact did not attend. The official results for two giant slalom races on 19 January also included results for a person who was not even present at the Krvavec competition. One competitor who fell was given an official timing 10 seconds better than reality, and put in second place in the official results. At least one participant started outside the starting wand; afterward, the starter manually triggered the starting wand.[26]
The Hearing Panel issued a worldwide four-year ban against Vanessa-Mae,[37][26] two-year ban against the Chief of Race Borut Hrobat, and one-year bans against the FIS Technical Delegate, Chief of Timing, Referee, and Starter.[26] FIS president Gian-Franco Kasper commented to Associated Press concerning the violations: "Those who have been sanctioned have been sanctioned for good reason. At first we were laughing when we heard it. But then we realised it's quite a serious thing."[38]
As two or more participants worked in combination to violate the rules, the FIS Hearing Panel recommended that all four events during the Krvavec competition be annulled. The Hearing Panel noted that, if the results were to be annulled by the FIS Council, it will mean that Vanessa-Mae, Federica Selva of San Marino, and Ieva Januškevičiūtė of Lithuania will have not qualified for the 2014 Olympic Games.[26] Vanessa-Mae issued a statement calling the ban "nonsensical"[39] and saying "we will" appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.[40]
The FIS Council met on 18 November and cancelled the results of "all four giant slalom races" at Krvavec and issued a press release saying that "Vanessa Vanakorn (THA) who competed in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games therefore did not qualify and should not have been participating in the Sochi 2014 Games." The FIS Council was of the opinion that Federica Selva and Ieva Januškevičiūtė "were victims of the manipulated races", and forwarded the information to the International Olympic Committee.[41] Vanessa-Mae filed appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 4 December 2014 against both the FIS Hearing Panel and the FIS Council.[42]
On 19 June 2015 the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) voided Vanessa-Mae's four-year ban, saying there was a lack of evidence that she herself manipulated the races; but the CAS dismissed her appeal to restore the qualifying results, confirming that the qualifying races "were so defective that their results and qualification points gained therefrom could not stand", and therefore "Vanessa Vanakorn remains ineligible to compete in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games". The CAS's decision also awarded an amount of money to be paid by the FIS to Vanessa-Mae.[5][6]
Despite Vanessa-Mae's successful result in nullifying the FIS race ban at the CAS appeal, there was still some doubt over the status of her races at the 2014 Winter Olympics. However, in January 2016 the media announced that the International Olympic Committee had confirmed that Vanessa-Mae could be called an Olympian.[43]
In 2016, Vanessa-Mae settled her defamation lawsuit against the FIS, in which the FIS made an "appropriate payment", the amount of which was not disclosed.[44] The FIS issued a full apology for its claims of race-fixing, and stated "Ms. Vanakorn and her entourage did not in any way fix, contrive or improperly influence the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of the FIS-approved races."[7][a]
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