Breaking: Vanessa-Mae is banned

Breaking: Vanessa-Mae is banned

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norman lebrecht

November 11, 2014

The International Ski Federation has found that qualification results for the violinist Vanessa-Mae, who competed for Thailand in the last Olympics at Sochi, were comprehensively fixed. Vanessa-Mae, 35, has been banned from skiing for four years.

She finished last in her event and used the stunt as a publicity vehicle to reignite a faltering career.

Full report here.

vanessa-mae-skiing-zermatt

Comments

  • Erich says:

    it would have needed more than that to reignite the career. That completely unmusical creature only got where she did thanks to her family money and the mother-from-hell…..

  • Andy Lim says:

    and don´t forget the wet t-shirt ?

  • Copernicus says:

    If only there were a World Violin Federation to do the same.

  • Leslie Howard says:

    What goes around comes around…

  • Robert Holmén says:

    The competition among skiers… from Thailand… was so severe that the results had to be fixed?

    • Simon S. says:

      No, but being the best in Thailand isn’t enough for being allowed to compete at the Olympics. You have take part in a number of international competitions with a defined minimum score. In this case, two competitions in Slovenia were set up mainly for allowing her to meet with this requirement – and ist looks as if the organisers, the referees and the official observer of the International Skiing Federation were all bribed.

  • Alison says:

    Hey, wait a minute, Norman, I don’t think it’s fair for you to determine WHY she chose to enter the Olympics. I’m not even sure you can state that she deliberately used it as a stunt to reignite her musical career without crossing the line into libel, unless you have proof that that was her reason for doing so…

  • Greg from SF says:

    I agree with Alison.
    She skied for Thailand (a country not particularly known for being a powerhouse in skiing) in the Olympics and finished last.
    Where’s the big crime here? She wanted to ski in the Olympics, did, and that’s that.
    Did her appearance or her performance affect the final medal standings in any conceivable way? Of course not. It got her some publicity. So?
    And I don’t understand why everyone on this blog (including NL himself) is so down on her. Is it because she often plays pop music or pop-style arrangements of the classical repertoire on the violin? Is it because she is not as accomplished in the standard classics as were the usual-suspect dead white guy “best” violinist (Heifetz, Milstein, Oistrakh, Kreisler, Menuhin, etc. etc.)? That may be the case, but who exactly is she hurting?
    So she wore a wet t-shirt on an album cover. So what? She’s a beautiful young woman!
    It’s not like she’s bombing embassies or kidnapping kids for ransom – she’s playing VIOLIN, for heaven’s sake. If you don’t like her recordings, don’t listen to them!
    She’s playing music the way SHE wants to play music, and living her life the way SHE wants to live it.
    Good for her, I say.
    There certainly must be a lot of jealousy out there in the blogosphere.
    Lighten up, people…..

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