Did South Korean Snowboarder Benefit from Home Field Advantage?

I could only imagine what Koreans would be saying if the roles were reversed?:

South Korean snowboarder Lee Sang-Ho recorded one of the closest victories of the Winter Olympics, beating out Slovenia’s Zan Kosir by .01 in the semifnals of the parallel giant slalom event.

But should the result have been the other way around? NBC’s angles of the finish line appeared to show both Kosir’s board and hand crossing the line both well ahead of Lee’s board and hand. (The winner is the first racer who crosses the line with any part of his body.)

And here you thought you’d put bad replay decisions behind you with the end of the NFL season.  [Yahoo Sports]

You can read more at the link, but the photo finish shows that Kosir clearly beat Lee.  Some how I doubt Slovenians will be giving Lee the treatment that Koreans gave American Apolo Anton Ohno during the 2002 Winter Olympics:

The fan culture also can boil over. Athletes from opposing countries have received death threats. Back in 2002 in Salt Lake City when Apolo Anton Ohno won his controversial gold with Kim Dong-sung disqualified for blocking, a manufacturer made three different editions of toilet paper with his face on. The USOC servers also crashed due to the number of emails complaining about Ohno’s triumph and the USA team withdrew from the following year’s world championship in South Korea through solidarity with Ohno. Later at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the South Koreans paid homage to Kim with their short track celebration after Ahn Jung-whan equalised against the United States.  [ESPN]