America just got exposed to the chaos that is short track.
NBC showed the women's short-track 3,000-meter relay on Tuesday during its primetime coverage.
It was an amazing race that mesmerized audiences as the skaters moved in and out of the track AND tumbled all over each other.
South Korea finished with the gold medal. They won by passing China with two laps to go. While China finished second, they were disqualified for impeding. The same thing happened to them in 2006.
After it took officials several minutes to figure out the penalties, Italy was moved up to second after finishing third and received the silver medal.
Canada, hoping they would move up to the bronze medal, was disqualified after finishing fourth because they impeded. That allowed the Dutch to move up to third place and win the bronze.
The Dutch were not even on the ice, but they won the B final. They set a world-record time of 4 minutes, 3.471 seconds in that final. It marks the first time a relay medal was won by a team in the B final, or by a team that didn't qualify for the final.
The American audience that watched the event during Primetime was stunned by what they had just watched:
The ending was controversial. Some fans were confused about how the South Koreans escaped a penalty despite causing one of the Canadian racers to fall. Because the Canadian, who was not a racer at the time, fell, she impeded Italy's team. Canada was given the penalty and was disqualified.
China was also disqualified, and they told reporters they didn't know why. It was determined they impeded South Korea during the exchange going into the final three laps, according to the judges.
Here was an explanation given by the judges about both disqualifications, according to an editor at NBC.
