04/19/24
September 28, 2004
"If they determine by the rules of gymnastics I should give back my medal, I will.": Paul Hamm (USA) says this as he and Yang Tae-Young (S. Korea) take their battle for Olympic gymnastics gold to court.
posted by worldcup2002 to other at 05:53 PM - 9 comments
You know, I don't even care about gymnastics all that much yet this still makes my head hurt. Maybe they will rule that judged events aren't really sports?
posted by Joey Michaels at 09:47 PM on September 28, 2004
You know what really makes my head hurt? The "judged events aren't really sports" screed trotted out everytime there is a judging error. Sure it has plenty of merit to it, because other sports officials never blow calls. Just ask Serena, Venus, the Raiders, the Orioles...
posted by pivo at 11:47 PM on September 28, 2004
This is a waste of time. Give the guy a second gold or no gold and then please shut up.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 12:58 AM on September 29, 2004
Maybe Yang Tae-Young should get a gold medal, but I do think it would be a bit harsh to give him Hamm's gold medal. From what I recall (and I may have this all wrong) Hamm went into the final event knowing he needed to produce something a bit special to win, and then produced it - it would be a tad unfair to then tell him that actually he'd needed to be a little bit better than they'd thought. In all fairness to those who cry "ban the judged sport", I'm not sure that argument is relevent here - this wasn't a case of the system failing because it allowed some myopic tosspot to give a slanty opinion - the system was fine, it just wasn't implimented correctly. Perhaps I ought to add an 11½ hour session in the CAS to my list of Olympic endeavours to be completed before 2008.
posted by JJ at 02:41 AM on September 29, 2004
All I know is the dude on the high bar who didn't win after 48 releases in a row got jobbed.
posted by garfield at 08:28 AM on September 29, 2004
Dumb.
posted by blarp at 08:55 AM on September 29, 2004
pivo: I was being sarcastic. I should have included a more obvious "/sarcasm" style comment since I don't post here often enough for anyone to know that about me. Sorry!
posted by Joey Michaels at 01:04 PM on September 29, 2004
it would be a tad unfair to then tell him that actually he'd needed to be a little bit better than they'd thought. True. Even more unfair is to have points stripped from your score for no reason at all and lose your gold medal to someone who only did enough to win the silver.
posted by sic at 11:12 AM on October 03, 2004
Stupid judges. Stupid scoring systems. Stupid coaches. Stupid governing body officials.