The Official Athens 2004 Olympics Thread

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DaveC said:
I would be losing it if I was the Korean, and if I was Hamm I'd never be able to live with my conscience knowing that I didn't truly win that medal.

Exactly. I don't know how the hell the judges are living with their consciences after the number of absolute fuck ups at this Olympics.

And on the "it's the taking part that counts, not the winning" thing...well, it's nice idea. I just think that, realistically, most of the athletes you're watching will have been training for many, many years for this competition and made sacrifices that most people can't imagine. It's a nice idea to say that it's just the taking part that matters and I'm sure some athletes do feel that way, but I also think if you've basically dedicated your entire life to being the best at your sport then going away with anything less than success isn't going to satisfy you.

And I for one am sick of the some of the comments the media have been making this Olympics. Certain writers in the British press have been whining about Denise Lewis dropping out of the heptathalon and then *the horror* not staying to watch the rest of the competition!!! I mean how dare she be disappointed and not want to sit around for hours watching the rest of the competition? Maybe some of these writers should try walking a mile in the shoes of the people they're writing about before they start screaming their uninformed criticism.
 
Ultraviolet Light said:


Isn't this just ex post facto judging? If tomorrow it's declared that driving on the right side of the road is illegal in the United States, you can't review tape of me doing so last week and arrest me for it.
I realize rules of law in the U.S. don't transfer over into gymnastics, but it's not like the IOC or FIG can go review tape from the event finals in Sydney and go "whoops, we didn't notice that Liu Xuan took two steps on her beam dismount instead of the one we deducted her for, someone call Ekaterina Lobazniouk and tell her she gets the gold."

It seems to me that if Yang Tae Young's start value was originally lowered because of the fact that he had 4 holds then the officials should have been able to say that from the beginning instead of scurrying around trying to come up with an excuse.



That said, I don't think it's fair of the president of FIG to make it seem like it's Hamm's fault or his responsibility to come up with a fix for things(Federation Requests Hamm Give Up Gold ), but I certainly don't think I'd want to keep a medal I know I didn't earn.

Exactly. It's a shame but it happens all the tiime. Replays can PROVE calls were wrong and teams have lost games, even championship games, unfairly. But there is absolutely NO precedence for taking away someone's victory after the final bell because of mistakes. It just doesn't happen. A lot of people stew over it but it's never been changed.

And UVL, he DID earn it- in a story on NBC last night, Bob Costas interviewed former US gymnast Dagget and he pointed out how the S. Korean's parallel bar routine should have been deducted .2 for doing 4 handstand holds instead of the limit of 3. So if that was noticed, he gets NO medal at all, not even the bronze. I say if you're going to get picky over one thing (start value) you have to rescore everything, in which case, he didn't even win a bronze! I am searching the net for a link to a story on this, but I saw it on TV with video evidence. Young was NOT the gold medal winner after all. And once again, the time to challenge the score was when it happened, not 3 days later. It's like an NFL team throwing out a challenge flag 3 days after a game ends!
 
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Yang Tae Young protested his start value, not the deductions. If they missed the fact that he had 4 holds then it's their fault, but that's not what was brought into question. His start value should have been 10.0 instead of 9.9, that's what they asked be re-evaluated.

I hate how all of the press in the States is like "oh wait, they were wrong, that South Korean guy shouldn't have gotten any medal, go USA" - if it turns out everything's so peachy, then why did they suspend 3 judges? (They need to re-evaluate how they throw their judges together anyway, but that's another story)

And don't get me started on Tim "Whaddya mean the Soviets boycotted?" Dagget.







FizzingWhizzbees said:
Maybe some of these writers should try walking a mile in the shoes of the people they're writing about before they start screaming their uninformed criticism.

:applaud:
 
Ultraviolet Light said:
Yang Tae Young protested his start value, not the deductions. If they missed the fact that he had 4 holds then it's their fault, but that's not what was brought into question. His start value should have been 10.0 instead of 9.9, that's what they asked be re-evaluated.

But how can you only re-evalute the things that suit you and ignore the things that would hurt you?



I hate how the press in the States is like "oh wait, they were wrong, that South Korean guy shouldn't have gotten any medal, go USA" - if it turns out everything's so peachy, then why did they suspend 3 judges? (They need to re-evaluate how they throw their judges together anyway, but that's another story)

I don't doubt that all the judges and the way they judge should be re-evaluated as a whole. But if you go back and give one guy what he wants, what about every other gymnast, skater, or football player who's ever been wronged or lost because of a bad call? I can't see why this guy is so special. He's not the first and it won't be the last. Learn from it and move on, just like all the other bad calls and the dimpled chads in Florida.

If they were so concerned about his score they should have protested immediately not 3 days later. You think they'd have realized it right away! What the press is trying to do is to point out other things that haven't been mentioned yet. It wasn't just Dagget, he was the guest who narrated it, but it was a video put together by the network.
 
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Lilac said:
If they were so concerned about his score they should have protested immediately not 3 days later.

If you were informed on this issue, you would know that they protested right away...and were ignored by the now suspended judges. :up:
 
Lilac said:
But how can you only re-evalute the things that suit you and ignore the things that would hurt you?

This may help explain things.

"The gymnastics jury is composed of two separate panels. The A Panel (two judges) evaluates the Start Value of each routine (maximum of 10.0) based on the difficulty ratings assigned to each skill. The B Panel (six judges) evaluate the overall execution of the exercise. The B Panel's deductions are subtracted from the Start Value produced by the A Panel. An FIG expert is provided to oversee the judges and to confirm that both panels judged correctly...Of note, inquiries are only allowed into the findings of the A Panel. The individual marks from the members of the B Panel may not be protested." [emphasis mine]


And "this guy is so special" because his Start Value the first two nights of competition (in prelims and team finals) was a 10.0, and he was doing the exact same routine.
Also interesting is that the FIG expert on P-bars "provided to oversee the judges and to confirm that both panels judged correctly" is American (one of the judges now suspended). Just to throw in the politics card again. :wink:
 
Again, why is this guy 'so special' when stuff like this has happened to a lot of people and nothing was ever done? If you are going to fix his, go back and redo everything in gymnastics an skating that's every been judged wrong or for political reasons by a judge and change the results of every ball game where someone lost in a bad call by a dumb or biased ref. Oh and while you're at it, how about Al Gore's dimpled hanging chads in FL! I still don't see how this one situation is so special when so many other mistakes, even admitted ones, have stood because IT'S OVER and NOBODY goes back and changes things and if you do it opens a whole new can of worms with the past and the future.

I will say this should be a lesson to be learned from and surely after all this stink it will never happen again. If this stops any other mistakes from being made, that is a great legacy in itself, greater than any color medal.
 
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marathon_abduct_cp_2004_390.jpg


:sad:

If ever there was a time for a double gold, this is it.

I hope that man who attacked him gets the extra-slippery soap in jail.
 
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