This most recent incarnation of the Olympics Games has been extraordinarily memorable. Iraq's soccer team's success... Michael Phelps' amazing achievements in the pool... Misty May and Kerri Walsh kicking the competition's asses in Beach Volleyball... the incredible atmosphere and mystique of the shot put, held at the original Olympic stadium in Olympia... the "where the heck did that come from" men's 400 free relay by the South Africans... and much more.
But one thing that stuck out to me as one of the GREATEST Olympic scenes I'd ever seen was in Men's Gymnastics, where Paul Hamm came back from a fall on the vault to win the gold in the all-around. Seeing Paul's disbelieving face as he made an extraordinary comeback was something that I replayed over and over on my TiVo and online.
Then, the bottom fell out.
Apparently, the judges scored a routine for South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-Young incorrectly, and if he had been judged correctly (given the proper starting score for his routine) he should have won the gold. However, the International Gymnastics Federation's rules state that any protests regarding a judgment must be given before the end of the rotation in which the protested routine took place. So, the issue should be thrown out. The South Korean coaches are the ones who screwed up by not following proper procedure.
But apparently they're not willing to take this for an answer, so the talks go on between the USOC and the South Koreans.
Last night, in the men's individual events, Paul Hamm was once again in the high bar event, where he'd sewn up the all-around a few nights earlier. But the judging had been bizarre all night, and it had come to a head with the performance of Russian champion Aleksei Nemov, who put on a GREAT performance but was scored low enough that he wasn't in medal contention. And no offense to Paul Hamm, who did a fantastic job with his routine as usual, but Nemov's routine was outstanding and should have medaled.
The fans had had enough - they booed for about ten minutes straight until the head of the International Gymastics Federation came down and apparently set the judges straight. I don't know what was said, but suffice to say that two judges had their scores re-done, enough to put Nemov into third place temporarily. Nemov made an extraordinary gesture to step to the podium and applaud the crowd's enthusiasm, and then asked for them to quiet down so that Hamm could perform his routine.
Hamm's performance was graded higher than Nemov's, which put him back into a tough situation. He was booed and cheered - or at least there were boos and cheers for Hamm as he landed. He ended up getting the silver to Nemov's being out of the medals, and after the competition he talked to the NBC commentator and was obviously stressed out by the whole situation.
Perhaps my recollection of this is a bit fuzzy - read NBCOlympics.com's article on the topic.
My question is this: why is Paul Hamm at the center of this controversy? He hasn't done ANYTHING but compete. The real wrath should be falling onto the following:
- The South Korean Olympic committee, for their refusal to let the issue die. They are the ones who screwed up, not Paul Hamm. They should have been paying attention and followed the rules of the competition. Because they didn't, Yang didn't win the gold. NBC's Tim Daggett calls to question whether they're right at all, given the number of holds Yang did in his parallel bars routine. But they need to accept that they screwed up.
- The USOC, for their perpetuation of the situation by saying they'd accept double golds. All this has done is made the South Koreans push harder.
- The judges, for their poor handling of this entire Olympics. It goes back to just before the men's qualifying, when Blaine Wilson was told that his routine that he'd been doing for months in competition wouldn't get the same starting score as it had been, forcing him to change it just before his turn to compete. And it got worse last night. Thank goodness it's over - it could only get worse.
Another question: how much of this is South Korea not ever having gotten over the 2002 Winter Olympics situation with the Short Track Speed Skating issue where Kim Dong-sung illegally cut off Apolo Anton Ohno and was disqualified. He broke the rules, he was DQed. But they had the same reaction then - "Change the rules for us because we want to win."
Perhaps this whole thing started back in Salt Lake City, with the pairs figure skating controversy with Jamie Sale and David Pelletier being scored low because of a French judge's unethical conduct in score-fixing. The result was that both Sale/Pelletier and Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia received gold medals. Perhaps this opened the door for federations to challenge judgements, even though the figure skating controversy was corruption-based and these later ones were just disagreements.
But thus far, there's no reason to suspect foul play, just bad or misunderstood scoring by the judges. And disregard of the rules by the South Koreans. They need to get over it and stop their complaining. They screwed up, they lost, and they need to live with it.
None of this is Paul Hamm's fault... he's an Olympic champion and he deserves it with his quiet demeanor, his ability to pull victory from defeat, and his ability to withstand criticism that should be put upon him in the first place.
