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Olympic travesty
Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2008, at 8:45 AM<< Previous | Read comments | Respond | Email link | Next >>
Is anybody else addicted to viewing the Olympics on NBC and the USA Network? Are there any other channels that show some action at certain points of the day?
I love it when these summer games pop up every four years and seeing countries come together to support the best athletes in the world. The gymnastics and the diving portion of the games are tough to handle at times though. I'm not sure I could handle raising a child within a sport where their performance is decided by some judge sitting in a suit at a table. When that happens, you get travesties like what happened to Nastia Liukin in the uneven parallel bars. After tying China's He Kexin with a score of 16.725 and having the same degree of difficulty, Liukin was bused to the silver medal stand after a tiebreaking formula that is one of the more ridiculous things I've ever heard of. How far do you have to go to prevent a teenager from winning a gold medal? These young ladies, in most cases, start tumbling around the time they first learn to walk and rarely go a week without swinging around in a gym somewhere. That's a lot of grueling work to go through and then hear you're not the gold medal winner because your average of scores remaining after eliminating the judges' lowest and highest scores was hundredths of a point too low. Oh, and what's up with Jamaica's Usain Bolt basically pulling up with about 15 meters left in the 100-meter final to go ahead and start celebrating and showing up his competitors. I tip my hat to Bolt for being the fastest sprinter of all time with a world record time of 9.69 but that's just not necessary. Show us you know better in the 200. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
Danny Parker is sports editor of the Times-Gazette.
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So, what's the point?
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They are also showing the Olympics on MSNBC and Oxygen too!
You forgot to mention Alicia Sacramone's loss to Cheng Fei despite a fall by the Chinese gymnast. My wife and I were watching and could not believe it! Sacramone took a very slight step on both her vaults which resulted in .1 deduction for each. The Chinese gymnist actually landed on her knees after her second vault and was awarded a medal ahead of Sacramone who finished fourth and out of the medals.
He Kexin sure looked confident on the award stage last night. I'm still wondering how they determined her age?? Seems like everyone is just kind of smiling and not saying anything.
I was watching & listening to the commentators during the women's early floor exercises. When the girls would do anything - waver, mis-step, whatever - the announcers would say that a tenth of a point or a certain amount would be deducted from the score. If it were a Chinese girl, the score would be much higher than the announcers thought it would be. Did anyone else notice that?
good blog. great points on the comments as well. also, most of the chinese girls have pretty much been proven by their birth certificates to be too young and some are way too young. you have to be 15 in 2008 to compete and just look at them. some are about 11 or 12. the chinese officials changed their ages on their passports to get them in. what a sham for the chinese to pull out all these cheating tactics against the usa. it is embarassing for them though and we're still taking it to them in the medal count. i have a feeling we may hear more of all this in the coming weeks. maybe even some medals stripped from the cheating chinese gymnasts.
We're doing great with medals that are for events that are timed. Just looks like "monkey business" is being done on the events that are strictly judged by officials.
I thought the way Bolt pulled up and still beat the world record was absolutely amazing! It may make him a bad sport, but when you decimate the field and the record so easily, who cares!
You are right Mike, Sacramone not even getting a medal was ridiculous as well. How do you FALL on a vault and still medal? That's just incredible to me. I hate it for our girls. Kexin separated her legs terribly on her dismount and then took a big step on her landing and still beat Liukin? Come on now. Reminds me of when Roy Jones Jr. lost a fight when the Olympics were in Seoul, Korea. He almost killed the Korean kid but they gave it to the hometown boy. That year, some angry fans rushed a referee in disappointment. Maybe they were scared to let Jones win. Who knows? I'm not sure I could even handle having a child in a pageant since they're decided by someone's opinion, which can be influenced by a variety of factors.
Nathan, you are right about one thing with Bolt. That was an amazing display of athletic ability. A 6-foot-5 21-year-old that moves like that. I'm sure Jeff Fisher fell out of his chair. I about did.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing...
Interesting article...
We watched last night too and it was heart breaking!
I don't want to sound biased but ya know if China tried to pull a fast one with the little girl singing the anthem who is to say they'll not try to pull a fast one with the gymnasts ages.
It appears that the politics of the Games are the same, but all these athletes had to work their butts off to be there and to them the competition is real and personal.
Regardless of what the officials did or did not do, the athletes deserve the applause. That is not saying everyone should win, but to be there in the first place is quite an accomplishment. Many of us have attempted some of these sports in our youth, and what I see them do is a bit mind-boggling.
I still don't quite understand the scoring for gymnastics.