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<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Looks like it was the start values that got switched with the Koran preforming a more difficult routine. That kind of sucks but there isn't much that can be done now.</font>

[ 08-23-2004, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

I don't know why it can't be fixed now. If the mistake was known, and is easy to fix, and provable -- take Hamm's gold and give it to who deserves it. I'm all for my country's team winning, but fair is fair.

There was also another deduction that was not taken for too many grips on the bar. It would have made a larger negative net effect if taken along with the higher starting value.

People are saying it shouldn't be fixed because then it would muddle up the line between where you can and where you can't question the judges. I mean, there's gotta be a point where no matter what is found out, then the person retains the gold (unless it's something like drugs). Nonetheless, I would say that the honorable thing for Hamm to do is give up his medal and accept that silver.

That said, it really is sad that Hamm got caught up in all of this. It isn't his fault at all; the judges screwed up. But he's catching the flak.

The reason he's catching the flak is because he's opening his mouth. If he'd listen to his attorney, he wouldn't say anything of substance other than he's a competitor, not a judge, and he'll abide by what's worked out.

I read that I was wrong earlier -- it's the difference between gold and bronze for the Korean.

What would I do? If I were in his shoes, much as I'd like to keep it, I'd give up the gold. I'd want to win because I won, not because of a technicality. Right now, that gold has an asterisk on it, like it or not.

But I'd ask if I could keep the medal until tomorrow, just to dream a little bit.

Unfortunately, it does open the whole thing up to incessant review. One person watches and sees one thing, one watches and sees another. If the scores are going to come down to unanimous instant review, then we might as well throw the whole thing away. I mean, that's part of the reason for having so many judges... so that the mistakes balance out.

The judges made two mistakes.

1.Giving the Korean an incorrect starting score
2.Not penalising a mistake the Korean made

2 wrongs in this case make a right. Hamm won. The judges are fired. Shut up critics.

And the messed up judgeing continues.
http://sports.yahoo.com/oly/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns

To be honest I'm not a big gymnastistics fan, but this got out of control.As I saw it the italian guy won flat out, the russian guy should have took 2nd and Hamm took 3rd.But I would have to say whoever had to follow the russian guy would not have been at 100% the crowd was still booing and hissing through the begining of his routine.

Well I think that if it is correct that poor ole Bettina Hoy from the German team had to give her 2 gold medals back after the Americans (and their good friends the French) protested in the eventing - well what is good enough for the goose is good enough for the gander. The Korean deserved the gold and would have had it but for a clerical error. Enough said.

I will defend Hamm in that it should not be up to the individual to make the offer - it should be the sporting federation that makes the rules that has the balls to do the right thing. Well done to the Equestrian lawmakers, and bickbats to the Gymnastic cowards.

And in late breaking news - Australia, who have never won a medal in the sport before, will be playing in the gold medal game tomorrow in of all things BASEBALL. LOL - who could have picked that [img]smile.gif[/img] - we will be playing either Cuba or Canada.

[ 08-24-2004, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Davros ]

<font color=skyblue>What about the Romanian girl that won the gold in 2000 but lost it because they said that she had taken a cold medicine (Sudafed???)that had a banned chemical in it. Now that chemical is no longer on the list of banned stuff, and never should have been...so why has the Romanian not got her Gold back?

I also heard that a judging error in 1980? favored Korea against Russia???? I think that is right...anyway, if we are going to start expecting countries to do what is right rather than what the judges ruled...How many countries in the History of the Olympics owe medals to another person?

Hundreds??? At least dozens...

So why should we be acting like Hamm is the first case? The reason is because it is covered by the media more, methinks.

Oh, and my personal opinion on scoring is that the judging should be left to reviewing the video footage which accurately shows each step of the performance. I was amazed at the ability of the cameras footage during the high-dives. The announcers were able to go through and look at each second of a move, and cirlce small problems that the human eye would not catch...but for true fairness sake, whoever performs better should win the gold, not what a human eye can perceive as what is good or not. Given this time to work on the scoring, the issue of Hamm would not have come up, because there would have been a few more minutes to decide the winner while reviewing the tapes, and the judges may have been able to figure out their scoring error by then. I guess I am just guessing at that one, but come on...there has to be a better way.</font>

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The judging decisions do seem incredibly bad at these games.
The mistakes over the 3 day event, German has gold, German's given gold, German's lose gold.
And the American swimmer (can't remember name) who won his event by a huge margin, got disqualified then as the judge could not say in English why he was disqualified got the gold. Which was a good thing he was so much better than everyone else in the field. The British swimmer who to disqualified for doing a butterfly kick, when the replay clearly showed it was the guy in the next lane who did it, the dubious marking when Greeks have been involved…the list goes on.

But did anyone see the Women’s 800 meters?? What a race!! So close, and it was really good to see Kelly win, she was so happy. Well done to her and good luck in the 1500m.