S. Korean Unlikely to Get Gymnastics Gold

Freak Press ^ | Aug 22, 12:58 PM EDT | EDDIE PELLS

[School of Rational Thought]

Upon hearing the news, Presidential candidate and hero John Kerry called American Paul Hamm to offer his congratulations for "winning" the gold.

[HarryCaul]

I dunno. If there was a mistake, a real mistake, it should be corrected. And it does seem there was a real mistake.

[oolatec]

They should give this guy the Gold, and let Hamm keep his... and the 4th place finisher, give him a Bronze... seems like common sense to me...

[RichInOC]

Three words: Roy Jones, Junior.

[Jim_Curtis]

What a bunch of irrational nonsense. They are saying it was supposed to be judged higher based on some criteria before the actual performance. Libnastics.

[Pukin Dog]

I predict that before the Olympics end, Paul Hamm will make the gesture of giving his gold medal to the other gymnast in a demonstration of the American spirit.

[HitmanLV]

Nah, he is keeping his medal.

[LasVegasMac]

What a bunch of irrational nonsense

I'm not so sure. They are supposed to be judged against a "level of difficulty." The Korean was supposed to judged against a difficulty level of 10. He was not, instead he was judged against 9.9. And that was the difference. Had he been judged against a 10, he would have won the gold.

Screw ups all around, to be sure. What I don't understand is why did his team let him start the event. Don't they confirm all this before they start?

I think the guy got screwed. They need a "Upon further review..." system to correct errors like this.

LVM

[Tallguy]

If Hamm is smart and after all the rulings are handed down, he should get together with the 2 Korea gymnasts & offer to swap medals. It would be a great gesture of sportsmanship & Hamm would get tremendous press for it. I know he worked hard for it, and the comback from the vault was heroic, but the Judges' error gave Hamm the gold and an asterix.

What's more valuable to Hamm: the Gold, or a Silver with a huge celebrity bump?

The only obstacle is that the Korean with the Silver would have to be willing to accept the Bronze. Don't know if he'd do that. Also, the governing bodies might suspend the gymnasts for such an unsanctioned deal.

I don't like this "give both a Gold". That was BS when they did it with the figure skaters, and it would be BS now. There can only be one winner.

[Arkinsaw]

What a bunch of irrational nonsense. They are saying it was supposed to be judged higher based on some criteria before the actual performance. Libnastics.

It was supposed to be judged on what it was supposed to be judged on. The South Korean chose his routine for its difficulty level in order to be able to win. The difficulty level was done incorrectly. He did indeed have a higher score than Hamm.

Unfortunately, the rules don't allow for a change at this point

[Paleo Conservative]

Why isn't Al Gore asking for a recount?

[Neville72]

I agree. The marketablity of Hamm's gold is diminished if not shot to hell. Because it's acknowledged by everyone that the Korean should have won Hamm picture WON'T end up on Wheaties' boxes. If, however, in a diplay of sportsmanship he exchanges medals with the two other gymnasts, he will recieve a tremendous amount of positive publicity and likely garner some endorsement deals he otherwise wouldn't.

Also, not to be forgotten is it's the right thing to do.

[Tazlo]

They ought to have a do-over.

[saquin]

If they felt there was a problem with the scoring, the Koreans should have protested right away. The rules say the protest must be made before the end of the next rotation. After that, no scores can be changed.

We don't know for sure if this particular mistake would have changed the outcome. Maybe there were other scoring mistakes among the many other routines by other gymnasts. But the only one that has been retroactively examined is this one score by the Korean.

If they were going to change the outcome now, the only fair way would be to reexamine the scoring for everyone for the entire night. There's a reason they don't do that. It would be like using "instant" replay on entire football games and changing the score after the game has been over for days.

When it's over, it's over.

[pragmatic_asian]

My thoughts exactly. These hypocrites were staging demonstrations against the US when the US delegation had the temerity to suggest that something was amiss with the Roy Jones Jr. decision. Subsequent investigations have shown that judges were bribed to favor Korean athletes yet Jones still doesn't have his gold.

Even if a mistake in judging was made so what? What other mistakes were made and that haven't been examined? Some mistakes in judging may have hurt Hamm and benefitted the Koreans and haven't been examined; who knows? Unless some sort of fix was actually altered the decision, allow game time judgements to stand.

[Jim_Curtis]

Where is the proof that the judges judged the routine based on flawed criteria? Is it a matter of different judges watching the routine think it should have scored higher so therefore it is being said that the event judges must have scored it on some flawed criteria?

Did Pat Buchanan win the silver?

[Pukin Dog]

He will exchange medals before the end of the week. Bet on it.

[dfwgator]

Didn't they go ahead and award that Canadian skating duo the Gold after the fact, and had them share the gold with the original winners in the last Winter Olympics? Why can't they do the same here?

[Soylent Democrats]

"they ought to have a do over"

or an intense round of "Rock/Paper/Scissors"

[HitmanLV]

If you say so.