Posted on 07/31/2012 7:27:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Chaos struck the men's team gymnastics competition in London yesterday when the Japanese team was awarded the silver medal after originally coming in fourth.
Here's what went down:
Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura stumbled off the pommel horse in the last event of the competition, and the judges gave him a terrible score — leaving Japan in fourth place behind China, Great Britain, and Ukraine.
But the Japanese team thought the judges mis-scored Uchimura's routine, so they appealed. And that's when things got interesting.
There's a rule in Olympic gymnastics that says teams must pay a fee to make an appeal. So the Japan team gave the judges a stack of $100's, and it was totally legal.
According to Yahoo's Maggie Hendricks, who is an expert in these sorts of things, "The money is there to make sure teams don't make capricious challenges."
"A smart national governing body sends their team with an envelope of cash for this very reason," Hendricks added.
Ultimately, it's probably a good policy. But given the amount of conspiracy theories surrounding Olympic judging, the images of the Japan coach handing the judges straight-up cash is still pretty jarring.
Japan's appeal was successful, and the wad of $100s was returned:
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
those were North Korean super bills, no crime was committed. /s
Japs watching too many Chicago style politics movies.
GIve new meaning to “pay to play”
I am imagining this is how Obamacare will end up working - except I don’t get the wad of hundreds back...
it’s MANDATORY.
You pay for the appeal, and if your appeal is upheld, the money is returned.
How else do you think he came up with his ruling?
I’ve been in NRA Regionals where there is a fee to challenge a score. Lose the challenge, lose the $, win the challenge, you get our dollar back.
The Olympics is merely the UN of sports—which is why it holds very little appeal for me.
The bribe was returned because someone got a picture of it.
Although it’s a good idea to institute a penalty to keep “capricious challenges” to a minimum, shelling out $$ has the appearance of impropriety. Perhaps, in keeping with the Olympic spirit, Tanya Harding could be on hand to kneecap the challenging athlete should they lose their challenge...??
The bribe was returned because someone got a picture of it.
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EXACTLY!!
I thought the Japanese had some horrible cultural taboo about handling cash?
That is actually a GOOD sign!!!
US dollars are STILL Number 1!!!
Not euros, not pounds sterling, not renminbi, not rubles.... haha...
Yeah, and that will just be to go on the waiting list for whatever medical care or treatment you need.
I disagree that it was "jarring," however. The announcers explained that a fee had to be paid to make an appeal, that the money was kept if the appeal was rejected, and returned if it was approved. The judges returned the money. So that's not the problem here.
I still agree it was a lousy call, though. That Japanese guy's "handstand" was awful.
Probably returned because it was dollars and not euros.
Actually, they would have preferred the stronger YEN :)
YEAH, I’m with you....I learned something interesting....did you know that there is a MAXIMUM amount of clothing the women volleyball players can wear? YES, MAXIMUM! They would like to wear more, but are not allowed to.
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