Jarring Images Show Japanese Gymnast Handing $100 Bills To Judges To Appeal A Score (It's LEGAL)

Business Insider ^ | 07/31/2012 | Tony Manfred

[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:

[Wise Hectare]

"The plaintiff's attorney asked for a private conference; afterwards, I discovered an envelope containing two thousand dollars on the chair he'd been sitting in. The defendant's attorney also asked for a private conference; he left an envelope containing three thousand dollars. The defendant's attorney will now approach the bench to receive a refund of one thousand dollars, after which I will hear both sides and judge the case according to its merits."

[William Tell]

Zionist Conspirator said: "... 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. "

The term "conflict of interest" does not imply that anybody did something wrong. It merely indicates that the interests of some party are conflicted.

The key question in this case is not what happened, but what would have happened if the appeal was not successful. Where does the money end up if the appeal had been UNSUCCESSFUL? Do the judges get to keep the money? Is the money donated to charity? Does the money go to support future Olympic activities?

Passing cash directly to a sporting event judge is bad practice no matter how honest the participants are. Who keeps the cash during the appeals process? Is the money secure? Are receipts issued for the cash? Is a second receipt completed to document the return of the cash?

[9YearLurker]

Ha, no—but I should have guessed!