Sick to Death Part V: The Final Chapter?
- Jim Rome
I think all discussion on this particular topic has been exhausted. Everyone that cares about it, and even some of those that don’t care (like myself) seem to have made their decision as to how this matter should be resolved. Just to lay this matter to rest for me and the people that for whatever reason have nothing better to do in their lives at the moment than to read this, I present my final views on this (non)issue.
First, I think it is important and necessary to separate two aspects of the judging. There are elements that are part of the performance and subjective in that they are open to interpretation or may involve seeing or not seeing a certain element. These types of elements would include such things as whether an athletes knees buckled, whether she stepped out of bounds, did he drop the ball, and other such things.
There are also elements that are outside of the performance itself and are objectively identifiable and designed to ensure that the playing field is equal and fair for all parties. Such elements would include the start values, time on the clock, the height of various apparatus, the weight of the athletes, and similar elements.
In an ideal sporting world, no review of either of these types of elements would be allowed or even necessary. However, judges are only human. Thus, judges make errors. Then question should be, then, whether parties should be allowed to demand review and reconsideration of suspected mistakes involving any of the aforementioned elements, and if so, should the reviews and reconsiderations be without limit?
I do not think that reviews should ever be allowed for suspected, or even obvious mistakes in the judging or interpreting of subjective elements, unless there is at least strong evidence or a strong appearance of intentional wrongdoing on the part of the judges or referees. The possibility that things will be missed or bad calls will be made is part of the sport itself. It does not affect the overall fairness of the game even though they may effect the outcome of the game or event. If you allow reviews of these things, they could go on and on forever. Every little detail could be questioned and protested. Such things would quickly destroy the integrity of and interest in any sport subject to such reviews. It just can’t be allowed to happen.
As for the objective, quantifiable mistakes that create unfair situations, give one side an unfair advantage, create an unfair disadvantage, or in some other way interfere with the fairness and neutrality of the game. If judges or referees miscount the number of fouls on a player, the number of time outs available, gives incorrect start values, set the apparatus and wrong heights, deny time or give too much time, put someone in the wrong weight class, etc. the game itself is no longer fair and equal. These are errors that are easily avoided and destroy the integrity of the competition. Reviews and protests should be allowed for errors of such objective matters. That having been said, there are rules and regulations in place that limit the time for filing protests or appeals. These limits are necessary to prevent the disagreements from going on forever.
When applied to this situation. there are basically two things people are saying. Those that are on the side of giving gold to the Koreans are arguing that the start value was incorrect and he should be given the .10 that was deducted and given the gold medal along with it because his score would elevate him to first place. On the side that is against giving the Koreans gold, the main argument is that the Korean had one too many holds on the bar and he crouched a bit on the dismount so he should have been deducted .20 points, which means he wouldn’t have won the gold anyway.
To me, these are two separate and distinct categories of argument. The argument that the judges screwed up in not deducting points for having too many holds and a bad dismount are arguments of the subjective variety that should never be reviewed because they are subjectively analyzed and inherently subject to various interpretations.
On the other hand, the argument that the start value was .10 points low is no subject to interpretation. It is objectively verifiable. Also, it affected the equality and fairness of the event. The event was unfair to the Korean even before his performance began.Therefore, it is my firm opinion that the Koreans should be allowed to protest the scoring and demand that something be done, whether it is taking the medal from Hamm and giving it to the Korean or giving two golds, or whatever. However, and this is a very big “however” there are reasonable rules setting time limits for making protests and appeals, and the Korean team knew the deadline and chose to ignore it and not risk having the rest of their performance prejudiced by the protest. In other words, the Korean coach weighed his options and chose to wait until after the known deadline expired to make his protest.
Therefore, I fully agree with and support the Koreans right to protest the clearly unfair start value. I fully understand and appreciate the Koreans in their efforts to secure a second gold medal for their gymnast. I think it is quite generous and shows a great deal of decency and sportsmanship that they do not want Hamm to lose his medal. However, the Korean coach knew the deadline for filing protests and the consequences for not protesting before the deadline. Rules are there to regulate the sport and to provide structure, stability, and predictability to the medals process. After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that although it was initially unfair to be started at a lower start value than he should have been, the Korean coach immediately realized the error and knew the deadline, but he chose to ignore it. Thus, Korea had ample time to seek a review of the issue, but voluntarily chose not to seek the review until after deadline had expired. Although the judges were initially to blame for giving the wrong start value, but the rule makers know that the judges are all human and prone to making an occasional error, thus the rules provide a way for the error of humans to be rectified. However, ultimately, the coach is to blame for this because he consciously chose to ignore the process for rectifying the errors of the human judges and instead filed too late. Thus, I personally do not think that the Koreans should be given a separate gold medal. Rather, it should be explained as a horrible mistake by the coach, and the coach should bear full responsibility for consciously disregarding the known rules and procedures and purposefully filing lately.
That having been said, Hamm who started out as an innocent victim should understand the difference between the two arguments and accept that based on the objective errors he should not have been awarded the gold medal. Although I do not think he should be stripped of his medal, I believe that he should give it up. At this point, Hamm’s argument is that he is the champion because the Korean did not complain in time and that the Korean had too many holds, the latter argument can be discarded because it is a subjective argument in that it depends upon the perception of the judges and what they notice. When Hamm’s complaint is distilled to it’s basic form, we see that he is simply saying that the judges made a mistake but the Koreans protested too late so tough luck, Korea. While that may be true as far as the interpretation of the rules is concerned, it is bad form and sportsmanship for Hamm. Hamm will have to live the rest of his life telling stories to kids and grandkids about how he “earned” a gold medal because of a technicality, even though he should not really have won it. I strongly believe that Hamm should give up his gold medal voluntarily. I couldn’t live with myself if that was my situation. I would have to give the medal up..not necessarily to the Koreans. What to do with tthat decision lies with the olympic oficials.
Thus, my personalized views are that Korea should not get a second review and should not be awarded a second gold and the Korean coach is to blame….Howevemedalr Hamm should surrender the gold medal voluntarily. If he doesn’t and insists on keeping his unearned medal, then perhaps there could be a loophole in the rules that would allow the Koreans to insist on receiving the a similar medal that they did not really earn.
Perhaps, the ultimate solution for preserving the integrity of the games and alleviating these types of disputes to the fullest extent possible is to remove all games from the Olympics that cannot be settled with a tape measure, stopwatch, scoreboard, or a straight “You win or you lose” decision.