diakorea, when is roy jones getting his gold medal?

Qoreans need to cheer more like the russians and then they will get a higher score.

Perhaps we will soon have a new event — olympic lawyering! (my only chance of ever winning a gold medal)

I was tought at an early age to abondon my “what if” mentality when it came to sports and life. I certainly feel sorry for Yang and I think he has an honest beef. It’s entirely likely that if the starting score not been deducted he would have gone on the win the gold. But you can’t go back in time bump up the score and just assume that scores and performances would have remained constant. I’m sure you can argue that the likelihood would have been extremly high, but there are too many variables to consider to say so absolutely. In less it can be proven that the decision for the starting value was anything other than an honest mistake, the rules must be followed.

Four days before the men’s team compitition was to take place a Japanese judge, apparently on his own accord, decided hand out a lower point value for major elements in two of the U.S team member’s routines. Gymnasts spend months learning new routines and these two particular routines were scored higher all the way up till 4 days before competition. The judge, a former olympic gymnast, had to have known how this would have impacted their performance. Does it seem unfair…yes. Is he entirely within his rights to make that determination…yes. The U.S. went on the win the silver. It’s possible that if their elements been scored as they had all the way up to the olympic games, they might have taken gold. But shit happens. In my mind, it in no way diminishes the performance by the Japanese men…they ended the night with a number of unbelievably solid routines and are more than deserving of the gold medal. But what if, what if. (note: I’m aware that these examples do not exactly parallel the Yang/Hamm incident, but the general argument remains the same.)

Regardless, Hamm’s gold medal, for better or worse, will now be tarnished. Giving Yang a share of the gold or Hamm voluntary relinquishing his medal are two outcomes I would fully support. But these outcomes are unlikely.

One thing that I know for certain though, is that in 3-4 months the average American will be saying “Paul who?!?”. Gymnastics, along with a boatload of other unpopular sports here in the States, will be relegated to the dustbin for another 4 years. It seems sad, but oh well, the nfl season and mlb playoffs are just around the corner. They’ll provide ample opportunties to bitch and moan about calls and decisions that, taken in perspective, mean very little.

Mistakes, both subjective and objective, are inherent in the meet. Start errors are extremely common, and an [unfair] exception was made for reviewing them in this case. I have never heard of a gymnastics competition where there *weren’t* start errors. Unless they are more than a tenth off, they are almost always shrugged off (as the South Korean coach did until too late).

Either the error invalidates the whole meet and nobody earned his medal, or he earned his medal as fairly as any other winner in gymnastics. Or, to put it another way, Hamm either has a sham medal and would be making a sham gesture in giving it to an equally undeserving opponent, or he has a deserved medal and would being caving under undue pressure by giving it up.

How do you know Paul Hamm will be ashamed to tell his grandkids about his gold medal?

Paul Hamm seems to be damned proud for not allowing himself to be jerked around by everyone else’s incompetency and narcissistic injury.

He will probably brim with pride telling his grandkids about doing his best, being handed a gold meda, and not allowing the system to jerk him around by taking it back — due to no fault of his own.

Paul Hamm is a champ in more than one way.

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.

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.

Again, how many hold the Korean had is a subjective part because it is subject to the notice and interpretation of the judges. One judge may see it and one judge may not. Although it would be easily noticed on a review, like an out of bouds ball, it was a part of the performance itself and thefore should never be reviewable because of the “Pandora’s Box” effect that it would create that would ultimately destroy the integrity of the sport. As a matter of fact, the Koreans are now saying that THEY reviewed PAUL HAMM’S tape and found a few things that the judges missed, which would have put Hamm’s score lower than the Korean’s score even with a deduction for an extra hold. Where does it end? That is shy such things cannot be reviewable.

On the other hand, the start value was a condition imposed upon the Korean by the judges. It was a state of being that was outside of and unrelated to the performance itself. Thus, it is completely objective and should be reviewable, within the proper time frame.

Thus, the start value should be reviewable and the number of holds cannot be reviewable.