2008 Summer Olympics - Beijing, China - Page 9

Re: 2008 Summer Olympics - Beijing, China

Great Britain wins its first Olympic medal in gymnastics since 1928 (Louis Smith on the pommel horse). Andrew, that should bring a smile to your face.

I thought it was cool that 33-year old Oksana Chusovitina won the silver on the vault. I wanted her to win the gold, but she was ecstatic with the silver and it is a great story. [AMERICAN]What is with the judges awarding such a high score for the Chinese vaulter who fell on the landing?[/AMERICAN]

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Man a travesty is the gymnastics bias against the americans. Sacramone deserved the bronze. No way can anyone fairly judge two vaults that both fall and give one a 15.05 and the other a very sub 15 score. to the gymnastics judges. I guess they are all too worried about making it out of Beijing alive and not "disappearing". Ugh.

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i don't watch alot of gymnastics, but i'll assume the "fallers" were performing much harder vaults that were rewarded accordingly. to be fair, the NBC announcers didn't feel very slighted with the scoring (and they're usually pretty vocal about that), though maybe that's because they were accused of whining too much in previous nights?

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Did you hear Bela Karolyi though? He can be over the top and he is biased towards the American team, but he obviously knows his stuff. He was incensed and thought much more should've been deducted.

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oh the old guy? no i missed him, probably switched to CBC or something.

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Yep I respect Bela's opinion more than the commentators because I do think they are being reigned in by the NBC big wigs that don't want to offend anyone. Bela just doesn't care, he's gonna say what's on his mind and he has the pedigree to back it up. And even if the vault was higher, she did not pull it off, the take off was horrendous and landing on her butt was ugly.

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If I remember correctly, the Russians were allowed to keep their Golds while the Canadians got theirs as well.

Let's just all agree that no one's got the high moral ground over anyone else here - there have been cheating incidents from just about every country.

Whether you like judged events or not, they do typically have fairly strict rules about when to give and when to deduct points. As commentators have mentioned in previous meets, as bad as a fall is you can only lose so many points for it and you still get points for other parts of your routine. So if you have a higher difficulty (both of the Chinese gymnasts vaults were of higher difficulty than both of Sacramone's) and perform the rest of it cleanly you can still beat someone else.

Those rules are in place specifically to minimize the subjectivity of the judging. Hey, I'm not saying the scoring system is perfect or that the judges always follow it to a 'T', but the landings are only a portion of the scoring (just as in figure skating).

I didn't see this particular event, but given some of the other placings for the U.S. women (first and second in all-around), it's an extraordinary stretch to claim bias against them. And whatever pedigree Bela has, it's not like he is beyond a little bias himself...

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Well, Jeff, you seem to have found yours - gainsaying anything I write.

As I have been at great pains to point out, I'm not saying that other countries are any better. BUT: all this grumbling about mass conspiracies and 'everyone hates the USA' are nonsense. Referees make mistakes, period. And of course if you're any good at sport, you are likely to have more decisions against you - because you play more often. And because of this, once in a while you'll come up against some real clunkers of decisions. But equally, you'll find other times when the mistakes run in your favour as well. But selectively ironing these out and concentrating only on when things go against you is a little illogical.

So, Jeff, far from hating the USA, I'm trying to say that the rest of the world really doesn't have it in for you in the sports arena. Being top dog naturally induces paranoia (the Brits went through the same thing when we were top dog), but over this matter, it really is unfounded.


Someone raised the issue of umpire bias in cricket. Without getting into the tedious details, this largely concerned subjective opinions on LBW (leg before wicket, or blocking the ball which might have hit the stumps with the body without attempting a batting stroke). There were strong statistical reasons for suspecting bias by some of the Indian and Pakistani referees, but when looked into, some of the other countries' umpires also showed bias. The result is that now for international matches, there is a referee from a neutral country. But nobody thought this a major international conspiracy, just simple individual human fallibility.



I think this was treated more with incredulity than ecstacy in the UK [one of our commentators said 'I don't believe it, we've won a gymnastics medal'], though all credit to Mr Smith. In fact, rather more time was given to Paula Radcliffe, who limped in at about 20th in the women's marathon. For some reason, the BBC is irrationally preoccupied with Ms Radcliffe and thinks everyone else in the UK is as well (we're not, BTW). However, our major obsession has been the rowing (most successful country in the rowing regatta) and the indoor cycling (a clutch of gold medals so far and a realistic chance of a medallist in every single event).

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Here in Singapore the media is all trumpeting the fact that the women's table-tennis team won silver, our first Olympic medal in 48 years (and only second-ever). Our previous solitary Olympic medallist wryly said he was pleased as in future he wouldn't have to face a barrage of journalists' questions every four years (then again he's already 75 or so...)

Of course, on the flip side our team consists of a bunch of China-born players who couldn't quite make the grade at home... but when China has the world's top five players -- so they left #3 and #4 on the bench, using #5 because of her greater experience, with the top two -- the rest of the world is really just trailing in China's wake by quite a margin. We've got #6, BTW. But she was completely outclassed in the final against the world #1. But kudos for the effort, even if we got whitewashed.

It's quite funny, reading the names of table-tennis players, most countries have at least one Chinese import. Yes, even the USA...

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A little hyperbole goes a long way with you, doesn't it. Nobody was claiming 'mass conspiracies and 'everyone hates the USA'." They were simply discussing the scores and mentioning times in the past that scoring was suspect. This is a USA centric board, so the discussion was USA centric. You'd think you'd be used to that by now, but I guess every board needs its curmudgeon.

Oh, and give me a break with your claims of neutrality. Earlier you were standing up for the utter impartiality of referees/judges and calling tough calls mere "mistakes" when the USA takes a hard loss. In the very SAME POST you alluded to the 1984 Olympics being a shady affair because the USA took all but one of the boxing golds. Of course, the absence of the Soviet Union and Cuba, the only true rivals for the USA in boxing for the previous 3 Olympics, had absolutely nothing to do with the USA's showing. No it had to be suspect, especially in one very jaded Brit's eye.

I'll admit my bias, I'm pro-USA all the way. But I will listen to others, and I certainly don't dismiss any and every opposite opinion with the false dichotomy of claiming the picked-on underdog view while simultaneously attempting to 'a-learn them there insular Americans a thing or two about the REAL world.

It gets old . . . real old.

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That's a good point. Andrew, the charges of bias being made by people here were based on specific instances where people watched the competition involved (basketball, boxing, skating), and could see how poor the judges decisions were. You didn't cite a single 1984 boxing match that you said you watched with an outcome based on poor judging. So your "counter example" was quite poor.

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Jeff, this is emotive language. No matter what counter-claim you now make, it's clear that you're upset. I've no wish to raise your blood pressure any more, so I'll not address anything more on this issue. A shame you had to get rattled over a vigorous discussion, but there we are.

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This was mentioned on the BBC - congratulations!

Based on medals per head of population (see http://www.billmitchell.org/sport/medal_tally_2008), you're now ahead of, inter alia, USA, China, Japan and a host of other countries.

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You could have skipped that sentence and replied to the rest, but you didn't. Nicely done.

And I'm not rattled, Andrew. Bored and generally unimpressed with this tiresome theme . . . but not rattled. Rattled would be dismissing the argument given by the other side due to "emotive languiage".

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Andrew, your trailing bracket snuck into the URL of that web site with the different weightings for the medals.

I'm hugely impressed with Australia's count - they seem to have kept things up since Sydney. Canadians typically compare ourselves a bit to Australia given population size and a number of other things, so they do seem to be creaming us from that point of view. However, they have a much more sports based culture and certainly fund it to a higher degree (well, at least I'm assuming they do...).

Canada grabbed a silver in the Team Show Jumping (horse jumping) after a jump off with the U.S. (they were tied after the 2 rounds and then each jumper did a half course run - the U.S. had three straight riders complete with 0 faults). The best thing about it though is that 61 year old Ian Millar from Canada got his first Olympic medal...He's been at 9 Olympics (qualified for 10 straight, but obviously didn't go to Moscow in 1980) and he's a terrific ambassador for our country. I'm not a huge equestrian fan, but I'm really happy for him today.

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I don't think that most would claim a bias against the U.S. women, but throughout this thread we have discussed the inconsistency and strangeness that has been the scoring. The system still needs work. And for Bela, I acknowledged in my post that he is biased, but that does not mean he isn't right. And for the specific and required deductions that are in place, we have seen that these still require the judges to make judgment calls on the level of the fault. Bela's point was that if the rules for deductions had been followed as he saw it, her score should've been much lower. It also flys in the face of common sense to see two very good vaults lose to one great vault and a big fall.

Oh, and the Millar story is pretty cool. It is all these cool stories that make the Olympics for me.

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I think it is safe to say that back in 1783 we wouldn't be sending Jeff and Andrew to Paris to finalize the peace treaty.

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Though I bet I would have gotten a better deal.

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Hoo boy, ain't that the truth! I don't know how you make judged sports to be more fair - I know they've tried in some areas, but as long as you have actual human judges there will be 1) fallibility and 2) bias. And sometimes 3) corruption.

Thanks for expanding on his comments David. As I mentioned, I didn't see the event. It would be interesting to compare how Bela would've scored it (with specific deductions, etc.) versus what the judges did, but we'll never see that.

Yeah, but don't get caught in that trap. Either you give a single score for the entire performance (and then a fall likely looms large) or you break it down into components and score it that way. If you do the latter, then throw common sense out as you have to be an expert at breaking the routine apart.

Bela may still be right, but I think we have to look at the routine based on how the judges are suppose to have scored it.

Absolutely...Also moments like the women's 100m sprint - the slow mo replay of the face of Shelly-Ann Fraser as she realized she won it was just great. Pure joy.

Heh. What's funny is that I think they actually agreed on 95% of what was being discussed.

But anyhoo...

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Several times now NBC has been shilling a Phelps DVD and it got me to wondering. Yeah, there will be an Olympics DVD available soon after the it's all over, but this is featuring one guy. Is Phelps getting a cut of the action on this DVD? I think he should.

Other than what individual athletes negotiate through sponsorships and endorsements, do they make any other money? The IOC must be raking in the dough hand-over-fist. Does the IOC get it all? Networks the world over are paying them big bucks for broadcasting rights, I bet they get a split of revenues that China takes in. Does it all go into the coffers of the IOC?

Years ago, I would have been shocked to think I'd be writing stuff like this, but the Olympics is a money-making machine and so many of the athletes are wealthy pros or less-wealthy government sponsored pros, so I've thrown all idealism out the window.

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You are right I cannot statistically prove corruption. I'm not sure exactly how I could do that as most organizations are not in the practice of keeping statistical track of structural corruption. At least not as far as I know. I mean the nature of corruption, to me, is that it is hidden and therefore is not easily tracked statistically. I can only go on what I read, see, and hear.

I consider an organization to be corrupt when, in violation of its own statutes, it turns a blind eye to underage competitors, such as those used by China in "womens" gymnastics.

However, in the interests of fairness I will retract the use of the word corrupt in regards to the actual decision making and subsitute it with "questionable".


I'm not watching the Olympics. I'm reading about these controversies in the news. It piques my interest when I read or hear about an Olympic controversy so I try to find out more about it. I tried to find the actual wrestling match that upset the Swede, but I couldn't find it on the web. All I could find were reports on the aftermath.


I'm not feeling picked on. Everyone has their view regarding the Olympics. I just happen to think that they are a bloated, unwieldy, financially draining exercise in political gamesmanship, run by an organization that has no morals or scruples.


I'm not attacking every person who acts as a judge at Olympic events. There are many people who, as you put it, volunteer out of love for a particular sport. However, you can have a lot of good people working for an organization that is not necessarily good.

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Yup, I say there is bias and corruption amongst judges/referees in Olympic events and Andrew agrees . . . except when the US loses. And if you go by the total medal count according to population vs. GDP by way of PCI according to the FCC; the USA loses exactly 5% of the time.

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Oops! Amended now. Many thanks.

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So no one is talking about Luiken getting the EXACT same score as the chinese gymnast, but she got the silver in the Uneven bars?

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Well, I didn't know about it yet. I normally try to stay away from results so I can watch it fresh. It will be on tonight's NBC coverage, but my wife just sent me this:

Finally, proof that gymnastics scoring needs an overhaul - E.M. Swift - SI.com

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well, first off i'd say all judging 'scorecards' should be shown to the public, so everybody knows exactly where deductions were made... or does that make too much sense?

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I guess He got the youngest athlete in the games discount on deductions for the gold.

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more 200 prelim's and Bolt is just hilarious. he's out so far ahead, the sight of him jogging towards the finish while the group behind him is sprinting for their lives to catch up...