VeeshanVault

Assinine..

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ATHENS (Reuters) - U.S. Olympic chiefs accused world gymnastics officials of putting "outrageous and improper pressure" on gold medallist Paul Hamm (news - web sites) to give his medal to a South Korean rival.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said Hamm placed first in the all-round event due to a judging error and bronze medallist Yang Tae-young should have been awarded gold -- but it has no mechanism to overturn the original decision.

The FIG has now gone a step further and written to Hamm suggesting he could return his medal at its request, according to a letter released by the U.S. Olympic committee Friday.

"If ... you would return your medal to the Korean if the FIG requested it, then such an action would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of Fairplay by the whole world," said the letter signed by FIG president Bruno Grandi and dated August 26.

The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) said the letter was a "blatant and inappropriate" attempt by the FIG to shift responsibility for its mistake onto the shoulders of Hamm, 21.

"The USOC finds this request to be improper, outrageous and so far beyond the bounds of what is acceptable that it refuses to transmit the letter to Mr. Hamm," it said in a statement.

USOC chiefs had two lengthy conversations with Hamm, his parents and representatives Thursday night, it said.

"During these conversations, the USOC expressed its unwavering support for Mr. Hamm and indicated it will aggressively resist any attempt by any party to lay claim to his gold medal," the statement said.

The USOC also said it was no longer willing to consider allowing a second gold medal to be awarded to Yang, one suggestion floated as a way of defusing the row.

The FIG letter also said the International Olympic Committee (news - web sites) (IOC (news - web sites)) would appreciate Hamm handing back his medal. But the IOC said it had not been consulted and regarded the debate surrounding Hamm's medal as closed.

"The results of the gymnastics have been validated and communicated by the FIG. There is no question that remains open on this issue," an IOC spokeswoman said.

Jesus Christ Hamm won the gold, The world needs to deal with it.

Asking him to give up the medal is a bit much. I know I wouldn't and add a few extra "nice" words.

I don't agree with him giving it up. I think they should have given two golds. However, I also think some of the comments from the Hamm family were idiotic and made the whole situation worse.

The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) said the letter was a "blatant and inappropriate" attempt by the FIG to shift responsibility for its mistake onto the shoulders of Hamm, 21.

I agree with this. The FIG needs to fix itself, not shit on what some 21 year old kid did. This is just one more example of why subjective judging in these types of sports is ridiculous.

The IOC needs to make a solid demand type decision.

Either you tell Hamm he is a loser, and strip him of his medal, or you let him keep it, cause it is NOT his fault. You cannot ask someone to give their gold away. I wouldn't....as long as it was no fault of my own for receiving it (other than my insanely sweet routine).


On another note, did any of you see the mens 200m where all the greek fans were so loud they couldn't properly start the race? I did not follow the olympics too much, but the announcers said the greek fans were blaming the US for some conspiracy against their very fast sprinter. Apparantly, he missed his drug tests, which is somehow the US's fault.

Oddly enough, there were 3 american sprinters in that race, and they took gold, silver, and bronze. Crowd got real quiet then.

The story is, the stadium had been sold out for 2 years because the Greeks wanted to see their reigning champion. And what seems more and more to be a personal tragedy (too much preassure perhaps?) led to him missing a doping test (he has later been found clean if I am not mistaken) and he missed the race. The spectators had waited and paid good money to see him and were frustrated. I have not heard anything about them blaming a conspiracy, just about a badly timed and shown frustration. It should not have happened.

And as I mentioned in another thread.. big kudos to the American sprinters who said they understood the spectators and muted down their celebration a bit. I gained a lot of respect for the gold winner when I read an interview with him afterwards.

Yeah, there was a lot of class shown by all the sprinters in that event. I can imagine how hard that would be to perform your best in front of such a hostile crowd.

The US Conspiracy Theory was introduced by the NBC announcer. It did sound a bit ridiculous, and at the time, I could only imagine that the crowd was upset that greece was not represented, and that's it. They did not seem "hostile" to the athletes, just the whole deal in general.

Jesus Christ Hamm won the gold, The world needs to deal with it.

Hamm was awarded the gold due to an error in scoring.
He did not 'win' the gold by virtue of a superior performance.

This is just one more example of why subjective judging in these types of sports is ridiculous.

Yang Tae-Young's parallel bars routine was incorrectly given a starting value of 9.9. In the qualifiers and finals, that same routine was given a starting value of 10.0

This has nothing to do with subjective judging.
The routine was simply given the wrong starting value.


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My opinion has no bearing on the nationality of the competitors.

If this had been a NFL game, you could liken to one of the teams starting the game with -3 points due to an error with the scoreboard.

If I was Hamm, I wouldn't even want the medal because it would be 'tainted' and it would always have the * next to it. I'd have said FU and given it back to them and then gone back in 2008 and won it. =) Not sure if that's even possible though for a 21 year old gymnast or not though!

Of course as it has been pointed out numerous times, Yang's other unmissed errors would have left him behind Hamm still if they were able to go back and "fix" incorrect scores.

If you were arguing that the Russian should have had the gold, then you might have had a point. Yang did not deserve the gold any more than Hamm did. Stop whining about a starting point value....he got a good and bad break on the judging and ended up exactly where he should have been.

miir wrote:
Yang Tae-Young's parallel bars routine was incorrectly given a starting value of 9.9. In the qualifiers and finals, that same routine was given a starting value of 10.0

This has nothing to do with subjective judging.
The routine was simply given the wrong starting value.

So while watching the replay, you ignore the holds that would have added another 10th deduction which would have left the Korean's performance at the exact same score it was even with the correct start value? Sorry, if you're going to watch a replay to look for errors, you look for negative as well as benificial ones unless you are going t o go back and review every other performane as well.

If I was Hamm, I'd keep my Gold and at least try to get on the cover of Apple Jacks if Wheaties didn't call.

Sorry, if you're going to watch a replay to look for errors, you look for negative as well as benificial ones unless you are going t o go back and review every other performane as well.

I really don't give a shit about the subjective judging as this has nothing at all to do with it.

They didn't have to watch a replay to see the problem.
They only had to look at the score to see that the routine had been given an incorrect starting value. That's why they filed a protest almost immediately.



I imagine the American broadcasters went over the Korean's routine frame by frame and microscopically analyzed every aspect of his routine to find faults the judges may have missed.

That's not the point.

The routine was given the incorrect starting value.
There is nothing subjective about that.

Perhaps you would view this differently if there wasn't an American athlete involved. The Canadian olympic coverage I watched was completely free of any sort of bias on this issue.




If you'd like to discuss the inherant flaws of 'judged' sports, I'd probably agree with you on every point, but that is entirely NOT the point.

miir wrote:

Sorry, if you're going to watch a replay to look for errors, you look for negative as well as benificial ones unless you are going t o go back and review every other performane as well.

I really don't give a shit about the subjective judging as this has nothing at all to do with it.

They didn't have to watch a replay to see the problem.
They only had to look at the score to see that the routine had been given an incorrect starting value. That's why they filed a protest almost immediately.



I imagine the American broadcasters went over the Korean's routine frame by frame and microscopically analyzed every aspect of his routine to find faults the judges may have missed.

That's not the point.

The routine was given the incorrect starting value.
There is nothing subjective about that.

Perhaps you would view this differently if there wasn't an American athlete involved. The Canadian olympic coverage I watched was completely free of any sort of bias on this issue.




If you'd like to discuss the inherant flaws of 'judged' sports, I'd probably agree with you on every point, but that is entirely NOT the point.

The holds are not subjective. They allow a certain quantity and every one after that is .10 off the maximum allowed score. Therefore, it would have lowered his actual maximum to 9.9 anyway....if they had not erred.

I guess my beef with the whole thing is this:

1. Hamm's family made some idiotic comments.
2. I still say a wrong start value and missing a mistake during the event are not even errors (point wise yes, but one should NEVER happen and one is part of events like these). I bet if you go through more events you will find a lot of msised things, but very few wrong start values.

Must admit I am way beyond really caring though heh.

"Perhaps you would view this differently if there wasn't an American athlete involved. The Canadian olympic coverage I watched was completely free of any sort of bias on this issue. "


Why? were there any canadians in the olympics?

Canada will win the individual and team dog sled competition in the winter olympics.

They didn't have to watch a replay to see the problem.
They only had to look at the score to see that the routine had been given an incorrect starting value. That's why they filed a protest almost immediately.

If I recall correctly, they waited till the next day to protest it.

miir wrote:They only had to look at the score to see that the routine had been given an incorrect starting value. That's why they filed a protest almost immediately.

Actually, they didn't file a protest immediately- and that's the heart of the argument denying them the gold medal. If they had protested immediately, international rules would allow a correction to the original score, thus preventing what happened. They waited until after everything was done and the scores were "official" before saying anything.

You can't blame Hamm, or the USOC, or anyone but the judges for what happened, and it's a shame FIG is trying to make this kid the bad guy.

Kilmoll the Sexy wrote:Canada will win the individual and team dog sled competition in the winter olympics.

Pft Norway won the individual race!

The Korean guy shouldnt have even won the bronze if hte proper deductions were taken for his 4th hold (not sure WTF that means, but it is what the NBC analyst says).

so he should be happy with it.

Cartalas wrote:Jesus Christ Hamm won the gold, The world needs to deal with it.

you're an idiot aren't you ?

the question is WHY did he get the medal, cuz he sure as hell didn't win anything.

but hamm should keep his gold and be officially declared as the recognized winner of the event. korea were late in puting in their say on the scoring issue, their bad, the diff value should have been 10.0 not 9.9 or what ever, another bad. but those were human errors, and we have to live with them.

making a 3rd bad on purpose by taking gold back and giving it to another one is stupid. just learn from the mistakes and change rules for the next olympics.

2 wrong dont make a right.

Rass, the Korean got bronze due to a mistake that the US has not held a press-conference to expose. he should shut his piehole and be happy he got the medal he didn't deserve.

people like to shit on the US, and many times we earn that, but we could have come out and did a PR blitz on how the Korean guy should have had a mandatory deduction for something he didn't get, etc etc. Big ups to the US for taking the high road, and Paul Hamm can sleep well with his gold medal.[/list]

Rasspotari wrote:

Cartalas wrote:Jesus Christ Hamm won the gold, The world needs to deal with it.

you're an idiot aren't you ?

the question is WHY did he get the medal, cuz he sure as hell didn't win anything.

but hamm should keep his gold and be officially declared as the recognized winner of the event. korea were late in puting in their say on the scoring issue, their bad, the diff value should have been 10.0 not 9.9 or what ever, another bad. but those were human errors, and we have to live with them.

making a 3rd bad on purpose by taking gold back and giving it to another one is stupid. just learn from the mistakes and change rules for the next olympics.

2 wrong dont make a right.

Who has the Gold? Hamm Does right?

but we could have come out and did a PR blitz on how the Korean guy should have had a mandatory deduction for something he didn't get, etc etc. Big ups to the US for taking the high road, and Paul Hamm can sleep well with his gold medal.

Eh? It was mentioned in several press conferances by the US team officials.

sure, what i am saying, is having a press conference specifically devoted to noting the manditory deductions in the Korean's routine - showing video, etc.

they didn't do it.

Regardless, there were judging errors that effected a lot of guys, and that sucks, and it is a shame. Anyway, the Korean guy should be happy with the Bronze that he got thanks to a judging mistake.