22nd August 2008
I love the Olympics, but here’s the question: Are we sore losers?
This is not going to be my best post of all time - and certainly not by best writing - but I’ve been thinking about this a bit:
I’ve been watching the Olympics like an addict for the last two weeks, and I have enjoyed most of what I have seen (even the bits of rhythmic gymnastics I caught this morning…), but there have definately been some moments when I have questioned the scores awarded by the judges. And I’m not the only one to do so: American and other commentators have wondered about some of the scores arwarded in gymnastics, diving (on a lesser level), and boxing.
We all watched the gymnastics team event and saw the American women get beat by the Chinese, who truly were the better team that night (I’m not saying anything right now about their age falsification problem…). But then in the event finals, we got to see some serious scoring bias. When Alicia Sacramone was knocked out of the bronze medal spot for the vault by the Chinese gymnast who fell on her second landing, it was obvious that either the scoring system was flawed, or those giving the scores were biased. And again, on the uneven bars, when Nastia Liukin ended up tying for first place but being awarded the silver medal, we saw either a flaw in the system or a bias from the judges - or incompetence (as many folks have pointed out that most of the judges for that event final were from a country that had never won a medal in that particular event).
There are complaints about the judging in boxing everytime there is a large amateur tournament, however, this time around there appear to be some seriously mis-scored matches involving some Americans. You can watch a video on nbcolympics.com where commentators go through the scoring of the first round of the match where Raynell Williams lost to a French fighter. It becomes apparent that there were a number of points that Williams should have been awarded but was not. There has also been the a high rate of success for the Chinese in a sport where they have not historically been very strong - four Chinese boxers are guaranteed a medal, where the only other Olympic boxing medal came for the Chinese in 2004 (according to nbcolympics.com, though I found a site with the olympic boxing history where I counted up 4 medals, 3 between 1908 and 1956, and the one in 2004 - apparently Mao didn’t allow Chinese athletes to compete in boxing…).
Anyway, I don’t want to drag the judging debate out, but I do wonder whether we’re just sore losers and making excuses, or if there is some validity to questions about judging.
To see a blogger who has really put up some funny and fun blogs about the Olympics, check out http://dogsandjeans.blogspot.com/
To read a rather humourous article (though a little bit racy) about the ummm… sexual atmosphere… of the athlete village, check out http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4582421.ece
When it’s all over, I’ll be 1) a little sad; but 2) back on a normal sleeping schedule which is good because I start school next week.
Cheers!
Leave a Reply
To reply to this post, please enter your name and write your comment in the textbox below. Some HTML tags are allowed, but others will be stripped if you enter them in your comments.
You must be logged in to post a comment.