i have one thing...

[tiggz]

and one thing only to say.

alexei was ROBBED!!! these judging antics are getting beyond fucking ridiculous.

that crowd was so amazing. many, many kudos to alexei for being such a gracious athlete. that was a tear-jerking five minutes or so.

kudos to paul hamm for going out there and doing a fantastic routine after all of that too. wow. talk about grace under pressure.



















gymnastics judges really need to be taken to task for the drama they've caused in these olympic games.

Comments

[saysalicia.livejournal.com]

Amen! These judges have really caused way too much trouble. Paul Hamm's medal is forever tainted and Nemov, one of the greatest gymnasts ever, was completely robbed. Argh, it's so frustrating.

[eomir.livejournal.com]

Found this through saava's journal and I completely agree with what you said.

The judges have caused so much trouble this year and yet it's the athletes who suffer. Alexei will go without a medal he so deserved and Paul will forever have this question held above two medals. The athletes end up having to deal with the brunt of the chaos as well. They have to deal with the insults and the questions like it is their fault.

Something needs to be done as far as judging. They either need new guidelines or different judges or something.

At least we can say that the athletes themselves have been very upstanding and have acted like gentlemen through all of this.

[fh.livejournal.com]

I feel bad for Paul. He hasn't done anything wrong, but there were much better performances on the high bar.

I didn't see the all-around competition, but today that Korean guy sure didn't show that he deserved to have the gold in all-around.

[sunburstbeta.livejournal.com]

Wordy McWord, yo. Men's all-around, rings finals, men's vault finals, high bar finals, and women's floor finals? It's just... crazy. I was willing to let the all around controversy go as an isolated incident, an honest mistake (that was being poorly dealt with.) But event after event... I don't want to say there was something fishy going on, but *something* was going on, that was totally inexplicable. They can hide behind their claims of subjectivity all they want; I've been in gymnastics and watched competitions for years, and I know a good routine when I see one.

If there is something fishy going on... Honestly, after the pairs skating thing, did they really, truly, and honestly think that that sort of thing would fly? That people wouldn't notice completely whacked out scores? That fans of the sport wouldn't be able to tell when someone was severely under-or-overscored? It's just... nuts.

[adrililith.livejournal.com]

I also feel badly about all the stress the athletes have gone through because of bizarre judging or juding errors. At least Paul's first gold has been cleared. If Young had been accurately re-scored, he wouldn't have even gotten the Bronze medal.

[harshmallow.livejournal.com]

I hear what you're saying. Alexei should have had a medal. However, if I remember correctly, Igor Cassina did stick his landing and Alexei did not (it was a pretty big step) - and under the current rules, you don't get bonuses for extra releases - so the penalties on landing are important...but it does seem unfair from a spectator's point of view. Perhaps they'll revisit the judging system. Unfortunately, there were quite a lot of queries with the judging this year which didn't help matters. As for the athletes themselves - they know how things are scored and I would think it's something that they are very used to.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

it's very frustrating! i'm not even saying that Nemov deserved the gold. he did deserve a medal for that performance though.

i'm also beyond pissed at NBC for not showing more of Aleksei this year. their coverage is too US-centric for my liking. i love my country and want my countrymen to do well, but i also enjoy watching other countries perform. gah!

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

welcome!! :)

and i totally agree. the athletes aren't the ones who should be fielding these questions. the judges need to be the ones confronted.

the athletes have been absolutely amazing through all of this. i can't say that i would have been able to be so gracious about what's happened if i were in their shoes.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

i agree completely about the high bar. i honestly don't know what kind of crack the judges were smoking.

tim daggett was talking about the korean's parallel bars routine last night. he was explaining that they are only allowed 3(or maybe it was 4) "holds". they went through the tape and he did one more than was allowed so that would have been a tenth deduction. thereby giving him the score he got. so even if the judges didn't judge his performance correctly, if they had it still would have been the same.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

i watched score after score come up that just didn't make sense to me. i don't know how they go about determining who will be judges, but they definitely need to reevaluate that process before the '08 olympics. a repeat of this in four years is sure to start a huge drama.

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

did you see tim daggett explaining why yang would have ended up with the same or even a slightly lower score?

[tiggz.livejournal.com]

oh i'm not saying that Aleksei deserved the gold. however, he deserved the bronze at the very least. that routine pushed the envelope and he nailed it except for that small hop on the dismount. and while i enjoy paul hamm and thought his routine was good, i didn't think it was as good as Nemov's.

Igor definitely deserved that gold. there's no doubt about that.

i used to do gymnastics as a kid. so i'm well aware of the ins and outs of scoring and such.

[harshmallow.livejournal.com]

Yeah..I would have said bronze too.

[adrililith.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that as well as a couple articles on it.

[icedbun.livejournal.com]

yeah it was pretty crappy, but Alexei was very good about it, as the British commentators said he's seen it all before...

The main thing the british commentators have been saying all through the gymnastics is "why bother going for something more technically challenging when you can play safe and score well?" and thats true, gymnastics doesn't award flamboyance it awards technical performance therefore it doesn't matter if you do more than another competitor or even do that really well, if you stuff one little thing up you get shafted (though even removing the 10th for the step I still don't see how they removed so much for Alexei to get that score). The rules need to be changed so that people who do more technically demanding routines are awarded for that, its very frustrating to know that a gymnast doesn't have to push themselves to the limit in order to win, surely thats the point of competing! Same goes for the parallel bars, the Ukraine who won was just 'going through the motions' albeit very well but still... its not a challenge if you play it safe.