I'm sure that is true of some of the people here but I personally would never ask anyone, regardless of country, to give up a medal after the fact like that because some judges screwed up. It's up to the judges to make it right. The way I see it is they have two choices...award another gold medal or force(rather than ask) Hamm to give up the gold medal. I take offense to them trying to put the issue in Hamm's lap like he should decide how to handle it. If it were someone else, then I would feel the exact same way regardless of what you say with your blanket statement. The only way a medal winner should have to give up a medal after the fact is if they break a rule...like fail a doping test. Still, if I were Hamm, I would be pissed that FIG would request to give up the gold medal as some kind of statement of fair play to cover up their failures to rectify the situation. Therefore, I think he should just give it up and withdraw in protest at this BS. But, I know he won't cause I'm sure he's worked his butt off and doesn't feel it is his problem that the judges messed up...as he should feel. Still, the whole thing is a trav-sham-mockery and tarnished now. FIG needs to get their act together and put some rules in place going forward to prevent this from occurring again. Edit: Oh, and in my opinion, I don't think Hamm deserves the gold anyway because of that vault he did where he almost took out the judges table. I think there should be a rule that if you screw up an event so badly like that...then you should be exempt from the gold. LOL. My opinion is you have to do well in every event in the all-around to qualify for a gold. Honestly, I could give a rat's arse anyway. Yes, I watch the stuff but I don't care who wins what. I would like to see all the other countries stick it to the US and we only win like 3 medals or something so there can be a big controversy. We like controversy over in the states.
is this just a random blanket statement that you felt like throwing out or is it actually directed towards someone?
Not really. A sufficient analogy to football does not exist because possible points don't change based on degrees of difficulty. Gymnasts must live with their sport which relies entirely on judges to calculate points. If the value for a field goal changed based on how fancy a kick the kicker used, then your getting close to a decent anology. So what would have happened here is that the judges should have started with a 4-point kick not a 3-pointer because he did a double backflip before the kick, but in the end should have been a 2-pointer because his knee hit the ground and they missed that too. A simple analogy exists to football about what folks are trying to do to Hamm though: he was told that he needed 3 points to win, not 4, and he got them. The way Rogge of the IOC sees it, judge error of any type (other than impropriety) is not reversable. He said that it's just a part of sport. That means they classify this error as just another error by a ref/ump/judge which can readily change the outcome of just about any sport one can imagine.
this **** again huh hamm won the medal, screw the committee that wants it back question though: can they "FORCE" him to give it back though no matter what Hamm does? (although my guess is this would be a bad P.R. move...)
I think Hamm already said that he'd return it if they demanded him to, but I don't even think they have the option to 'officially void his gold since it appears that the IOC will not support such a move at this point.
Is there something wrong with your eyes? I guessed you're not bright enough to know that athletes received more money(bonus) for winning a gold medal.
I just don't see how this Hamm dude can insist on keeping this gold medal knowing that he won it only b/c of a judge's error. I mean i can go buy myself a gold medal at the store and it would be just as meaningless and illegitimate as what he's got on his neck. Shht, at least mine would be solid bullion
the point is, FIG wants to give the Korean gold because it's one of those underdog stories: Koreans don't even have enough people to compete in team competitions, but somehow 2 of them finish top 3. paul hamm is also a feel-good story (recovered from a massive fall on the vault to come back), but they feel that america has enough medals as it is (i guess animosity towards america?) so they're just doin it for the PR...
For the love of god, some people just don't know how to read, There were 2 judging errors: 1. Incorrect starting value ( .10 ) 2. No deduction for excessive holds on the parallel bars ( .20 ) I think the Korean gymnast should give up his bronze medal to the guy that got 4th place. Being a former gymnast, I would have been devasted if millions of people (especially those who hate the US) didn't recognize me as the true all-around winner. He won it.. Yes there is controversy. But its not like he bribed the judges or caused the error himself. For those who don't know much about gymnastics. There is a thick book that demonstrates hundreds and hundreds of skills and classifies them by difficulty ( A, being the easiest,, through E, being the hardest). One wrong classification can result in lost tenths of points. It is not uncommon for judges to disagree on start values because they are sitting at different angles. For example.. If I'm doing a move on the parallel bars. This move is classified as a "D" move(resulting in .4 bonus) if finished in a handstand postion or classified as a "C" move(resulting in .3 bonus) if finished in anything between a 90 degree angle or short of a handstand. Judge 1 and 2 see me finish this move in a handstand position. However, judge 3 sitting in a better position sees that I did not swing all the way to handstand, therefore, I receive one less bonus point. Yes, the judges could have argued the starting value after, but a judge does not have to award certain bonus points if he doesn't believe a move was completed the way it was supposed to be. I competed for 10 years and it's also normal for judges to score based on comparison to previous routines and the scores that were earned. For those who say he doesn't deserve to keep the medal should be ashamed. There's no instant replay in gymnastics. It was the closest finish in history so people are going to be upset about losing by thousandths of a point. Paul Hamm didn't cause the Korean to make a form break or not stick a landing on an event. They need to leave Hamm alone and congratulate him for his well earned victory.
Yep, and I'm sick of the people that don't act like they are experts. I used to compete with a few of the members of the team including one of the alternates that's from Houston (Raj Bhavsar). I'm so pumped that both men and women took the individual gold. It's utter BS that both medals are under criticism and/or protest.
How sad that after typing out all your expert and enlightening testimony in the previous post, that you must now be dismissed due to your obvious bias
regarding the holds on the parallel bars by the Korean dude, how do we know Hamm didn't have any unnoticed errors on his part either, without reviewing the videotape? the point is gymnastics competitions are meant to be judged in real time... and if they are willing to go back and review the tapes, they better do it to the same detail for both gymnasts so as to be fair. Thats probably a pain in the ass, so I say they should just give out 2 gold medals.
when I heard Hamm's voice for the first time on tv, i wanted to laugh....oops already did. i expected the dude to have a deep voice, instead it was so girly , i was thinking, "what the heck? what a sissy wimpy voice" even my sister went bursting out loud.
I don't think they can do that because they are appealing the Korean's performance. IIRC, if you appeal and they check the tapes to change the score, they don't have to raise you score or even keep it the same. They can rescore it a lot lower if they want. But that's what happens when you appeal. If it was no risk, then everyone would appeal since they knew that they could do no worse and that the judges could possibly even help them out a bit. If they went on to check the tapes for both gymnast's performances, checking every event, then they might as well check a couple of other guys as well since it was a close event. Now it is getting pretty impractical. That, I believe, is why they would just use the Korean's one event on tape and rescore that. If the US appealed on Hamm's part or whatever, then they could check his too, possibly giving him more or less, but the only appeal was on the Korean's event. I really need to learn his name. I feel pretty bad about just calling him the Korean. Kind of reminds me of "the white guy who runs the 400."
