The interesting thing is that the tiebreaker involves 6 steps (obviously, this particular one only took 2 steps). If the first 5 steps fail to produce a winner, then the 6th step is to award the same medal to both. This leads to the question that if the rule's intent is to not have "dual" winners, it could break down so that there ARE dual winners, so they might as well avoid the whole tie-breaking scenario and award the same medal.
You know another thing that should be mentioned...the tiebreaker rule didn't apply to every event. The vault had a different tiebreaking system. And if the intent is to eliminate subjectivity and have a fair scoring system (which is why they drop the high and low)...then why use the lowest DROPPED score to break the tie? And how should it matter how the two girls arrived at the same execution score, they both had the same score in the end. It's like determining a tiebreaker in basketball by checking to see which team scored the fewest points in the fourth quarter. Insanity! If you're gonna break the tie, make 'em break it on the field of play. Not too sure about the NBC analysts....Tim Dagget at least has seemed fairly objectionable and when he does question results he presents some valid arguments. Bela on the other hand, is a little too emotional, and obviously biased.
Thanks for the article, but what exactly does it address? I'm kind of skimming things so I apologize if I'm just missing the obvious, but it mostly seems to be about the embarrassing reactions towards the tiebreaker system, which I don't really have a problem with (see later). Unless you're trying to say that the "experts" at NBC (including Bela and all his gold medals) displayed how biased they could be, which would make them less than ideal for judges in an event like this. But I'm not sure that really answers my question. I definitely wouldn't want someone like Bela judging the competition. Yeah, I didn't quite like the reaction there. The stuff about Nastia being robbed or whatever was definitely uncalled for. It is a stupid rule IMO, but it was executed like it should have been. Nastia just happened to be on the wrong end of the stick; she easily could have won the event in a similar way, and He could have been "robbed." For whatever reason, it seemed like everyone was OK with the rule prior to the event (at least those who bothered to keep up with the system). Why? I don't know, but hopefully they make some changes there for future competitions. Of course, as Dagget pointed out, there might be an issue about the judging that resulted in the two being tied for the gold, but that's a whole other issue that has probably already been discussed to death. Yeah, the system there actually made sense if I am remembering the rules correctly. I'd probably still prefer giving them both gold medals, but it does make sense IMO to give the gold to the vaulter that performed the highest score on the 4 vaults (IOW, the person that did the best vault won instead of the best 2 vaults). That's probably why there wasn't much outrage for the tie between Poland and France in that event. Agreed. I wouldn't doubt it if there was some bias with Tim, and he probably could have mentioned judging errors a bit more with other non-US gymnasts, but I thought he was pretty good at explaining any problems he had with the judging, especially on the balance beam. Not that I would consider myself an expert after just a week of gymnastics, but thanks to Dagget's explanations on how points are deducted, I did find myself noticing the same errors the commentators (and hopefully the judges) were noticing in the later events. Bela is fun to watch and he occasionally has a good point here and there, but he definitely doesn't seem to be all that impartial.
Not sure if it has been posted. Hope that they can find out the truth. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4583174.ece From Times Online August 21, 2008 International Olympic Committee launches probe into He Kexin's age The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete. An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals. The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed today to have uncovered Chinese government documents that he says prove she is only 14 - making her ineligible to compete in the Olympics - rather than 16, as officials in Beijing insist is her age. Mike Walker, a computer security expert, told The Times how he tracked down two documents that he says had been removed from a Chinese government website. The documents, he said, stated that He’s birth date was January 1 1994 - making her 14 - and not January 1 1992, which is printed in her passport. He’s true age has been a subject of swirling controversy since the Games began. Questions over her eligibility intensified after she edged out the US gymnast Nastia Liukin for the gold medal in the uneven bars on Monday, and was part of the team gold triumph last week. She also edged Britain’s Beth Tweddle out of the medals. Bela Karolyi, the former gymnastics coach whose wife, Martha, coaches the US women’s team, has repeatedly accused the Chinese of fielding underage female gymnasts. The ages of two other team members have also aroused suspicion: Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin. Time magazine reported that government records, that have since disappeared, showed both girls to be 14. Gymnasts must be 16 to compete. The minimum age for female gymnasts was increased from 14 to 15 in 1981, and up to 16 in 1997, to protect the physical and mental health of young athletes. Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she won her fist Olympic gold medal in 1976. Yet despite her stardom, there were criticisms that young girls were being pushed too hard at an age when their bodies and bones were still growing, causing permanent damage. Ironically her coach was Mr Karolyi. There were also concerns about their mental health, because of the pressure of competing on the world stage at such a young age, and that they were vulnerable to exploitation and even physical abuse by coaches. "They are obviously kids," Mr Karolyi said. "Twelve, 14 max - and they’re telling the world they are 16? What arrogance." Although the US team has deliberately steered clear of the controversy, his wife suggested after the US team’s loss to China that the Chinese gymnasts were still losing their baby teeth. "One of the girls has a missing tooth," she said. Mary Lou Retton, the US Olympic gymnastics gold-medallist in the 1984 Games, told the New York Times last month: "The girls are so little, so young. They say they are 16, but I don’t know." The IOC has been accused of deliberately ignoring the issue because it feared offending China. Yet Giselle Davies, an IOC spokesperson, said tonight that because of troubling new developments, the committee had instructed the International Gymnastics Federation, the sport’s governing body, to investigate. "More information has come to light that did point to discrepancies," Ms Davies said. "We have asked the gymnastics federation to look into it further with the national Chinese federation. If there is a question mark, and we have a concern - which we do - we ask the governing body of any sport to look into...as to why there is a discrepancy." The man who uncovered the allegations about the underage athlete told The Times that he was not even a sports a fan, but decided to investigate the issue to determine if Chinese authorities were lying. He eventually discovered that two Excel spreadsheets on the Chinese government’s official sports website - www.sport.gov.cn - that mentioned her name had recently being removed. "There was a conclusion here," Mr Walker said. "These documents existed, on a state-wide website, and now they don’t exist, and this change has taken place recently. I was interested because these were documents that no-one could find. If there’s information to be found on the internet I’m a citizen journalist - it was a challenge." He turned to a Chinese search engine, Baidu. In its cache he found both documents. "The listing in there, quite clearly, is He Kexin’s birth date, January 1, 1994," Mr Walker said. That makes her 14 years and 220 days old and too young to compete. The lists were compiled by the General Administration of Sport of China. How aggressive and sustained the IOC-ordered investigation will be remains to be seen. If it did ultimately result in the stripping of gold medals from one of China’s favourite athletes, it would be an Olympic scandal with reverberations far beyond the sport itself. In July the New York Times published references to articles in the Beijing press in which He was referred to as only 14 years old. Chinese officials responded immediately by providing the newspaper with a passport copy indicating He had been born on January 1, 1992, but still doubts lingered, not least because the athlete looks barely past puberty. When asked about her recently - and before He’s gold medal wins - IOC president Jacques Rogge claimed it was not his organisation’s role to check the age of competitors. "The IOC relies on the international federations, who are exclusively responsible for the eligibility of athletes," he said. Under his blog name Stryde Hax, Mr Walker wrote: "Much of the coverage regarding Kexin’s age has only mentioned ‘allegations’ of fraud, and the IOC has ignored the matter completely. I believe that these primary documents, issued by the Chinese state...rise to a level of evidence higher than ‘allegation’. How official are these documents? Pretty dang official - they were issued by the General Administration of Sport of China." He insists that she is old enough to compete. Asked by journalists about the debate, she said: "My real age is 16. I don’t care what other people say. I want other people to know that 16 is my real age." Both China and the US came into the Games determined to show the other who was boss. Although China is generally recognised as the leading nation, with a tally tonight of 46 gold medals to the USA’s 27, Americans claim to interpret success by the total number of medals won, which puts their team ahead with 86 to 83. With the scores that close, every last piece of metal is precious – meaning this row could follow He firmly into adulthood.
I just skimmed through the article but, if they strip He of the medal, will Nastia end up with the gold?
They would strip every medal that He had a part in winning. This includes individual AND team medals.
I can't imagine how that little girl would feel if her medals were stripped. She just did what she was told. I know I don't want to be that adult person to take the medals from her. Wow, talk about human right abuse
No real chance of happening - I don't see how any investigation could go very far without getting stonewalled.
Yawwwwn! Oh yeah. Franchise2001, there is no way anyone will be stripped of medals. The pathetic IOC is too weak-kneed. Whatever amount of evidence they are presented, the IOC will say it isn't quite enough. I bet they resent the guy for digging this stuff up because they want the issue to just go away.
I think they should punish the Chinese delegation, not that girl. The Chinese women gymnastic team should be banned from attending international competition for 1 or 2 years minimun. In the mean time, reward the 2 gold medals to American team, and Nastia.
i feel bad for her or any athletes who are simply do what they are instructed to do by their coaches/nations. they should let her keep the golds or something (she's a kid), but punish china and don't let them compete in the olympics for the next 12 yrs to teach them a lesson.
i still see baby teeth: Beijing Olympics has been a DISASTER. worst Olympics ever. if it wasn't for Phelps winning a Gold Medal after every breath no one would even be half interested in this garbage.
even doping only gets like what, 2 years ban? it sounds like you guys can't compete just want to get it as long as you can so you can enjoy the fake success.
