Paul Hamm - Olympic Fraud?

[Grona]

Just heard the results on that american that got the gold in olympic gymnastics due to an error. They let him keep it, go figure, since he didnt really win it. Just wondering what everyone thinks of this.

Personaly I think he has become perfect example of bad sportmanship, and is quite pathetic for even acepting the gold after he found out about the mistake, let alone fighting to keep it. He should be ashamed of himself and it amazes me that his country dosent have any shame about it either.

[method]

How exactly is Paul Hamm wanting to keep the gold medal an act of bad sportsmanship?
Paul Hamm didn't cheat to get the medal. The judges made a mistake in adding Yang's score. You just can't say that if they corrected the score, the medal would have went to Yang. Paul Hamm performed a routine that with just enough diffuculty to give him the gold. There is nothing to say that Paul Hamm wouldn't have just perform a higher difficulty routine that would have given him the gold anyway.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by method

How exactly is Paul Hamm wanting to keep the gold medal an act of bad sportsmanship?
Paul Hamm didn't cheat to get the medal. The judges made a mistake in adding Yang's score. You just can't say that if they corrected the score, the medal would have went to Yang. Paul Hamm performed a routine that with just enough diffuculty to give him the gold. There is nothing to say that Paul Hamm wouldn't have just perform a higher difficulty routine that would have given him the gold anyway.

Not that I really care about gymnastics, but I agree with that completely. He didn't do anything wrong, so there's no reason to give the medal back. If anything should be done, it would be to award a second gold medal to the guy from south korea.
Personally, after that last sentence in his post, I think Grona is just using this as an excuse to bash americans in general. The only people who did anything wrong in that were the judges, and I'm 90% sure none of the ones in question were american.

[Grona]

Originally Posted by method

is nothing to say that Paul Hamm wouldn't have just perform a higher difficulty routine that would have given him the gold anyway.

bad sportsmanship? Maybe because he didnt really win it and wouldnt give it to the true winner.
And nothing to say he could of pulled off anything more difficult, he didnt. It simply comes down to an error that was the judges fault, for that he was rightfully 2nd place, and if a protest was filed in time he most likely wouldent have the gold now.

[method]

Originally Posted by Grona

bad sportsmanship? Maybe because he didnt really win it and wouldnt give it to the true winner.
And nothing to say he could of pulled off anything more difficult, he didnt. It simply comes down to an error that was the judges fault, for that he was rightfully 2nd place, and if a protest was filed in time he most likely wouldent have the gold now.

Athletes benefit all the time from bad calls. That is part of sports. The reason he didn't was because he perform a routine that gave him enough to win. If Yang was given his correct score, Hamm simply could have performed a different routine that would have still beaten Yang. You are assuming that everything would have played out the same if Yang was given the correct score, a big if. I would also point out that the Russian were allowed to keep their gold after the fragile French judge admitted to cheating. So I really wouldn't have a problem if they gave a second medal to Yang.

Question for you.
Do you think that Roy Jones Jr. should be awarded the the gold medal in boxing after most experts and even one of the judges said that he won the fight? The judge said himself that Jones won the fight and he gave the match to the Korean boxer so as not to embarras the boxer.

[durrem]

Originally Posted by Grona

Just heard the results on that american that got the gold in olympic gymnastics due to an error. They let him keep it, go figure, since he didnt really win it. Just wondering what everyone thinks of this.

Personaly I think he has become perfect example of bad sportmanship, and is quite pathetic for even acepting the gold after he found out about the mistake, let alone fighting to keep it. He should be ashamed of himself and it amazes me that his country dosent have any shame about it either.

Really, because they went over the routine on TV here and the Korean had 4 pauses in his routine instead of the maximum of 3 he should have had, according to the commentators. That would have dropped him .2 points (is that out of the medals?) so the judges mistake didn't matter.

[Grona]

Originally Posted by durrem

Really, because they went over the routine on TV here and the Korean had 4 pauses in his routine instead of the maximum of 3 he should have had, according to the commentators. That would have dropped him .2 points (is that out of the medals?) so the judges mistake didn't matter.

Havent heard anything about that anywhere.

And Kamui4356, you think I'm bashing americans? Yes, questioning any aspect of the mighty empire means I bash them, I hate them, they can burn after they blow me. Really now, get real.

[durrem]

Originally Posted by Grona

Havent heard anything about that anywhere.

And Kamui4356, you think I'm bashing americans? Yes, questioning any aspect of the mighty empire means I bash them, I hate them, they can burn after they blow me. Really now, get real.

To quote the Merc:

But the rules say any challenges must be made before the competition ends. The South Koreans didn't protest until the next night.

The South Koreans blew it.

When Americans reviewed a tape of the competition, they saw an error the judges had missed. It wasn't a matter of judgment, just math: The South Korean had four pauses in his routine; the rules permit only three. If he had been scored correctly, they said, he not only wouldn't have won the gold, he would have lost the bronze.

Btw, google is your friend.

edit: er, Charlote Observer, that is.
edit2: hmm, direct link isn't working. Just google: (paul hamm gymnastics three four pauses) It's the second one.
edit3: let's try the google cached version

[Grona]

Originally Posted by durrem

To quote the Merc:



Btw, google is your friend.

edit: er, Charlote Observer, that is.

nice sign up page

[Umbrae]

I actualy watched and followed this during the olymics.

The fact of the matter is, Korea waited to long to register a complaint. In sports, you cannot go back and re adjust the scores based on review tapes. No sport does that. If the judges make a call, and award the prize, later some one comes and points out a mistake, you get an apology.

I was not aware of the other errors made in the korean routine. Yet I did watch the american interviewed. He was willing to give back the medal, but was advised by his coatch not to. He then said he would wait on the olimic commites decision. If they asked him to return it, he would. If no request was forth comming, he would keep it. No request for him to ruturn the medal was made.

You might actualy want to find a true reason to justify your hate of americans, thier are pleanty of them. Like the fact we seem to hate so many other culters without propor basis for our feelings. that is always a good one.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Grona

And Kamui4356, you think I'm bashing americans? Yes, questioning any aspect of the mighty empire means I bash them, I hate them, they can burn after they blow me. Really now, get real.

Well you said this:

Originally Posted by Grona

He should be ashamed of himself and it amazes me that his country dosent have any shame about it either.

Now if it was a canadian in that situation and someone said that about canada as a whole, how would you interpret the statement? Whether or not he was being unsportsman like, and should have shame is one thing, but why should america as a whole have any shame? That's overgeneralization and an attempt to attribute what you see as a character flaw in one person to americans in general. As such I labeled it as bashing, although to a lesser degree that some other threads.

[babbito2k]

Speaking of waiting too long to register a protest, all of this is about something that's been a done deal for months now. Hamm decided not to personally do anything back then and that didn't change. And the sports bodies appealed to since the Olympics have ruled that they have no right to rule.

None of this makes for much of a story, or a reason to attempt to slander Hamm. Bad sportsmanship encompasses any form of cheating; beyond that, a sportsman may have a chance to make a magnanimous gesture from time to time, but not taking that chance is not bad sportsmanship. The only thing which I find objectionable about any of this is that the American press will use this to wring out 15 more minutes of gloating about the Olympics.

[DarkCntry]

As the judges stated, S. Korea waited too long to file the complaint and as such have no basis on the case as a whole. The judges stated that even if they didn't wait to protest the olympic judges there could've been really little to do, that's why they made a comment on hindsight.

Hell, even S. Korea conceeded to the ruling and aren't going to make a stink about it, why should you?

[Avaj]

Looks like you jumped on something too soon.

As I remember, with the scoring error on the koreans difficulty which would have given him a few more points, but with errors they missed he would have lost some points, coming out ahead, but still not in first.

[Grona]

So comparing a recognized error to something that was found out long after is valid, riiight. The Olympic panel never recognized the error even after the hub bub, so its pretty irrelevant. It was in the interest of good sportsmanship that he was asked to turn over the medal and he simply wouldent hear of it.

And Kamui4356 you should leave your american hating paranoia elsewhere, its not only rude but quite insulting.

[babbito2k]

Originally Posted by Grona

...The Olympic panel never recognized the error even after the hub bub, so its pretty irrelevant.

I think it more profitable to look at what was going on with the Olympics bureaucracy than to focus on Hamm. But that was all picked over back when it happened.

Originally Posted by Grona

It was in the interest of good sportsmanship that he was asked to turn over the medal and he simply wouldent hear of it.

Doing something like giving back a gold medal goes far beyond good sportsmanship, and not doing it does not equate to bad sportsmanship. Also, it's been said that Hamm did consider giving back the medal.

[method]

I doubt that this will even get half the amount of press that the intial incident got. Most Americans have moved on with their sports interests. Most of the attention now is towards the baseball playoffs and regular season football. I think that more has been written about Ricky Williams retirement and his wanting to return than Paul Hamm.

[Scrumhalf]

Build a bridge, & get over it.

[Green²]

* Names changed to make them funnier.

[phoenixfire92983]

...The Olympic panel never recognized the error even after the hub bub, so its pretty irrelevant

The Olympic panel did recognize the error, BUT only after they reviewed the tapes. And like said above, the Olympics is just like any other sport. They do not change the results even if a video shows a discrepency a day or so later.

I also really don't get why we're talking about the Olympics when it was over at least 2 months ago, or why your defending the Korean's so strongly. If you look at any newspaper, it specifcally says that even if the korean olympian had been graded on a 10.0 scale, he still had too many errors to stay in 1st place. The judges really did him a favor in not noticing the fact that he had four pauses instead of 3. If they had seen that initially, then he probably would have had 3rd place.