[OT] Olympics: Restitution, sort of

[MJEggertson]

I believe the argument is somewhat moot anyway. Sure Canada got the gold medal they deserve, but Russia still got to keep theirs. Now they have a what, 44 year streak?

I mean, I hate to punish the althletes for the judge's stupidity (or whatever you want to call it), but there is no way that the Russian performance was on par with a gold medal, and the Russians can now lay claim to 11 consecutive medals.

*shrus*

Oh well.

-Mike

 

[Storm Raven]

Don't forget this is a NEW & IMPROVED Olympics, trying to come back from a corrupt system. I think they are doing the right and fair thing. I just hope that this issue changes things in the judgeing.

I am unhappy about this decision. To me, it cheapens the status of the gold medal if you can just hand out another when you messed up the first time.

I know it happened before, and I thought it was a bad idea then too. For those unfamiliar with that situation a synchronized swimmer was given another gold medal when a judge said he had entered his score wrong in the electronic scoring system. Even though it would have meant removing a gold medal from an swimmer from the US, I would havefound the decision to make much more sense to have the person the judge intended to win actually win (and not share a "second" gold medal), and the US swimmer get the silver.

This decision by the IOC/ISU just drags the event futher into the hole it has dug itself by cheapening the gold medal. Now it is certain that someone has a gold medal who didn't actually deserve one as a result of the way they skated. Sure it isn't the Russian skaters' fault, but why should they keep a gold medal if they didn't deserve one in the first place? Why should Sale and Pelletier get a gold medal if they didn't deserve one based on their skating? One or the other pair doesn't deserve a gold medal, but they will both have one, which makes no sense and degrades the value of a gold medal.

I also think this will result in exactly zero changes being made in the way the ISU conducts business. This seems very much like an olive branch being handed out to mollify the masses in the hope that once distracted, people will forget about the corruption problem. My fear is that this will happen yet again in 2006, just like it happened in 1992, 1994, and 1998 just about every previous Winter Olympics, because when you get right down to it, nothing is likely to be done to fix the problem.

 

[Creeping Death]

I am glad the Canadians are getting a gold medal. They deserved it. But it won't make much difference to me. That judging really soured me to the olympics. I can't (won't) watch the olympics again.

 

[Storm Raven]

I am glad the Canadians are getting a gold medal. They deserved it. But it won't make much difference to me. That judging really soured me to the olympics. I can't (won't) watch the olympics again.

Just avoid the subjective sports. In the Winter version, ignore the existence of figure skating, half-pipe snowboarding, freestyle skiing, moguls and so on. In the Summer version just refuse to watch any of the gymnastics, diving, synchronized swimming, boxing, rhythmic gymnastics and all of the other subjectively judged crap like that.

You can then enjoy the Olympics again for what they should be: a competition between athletes that doesn't rely upon small opinion polls to pick a winner.

 

[Florin]

...and the Russians can now lay claim to 11 consecutive medals.

Well, yes and no. The Canadians were awarded medals days after the Russians, so technically the string has been broken.

 

[Agamon]

A nice happy ending. A new adage has come of this event: Judge fair lest ye be judged.

We can now go back to enjoying the Olympics. My favorite Olympian, Catorina Le May Doan (would have been Patrick Roy, but he didn't go) kicked some butt yesterday. Woo hoo!

 

[MythandLore]

Well it's finally over, with a fairly good outcome too, pretty amazing.
I think it's great they gave them a second set of gold metals.

But it was just a band-aid of sorts, they really just did it to not have to further investigate because the true problems are very far reaching and could potentially create heavy damage to the games themselves because of the scope of the ref rigging involved in the games.

Sounds like a few other people have been watching the speed skating too, talk about awesome, I love speed skating, it's incredible how fast they move.

And the men's figure skating singles, Alexei Yagudin was simply amazing.
One of the truly great performances.
Though I think the Australian judge was up to no good, did it seem like that to anyone else, then it looked like Finland was trying to compensate for the screwy marks Australia was giving by always voting the opposite.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Exactly. Well spoken.

One wonders if Flexor would be so cavalier in dismissing corruption in more important matters like jury tampering.

One wonders if Psion understands that Olympic GAMES are MEANINGLESS compared to such situations as he is describing. The comparison is silly.


Stuff like this has ALWAYS happened in the Olympics. Judges tend to vote for athletes from friendly nations.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If they really want to improve Olympic skating competitions they should give them hockey sticks.

 

[Holy Bovine]

If they really want to improve Olympic skating competitions they should give them hockey sticks.

Well we all know that!