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jourdy wrote:What's with all the conspiracy theories in women's gymnastics?
Bela should STFU.

abcdef wrote:

jourdy wrote:What's with all the conspiracy theories in women's gymnastics?
Bela should STFU.

Simple, the Americans aren't winning, must be the fault of something that's not their own athletes, because we know that they are perfect and any failing cannot possibly be their fault.

dacher wrote:

jourdy wrote:What's with all the conspiracy theories in women's gymnastics?
Bela should STFU.

I feel privileged to watch He's (who Bella keeps bleating is underage) uneven bar performance. The main scoring injustice I saw was the judges rated her routine difficulty level far too low (but \US gymnast complainers ignore, or even explicitly say they aren't complaining about difficulty rating unfairness.)

Watching the ongoing Olympics I was struck by two stories which led to broader observations.

The first story was the seventh gold medal won by Michael Phelps. This was the 100-meter butterfly in which he edged out Milorad Cavic by one one-hundredth of a second. The thing that struck me was that watching live, and even in the replay, it didn't look like Phelps won! You could have sworn he was second until, apparently, they slowed down the replay to frame 1/10000th of a second apart.

This got me thinking about what we observe in NBA games. How many times have we sworn we have seen something happen on the court but an official calls it differently? How many times have we looked at the replay as proof? Now granted the officials could also be mistaken in what they observe, but the point is are any of us 100% sure that we perceive reality correctly? In a world where even replays sometimes screw up should we be a tad bit easier on referees, coaches, and analysts who see things differently than we do? They're not perfect, but being specifically trained and focused on the matter at hand on average they're going to see things better, clearer, and more accurately than we do.

The second notable moment was televised this past evening when American Nastia Liukin and China's He Kexin tied for first on the uneven bars and Lukin was bumped into silver medal position because of a tiebreaker. First of all the commentators went berserk over the scoring, claiming Liukin's routine was superior. Second of all they slammed the tiebreaker system. The criticism was so pointed that play-by-play man Al Trautwig asked whether He Kexin really thought she was the gold medalist when she took the awards stand. I'll admit right now I don't know enough about the sport to judge whether their critiques were correct. What struck me were the two words that failed to enter the conversation anywhere: Paul Hamm. Hamm was the American gymnast who, in the 2004 Olympics, had a disastrous fall on the vault but later came back to win the all-around gold because of a horrific judging mistake against South Korean gymnast Yang Tae Young. The controversy ran well after the Olympics were finished. I'll admit my memory isn't word-for-word perfect but I do recall the American gymnastics contingent defending that gold medal with teeth and nails bared and I believe the commentators basically followed suit.

This got me thinking about fandom and its bias in general. We're always going to see things in a way that favors our chosen team and its special players. Even at the highest, most sanctified levels of sport people will distort truth--or at least their stance on the truth--to suit their rooting interest. If people with intimate knowledge of the sport--experts in their field with the most access to accuracy--will do this, how much more so the casual fan sporting a team jersey and a brewski? It would be foolish to try and curb this impulse. It's part of what makes fandom fanatical. But it does strike me that we should always include a dose of humility with our opinions. When someone argues with us there's always the possibility--sometimes a strong possibility--that they may be closer to the truth than we are. It's unfortunate when people who disagree with us also end up being our enemy because we are not able to understand this. They may not be our enemy, they may just be seeing a little clearer than we do as well.

jourdy wrote:What's with all the conspiracy theories in women's gymnastics?
Bela should STFU.

canoner wrote:Whatever involves judges always have imperfection. The thing is commentators like Bella will ONLY pick on the imperfection when it is against their favored team, not when the imperfection is in favor of their team. That makes them look pathetic.

Rasho Brezec wrote:I find that article unprofessional.

jourdy wrote:I agree that they both should have won gold.
This new scoring system sucks, and it's too confusing for people who casually watch gymnastics.

NBC's commentators have been ripping apart the Chinese athletes and the judges from what I hear. Every day I log on the internet (homepage is Yahoo), there's a special "blog" featured that states either of the following:
a) The Chinese are cheaters
b) Gold in (sport) should have gone to the US
c) How people are not pleased with the winners
d) And now, the recent featured gem:

THE REAL OLYMPIC MEDAL COUNT
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijin ... oly,101537


I've never seen other countries complain this much, at least from what I see. Maybe there are other countries complain at this magnitude that I just don't see yet.

Al n' Perk No Layups! wrote:
Cheng Fei landed on her knees.

Blame Rasho wrote:The best idea when it to get a routine with a start value of 7.whatever and make sure you do 5/8th of it and fall on your ass and get a medal. I mean it is fair right?