Hamm Should Hand Over Gold
Something didn't seem right during the three-day equestrian team event last week in which Germany beat out France for gold. Upon further review, the judges on site determined that German rider Bettina Hoy crossed the start line twice on the show jumping course.
As a result, they docked Germany 14 points for the violation, which knocked it out of any medal, and elevated France to gold, Great Britain to silver and the United States, which would've finished empty-handed under the on-the-field ruling, to bronze.
The Germans protested, however, and an equestrian appeals committee reversed the judges' decision.
That was when the United States stepped in.
It joined France and Great Britain in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The argument, simple: The original score was incorrect, as the judges admitted, and, therefore, Germany should relinquish its gold.
The Court of Arbitration agreed and the appeals committee's decision was overturned. France got gold, Great Britain got silver and the United States got bronze.
That was the right thing to do.
And that is why U.S. Olympic officials look like the biggest bunch of hypocrites in Athens right now. Dick Pound, move over.
The gold medal American gymnast Paul Hamm won last week in the all-around competition, making him the first American man to do so, came due to a scoring error. Korean Yang Tae-Young should have won it, but the judges entered the wrong start values for his routine, and he wound up totaling only enough for bronze. Hamm should've received silver.
None of that is in dispute. To be sure, three gymnastic judges were suspended in the aftermath for the screw-up. One of the judges suspended was American George Beckstead, who was overseeing the other judges.
Unfortunately, the gymnastics federation doesn't have an appeals process quite like equestrian. In fact, it barely has one at all.
It said the results could not be changed and would not be changed, even though it admitted the error, and that gold would not be taken from Hamm and given to the deserving winner from Korea.
That left only two solutions to the problem, a bureaucratic one and an honorable one.
The bureaucratic answer is for the Koreans to get a ruling in their favor from the Court of Arbitration. They were said to be debating whether to file a protest the other day. But the Court of Arbitration indicated to The Associated Press that it was unlikely to take the case because it doesn't rule on "field-of-play" decisions. The ruling it issued on the equestrian controversy, it clarified, was on the jurisdiction of the appeals committee to overturn the on-the-field judges' decision.
So that leaves only the honorable solution: Hamm should give the gold to its rightful winner.
It is amazing that this has even grown into a controversy. There was a mistake in the scoring. The wrong guy won. Fix it. Why is that so hard to do?
And forget for a moment that Hamm's exchanging gold for silver would be the absolute fair thing to do. How could he be more proud of what essentially is a stolen gold medal than an earned silver?
What a shameful affair this is for the United States. The most powerful country in the sporting world ought to be above accepting awards it didn't fairly win, especially when it just waged and won a complaint in its own best interest on essentially the same sort of issue.
This is yet another reason the United States is often so disliked by other sports fans around the world. It isn't that it wins so much as that it seems to get its way when others do not.
"I personally feel I was the Olympic champion that night," Hamm told the AP on Sunday night.
He didn't say he was giving up his gold.
The United States' stance is utterly disingenuous, and Hamm's is hardly in the spirit of the Olympics.
The Olympics ultimately are supposed to be about fair play. At least that was the idea of the modern Games' founder, Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that sport was the foundation of mankind's moral strength.
The International Committee for Fair Play every year honors some athlete with a trophy in Coubertin's name for upholding the ideal of fair play. This year's winner was Tana Umaga, a New Zealand international rugby player. He was awarded for ceasing an attack in order to aid a Welsh player who lay injured and in danger of swallowing his tongue.
They call that sportsmanship, apparently a foreign word to our Olympic officials.
11:55 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 25, 2004
As a result, they docked Germany 14 points for the violation, which knocked it out of any medal, and elevated France to gold, Great Britain to silver and the United States, which would've finished empty-handed under the on-the-field ruling, to bronze.
The Germans protested, however, and an equestrian appeals committee reversed the judges' decision.
That was when the United States stepped in.
It joined France and Great Britain in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The argument, simple: The original score was incorrect, as the judges admitted, and, therefore, Germany should relinquish its gold.
The Court of Arbitration agreed and the appeals committee's decision was overturned. France got gold, Great Britain got silver and the United States got bronze.
That was the right thing to do.
And that is why U.S. Olympic officials look like the biggest bunch of hypocrites in Athens right now. Dick Pound, move over.
The gold medal American gymnast Paul Hamm won last week in the all-around competition, making him the first American man to do so, came due to a scoring error. Korean Yang Tae-Young should have won it, but the judges entered the wrong start values for his routine, and he wound up totaling only enough for bronze. Hamm should've received silver.
None of that is in dispute. To be sure, three gymnastic judges were suspended in the aftermath for the screw-up. One of the judges suspended was American George Beckstead, who was overseeing the other judges.
Unfortunately, the gymnastics federation doesn't have an appeals process quite like equestrian. In fact, it barely has one at all.
It said the results could not be changed and would not be changed, even though it admitted the error, and that gold would not be taken from Hamm and given to the deserving winner from Korea.
That left only two solutions to the problem, a bureaucratic one and an honorable one.
The bureaucratic answer is for the Koreans to get a ruling in their favor from the Court of Arbitration. They were said to be debating whether to file a protest the other day. But the Court of Arbitration indicated to The Associated Press that it was unlikely to take the case because it doesn't rule on "field-of-play" decisions. The ruling it issued on the equestrian controversy, it clarified, was on the jurisdiction of the appeals committee to overturn the on-the-field judges' decision.
So that leaves only the honorable solution: Hamm should give the gold to its rightful winner.
It is amazing that this has even grown into a controversy. There was a mistake in the scoring. The wrong guy won. Fix it. Why is that so hard to do?
And forget for a moment that Hamm's exchanging gold for silver would be the absolute fair thing to do. How could he be more proud of what essentially is a stolen gold medal than an earned silver?
What a shameful affair this is for the United States. The most powerful country in the sporting world ought to be above accepting awards it didn't fairly win, especially when it just waged and won a complaint in its own best interest on essentially the same sort of issue.
This is yet another reason the United States is often so disliked by other sports fans around the world. It isn't that it wins so much as that it seems to get its way when others do not.
"I personally feel I was the Olympic champion that night," Hamm told the AP on Sunday night.
He didn't say he was giving up his gold.
The United States' stance is utterly disingenuous, and Hamm's is hardly in the spirit of the Olympics.
The Olympics ultimately are supposed to be about fair play. At least that was the idea of the modern Games' founder, Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that sport was the foundation of mankind's moral strength.
The International Committee for Fair Play every year honors some athlete with a trophy in Coubertin's name for upholding the ideal of fair play. This year's winner was Tana Umaga, a New Zealand international rugby player. He was awarded for ceasing an attack in order to aid a Welsh player who lay injured and in danger of swallowing his tongue.
They call that sportsmanship, apparently a foreign word to our Olympic officials.
11:55 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 25, 2004
posted by R7 | 8/25/2004 09:36:00 PM
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