It's all about me

[soup sandwich]

Originally posted by LessinSF
There is no doubt. They miscored it, thinking they should start Yang at a 9.9 instead of a 10. Kamm should give it to him. It should be like golf - score your own fuckups. Imagine the goodwill our country would earn, badly needed as I post this from the friendly confines of Vilnius, Lithuania.

Rebuttal argument to link posted earlier - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5790612/

I disagree.

It's a tough call, but I have no problem with Hamm keeping the gold. First, this isn't just a question of simple math (i.e, add 0.1 to the South Korean's total). There is no way to know how the last rotation would have been approached by the competitors if the South Korean's point total were the highest. Would he have choked knowing he was so close to gold? Would he have played it too safe? Who knows. And this doesn't even factor in how the judges would have scored him in the final round as the "point leader".

Simply put, there is no way you can assume that the South Korean, and all the other competitors, would have received the same exact scores for their last events.

Second, the match was lost not only because the judges mis-scored it, but also because the South Koreans failed to file a protest in time. Once the athletes move to the next station no appeal can be filed. The South Korean coaches can moan and groan all they want about fairness, but if they had simply followed the proper procedures there would be no controversy.

Mistakes were made, and the judges and South Korean coaches who failed in their duties should be made to pay for their errors which may have cost this guy a gold medal. But why should Paul Hamm have to suffer? The link above suggests that Hamm should give up the medal so that the world will view the U.S. more favorably. What bullshit. It is not his responsibility or his burden.

It's unfortunate that once again it's the U.S. vs. South Korea in an olympic controversy (Roy Jones, Jr. in 1988 and Apollo Onno in 2002). I've always preferred USSR vs US controversies myself.