Now that the "farce" of Olympic gymnastics is over, can we all go back to our ho-hum lives and hold our complaining to a minimum until a Pac-10 football officiating crew decides to give us all fits of anger in the next few months?
Ask most Americans what they think of Olympic gymnastics scoring, and the pro-China, anti-US debate will rear its ugly head.
On certain routines, the women's gymnastics scoring seemed to lack a consistency in taking obvious deductions on the Chinese women's beam, vault, and uneven bars performances.
Cheng Fe of China fell to her knees on her vault landing, yet still managed to get a higher score than most of her competitors and take the bronze away from American Alicia Sacromone, who landed both of her vaults.
Go ahead. Scream. Nobody is listening.
The star treatment, always a huge influence in American sport, has now gone global. So put away your hankies and deal with it.
Special people get special treatment. It's no longer just in the entertainment industry—sports have taken it to a new level. And Americans have benefited from the treatment more than any other country.
Watch an NBA game and try to remember the official rules of the game. They don't play by them anymore, and the stars get a hall pass more often than not when they violate a rule.
Traveling, according to the NBA, is taking more than two steps without dribbling the ball, yet Kobe, Shaq, Jason, Yao, Carmelo and Co. take two-and-a-half steps and don't get the whistle. Two-and-a-half steps is now accepted as legit in the NBA, even though it's an infraction of the rules.
If Kobe mouthed off to a ref, do you think he's going to get ejected? Uh, no. The paying fans won't stand for it. He's special.
He's the face of the NBA and they need more Kobe Bryants. They want more Kobe Bryants. He has earned the preferential treatment.
Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics will finally get the treatment, but he had to earn it. Rondo still has a way to go before he gets the hall pass. He's not special, yet.
The Chinese have dominated Olympic gymnastics competition since the Soviet Union broke up, and were considered the favorites to win the most medals in gymnastics. They earned that status.
They also had the home crowd behind them, and if you don't think that's a factor, go you-tube Mary Lou Retton's Olympic performance in Los Angeles. She won, but it was close. Her mega-watt smile (good for at least an added .50) and the crowd reaction put some intense pressure on the judges. Give American Pie the gold.
There's a reason why the host country does better in their medal counts: Crowd reaction to performances, more teams to enter in competition, and they don't have to travel. Besides, who wants a crowd of 20,000 booing a judge's evaluation of a routine? It can really damper the whole Kumbaya experience the Olympics is trying to project. The Seoul Olympics taught us that.
Did Cheng Fe receive
38 comments Last one added 10 months ago — Leave a Comment
Michael 10 months ago
Interesting perspective. Still frustrated that Lebron is allowed to take 4.5 steps (sometimes 3 hops in a row) against the wizards in the playoffs. But star treatment is certainly a by product of the system.
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Michael-
I hear ya. Shaq with his offensive fouls never getting called was also amazing years ago. He bulldozed his way to the basket, and it was called a great move.
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Justin Hokanson 10 months ago
You are crazy Lisa. The scoring was bogus, this isn't the NBA. The IOC by the way is looking into whether or not the Chinese girls are too young, which they are. They cheated, the scoring was wrong, and we still had more medals than those cheaters did.
Enough with the controversial articles when you know the scoring was stupid. : )
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Dorothy Willis 10 months ago
Justin, Life is not fair. One cannot expect the World to be fair when there are still millions of people in need and starving while we sit and argue these points on expensive computers.
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Adam Amick 10 months ago
It's not over yet... New evidence has come to light about the age of the gymnasts from China.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4583174.ece
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Adam-
Oh, I have no doubt they lied about the gymnasts' ages. I'm a parent, and I recognize when baby teeth are falling out. They should get nailed for it. A whole country cover-up. Nice.
But the scoring was legit in my mind. Paul hamm...need I say more? :)
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Thanks for the heads up on the IOC, by the way! :) It's on espn radio and on foxsports.com.
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Gray Ghost 10 months ago
Lisa, please do not try to confuse us with the facts! :) Good and gutsy article. It is so much easier in the sports where someone crosses a line first. When judging determines the winner, it definitely leaves room for "the eye of the beholder". As I listened to my family during the gymnastics -- it was obvious that all eyes were red-white-and-blue.
Some of this is a result of the USA vs China competition that is approaching full throttle, plus them having home-court advantage.
Anyhow, you are absolutely right about Kobe and the NBA, and I hope Pierce gets his due. Good read as always!
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Bryan Goldberg 10 months ago
Lisa, great article, but I just can't handle the fact that Alicia lost on her own without someone cheating :)
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Brian-
I know, my hubby was devasted too. But if China gets busted for using under-age athletes, she gets another medal!
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J.C. Ayvazi 10 months ago
Nice take and a good read Lisa. Does make one think a bit about our society's values.
You are dead on when speaking about the NBA. That's why it ranks lowest on my scale of team sports. Maybe, just maybe if they would call the traveling and t up the mouths, the foolishness would stop. If it wouldn't stop, ESPN will have to expand by half an hour with all the theatrics from the prima donnas.
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Michael Nevin 10 months ago
You make a good point. I also heard some commentators saying that the judges preferred the grace of someone like Nastia Liukin to the power of Shawn Johnson. I guess their style of gymnastics also plays a part in how the scoring is done.
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12 10 months ago
Great read Lisa, and I agree. The hosting team does always have an advantage.
As for the NBA, you're right on track. The traveling call is almost extinct. The college game is much more enjoyable and entertaining for me.
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Rael Enteen 10 months ago
Great article and it makes me feel less inclined to defend the US women's team when people say they got cheated out of gold but I still have no idea how the scoring works and I think that is a problem. Gymnastics and other Olympic sports lose a lot of spectators because unlike sports that have touchdowns or runs or points, judge-based sports are more confusing. And when you change from the perfect 10 system into a degree of difficulty and technicality-laden point system, many of us get lost along the way.
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Emily Thompson 10 months ago
Well thank god the IOC is finally looking into the fact that gymnastics was a farce this year.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/IOC-orders-investigation-into-He-Kexin-s-age?urn=oly,102564
I hope the strip the medals. Nastia deserves her gold on Uneven bars and the Womens team deserves their Team gold.
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Adam Amick 10 months ago
The Chinese women's team should be completely stripped and disqualified.
I would go so far as to say that due to the duplicity taking place at the level of the Chinese Government, the entire Chinese Olympic team should be disqualified from the games and stripped of all medals.
Then maybe this won't happen again.
Hindsight being 20/20, I wonder if anyone in the IOC is kicking themselves in the ass for the mistake of awarding the games to China?
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Micah Green 10 months ago
Lisa,
i agree totally that the star treatment is there. I definitely agree with you on the NBA. i also agree with you on the Paul Hamm issue(still glad he won though). Still though i don't like you saying the scorin' is fair and legit. good read! oh and i just saw the ioc is investigating so hopefully we won't have to cry on deaf ears anymore.=)
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J. Michael Morris 10 months ago
Those poor Chinese girls have been forced to lie to the world by their government. They cannot ever admit their true age now to anyone for the remainder of their lives. I wonder if they moved up a few levels in school to cover it. I wonder if they can drive now, what is China's driver's license age? Maybe in a few years they will go on a media tour of the western world and get drunk, underage. Could their boyfriends be arrested if the truth ever came out?
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
J Michael-
I for one, feel sorry for those girls, if the allegations are true. It means they are simply pawns of the state. They were probably forced to lie, all in the name of the Motherland. The fact that the Olympics were held in Beijing probably cemented the alleged cover-up. "Your family will watch you win. Your country will be behind you. " talk about pressure!
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Brett Lissenden 10 months ago
Just because the NBA does it doesn't make it right. There is very little treatment based on reputation like that in other sports. Certainly for college sports. You make a good point, but the scoring was still not fair. NBA may give more respect to better players, but ultimately who wins is decided by what team scores the most points - not by a point total that the NBA assigns. Treatment like that in sports that are judged is ridiculous.
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
American Paul hamm got that treatment. Should he lose the gold? It does go both ways.
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Brett Lissenden 10 months ago
No he shouldn't lose the gold. He should have had to earn it though.
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Michael Collins 10 months ago
I understand the folks at the BCS are going to help gymnastics out with their scoring.
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
That's possibly the funniest comment I have read in years. Classic, Michael.
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Michael Shibley 10 months ago
Just thinking, if China has to be stripped of their medals because of their age, doesn't it make them still feel bad that they got beat by some 9 year olds?
Again good article Lisa. You talk about the home field advantage in judging. It happens everywhere. Judges and referees are always sawyed by the crowd and any of them who say different are lying. Ou of all the college basketball I have watched over the years, the home team always has a huge advantage when it comes to getting calls.
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Michael-
I don't think so. They have an advantage being smaller. Less room is needed to travel across the floor so out of bounds doesn't come into play, and their center of gravity is lower when they're smaller so beam is easier on skills. It is an advantage, no doubt.
After all, who has a bigger advantage doing a flip on the beam? A six-footer or a four-footer? Height is huge in gymnastics.
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Micah Green 10 months ago
yah that's true but,how many future 13 14 15 year old American stars r held back b/c of age.and i think it's a retarded rule but rules are rules.
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Joe G 10 months ago
All this talk of underage Chinese athletes reminds me of another scandal a few years back. It's not quite the same thing, but its similar. Danny Almonte, anybody?
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Nathan Blunck 10 months ago
this was a very good article. i think the thing that really gets the american public going is being naive. gymnastics is simply not big enough for the general populace to care about, more often than every 4 years at the olympics. honestly, does anyone here understand the scoring system? i know i don't. and the announcers don't help much. they praise one thing in one routine and then rip that same thing in another routine. the craziest thing is that if you stick a different panel of judges in there, you could easily get another score.
i know that there is subjectivity in all sports, despite what sports fans think--any officiating is subjective, it's just that there seems to be more uniformity in baseball, basketball, football, etc... than in gymnastics.
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Thomas 10 months ago
China's had the advantage in the Olympics, yet they still feel like cheating. very frustrating.
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Donald Fincher 10 months ago
Lisa,
You right good articles. However, you're wrong here.
This difference in treatment isn't "legit" in the Olympics any more than it is in basketball. You will notice a particularly disturbing trend in both. People are not watching like they used to. NBC has been praised this year for making the Olympics relevant again when the ratings had fallen like a rock on the last two. However, a study was just released that showed that when you discount Phelps time on the screen and the Opening Ceremonies (which were stunningly spectacular), the ratings for all the other stuff has been as bad as Sydney and Seoul.
And the NBA is the least watched of the major 3 pro sports and cheating refs, players hitting fans in the stands, and overall showboating has driven fans away from their sets. This year's finals might have bucked the overall trend because it was Lakers/Celtics after such a long period but overall, people don't keep up unless they are avid NBA fans. So for you to say that "we put up with it", I don't think that's borne out in the facts.
By the way, I don't know many women who would let Paris Hilton go pee if they were in line first. In fact, I don't know many women who wouldn't forcibly make the twig go to the back of the line.
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Donald Fincher 10 months ago
Oh, and by the way, Shawn Johnson is cuter than cute. She has a major endorsement career coming because she is so telegenic and photogenic it is unreal. And besides being a little firecracker in the looks department, her great attitude toward winning silvers when everyone thought she was robbed of golds was to be highly commended. Such maturity and character and gratitude is RARELY found in 16 year olds these days (or 36 year olds for that matter). She deserves everything she will get out of this deal.
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Sang Nguyen 10 months ago
Comments on the NBA example:
You're wrong about the NBA travelling issue, Lisa. According to official NBA rules (which can be found on NBA.com and is hella convoluted), a player travel's after creating a pivot (first foot planted without a following dribble) and landing again on that pivot if the foot is raised after the following foot is landed.
What did that brain teaser of a rule mean? I player actually can take two very full steps to take off or shoot without it being a travel. In fact, the NBA hasn't followed the 1.5 steps in years if not decades. If a player catches the ball while in motion, a 2-count rythm is instituted, so it's essentially 2.5 steps. It also means it's ambiguous enough that outside of the most obvious infractions (big men down low scurrying about), the refs don't call travelling for ANY players, let alone just the stars.
Comments on Olympic gymnastics:
C'est la vie. All the athletes who deserved gold and silver got them, though sometimes arguably in the wrong order. Whatever. The US atheletes can go home to their endorsements and the Chinese can get better jobs after retirement and maybe even get to go to school now. Take away the gold medals and they'll just be forced to suffer longer and possibly not even receive anything if they fail to get a gold medal when they're "legal" (there was a captivating ESPN article detailing how the Chinese sports commitee treats their athletes and their futures based on performance).
Plus, if Roy Jones Jr. couldn't get a reversal from the IOC after three judges ADMITTED to point fixing in favour of the Korean (games were in Korea )boxer in 1988, I doubt the Chinese team will be stripped of their medals here, in a games that are much larger and belonging to a much more powerful nation.
So again, c'est la vie. Everyone who deserved to win something, won something. Now let's all go a worship Usain Bolt, the biggest freak of nature alive.
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Lisa Horne 10 months ago
Yes, you can take two full steps. But it's allowable to take 2.5 steps when driving to the basket. My point is that the rules have been bent. You cannot take 2.5 steps when on the perimeter, now can you?
I feel very sorry for the Chinese athletes. I am well aware of the hardships they suffer and they have more to lose if they don't medal. I hope they don't losre their medals because of being pawns of the state.
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Lou Vozza 10 months ago
Isn't the main controversy over the ages of the Chinese gymnasts? That's a more important point. I think it's great that the Chinese won so many gold medals. This is going to give the US Olympic program a real kick in the pants, especially Track and Field, which should have closed the gap for us, but failed. The Olympics haven't been any fun since the Soviets left. Nothing like a good rivalry to juice it up. The Chinese will be fun to hate, since they "cheat". ie heavy, overbearing, inhumane state sponsorship.
By the way, what happened to Olympic boxing? Is it still a sport? I haven't seen a match on TV. Boxing hasn't have fallen that far, has it. It used to be one of the must watch events.
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Sang Nguyen 10 months ago
I watched a few boxing matches the other day. To answer you're question - yes, it's still on, but no, Olympic boxing is still not a real sport. At least not one to be taken seriously. One boxer danced around the ring wasting time thinking he won because he pulverised the other guy, but apparently the judges were giving that guy all the points for punches I, and the crowd, didn't see.
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Sue M. 10 months ago
You can go on with your Paul Hamm yada yada yada, but it won't change my opinion and many other people's opinion on this issue. I understand the fact that China was the home country. I can't seem to agree with what you said in this article, for a variety of reasons. The scoring is far from "legit", as you say. The scoring will never be legit or consistent by any means. For instance, the whole "process of elimination" method with the tie breaker makes absolutely no sense and it doesn't allow the gymnasts to fight for that gold medal. It comes down to single judges' score for each gymnast. I believe it was Nastia Liukin on the uneven bars when she had the same start value as the Chinese gymnast and they both ended up with the same score. It comes down to the judges, and they were all from different countries, many of whom that have never had a gymnast that has won gold from their respective countries. Go figure. The scoring system should be completely revamped, which will probably never happen. The IOC needs to take a serious look at the scoring system. The World Championships do not have rules for tie breakers, so therefore both gymnasts would get gold medals. The IOC needs to keep the rules consistent between the World Championships and the Olympics, simple as that. I respect your viewpoint on this issue, but I most definitely don't agree with it. Oh, and for the next Olympics the IOC should make sure that every gymnast is of age.
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Kevin Curran 10 months ago
i dont necessarily agree with you but everyone can agree shawn johnson is mad hot haha
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