An Olympic Travesty

Tonight's Olympic coverage has been interesting and infuriating, kind of like the concept of fire and ice the sport of hockey gives us. Women's diving finals, track events and men's gymnastics floor finals helped couch the exhaustion this weekend's adventure built up (more about the adventure later). These events were interesting and inspiring to watch, especially the muscular men flip and flop across the mat. But it wasn't until I saw the women's gymnastics vault finals that I became upset enough to get off the couch and tell you about it. =)

For those who didn't watch, I'll spoil it by saying the North Korean, Hong Un-jong, won Gold, Oksana Chusovitina representing Germany won Silver and Cheng Fei from China the Bronze. Yes, I have a big problem with this and hope the outcome is being contested. All of my friends in Germany should be enraged as well. Here is why:

Alicia Sacramone from the United States competed first and took a couple of small steps while landing her two vaults. As the others competed, she saw her score of 15.537 slip to 4th place. The upsetting part was that all three of the winners fell, took huge steps and/or stepped out of bounds on their landings. Even the commentators were amazed that Cheng Fei's horrible landing didn't wipe her out of medal contention. Calling Hong Un-jong's disastrous landings anything but catastrophic brings suspicions about biased Olympic judges back into question for the first time since Salt Lake 2002 and the French judge blunder. (interested in knowing more about that incident? Ask me. I was in the middle of it.) I was watching and thought it was nice of North Korea to send a delegation, but how she will probably get yelled at for missing her mark too badly. I was absolutely stunned when her score ranked higher than anyone else's. Yes, you read correctly--higher. Her gold medal was not deserved. The judges should all be slapped.

Even more of an injustice was the lousy vaults Cheng Fei made for China. Her second vault included catching herself with her hands and knees if that tells you anything, but she still ends up with bronze. What? The scoring was absolutely ridiculous.

I do want to share with you my view of who should have won. This is not all sour grapes talking (I don't even like grapes unless they are processed into jam {but not jelly} or juice). Oksana Chusovitina had a much better vault than Hong Un-jong. She also took a bit of a step, but was not nearly as disasterous as Hong's stepping out of bounds and balancing hops. She is representing Germany, but is not from Germany. Originally from the Soviet Union, after the 1992 Olympic games, athletes went home to their respective republics and Oksana started competing for Uzbekistan. Her son's illness and the tremendous help of friends led her to Germany where in 2006 Oksana gained citizenship. (Thanks Wikipedia.) Her story is interesting and her vault much less flawed than anyone else. Oksana should have had the gold medal. Instead, she will take home the silver.

Anna Pavlova from Russia ended the night in last place, but not because of her vaulting. Some say her second vault looked too much like the first, but the real reason (thanks, NBC commentary) was the red light that still burned bright when Anna started her second run. During the tabulation process, a red light is displayed that turns green when it is ok for the athlete to go. They have 30 seconds from the time it turns green to start or they are disqualified. Anna had two really good vaults, but camera replay confirmed the light was still red when she started her second so the score for that run was 0.00. Factored in with her first score, there wasn't any way possible to win even a bronze. I agree with a deduction, but when the Gold medal winners fall, bobble and take steps that are seemingly overlooked my injustice alert goes off.

Here are podium standings as I see them. If the previously crowned winners could shuffle the hardware, please. Go ahead. I'll wait.

GOLD: Oksana Chusovitina - Germany
SILVER: Alicia Sacramone - United States
BRONZE: Anna Pavlova - Russia

For those of you who haven't paid attention, this is the gold that should go to Oksana. This whole event screams foul. The sports with observational critique automatically open the door for questioning about bias and human error. They try to eliminate these problems with a multi-national judging panel, but again I remind you of the 2002 ice skating incident. The race events with computerized timing mechanisms seem so much more fairly judged. No one questions Michael Phelps' wins because the sensors registered his touch first. It may never be possible to have such a cut and dry system of measurement for gymnastics, but there must be an appeals process when such obvious error is allowed. The credibility of the whole judging process is in question. It introduces bitter rivalry and angst when stories of inspiration and dedication to overcome should be in the spotlight. In this case, Oksana was robbed of the gold and Alicia and Anna were denied medals when they deserved them. Who is next? Are you?