I want my gold medal dammit

[VelmaD]

It really sucks that I blew out my knee early in high school. Sucks even more that I stopped growing at age 14. It's just not fair that I'm not on the olympic basketball team. If I whine loud enough and long enough do you think maybe they'll give me a gold medal too.

/sarcasm/

If you can't tell I am pissed off right now. I don't blame the South Koreans. I put the blame squarely where it belongs...on the IOC who let public opinion and the media frenzy over Sale and Pelletier back in 2002 dictate their behavior. They're too afraid to offend anyone anymore and now EVERYONE who loses a close competition is looking for some angle to protest because the ISU will cave every time. Khorkina got in on it. And now the Bulgarians over Jordan J on the rings last night. And the women's all-around winner from 2000 who had her title stripped is allegedly going to petition to get it back. Where will it fucking end? :eyes:

[bluestateguy]

1. What is Khorkina complaining about?

I really dislike that woman.

As for the Romanian gymnast in 2000, I do think she really got hosed. Taking a pill (which was later re-allowed)for a cold is "doping"?

[Lavender Brown]

2. Was the silver medalist from 2000 awarded the gold when the other was DQed

? I forgot. Interesting that she wants her medal now. I read that the drug she tested positive for isn't banned now.

[VelmaD]

5. Yes, the silver medalist...

was given the gold. I remember this because originally the Romanians swept the podium in the all-around and Raducan's dq gave the bronze to a Chinese.

[daveskilt]

3. Im sick of that whining Hamm - I won it its mine my precious

If he had any self respect he would hand over his dubiously won gold medal to the Korean and become an instant legend of sportsmanship - oh waitg he is american, so no chance of that happening.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

9. Amen!

I'd be ashamed to have a medal I did not win fair and square.
(on edit)BTW, I think this is further proof that nowadays it generally takes a rather pathological personality to go into sports this deeply. The older I get, the less I like the vast majority athletes. They rarely have love for the activity itself; it's all a matter of stroking their egos by playing and winning at GAMES, for God's sake. And this is a former three-letter athlete saying this.

[nyhuskyfan]

16. It wasn't dubious

He went into his last routine knowing he needed a 9.8 and he got it. Changing the scoring in the middle of the competition changes the whole calculus.

Picture playing golf with your buddy for a thousand bucks. You go into the last hole tied and you both get pars. Then your buddy says that he was penalizing you a stroke on the 12th for a rules violation that was correct, so he actually beat you by a stroke. Wouldn't you want to play the 18th again, knowing that you're down a stroke?

Hamm might have performed differently if he knew he needed a 9.875 instead of a 9.8. Likewise, the Korean might have performed differently on his last routine if he knew he had the lead at the time. Maybe he's more conservative or more nervous and blows it. If you had a time machine and could change the score, everything from that point on would be different.

Adding points or taking them away after the fact goes against everything that athletics normally stands for. You can't insert two points in the middle of a basketball game and say that the final score would be adjusted accordingly. That's why you have to protest scoring immediately, so the athletes have some sense for where they stand after each round.

[kiahzero]

4. The Romanian gymnast in 2000 got hosed

"Sudafed is doping! No medal for you."

"Oh... wait, it's not doping. Sorry we screwed you. No medal for you."

[VelmaD]

6. It was banned at the time

She took it.

She got caught.

Whether it was a stupid rule isn't the issue. If your team doc doesn't know what is and isn't legal then your federation and coaches are idiots to hire them.

[kiahzero]

8. No, it should be the issue

If you ban a drug that shouldn't be banned, how is it just to take away her medal? She earned it.

[VelmaD]

10. But did she care one bit...

about the issue of banned substances and what "should" or "shouldn't" be banned until it hit her?

You play within the rules at the time you're playing. If they change the rules later, yeah, you can gripe, but you knew the rules when you went into the sport.

Where does it all end?

I use figure skating a lot because it's the sport I'm most familiar with in terms of rules and history. Should we now go back and recalculate EVERY winner from the past based on the process they use now that doesn't include school figures at all? Oops...there goes Peggy Fleming's olympic gold. Scottie Hamilton's too.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

11. Not Peggy's

I remember that as late in 1980 they still had to do the figures. That was a more recent change.

[VelmaD]

12. What I'm saying...

is that if you judged the 1968 olympic skating event by today's rules...with no school figures included...Peggy doesn't win. She built up a huge lead in figures that made up for a subpar free skate. Same for Scottie.

And figures were still done at World's until the late 80s. As soon as they stopped having figures, Midori Ito won her first world championship.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

13. then landed on her

well, you remember ;-)

[VelmaD]

14. I certainly do

Her jumping and landing in the camera well is still one of the all time most charming moments in sports. How she went over after she finished her short program and patted the camera as if to ask if it was ok. Utterly endearing.

And of course she stormed back with an AMAZING long program but it wasn't enough to get her on the podium that year. :(

[kiahzero]

15. Her medal was taken away because "she didn't earn it"

Then the governing body decided that someone who did the same thing would have still "earned it." I ask again - how is that fair?

[VelmaD]

17. I actually have an answer...

what she took was allegedly in a cold pill. She had a cold prior to the all-around. Well, who's to say other competitors didn't also have colds. But they took approved pills. Ones that maybe either weren't as good or didn't contain the banned stimulant ingredient. Who's to say in a sport that often comes down to thousandths of a point that that didn't give her that teeeeeeeny edge.

[kiahzero]

18. Then it should still be banned

The fact that it is no longer banned suggests that whatever body is in charge of these things no longer takes the position that the Sudafed was a performance enhancer.

[VelmaD]

19. But the point remains...

that it was banned when she took it. She didn't follow the rules as they existed when she was competing.

[tandot]

7. Here ya go:

Picture of Gold Medal Rose

http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_pages/0017-0310-0816-4604.html