2012 Olympics - Judge for yourself

Type in the words “Judged events at the Olympics” into Google and some 5.8 million links come up. OK, so I did not use “quotes”, but its amazing the sensitivity around this topic. Personally, I don’t profess to being an Olympic guru. I, like most, watch them every four years (or every 2 years if you watch both Summer and Winter Olympics). Like most, I scream at the screen “Hey, her legs were nowhere near as straight on that entry,” pretending like I know what I am talking about. Everyone knows everything in the comforts of your home watching on TV, but its still fun to do. Which leads me to this topic. The subjectivity in judging at the Olympics is beyond brutal. Yes, I said it. BRUTAL. Here are a few examples:

1 – This Chinese swimmer in the gold medal of the 1500m freestyle dives into the pool ahead of the whistle. The judges are shocked. Why would he do that? Even the TV commentators are saying its pointless to jump the gun on such a long race, since this one goes for a while, so being in the pool a millisecond faster is useless. There is a rule that ANY false start, and the lucky person is disqualified – that is of course unless it’s the guy who everyone expects to win the Gold. So the swimmer simply gets jumps out of the pool, resets himself, claims his dog ate his homework, and boom, we start again. So what happened to this automatic disqualification? I guess it only applies to the guy from Antarctica standing on the start with water wings, since we know he won’t win. Gotta love the selective application of their own rules.

2 – In the gymnastics Vault final, where there are 2 vaults total for the medals, and the American favourite is up. She’s a sure thing for Gold, even the NBC coverage (8 hours delayed from the rest of the world) says everyone is vaulting for silver. So her first vault is fine, lots of twists and flips, delightfully executed as the TV guys say. “She should be happy with that one,” as if the athlete needs someone to tell her that. Now on her second vault, she literally lands on her butt. No perfect landing, pretty much how 99% of the population would land after trying to do the flips and flops these athletes do. Recognizing her error, she immediately stands up, throws her arms up as if to say she planned that, and walks off, trying hard as possible not to start crying. She won silver. Now I am no gymnastics guru, nor do I understand the judging, but this seems a bit odd to me. If it was the best of two, OK, buts it’s the total score of the two. The girl who won Gold did not land on her butt, so I can justify that medal, but the poor girl who won bronze is probably thinking WTF!?!?!? I landed on my feet. Sure, my flipping and flopping was not as “difficult” as hers, but at least I pulled it off. I could go on regarding more Olympic examples of questionable judging, but at the same time I was proud of the diving judges who gave some guy a zero for entering the pool on his back. “He won’t be happy with that one,” said the TV guy.