But it did happen. That it was accepted (regardless of it was late or not) was not USAG's, Cecile's or Jordan's fault, and it is unprecedented for an athlete to be stripped of a medal due to protocol errors committed by representatives of the governing organisation.
It only happened because the officials allowed an illegal challenge after the event.
If we're going to hand out medals for athletes that competed, that were allowed into the village, allowed onto the playing arena, passed all tests at the event, competed, won, but her and her team not awarded gold because of administrative errors relating to a previous tournament 100% out of their control, I can think of a famous case from a couple years back. The athlete was supposed to have received notification from the governing body no later than 20 days it took over double that time and caused all kinds of chaos. The athlete and team were punished despite the athlete being selected and competing in good faith.
Someone brought up F1. In the last race the winner was stripped of his win because his car was 1kg underweight which made little difference to outright pace. As harsh as it was to not just demote, but disqualify him, it was the only decision that could be made because an underweight car much like a weight violation, a pit speed violation, a time violation, these are all black and white decisions with no room for interpretation or subjectivity. Unfortunately the penalty for a weight violation even by 50 grams is a disqualification. There is no mechanism in the rules to make up a rule so that he is only demoted one place which would have been much fairer to the driver and reflected where he should have finished on track if not for the violation. In basketball the French player would have sent their match into OT if her foot was a couple inches back, if we allow illegal challenges that are 4 seconds late do we allow 3 points shots were the feet touch the line. The French woman was crying maybe we should have let her have the extra point to protect her feelings? As sad as it was to see her upset, there is no mechanism to allow 3 point shots where the feet touch the line just a little bit. If we allow 4 seconds, we'll have to allow challenges that are 10 seconds late, then 20 seconds, etc.
The US team are claiming they have proof that the challenge was made in time, but let's see how that pans out first. CAS have already seen videos from the official feed that prove otherwise. It could be a bluff or intimidation tactic to push FIG and the IOC to handing out a second bronze to the 5th place winner (which would be absurd if the 4th place winner misses out but 3rd and 5th don't) before going to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
We're talking a bronze medal here, it's not like a gold medal is at stake. Team USA need to realise there is another girl in the middle of all of this, and consider the effect on her by trying to take the bronze medal off her TWICE. Chiles already has an Olympic gold, is it really worth the fight when scores were so close and Team USA has been the beneficiary of some favourable judging many times in the past. If we allow the illegal challenge, we'll have to allow Voinea's illegal challenge as well.
I wasn't as impressed with Ana's, but I felt very bad for her when she thought she had won the bronze. I'm happy she will get the bronze now, but this whole thing was such a mess.
www.usatoday.com
