mzheng said:
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She asked 'Why is it 9.9?' While she was writing the objection, the two judges opened their notes from the competition. Upon discussing the Yang's routine, they suddenly realized that they had made a mistake.
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See the A panel judgers realized their mistake before the medal was hand out. .
1. That doesn't mean the judges' mistake was pointed out to them during the protest period.
2. That doesn't mean the judges' mistake was pointed out to them before the results were certified--i.e., right after the AA event was over with the conclusion of the high bar.
3. The Korean head judge/delegate admitted that they realized the score was wrong in time to make a protest, but did nothing.
4. The Korean head judge/delegate admitted that they only tried to protest after the high bar routine when the Korean "B" judge prodded them and only after the score made a difference to their athlete.
5. From their earlier protests during the quali round, it was clear that the Korean team knew the appropriate form (written request) and time period in which a protest was allowed.
It seems to me that the Korean team, having passed up every opportunity to protest by the appropriate means in the appropriate time frame and knowing for the duration of the entire next event that the SV was wrong, used a technicality to gain a CAS hearing: i.e., FIG broke its own rules in reviewing the videotape the next day to verify whether there was a legitimate protest outside their normal protest procedures. Whether CAS will allow other objections that are also outside FIG rules -- i.e., whether the execution judging should be reviewed as well -- is to be seen. It certainly makes sense for them to support their athlete by any means they can, especially to make up for the fact that they hung him out to dry during the competition, by their own admissin.
mzheng said:
To me it was much similar a case to synchronize swimming than SLC. However the similarity to SLC can be found earlier/before the competetion. In SLC NA media went all about 'Canadian S/P will end the Rusian dominate in Olympics pair'. During Athen NA media went all about 'American Paul will win the first men's AA OGM'. The poster in the second link, who had been followin gymnastics for a long time, said actually what he saw FIG had been doing was try to save the faces or protect judges and athletes. I tend to agree with him..
FIG had no reason to save face for Paul Hamm -- he fell on the vault, and he expected to be out of the medal running at that point (12th going into his fifth routine). Just as they had no reason to save face for Yang Wei, who scored a 8.987 on the parallel bar. If Hamm had won silver, bronze, or no medal at all, the networks would have played the vault over and over to explain why he didn't win, and that explanation was not only telegenic, it put the result squarely on Hamm's shoulders. There was no similar mistake by Sale and Pelletier to explain why they were in second place after the LP.
If anyone needs to "save face," it is the Korean officials who should have protected their athlete in the appropriate manner. Had they done so, Yang would have been the only gold medallist and Hamm the only silver medallist. Yang would have had his moment at the top of the podium, with the Korean anthem playing in the background. Instead, even if a second gold is awarded to Yang, his moment was stolen, and both he and Hamm will endure years of second-guessing. (That is assuming that if the protest was made in time, the results in the high bar would have been the same, which is not a certainty.)
mzheng said:
It was reported there had been a lot mistakes of SV in this competetion, but only these three had been suspended.
Your suspicions could be right, but there are several other possibilities:
1. In swimming, the person who makes the second false start is disqualified, even if s/he didn't make a first false start. Arbitrary to some people, necessary to others. But that is the procedure. There could be a similar guideline for judging.
2. These judges made the same error that the judges in the prelims made, and the reasoning could be that they should have been prepared.
3. The FIG behaved stupidly under pressure during the entire meet. This could have been a knee-jerk "get tough"/"look like we have things under control" reaction.
It's now in the hands of the CAS. Their normal procedure is to depose the main players within 24 hours of the incident, so that the people involved can't create an air-tight story; in this case, the hearings will be a month later. It's up to CAS now, though.
