Wow...Bella Karolyi just went off (in studio) on the judges of the women's vault. (last night) A girl from China edged out an American and he essentially claimed that the judges cheated. It was more than sour grapes. I thought the scoring was strange but figured they knew more than me. When you get a guy who has been involved with 10 Olympic games making that comment, it definitely lends credence to the argument.
been going on for all of my 50 + years. We used to complain about the Soviets and eastern block countries judges rigging the scoring. Figure skating, gymnastics. Anything with judges scoring. They can't rig a 100 meter dash though.
It stems from the Chinese using underaged girls on their team and he is really pissed off about it and the fact that IOC threw their hands up and said to hell with it.
I think that's why I love the races (swimming, track, speed skating, skiing, etc) because there's no bias, no deductions, and no difficulty ratings. I wonder how fast Michael Phelps would be in the 100m if it was a wet track. :hihi:
I think he was right, the chinese girl fell to her knees on her landing and still got a 15.5 score. That was ridiculous.
Home cookin'. I realize the judges are not all from China, but the way I understand it is that there's a momma-san who's the lead judge and she can basically tell the other judges to re-do their scores if she thinks they're too high or too low.
That and they proably fear for their lives if they do something wrong. In one of the interviews I think it was Bob Costas and Bella, Bella was going off on the age of the gymnist and how the IOC said it was ok because of the passports and he was implying that the Chinese government forged the passports. Costas reaches over grabs him behind the arm as if to say, whoa watch what you are saying.
Yeah that was a total 'Oh sh!t' look on Costas' face when Bella started going off on the Chinese. EVERYONE knows the Chinese are cheating and no one but Bella is calling the Chinese out on it. I was watching last night with my gf and told her this is why gymnastics is not a sport. If the only way to determine a winner is by a bunch of judges then it's not a sport.
How about Olympic boxing? I watched 2 guys pound the crap out of each other and there were like 3 points scored in the whole round.
I can't stand 'sports' that depend on judges. But I find myself watching gymnastics and skating every four years with my wife. And I get disgusted each time. I do think Bella is pretty refreshing since he calls it like he sees it. We need him in studio for the Auburn game in Sept. As far as the comment that the 100m dash can't be rigged.... In my daily update from TAF, they implied that the women's 100m start was faulty last night and that caused our LSU girl to lose. I didn't see it to comment.
