273 replies to this topic

[zenner]

There is a story about athletes being sent home for "racist" tweets, viz:

"Reuters reports that the offensive tweet, which was deemed racist and highly offensive began “I punch you, South Koreans, go burn…” Another report claims that the tweet referred to the Korean players as “a bunch of mentally handicapped retards.”

I don't know that was racist, especially. Stupid, sure.

A Greek althete got chopped *before* the Games for this:

"Before the Games even began, Greek triple-jumper Voula Papachristou was banned from participating thanks to a racist tweet of her own.

“With so many Africans in Greece … at least the West Nile mosquitos will eat homemade food!!!” she tweeted."

Isn't the Olympics a test of althetics, not political correctness? And it is pretty useless to pretend that a lot of althetes aren't idiots? But this isn't a Mensa contest.


But the tweet that is really offensive is a British fan asking Tom Daley if he had't shamed his father by not winning a medal. The fan was arrested for this. He is aged 17 (surprise). From the legal viewpoint, what exactly is the crime other than offensiveness? I don't think a physical threat was involved.



They've only caught one doper so far, an Albanian weightlifter. Guess he couldn't afford the good stuff. (I better not tweet *that* comment.



What is going on with the judging, especially in gymnastics? Some of the scores seem bizarre.

[chesslover]

I believe the guy threatened to drown Daley too.

[tip and fall]

Isn't the Olympics a test of althetics, not political correctness?

It's also a major worldwide event that is supposed to bring nations together and promote international harmony/cooperation. I think it's great that the national committees are willing to react so swiftly when it's been determined that one of their own isn't representing that ideal. Those twitter athletes have only themselves to blame for being stupid enough to word vomit on twitter like that.

Also, apparently the Swiss player used a word that more closely translates to "mongoloids" (he was making a crack about Down's syndrome), which makes it even worse.

What is going on with the judging, especially in gymnastics? Some of the scores seem bizarre.

The judging in judo is fucked up, too. I think two people were controversially disqualified and another person had his win reversed for no discernible reason.

And then of course there was the fencing.

At this rate, I can't wait to see what bullshit will go on when the tae kwon do matches start. It's not like the sport hasn't had wildly inconsistent judging in past Olympics anyway.

Was the judging in Beijing this suspect? I know there were issues with the Chinese gymnasts' ages, but I didn't think that the actual officiating/judging was this transparently lousy. But I could just be blocking it all out.

ETA: Dammit, I meant Swiss and not Swedish.

Edited by tip and fall, Jul 31, 2012 @ 11:45 AM.

[pennben]

I believe the guy threatened to drown Daley too.

I was curious about the Daley case as I had only seen offensive but not threatening posts. So if there is a true threat, I'm okay with the guy posting being arrested....if it had been just the obnoxious posts I'd seen, I was a bit horrified about which one could be arrested.

Edited by pennben, Jul 31, 2012 @ 10:22 AM.

[Raachel2008]

The judging in judo is fucked up, too. I think two people were controversially disqualified and another person had his win reversed for no discernible reason.

The two disqualified people - women from Brazil and Roumenenia - where disqualified for ilegal manouveurs. They later said they were wrong.

Edited by Raachel2008, Jul 31, 2012 @ 10:33 AM.

[tuco6]

I can see sending athletes home for offensive remarks against their opponents, because athletics also involves sportsmanship. Egregiously bad sportsmanship is often penalized by temporary bans, fines, losing medals/trophies, or in this case, being sent home. And yes, the Olympics are supposed to promote international unity, and the athletes are basically ambassadors and representatives of their countries. The Swedish guy deserved to be sent home, IMO.

[Demian]

I believe the guy threatened to drown Daley too.

Yeah, like that was ever going to fucking happen.

Simple solution: Ban Twitter.

[selkie]

While it's extremely unusual at the international level to get an early starting beep in swimming like they did before the women's 100 breaststroke, it's not utterly unheard of like the announcers claimed. Timing systems are expensive, and even in rich swimming countries like Australia and the United States, once a club or school scrapes together enough money to buy them, they're rebuilt and babied for 20 years or more, and for those last few years, everyone knows that the system at a given pool will get weird on you once in a while, and that for really important meets, they'll borrow a newer system less prone to problems.

[emma675]

I was curious about the Daley case as I had only seen offensive but not threatening posts. So if there is a true threat, I'm okay with the guy posting being arrested....if it had been just the obnoxious posts I'd seen, I was a bit horrified about which one could be arrested.

From what I've read, in Britain tweets that are considered menacing, offensive or indecent can lead to prosecution. Not that the idiot was ever going to drown Daley, but him threatening to do so would be considered menacing, I think.

[zenner]

It is in newspapers now; there was a threat to drown him. Uttering a threat of that type is indictable in Canada. Don't known about the UK.

The nadir of official cheating was South Korea, where the judges were either cooked or intimidated. Also more cheating at the FIFA World Cup in 2002, or so the rumour goes. The judging here seems distinctly odd in a lot of disciplines.

And of course, there's the Chinese teenaged swimmer who's either Wonder Woman (if you're Chinese) or a dirty doper (the rest of the world.)

[Nighteyes2]

I don't know. I feel bad about the 15 yr old Chinese swimmer. She breaks a bunch of records, and what, she's automatically cheating? Jeeez. Did they say that about Usain Bolt as well? I mean, I know her times are insane, but at least give her the benefit of the doubt. I am a Canadian (not of Far East Asian extraction), so I have no bias towards the Chinese. But I have been falsely accused of lying (not cheating), and it burns. So I feel that we should just let her enjoy the gold medal until if and when it has been proved that she cheated.

[tip and fall]

Oy, and here's yet another scandal: Accusations of badminton match-fixing.

You know, I don't really believe that nations like the Americans are pure and squeaky clean while those awful Asians are dirty, dirty cheaters... but at the very least it seems clear to me that Americans must be much more competent at cheating when it happens. Seriously, China, who's going to believe that the #1 ranked team would lose THAT badly? At least do it with more panache.

And the South Korean coach is an idiot, he's basically admitting that the second pair tried to throw the match. At least China's wise enough to keep insisting that they just weren't going all out and that the South Korean team was tougher than they'd thought.

Edited by tip and fall, Jul 31, 2012 @ 7:05 PM.

[xaxat]

What is going on with the judging, especially in gymnastics? Some of the scores seem bizarre.

Bad judges are par for the course in boxing for every Olympic Game. They are trying out a new system (again) this year and it really hasn't helped. (Not to mention some of the counter intuitive round results you can get.) Boxing commentator Teddy Atlas has pretty much given up trying to predict the results of any match that is close.

Edited by xaxat, Jul 31, 2012 @ 8:44 PM.

[tonypitt]

And the South Korean coach is an idiot, he's basically admitting that the second pair tried to throw the match. At least China's wise enough to keep insisting that they just weren't going all out and that the South Korean team was tougher than they'd thought.

I read about this online and was so curious I went back to watch the web replay. It was pretty amazing how blatant they were with throwing the match. In the match I watched neither team wanted to score. One team would serve the ball directly into the net. The next team would do the same. Repeat over and again until on the occasion when the birdie did go over the net the other team hit it right out very obviously. It was only after the last warning that they at least made a show of playing, but still committed obvious errors to lose.

[zenner]

The fact that Ye passes a drug test means nada, actually. Marion Jones never failed one, but was certainly doping all the way.

Of course, Carl Lewis failed drug tests, but the USOC covered it up.

[kenyaj]

I'm really glad to hear that those 8 badminton players who tried to lose were dismissed from the games. That is just shameful behavior.

[tip and fall]

I'm so pissed. Not about the dismissal, I think that's fair, but that the players resorted to that in the first place. It's so...unsportsmanlike. You're supposed to be the top athletes and yet you're scared of playing the best? Okay!

But I have a question: Is it a rule in all other sports that you have to put in your best effort to win? What if you don't play to lose, but to draw? I was following up with the soccer - okay, football - matches, and someone from the Japanese team said that they were trying to do the same thing, i.e. come in second in the group stages so that they could have their preferred quarterfinal. So they deliberately played their last match to a draw. Of course, they weren't as obvious/blatant about it as the badminton teams were, I think.

[kenyaj]

I think it's every bit as wrong in other sports, and the Japanese soccer coach's candor in admitting that they were trying to avoid a tougher draw is nothing to be admired, IMO. I think it's especially awful that Japan is the reigning World Cup champion. They should be willing to take on all comers, not trying to avoid potentially tough matches.

[Constantinople]

I just can't get all that worked up about the badminton.

Partly, IMO, once you try not to win in sports, for whatever reason, things can go sour pretty quickly, so it's often a self-defeating strategy.

That being said, if TPTB want players to go all out every match, devise a system where it benefits the players to go all out every match.

The goal after all is to win the gold, or failing that, that do as well as you can in the final standings, not to win any individual match.

In swimming and track, athletes often do well enough to insure they'll get through to the next round, but not necessarily win.

[tip and fall]

They should be willing to take on all comers, not trying to avoid potentially tough matches.

I agree with this principle, but my question is whether this is an actual rule.

You have players not going all out for whatever reason all the time. I'm cynical enough to think this happens rather frequently when you have this sort of round-robin playing going on. It's just that most people aren't as pathetically obvious about it as these teams were (nor stupid enough to admit it the way the South Korean coach did).

Of course, the blatant nature of the fixing is probably why the committee acted in the first place. Even if it's an actual rule, I imagine that it'd be quite hard to enforce/prove.

Edited by tip and fall, Aug 1, 2012 @ 9:02 AM.

[Nidratime]

Wow, that badminton competition looks ridiculous. They should all be disqualified.

ETA: Oops. And so they were. Good.

Edited by Nidratime, Aug 1, 2012 @ 9:07 AM.

[kili]

I'm cynical enough to think this happens rather frequently when you have this sort of round-robin playing going on.

Usually, the incentive to play well during the round-robin is that you get the easier draw. The first place finisher normally plays the worst place finisher from the round-robin once you get to the elimination rounds. If you lose, you have to play a team that is having a better tournament.

The problem here is that one of the better teams did lose and nobody wanted to face them in the elimination rounds Plus, China wanted to win gold-silver and having their two teams play each other early in the elimination rounds would prevent that. So, China threw the game and the other team decided to do so too. Unwisely, the following two teams did the same (although, it did probably create pressure on the badminton federation to do something about it because it's probably not the first time this has happened and badminton rarely gets such a large world stage).

Of course, the blatant nature of the fixing is probably why the committee acted in the first place.

It was pretty obvious. They'll just have to teach the players to be better actors...or fix the rules so there is an advantage to winning.

[zenner]

And the teams involved are those famous non-cheaters China and South Korea (and Indonesia). The two latter teams are appealing the ruling. China is apparently--so far--not. Possibly because of the heat over Ye.

[tip and fall]

Yeah, because other countries don't have cheating scandals at all.

Really, China and South Korea are just hilariously inept at it, which is probably why they got busted in the first place.

They'll just have to teach the players to be better actors

Seriously. Because come on, this isn't the first time this has happened. I'm sure at times it's involved people who aren't dirty cheating Asians. But if you're gonna fix the game, at least make a show of it. Don't be a complete dumbass.

[selkie]

It could be that China has looked at the brackets, and if the appeal is successful, they get paired with another Chinese team, which they absolutely hate to happen. .From what I read somewhere, if you get two Chinese teams paired against each other in the earlier brackets, about 25% of the time, one team will pull out so the stronger team at the cmpetition gets the win in a walkover and gets extra rest for the following round.

[tip and fall]

I think the Chinese team that was disqualified was actually the #1 seeded team in the world, so they'd actually be the stronger of the two, though.

Right now Wikipedia is showing that the four quarterfinalist teams that weren't disqualified have just been bumped up to the semifinals. So I guess they're going to forgo the quarterfinal round completely; I was speculating that maybe they'd bump up some teams that had placed third in the group stages and therefore initially missed the cut.

[selkie]

London mayor Boris Johnson gets stuck on a zip line.

[Kel Varnsen]

But I have a question: Is it a rule in all other sports that you have to put in your best effort to win? What if you don't play to lose, but to draw? I was following up with the soccer - okay, football - matches, and someone from the Japanese team said that they were trying to do the same thing, i.e. come in second in the group stages so that they could have their preferred quarterfinal. So they deliberately played their last match to a draw. Of course, they weren't as obvious/blatant about it as the badminton teams were, I think.

This is where it gets kind of tricky for me. I mean yes the badminton thing seems kind of wrong, but to me it is not that far removed from say a swimmer going easier in the prelims so they have energy left for the finals, or in the cycling road race where racers from one country will race as a team to help one person win even though it is clearly an individual sport.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Simple solution: Ban Twitter.

So simple, yet so genius.

[Demian]

You're supposed to be the top athletes and yet you're scared of playing the best? Okay!

Deadspin explains the situation. Here's the gist:

In past Olympics, badminton used a pure knockout stage. Lose and go home. But this year saw a change, in which round-robin group play would decide the seedings for the quarterfinal round. The top-ranked Chinese team of Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang naturally wanted to end up on the opposite side of the bracket as their second-ranked countrymen. And they came into yesterday's match against South Korea knowing they'd have to lose to make that happen. So they tried their best to lose—and so did their opponents. Later on, another South Korean team also tried to throw their match, to avoid meeting the top-ranked Wang and Yu in the next round—and so did their opponents.

...

These teams weren't trying to lose to make money. They were trying to lose so that they could ultimately win.