USA Gymnastics officials say an arbitration panel won’t reconsider a decision asking gymnast Jordan Chiles to return the bronze medal she won at the Paris Olympics
Personally I think it’s wild a competition’s winner can even be appealed if the event is already over. Can you imagine if basketball games were reversed days later because of bad foul call discovered after the fact?
Judgement errors happen by the dozen in every sport, and generally it’s just accepted as an inevitable part of the game. During the competition the judges accepted the inquiry as valid. Whether it was four seconds late or not, how would that any different than any other potential judgement error they made?
If official results are non-binding pending later discovered judge errors, competitions just result to perpetual pissing matches while people argue over who the “real” winner was.
All this to take away a medal both countries are fine with sharing and because the IOC wouldn’t be the grown up in the room and allow that they open a huge can of worms.
I hope Team GB now tries something for this gold medal. And then next week another country because of another technicality.
This is a good point. I suppose the main counter to it is, a bad call in a game like basketball, you can’t really unwind that, because there’s so much interplay between the teams. But gymnastics is much more, your routine alone. Except, a gymnast can change their routine on the fly in response to an opponent’s performance, so there is some of that interplay (which is why the difficulty score isn’t set ahead of time, which is kind of the root of the whole problem). And then you might say, yeah, but this is the last call, it really does indisputably affect the outcome, but that’s true in some situations in basketball, too, and you still accept that the ref might get that wrong, and once you’ve exhausted whatever in-game appeals process exists, you live with it. You don’t overturn it after the fact.
“wild a competition winner can even be appealed if the event is already over” is actually the crux of this.
Technically speaking, Romania states the US could not appeal, as the competition was de jure over. As the Americans has 60 seconds after the score was given to appeal, and didn’t appeal in time (whether this was the case, I do not know).
In a way, Romania is arguing exactly what you are saying: The game was over, final buzzer has gone and the Romanians were celebrating in the locker room, and all of a sudden the US appeals that a actually the 2-point shot at the buzzer was a 3-point shot which would have overturned the game (sort of speak).
In the end, we can debate all we want. A jury deciding on a winner is never good… There is always so much debate after these events. It’s the same with judo and taekwondo where there is always controversial decisions… In this instance the Romanian girl didn’t win the bronze, and neither did the American girl. But actually a different (also Romanian) girl that the jury wrongfully deducted points for an imaginary penalty that didn’t occur. Literally everyone saw it, it this sort of penalty you are NOT allowed to appeal for whatever ridiculous reason, so the real number 3 is still standing empty handed
Personally I think it’s wild a competition’s winner can even be appealed if the event is already over. Can you imagine if basketball games were reversed days later because of bad foul call discovered after the fact?
Judgement errors happen by the dozen in every sport, and generally it’s just accepted as an inevitable part of the game. During the competition the judges accepted the inquiry as valid. Whether it was four seconds late or not, how would that any different than any other potential judgement error they made?
If official results are non-binding pending later discovered judge errors, competitions just result to perpetual pissing matches while people argue over who the “real” winner was.
It’s a really bad precedent and the first time a medal has ever been taken because of something that wasn’t the fault of the athlete.
And now an athlete in the UK is yelling about an obvious judging error that kept her from getting the gold.
What athlete ?
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240813-british-olympic-shooter-wants-apology-over-call-that-ended-gold-bid
oh she did win silver tho
All this to take away a medal both countries are fine with sharing and because the IOC wouldn’t be the grown up in the room and allow that they open a huge can of worms.
I hope Team GB now tries something for this gold medal. And then next week another country because of another technicality.
I agree, it’s just such bad precedent. Let’s go after elbowing in the Marathon next
There are circumstances in most sports where this can happen - and basketball has a way to appeal wrong decisions after the fact.
E.g. in 2007: https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3192421
There are circumstances in most sports where this can happen - and basketball has a way to appeal wrong decisions after the fact.
E.g. in 2007: https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3192421
There are circumstances in most sports where this can happen - and basketball has a way to appeal wrong decisions after the fact.
This is a good point. I suppose the main counter to it is, a bad call in a game like basketball, you can’t really unwind that, because there’s so much interplay between the teams. But gymnastics is much more, your routine alone. Except, a gymnast can change their routine on the fly in response to an opponent’s performance, so there is some of that interplay (which is why the difficulty score isn’t set ahead of time, which is kind of the root of the whole problem). And then you might say, yeah, but this is the last call, it really does indisputably affect the outcome, but that’s true in some situations in basketball, too, and you still accept that the ref might get that wrong, and once you’ve exhausted whatever in-game appeals process exists, you live with it. You don’t overturn it after the fact.
“wild a competition winner can even be appealed if the event is already over” is actually the crux of this.
Technically speaking, Romania states the US could not appeal, as the competition was de jure over. As the Americans has 60 seconds after the score was given to appeal, and didn’t appeal in time (whether this was the case, I do not know).
In a way, Romania is arguing exactly what you are saying: The game was over, final buzzer has gone and the Romanians were celebrating in the locker room, and all of a sudden the US appeals that a actually the 2-point shot at the buzzer was a 3-point shot which would have overturned the game (sort of speak).
In the end, we can debate all we want. A jury deciding on a winner is never good… There is always so much debate after these events. It’s the same with judo and taekwondo where there is always controversial decisions… In this instance the Romanian girl didn’t win the bronze, and neither did the American girl. But actually a different (also Romanian) girl that the jury wrongfully deducted points for an imaginary penalty that didn’t occur. Literally everyone saw it, it this sort of penalty you are NOT allowed to appeal for whatever ridiculous reason, so the real number 3 is still standing empty handed