Some people just don't like the United States.

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I'm not sure if this is really a political post, but when you think about it it really is.

As some of you may know in the men's all-around olympic gymnastics final, American Paul Hamm won the gold by a slight margin over South Korean Yang Tae-young. It was later discovered that the Korean had incorrectly had 1/10 of a point deducted from his score, and had this error not been made, he would have came out on top. The error, however, did not happen on the last event, and had Hamm known he was behind he likely would have adjusted his strategy to make up the extra point. You can't say that Hamm necessarily would have lost, we don't know what would have happened. You can't rewrite that past.

Now the source of my outrage. The President of the International Gymnastics Federation called on Hamm to give up his medal, because he wasn't the true winner. First of all, this is his organization's fault. You don't call on someone else to take accountability for your mistake. Secondly, as I said before we don't know who would have won if the mistake hadn't been made, so we don't know that Hamm wouldn't have won his gold anyway. And thirdly, when has an olympian every been called up to give up his medal, other than in cases of drugs or steroids. There have been hundreds of olympic scandals due to bad or crooked judging. People are never called on to give up their medal. In the 1988 boxing gold medal championship, American boxer Roy Jones, Jr. beat the crap out of South Korean boxer. He had clearly won, yet crooked judging gave the gold to the hometown South Korean, leading even many in the stands to boo. Was he ever asked to give up his gold, I think not.

It's not secret that many in the international community dislike the U.S., but they should not take that out on our athletes. If Paul Hamm were anything but an American he wouldn't have been asked to give up his medal. This is anti-Americanism in its most blatant form and it is reprehensible.

P.S. I bet the the president of the international gymnastics federation is cursing himself that bad judging worked out in favor of the Americans for once. That wasn't supposed to happen.

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I disagree with you that there is a lot of hate against American athletes. When the USA entered the opening ceremony, they were given a standing ovation. Other countries love our athletes, some even love our atheltes more than we do, like in Track. Michael Johnson was a lot more popular in Europe than the USA.

If Paul Hamm were anything but an American he wouldn't have been asked to give up his medal.

I disagree, if he were Russian I think the same thing would've happened. I remember the Aussies and Americans were complaining over an illegal dolphin kick an Japanese swimmer gave during qualifying and some were calling for him to be disqualified. It sucks that Hamm is in this position, but he should not give up his medal.

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Japanese swimmer, by the way, was Kitajima, who not only beat the American, along with everyone else, Hansen once, but twice, proving that he, Kitajima, was a great swimmer.

The medal for Paul Hamm, was bad judging if it was that at all, and they decided on that it was bad judging after the fact, that should be too late in anybody's book really.

Most people hate the US at the olympic games, not because we are the US but that we are expected to win pretty much in every event, and everybody loves to cheer for the underdog, i.e. Iraq's soccer team is a good example.

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It would be one thing to give the South Korean a dupilicate medal, I think that would be warranted. But to ask Hamm to give up his medal, that's just unheard of.

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When it was first reported, they said those same judges had failed to note two mistakes on the South Korean team's excersize that would have kept everything the same. The US didn't protest by the alloted time, so nothing came of it. The South Koreans waited, protested after they were allowed to, and then got sympathy.

I dunno if it is 'hate', but it is annoying.

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cactoblasta

Join Date 04/2004

+48

The same sort of thing happened in a boxing match between an Australian and a Greek. For every hit the Aussie made, the Greek got a point. It was the most laughable boxing refereeing I've ever seen.

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