Tuesday 14 September 2010

lympics Highs and cheats

There was an unprecedented situation in the Olympic games on Saturday morning British Time as for the second day in succession it was evident to professional and lay berserkers that at least two of the judges were grossly negligent or worse, the later there is no evidence except that they did not see as clear as ever anything can be clear a winning score by the British competitor. This was worse than the situation regarding the British male competitor who also came up against a Chinese competitors. The situation was sufficiently grave that if I had any say in the matter I would have declared the sport void for the purposes of allocating Olympic medals and refused to recognize the international body for the 1021 Olympics and led the call all for a new international body to be formed. The British team submitted a protest but no one expected the protest to be upheld. It is understood that the judges examined the video and photographic evidence and reversed the decision thus eliminating the Chinese competitor and current Olympic champion at Taekwondo. Although the decision was reversed and understood to have been accepted by the Chinese federation what happened leaved a very nasty taste and if I was involved I would insist on a full independent and potentially criminal investigation. That this involved two Chinese competitors and host for the games thrown a major doubt in my mind at the value of any other medals won by the Chinese which involved individual judgments rather than being first past the post, or other forms of scoring independent of human judgment. I emphasize that I have no evidence of corruption or unscrupulous intervention by the Chinese government or sporting authorities but we know of only too well what happens when the stakes are so high whether it is national pride or individual ambition.

It is not surprising that Sarah Stevenson could not get her act together for the semi final match where she lost badly to an opponent she has previously beaten twice. She still has a chance to win the bronze but it would be surprising if she is able to perform such is the damage created by the disgraceful and unacceptable behaviour of those which turned the competition into a farce. At this moment the bronze medal match is under way and I am pleased that the commentators are not leaving the matter alone referring to what happened earlier as shenanigans. I am so pleased to say that she won well and therefore will have a bronze medal although she will have to learn to live that she was cheated our of the silver or gold and for once I find it difficult to forgive whose responsible. Amazingly Wikipedia had this information on line with seconds.

I believe that twenty nine different sports have been included in the 2008 Olympics in China.

Alphabetically Archery was one of the sports where only a small number of medals were available 5 x 3 a total of three but where British expectation was high because three medals had between won at the world championships. The highest position gained was fourth in one of the five events. South Korea was the dominant force with two Golds and five Medals in total. China managed three medals, one in each category and Ukraine the other Gold. Six nations shared the medals.

Athletics is second where cheating through the use of drugs became the standard and where its place in the games should be relegated in terms of public and media attention until there is confidence that the problem has been overcome. Britain's performance has deteriorated in the middle and long distance races since the emergence of the African nations butt here ha been some exceptional individuals with Jonathan Edwards the most notable because of his behaviour on and off the track. The full report will be later.

There was hope more than expectation of a medal in Badminton (3) as the mixed doubles partnership of Nathan Roberston and Gail Emms was ending after the games. The couple had surprised everyone with a Silver Medal in Athens. The couple have had success at the Commonwealth and European competitions but their greatest success was to win gold in the 2006 world championship. Gail retires at the end of the Games. All the Gold medals were won by Asian Countries with China 3 (8 in total) and the others going to South Korea and Indonesia who each also won a silver and a bronze. The only other medal a Bronze went to Malaysia. Badminton along with Squash are popular games played in Britain for recreation and fitness

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