You Make the Call 

I used to love You Make the Call back during the 80's when watching the NFL. It's when you saw a clip of something, and got to decide what the penalty was (if there was one). The important part though, was that you didn't make the call in the real game. In the end, it's always the referee that does that. Yesterday the Olympic judges forgot that one very important part... twice.

First a ruling came down from the IOC that said that Paul Hamm gets to keep his Gold Medal. In fact they said that the original ruling was final. However, they suggested that Hamm give up his medal voluntarily to the South Korean. So basically they've made a kid who did absolutely nothing wrong the bad guy. The fact of the matter is that it was up to that committee to make a decision. That's all they had to do. Make a decision and make it final. Instead the waffled, added more controversy and passed the buck to one of the competitors. That is beyond shameful. Apparently now the US Olympic Committee is in negotiations with South Korean Committee and there might be a second gold medal awarded. If Hamm keeps his medal, there will always be people saying he didn't deserve it, and he shame on him for not giving it up. If he does give it up, then he'll be giving up something that very well should have been his in the first place. How dare they put that weight on his shoulders.

Second, the whole deal with the high bar competition last night. Basically, the crowd thought the Russian competitor got the shaft, so for 8 minutes they made a lot of noise in order to get the score changed. And guess what... it worked. The judges did change their score. Now they said that the crowd noise had nothing to do with it... but come one. Are you kidding me? Who's judging the competition? The judges or the audience? If this is how its to be done, then why not hand each audience member a little hand held scoring machine, average out the scores and give that to each competitor? And while we're at it, let's have 800 numbers so that TV viewers can call to vote for their favorite Olympian and give that person the gold medal.

The worse part about it, was that Paul Hamm had to deal with that too, since his performance was delayed 8 minutes because he followed the Russian. Then after his routine, when the judges announced their score, the crowed boo'd again... apparently because they thought Hamm's score was now too high. Thankfully the judges didn't reconsider and lower it. Hamm eventually won the silver in that event.

Judges need to make final calls, with no ambiguity. That's their job. It gives credibility to the scores. Sure some mistakes will be made... but that's how it goes. Sometimes those mistakes go against you, and sometimes they help you. That's the nature of a judged sport. Gymnastics will never be like sprinting where you can just compare times and know who won.